A Ghost Encounter: My Time with Simon "Ghost" Riley

Part Sixty-Eight: The Departure to Afghanistan

"Don't try and play the hero, don't take unnecessarily risky actions, and do. Not. Die."

Those were Ghost's last words to me before we took off on separate planes.

Who knows how long this mission will last? Our mission in Iran lasted about a month or two. I have a feeling this mission to stop Makarov might take a while and sitting on this plane without Ghost already feels difficult.

I miss him already.

I wonder if we'll be able to talk on the phone at least...

Probably not.

Soap is sitting to the right of me and Price and König are sitting directly across from us.

"You alright?" Soap taps on my shoulder to grab my attention.

Whipping my head around to look at him I say, "Yeah...just thinking."

"About?" He sounds intrigued.

I don't want to talk about it.

"Nothing really. Just thinking about the mission." I give him a soft, fake smile.

"You know, you're not a very good liar," he chuckles.

"She really isn't." Price shakes his head and chuckles too.

Jerks.

"My lying is just fine," I pout playfully, crossing my arms.

"I could not tell vu vere lying," König kindly reassured me.

"See..." I point my hand at König. "I am a good liar."

Price rolls his eyes while König and Soap let out soft chuckles.

We go back to sitting silently and then a thought pops up in my mind: Price doesn't think I'm good enough.

He may have never directly said it but it's been implied.

So I have an idea.

"How did you decide the teams, Price?" I ask cautiously.

Captain Price peels his gaze from the plane window and looks at me.

"Why? Missing Simon already?" he quips, a cheeky grin on his face.

Prick...

"Very funny," I say sarcastically. "You gonna answer the question, Captain?" I arch a brow and he can tell I'm being serious.

"Is this an interrogation, Sergeant?" Price arches his brow, mimicking my demeanor. "In all honesty, I thought it'd be good for you to get experience working with the rest of the team and not just with Ghost..."

Omission of detail counts as lying.

"Plus, romantic relationships can be...distracting." He winks at me.

I immediately blush and get flustered. We all know it's true but he didn't have to say it out loud...

This gets a chuckle out of Soap.

"Romantic?" König asks, confused.

"Uhhh..." I chuckle nervously and scratch the back of my head.

"The L.T. and her have a thing," Soap whispers—intentionally loud—to König.

König looks at me surprised and what I'm perceiving is a little bit of sadness in his eyes.

"Shut up, Soap." I punch his arm.

"Ow, Sergeant!" he laughs and rubs his arm.

"That's enough now, you two. You have your answer, Breanna." Price nods at me.

Whatever. He's not going to tell me the truth, at least not the whole truth. Who's a bad liar now?

No matter. It really shouldn't bother me so much but it does. Why you ask? Because I'm insecure and that's nobody's problem but my own.

I'll just have to suck it up and do my best on this mission. I'll prove to Price—no, I'll prove to the entire Task Force that I'm more than capable of handling highly classified and specialized missions.

- TIME SKIP -

After a gruelingly long flight, we finally arrived in Afghanistan.

Soap and I passed out for the final hours of the flight. When I woke up his head was leaning on my shoulder and drool was puddling.

Let's say he did not appreciate the wake-up slap.

This time we've landed at a private location of an Afghan man, named Mateen, whom Price met on a previous mission.

Mateen is a self-proclaimed advocate against the atrocities that have happened under their terroristic government leaders. Essentially, Mateen is an ally of any form of government personnel that works to take down the Taliban and its totalitarian Islamic government.

As we exit the plane the first thing I notice is the vast amount of farmland on this property. The home is rustic and riddled with goats and sheep.

The team begins walking towards the house and two individuals exit the front door: an older man in a Turban—who I'm assuming is Mateen—and a beautiful woman in a hijab.

Maybe she's his wife? As we near the couple, two children burst through the front door and run straight for us.

A young boy and a young girl holding traditional dolls and giggling. The boy looks around twelve years old and the girl doesn't look much younger, maybe ten years old.

The little girl says in her mother tongue, and rather bashfully, "Hello."

The people of Afghanistan also speak Persian (Dari) like the people of Iran. Luckily, since Simon and I learned and practiced Persian for our last mission, I'm now well-versed in this language.

Almost simultaneously the little boy asks in Persian, "Who are you people?"

Before I respond I look at the children, back up at their parents, back down at the children, and then shoot a glare over at Captain Price.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no.

Please don't tell me we're involving an innocent family in our military affairs.