Simon 'Ghost' Riley - The Spiders Web

7

She had grown part of heir team so well it became impossible to think of a time when she wasn't by their side - because although those moments existed in time - they hadn't felt like a team until her.

Tina liked to joke that the 141 just needed a womans touch.

On a job in Russia in the middle of a storming winter, things hadn't seemed any different. They were dealing with a prolific crime lord who had built his empire on kidnapping and selling women mainly from small, impoverished towns, but had moved into weapons trading soon after as it had more to gain.

Their initial job had been taking down a small factory in the west of the mountains said to contain missiles prepared to be sold over seas to an unknown bidder.

They worked thoroughly as usual. Soap took out his men from a distance, Ghost, Gaz and Roach were on base level to sweep each floor while Spider had her job of infiltrating from right under Leonid Ilyin's mens noses. The rest of them backed them up in waves of four following their lead.

She had mapped out the upper levels, taking out the edges of their security while Soap cleared the path for the others to enter through the front. It wasn't long before bullets were fired and his men knew of their presence, which had been the plan. If they could be drawn out, Spider could sneak through and relay all the information she could - ideally where the weapons were originally baught from and who was buying them - but before long extra backup had to be called in via heli.

It was mean to be a simple job for people of their expertise.

And it had been up until Spider relayed over comms that Ilyin was there. The place was a front for something much bigger, concealed ballistics in the basement being transported through the mountains to a base on the other side. They had been too late to intercept.

Spider had been ducking through the narrow hallways, knives in hand and taking her usual silent approach to get her way further into the base. She dropped down from a walkway above the cargo crates, heavily guarded, and landed on one of the man guarding the entrance. Her boots sent him into the floor as she used him as a cushion, driving her knife through the back of his neck and throwing another into his friends eye before he could raise his gun.

Gunfire echoed through the metal walls of the old factory as she moved in seamlessly, working her way through the shadows and leaving a trail of dead men behind her.

She supposed that was what had given her away.

The last thing the 141 heard from Spider over their comms was one phrase, more panicked than they'd ever heard her.

"It's a front, do not engage. Ilyin's here-"

A wave of silence swept over their comms before they all realised something had gone wrong at the sound of her end crackling before dying out.

Things grew more difficult as more of Ilyin's men arrived to push them back from seemingly nowhere, to the point where Price had no choice but to demand them fall back.

"What about Spider?" Gaz had asked immediately.

His ear piece crackled and it was like they were all holding their breath awaiting the response.

"You heard me."

Orders were orders, though it didn't quite feel right to follow them.

And for Price it didn't even feel right to speak them.

They escaped with a set of broken ribs and a couple bullet grazes between them, the journey back being almost silent in thought to what they'd heard.

The tiny crackle after she had rushed the words out that cut like a knife into dead silence - it rang in their heads the entire way back.

Hearing a struggle through the comms would have given them some kind of idea to what had happened; the silence had been infinitely worse.

They spent the next night unable to sleep, trying to strategise how to get their Spider back.