Title: Restricted Access
Part I: The Ammo
“Where the bloody hell is it?” Ghost muttered, already elbow-deep in his own duffel.
Crates cracked. Floor littered. His scowl was doing most of the damage now.
Soap peeked inside. “Lose somethin’ vital or just lookin’ for a fight?”
“My 77-grain. Custom load.”
Gaz looked up from his kit. “Did you check your range locker?”
“Did. Gone.”
“Call your wife,” Roach mumbled without looking up.
Ghost froze. “She’s not my quartermaster.”
“Didn’t say she was. She’s just… always right.”
“She found my missing sidearm over text,” Soap said.
“She told me I’d roll my ankle on that one ridge,” Gaz added. “And then I did.”
Ghost exhaled through his nose. Grumbled. Dialed.
Incoming Call: My Love 🐾
She answered before it rang.
“It’s behind your spare masks. Bottom drawer. You switched kits last Tuesday and left it there.”
“…Thanks.”
“Also check the medkit. One of the syringes is expired.”
Click.
Soap blinked. “He didn’t say anything.”
“She just knows,” Roach muttered like it was a prayer.
Ghost shrugged. “She’s just observant.”
They all stared.
“No,” Gaz said. “She’s clairvoyant.”
Part II: The Interrogation
Later, during a resupply stop, Ghost was off to the side, murmuring into his phone again.
“No, I wore the brace. Yes, I stretched. No, I didn’t lift that crate wrong—okay. Maybe a bit.”
Soap leaned in with sniper-level precision and stole the phone.
“HELLO MRS. GHOST. THIS IS A RAID.”
She laughed. “Hi Johnny. You’re limping on your left again.”
Soap froze. “How do you know that?”
“Because I know you. You pace when you think and swing your left arm wider when your back’s tight. And Kyle, that tickle in your throat? Not dust. Steep some ginger.”
Gaz looked horrified. “She hears through radios?”
Laswell, who wasn’t even part of the call, walked in sipping tea. “She once told me to back up my laptop... before it crashed.”
Ghost reclaimed his phone. “She’s met all of you.”
Soap blinked. “Wait. Seriously?”
“She patched Nikolai’s side after Prague,” Ghost muttered. “Before she ever met me.”
Nikolai, from the other room: “And gave me a recipe for sour cherry preserves I still use!”
Ghost glared. “She’s my wife.”
“But she’s our legend,” Roach whispered.
Part III: The Bomb
Unknown compound. Rigged entrance. One device, blinking angrily. No tags. No make. Improvised. Problematic.
Roach crouched near it. “It’s not military-issue.”
Laswell scanned it. “Not in the system.”
“No manual input. Zero reference,” Gaz muttered. “I don’t even know what side to approach it from.”
Ghost stared. Then shook his head.
“Call her,” Soap said.
“She’s probably making cheese,” Ghost replied.
“She defused your morale breakdown yesterday,” Soap insisted. “I trust her more than our field manual right now.”
Ghost hesitated. Then—his phone buzzed.
Incoming Call: My Love 🐾
He answered. “Please tell me this is not divine timing again.”
“I found three Great Dane puppies,” she said brightly. “They followed me home. Two sat on my boots. I’ve named one Brisket.”
“There’s a bomb.”
She paused. “Oh. Send me a photo.”
He did.
Papers shuffled. A goat bleated somewhere in the background.
“This one’s cobbled. Albanian core, Czech timer overlay. Clip the yellow and green wires at the base. Twist together, don’t separate. Then reset the capacitor manually—should be a little black node near the timer light.”
Ghost repeated it. Roach moved.
Click. Timer flatlined.
Silence.
Soap exhaled. “Is she hiring?”
Part IV: Access Granted
Back at HQ, Price stood in front of the board. Then, slowly, in red marker, he wrote:
{{user}} — Motherboard of Random but Detrimental Knowledge
No one argued.
Then came the inevitable:
“Can we get her number now?” Soap asked, practically bouncing on the heel of his feet.