Do you believe in Ghosts?

by Material Defender

Deployment

Author's Note: This short film is highly recommended viewing if you're not familiar with Ghost Recon, especially Future Soldier. This film gives a good idea of the kind of armaments, armor, and technologies the Ghosts have at their disposal. If you're already a Tom Clancy fan, then enjoy.

---

To: Captain James Talbot
From: Acting General Michael S. Noriega

Captain, you have standing orders to track down and bring back Julius Maynard. We've finally received location on where the traitor is; SOCOM will update you further with a full info dump. I must warn you, Captain, Maynard can well be considered insane; briliant, but insane. He's a genius, and he's outsmarted almost all our attempts to track him down, eluding even our best NSA and CIA operatives. He is dangerous, make no mistake. Take him in alive if you can; we need to know what he knows, but if he tries anything you think is out of place, kill him.

Another thing: we know that your entire squad was killed when the war began, and I apologize in advance for having you run so many operations solo or with OGAs. I hope that the new Ghost squad we've managed to put together for you a couple of years ago has turned out well. I won't lie to you, Captain, you're going to need to work together to make it out of this one alive. Maynard is just too important to leave running amok. Do whatever needs to be done to take him back, dead or alive. Important he may be, he still committed treason, and he's going to pay for it. I'm giving you full authorization to anything you need in the arsenal, but nothing more; anything that would give you away cannot be used as Maynard will have an escape plan prepared.

Do not come back empty-handed. I will also be sending messages directly to your squad to let them know how important this is.

---

SOCOM Field Intelligence
Classified: Only Authorized Eyes May View

Unit Deployment: United States Army, Ghost Recon, Anvil Squad
Location of deployment: Fortaleza, Brazil
Date of Deployment: 09/XX/2020

Deployed Soldiers:
Captain James "Talon" Talbot, Squad Lead
Lieutenant Kevin "Shell" Pastor, Rifleman
Corporal Manuel "Fuse" Mendoza, Demolitions
Corporal Burt "Scope" Raymond, Sniper

Available Resources:
Heavy Ordnance Arsenal: GRANTED
Field Operations Arsenal: GRANTED
Intelligence Operations Arsenal: GRANTED
HAMMER Drones: DENIED
Infantry Support: DENIED
Close Air Support: DENIED
Cavalry Support: DENIED

NOTE //FROM SOCOM//: General Noriega has deemed this a discretionary operation, but stealth is suggested. Unsuppressed weapons allowed, but do not make noise or it will give you away. Quartermaster advises using suppressed secondaries.

DOSSIER: FORTALEZA

Fortaleza, like most of South America, was spared the onslaught of being bombarded with ICBMs at the beginning of the war. Most of the city is intact, if not overcrowded due to refugees pouring in from the major cities like Rio, which unfortunately wasn't spared. Crime is rampant, the area is dangerous. Local militia groups run the city and will shoot anything they think is out of place. Agents are in place to deploy Anvil north of the city, near the rainforest. It's the only option we have as Maynard can't spare that many of his men to watch the entire coastline, and he has eyes in the city.

DOSSIER: THE VILLA

The villa is located in the highlands due west of Fortaleza. Maynard has taken upon himself to seemingly construct and modify the place heavily; we only have plans from the initial construction, use those as you will. He will have most likely turned the place into a bunker base of sorts, but our intel suggests that he hates over-reliance on technology, so he will have more conventional safeguards in place. Be careful. Our agents couldn't get close enough as Maynard's men would have spotted them.

DOSSIER: MAYNARD'S MEN

Best suggestion would be mercenaries, hired off the black market. Combat experience levels may vary, but expect these men to have done serious soldier time. Maynard has shown no favor towards any faction participating in the war so far; it would seem he's trying to stay out of the crossfires as long as he can, so his men aren't from any specific nationality. But he has made deals with a number of organizations that the NSA has seen working in-country within the past decade.

Expect them to be armed with the best that the black market can offer. Numbers unknown, expect at least 50. Patrol patterns may fluctuate as they have been there for over half a year with nothing to do.

DOSSIER: JULIUS MAYNARD

Julius Maynard is a former intelligence analyst that worked in the NSA, specifically for OGAs that are classified. He worked the system during his entire time there, selling information and acting as a mole, until he overplayed his hand at the beginning of the war, revealing his true nature after he was caught dealing as an information broker on the black market. He had substantial connections as he deployed his own armed force against NSA forces during his escape from the DC facility, where he then seemingly disappeared.

Maynard is a class-A genius, a prodigy in the fields of science. Unfortunately, he was also a bit crazy. Reports from coworkers indicated that he often distrusted others and rarely, if ever, divulged any personal information about himself. It would seem he used his position to wipe his records somehow as that's all we have to go on him. However, a coworker reports that he has a dislike for over-reliance on technology as he thinks everything can be hacked; he prefers doing things the old-fashioned way.

A number of top US and EU scientist kidnappings were assumed to be connected to him. Top-level physicists and engineers in their fields, just kidnapped out of nowhere. Whatever Maynard is working on, it can't be good.

