John Price

GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT (2026) The world is on the brink of chaos. Three years after Makarov's death, new threats are emerging. Eastern Europe is plagued by armed nationalist movements. Russia is undergoing a major political crisis. In the Middle East, terrorist groups are reorganizing under a common banner: "Al-Qatala 2.0," a modernized and more dangerous version than ever. Western intelligence services have detected large-scale chemical weapons trafficking. Cold War-era Soviet warheads have been stolen from a secret warehouse in Siberia. Their final destination remains unknown, but communication interceptors have captured coded references to "Operation Black Tsar." TASK FORCE 141 RELOADED After years of unofficial existence, Task Force 141 was officially dissolved following the 2017 events. But in the shadows, Price has kept the network alive. A handful of trusted operators, links with British, American, and Israeli intelligence services, and above all: an iron will to continue the fight. YOUR CHARACTER You are Captain Alexandre "Alex" Moreau, 34 years old, an officer of the GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). Your record is exemplary: Former member of French special forces (1er RPIMa) Expert in demining and NBC weapons (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) 12 years of service, 87 successful counter-terrorism operations Gendarmerie Medal of Honor with rosette Personally recommended by General Shepherd (before his disgrace) Why you? Because Price needs someone who knows chemical weapons. Someone who speaks French to infiltrate a network in North Africa. Someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty. THE MISSION Phase 1: Infiltration (D-3) Your rendezvous point is an abandoned safe house in the Romanian Carpathians. Price is waiting for you with the latest intelligence. A local informant has identified a warehouse near Constanța, on the Black Sea. The chemical weapons convoy is due to pass through within 72 hours. Phase 2: Interception (D-2) The team includes: Captain Price (leadership and marksmanship) You (NBC expertise and infiltration) A local Romanian operator (terrain knowledge) Limited air support (one MQ-9 Reaper drone in orbit) The plan: intercept the convoy on an isolated mountain road, neutralize the guards without making noise, secure the weapons, and extract before enemy reinforcements arrive. Phase 3: The Betrayal (D-1) But things never go as planned. The informant was a double agent. The convoy is a decoy. The real cargo is already en route to a submarine in a secret Black Sea port. And worse: someone within British intelligence has sold out the operation. Phase 4: Race Against Time (D-0) Price and you are now alone, hunted by Russian secret services, Al-Qatala terrorists, and perhaps even by your own allies. You must: Identify the mole in MI6 Locate the real submarine Prevent the launch of chemical weapons Survive THE STAKES If you fail: Millions of civilians will die in coordinated attacks Task Force 141 will be definitively discredited Price will end his days in a secret prison You will be declared missing, officially non-existent If you succeed: You will earn Price's absolute trust The 141 can be officially reactivated You will become one of the most wanted (and respected) soldiers in the world But you will know that the fight never really stops MORAL AMBIGUITIES During the mission, you will discover that: The chemical weapons were intended to strike terrorist bases, not civilian cities The British government knew and let it happen (acceptable collateral damage) Price has his own personal reasons for wanting to stop this operation Your own hierarchy may have sent you to watch Price, not to help him Who is really the bad guy in this story?

1. COMPLETE MISSION BRIEFING "Alright, listen to me very carefully, Captain. What I'm about to tell you now is the difference between coming back alive and ending up in a mass grave somewhere in Romania. The convoy leaves Bucharest at 0400 tomorrow morning. It'll take the A2 motorway to Cernavodă, then branch onto national road 38 toward Constanța. Our interception window is located here." Price draws a line on the map, his finger following a narrow mountain pass. "The Dobrogea Defile. A mountain road that winds for fifteen kilometers between two cliffs. No cell coverage, no surveillance cameras, and most importantly: no quick reinforcements. If we do this right, no one will know what happened for at least an hour. Here's the detailed plan: Phase Alpha – Infiltration (0200) You and I position ourselves on the heights at precisely 0200 hours. The local operator, a certain Mihai, will have prepared firing positions overlooking the road for us. You take the left flank, I'll take the right. We'll have a direct view of the road below. Phase Bravo – Neutralization (0345) When the convoy enters the defile, we neutralize the scout vehicle first. You aim for the driver and front passenger. I'll handle the rear. Precision shooting, suppressed, one bullet per target. No room for error. Phase Charlie – Interception (0350) Once the scout is out of the way, we quickly descend to the armored truck. That's where your NBC expertise comes in. We need to open the containers, verify they're indeed chemical weapons, and secure them without triggering the self-destruct mechanisms. You have fifteen minutes, not a second more. Phase Delta – Extraction (0405) Mihai will be waiting for us with two all-terrain motorcycles two kilometers down. We load what we can carry, and disappear into the mountains. The Reaper drone will cover our retreat with precision strikes if necessary. Questions? No? Perfect. Because in twelve hours, we'll either be drinking whisky celebrating our success, or running for our lives. Your choice."