---

To: Captain James Talbot
From: Lieutenant Kevin Pastor

Looks like it's that time again, eh, boss? Almost two years now. You've been a good captain to us all. God knows what we all felt like after we learned that our squads were KIA'd within a week at the beginning. I know Fuse is still dealing with his loss; he had a family in Los Angeles when it got hit by the Russians, and they didn't make it out. Scope's been as cold as he usually is, he's about as much career soldier as you are.

And don't worry about me, I'm fine, and so's my family. Up in Montana at the refugee camps now, since they started moving all the civilians away from the coast for their safety, but it's gonna be a bit bittersweet to leave 'em like that...

Shell

---

To: Lieutenant Kevin Pastor
From: Captain James Talbot

You've been a good LT, Kevin, no doubt about that. Nice to see that your family is doing well.

On to the mission: Maynard is a real screwball, and we'll need to be at the top for this mission to go right.

Keep an eye on Fuse when you can. I know his loss is hard. He came and talked to me about it a few weeks back. He's getting over it now, after I reminded him that we're Ghosts, and we still have a job to do. He could still use a few more talks before he gets it out of his system.

Talon

---

To: Captain James Talbot
From: Corporal Burt Raymond

Good to go and ready to kill, boss. SOCOM says we'll be deploying from sea. Looking forward to it. Haven't been to Fortaleza for a while. Traveling from Bragg right now to the Constitution, the aircraft carrier's gonna be taking us a bit into the Atlantic before we air-drop in with a Zodiac.

I saw that we got the green light to the heavy ordnance. Keep the fireworks away from Fuse and we'll have less accidents.

Scope

---

To: Captain James Talbot
From: Corporal Manuel Mendoza

I reflected on that talk we had a while back, you know? Just felt really shitty. How all of my brothers and sisters and my parents died, but I'm still alive. Then you talked to me. The world's a shitty place right now, but everything just clicked. I know we have a job to do, and that's what I signed up for.

Know you're my boss, but you've also been a real amigo to all of us. Gracias for that.

I heard we got access to the heavy ordnance. I really want to get my hands on those nasty shoulder-mounted rocket pods that I saw Bones' squad using in Russia. That's some real man-portable ordnance, you know? Man, I must be feeling a lot better than I thought, just running off my mouth about explosives again, haha. It's going to be good to see the squad again.

But Scope still kind of scares me sometimes, you know? He's like a robot with that rifle of his.

Fuse

---

To: Lieutenant Kevin Pastor, Corporal Burt Raymond, Corporal Manuel Mendoza
From: Captain James Talbot

I'll be seeing you all on the Constitution. As you may well know from the info dump, we're going after a serious screwball. I need all of you to be in your A-game if we want to make it through this, and I'll expect no less from Ghosts.

We deploy at 1730 hours. Get yourselves some sleep until then.

Talon

Comments

[Evocator]

looks meh right now, tracking, hoping

[Gaz1997]

i am....intrigued by this i'll watch

[Lunar Ops]

This is like the opening story to a video game. The story itself hasn't started but it's giving you a foundation to build off of. I would read more now but I have to get to class.

[The Grey Pegasus]

Intresting opening, like it a lot. Interesting crossover as well. Continuing to read, probably finish it later.

[whiteportal117]

too long

[supersniper178]

this is relevant to my interests

[Andy-025]

Xanatos aproves upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/02/Xanatos.JPG/250px-Xanatos.JPG

[War brony]

*looks for something* you SOB. your the one who took my files.

[Journeyman]

Continuing with approving of this chapter,

files.sharenator.com/I_Approve_OC_by_ME_quotCavemanquot-s360x294-263862-475.jpg

[Verbose Soubriquet]

Never played many Tom Clancy games, but I am now interested.
You've got my attention.

[AnotherStraightEdge]

This has my attention... track.

[The philosopher]

Outsmarted all NSA tracking systems? Does that include... 3rd Echelon? I thought I heard somewhere that almost all Tom Clancy game series are set in the same universe.

[RandomGuy16]

700939 You ass. You just gave me a nostalgia attack

[Insidiaphilia]

My favorite game and my favorite show put together... AMAZING

[Paddle Steamer]

You've got my attention, but right now I'm too tired to continue reading...that and I'm suppose to be working on my own story. At this rate I'll never get the 5th chapter out, I keep getting distracted with stories, it's horrible!

Also, Constitution is a ship, correct? As such it should be italicised, like this: U.S.S. Constitution.

[shy sad jaded shard]

not a ghost fan or of any of them type of shooters (sometimes play if really board) but I love your C&c story so im more then willing to give this a shot (do like other types of shooters)

[Jman796]

I don't think Ghosts are anything lower than Sergeant.

[Themexininja]

1333150 he thinks that's long they should read "Diaries of a Mad Man" or "Man of War"

[WeepingDiscord]

5942468
Read man o war good story.
Sadly diary’s of a mad man just wasn’t my cup of tea.