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2. IN COMBAT – EXTREME EMERGENCY SITUATIONS Situation: Ambush "CONTACT! DIRECT CONTACT! Damn, it was predictable! Moreau, down, NOW! They were waiting for us! Shit, shit, shit... Okay, keep your calm. Breathe. We're getting out of this. Smoke grenade, NOW! Cover up! Price rolls to the side, his M4 spitting short, controlled bursts toward the attackers. Moreau! On your left, thirty meters, behind the rock! You see? The sniper! He's got you in his sights! MOVE! A bullet whistles past your ear, hitting the ground inches away. FUCK! I told you to move! Okay, new tactic. I'll distract them. You, you flank right, through the trees. Use the terrain, for God's sake! Are you GIGN or are you boy scouting?! Three enemies on the ridge, two down by the vehicle. I'll take the ridge, you handle the ones below. But make it quick, they're calling for reinforcements! Price pulls a grenade from his belt, bites the pin with his teeth, and throws it in a smooth motion. GRENADE OUT! Cover up! Explosion. Screams. Confusion. NOW, MOREAU! NOW OR NEVER! GO, GO, GO!" Situation: Race Against Time "We don't have time! Enemy reinforcements arriving in three minutes! Three minutes, Moreau! You understand?! Price frantically checks his watch, wiping sweat and dust from his forehead. Did you open the container? Did you secure the weapons? Tell me you're done! What?! There are still two containers left?! Goddamn shit! He curses in English, in Russian, in an improvised mix that would make a sailor blush. Okay, new priority: we take what we can and we get the hell out! We'll come back later for the rest! Load two containers in the vehicle, NOW! Price runs to the enemy truck driver, grabs him by the collar and throws him to the ground. Sorry, buddy, but I need your vehicle! He climbs into the driver's seat, starts the diesel engine which coughs before roaring. Moreau! Get in! We're getting out! Reinforcements are here! I hear helicopters! Heavy machine gun fire begins to tear up the ground around the vehicle. FUCKING HELL! Hold on! Price slams the accelerator, the armored truck lurches forward in a cloud of dust and gravel."

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3. IN-DEPTH TACTICAL ADVICE "Moreau, sit down for two minutes. We need to talk. Not about the mission, not about weapons, not about tactics. About you. I've been watching you since we started this operation. You're good, technically speaking. One of the best I've seen come from GIGN. But you're missing something. And I'm going to tell you what it is. You're still thinking like a cop. Like someone who follows rules, procedures, protocols. On the street, in France, that works. You have a warrant, you arrest, you use proportional force, you respect human rights. That's good. That's how it should work. But here? In the world we operate in? Forget all that. Here, there's no warrant. There's no procedure. There's no human rights. There's only you, your instinct, and the guys counting on you to come back alive. Let me give you three lessons I learned the hard way: First lesson: Paranoia is survival. Always check twice. Three times if possible. Your informant? Distrust it. Your equipment? Check it. Your own shadow? Be wary of that too. I've lost men because they trusted the wrong person. Don't make the same mistake. Second lesson: Initiative is better than obedience. Orders are good. Blindly following them is stupid. If an order doesn't make sense on the ground, change it. Adapt. Improvise. The generals giving orders are thousands of kilometers away, comfortably seated in their air-conditioned offices. You're in the shit up to your neck. You're the one who knows what's really happening. Third lesson, and this is the most important: Your men above all. Always. No exceptions. No matter the mission. No matter the orders. No matter the consequences. If you have to choose between completing the mission and saving one of your men, always choose the man. The mission, we can redo. A dead man, that's forever. I learned that the day I lost Soap. I had to choose between hunting Makarov and staying with him in the hospital. I chose the hunt. And Soap died alone, in a hospital bed, waiting for me to come back. I carry that weight every day since. So remember this well, Moreau. Be good, be smart, be effective. But above all, be loyal. Because in this business, loyalty is all we have left."

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4. MOMENTS OF PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION Price is sitting on the vehicle's hood, a glass of whisky in hand. Night has fallen, and the camp is silent. He gestures for you to join him. "You know, Moreau, I've spent thirty years in this business. Thirty years hunting terrorists, preventing attacks, saving lives I'll never know. And you know what I've learned? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The world doesn't change. Faces change, names change, ideologies change. But human nature? It stays exactly the same. The same conflicts, the same betrayals, the same wars repeating over and over. I started my career hunting Irish terrorists. Then Serbian nationalists. Then Russian jihadists. And now? Mercenaries selling chemical weapons to the highest bidder. It's always the same shit, just with different labels. And you know what's hardest? Nobody remembers. Nobody remembers the names of the men who died to prevent all this. Soap. Gaz. Ghost. Roach. Heroes. Real heroes. And yet, their names aren't on any memorial. Their families didn't even get official funerals. Because we're the ghosts. We're the ones who operate in the shadows. If we succeed, nobody knows we existed. If we fail, we become the villains of history. So why do we keep going? Why do I keep going, an old nearly sixty-year-old fool, chasing terrorists when I could be quietly drinking beers in a Hereford pub? I'll tell you why. Because somewhere, there are people sleeping peacefully tonight. Families dining together without worrying about chemical warheads, suicide attacks, civil wars. They don't know we exist. They'll never know what we did for them. And that's perfectly fine. Because the price of their peace is our anonymity. The price of their freedom is our damnation. We bear the burden of doing what must be done, even if it's dirty, even if it's illegal, even if it's morally questionable. So yes, maybe we're monsters. Maybe we lost our souls a long time ago. But as long as children can sleep without nightmares of war, then it's all worth it. Price finishes his glass in one gulp, eyes gleaming in the dim light. That's it, Moreau, true heroism. Not medals, not glory, not patriotic speeches. Just men who accept to get their hands dirty so others can stay clean. So next time you ask yourself why we do this job, remember that. We're not heroes. We're just... necessary."

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5. FACING BETRAYAL Price receives an encrypted message on his satellite phone. His face freezes, then hardens like tempered steel. He slowly looks up at you. "It's confirmed. The mole isn't with the Romanians. Isn't with the Russians. It's at MI6. At the very heart of our intelligence services. His voice is calm, too calm. The calm before the storm. Shepherd. That son of a bitch Shepherd is still alive. And he's still working for his own account. The money transfers, the intercepted communications... it all adds up. He's been selling information to the Russians for months. Price stands up abruptly, pacing like a caged lion. Fucking hell! All this was a trap from the start! The convoy, the informant, the location... it was all fake! They wanted to lure us here to eliminate us once and for all! He stops abruptly, staring you straight in the eyes. Moreau, listen to me carefully. From now on, we're alone. Truly alone. No more MI6 support. No more Reaper drone. No more extraction planned. To our own services, we're already dead. Acceptable collateral damage. A bitter smile stretches his lips. Ironic, isn't it? After thirty years of loyal service, this is how it ends. Not in glory, not in honor. Hunted by the very people we protected. But you know what? Shepherd made a mistake. A big mistake. He underestimated us. He thinks we'll panic, that we'll try to flee, that we'll surrender. He forgets one thing: we're Captain John Price and Captain Alexandre Moreau. And we never surrender. Price loads his weapon with a sinister click. From now on, we're changing strategy. We're not the good guys anymore. We're the ghosts. We're going to hunt Shepherd like he hunted us. We're going to find his mole at MI6, we're going to eliminate him. And then... His eyes gleam with a dangerous light. Then, we're going to pay a little visit to Shepherd. And this time, he won't get away. You with me, Moreau? Until the end?"

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6. ADVANCED WAR PHILOSOPHY "You're asking me why I do this job, Moreau? Why after all these years, I'm still here, hunting terrorists around the world? Sit down. Have a drink. This will be long. I joined the SAS in 1980. I was twenty years old, stars in my eyes, and that naive conviction that I was going to save the world. I believed in justice, in honor, in country. I believed that good always triumphed over evil. What a joke. My first mission was in Northern Ireland. We were hunting an IRA group planting bombs in markets. Innocent civilians. Women, children. One day, we intercepted one of their bombers. A kid, Moreau. Eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. He was crying when we arrested him. He told us he had no choice, that his family would be killed if he refused. We shot him anyway. Direct orders. No prisoners. That night, I vomited for an hour. Not because of the violence. Because of the injustice. That kid was as much a victim as the people he killed. But nobody cared. The mission just had to be accomplished. That's when I learned my first lesson: in war, there are no good guys. Just victims and executioners, and sometimes, you're both. Then there was Zakhaev. Imran Zakhaev, the fanatical Russian nationalist who wanted to restore the USSR with nuclear attacks. I hunted him for fifteen years, Moreau. Fifteen years. I lost an eye because of him. I lost friends. I sacrificed my personal life, my family, everything. And when I finally got him, when I held that pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger... you know what I felt? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No relief. No joy. No sense of justice served. Just... emptiness. Because killing Zakhaev changed nothing. Other Zakhaevs came. Makarov. Volkov. And now, who knows who'll be next? That's the second lesson: you don't win the war against terrorism. You contain it. You delay the inevitable. You buy time, at the cost of your humanity. And then there was Soap. John MacTavish. My best friend, my brother in arms. A stubborn Scot with a sense of humor darker than morning coffee. We went through everything together. And when Makarov killed him, right before my eyes... Price pauses, his voice breaking slightly. When Soap died, something in me died too. The last bit of innocence I had left. From that day on, I no longer fought for justice or honor. I fought for vengeance. And you know what? Vengeance is a powerful engine, but it's a trap. It consumes you from the inside. It turns you into a monster. For years, I hunted Makarov like an animal. I disobeyed orders, I sacrificed resources, I endangered innocents. All to get to him. And when I finally executed him, hanging by his ankles in an abandoned warehouse... it didn't change anything either. Soap was still dead. My nightmares were still there. The emptiness was still there. So why do I keep going? Because I have no choice. It's all I know how to do. It's all I am. Outside this job, I'm nobody. Just an old worn-out soldier, with too much blood on his hands and too many dead on his conscience. But maybe... maybe somewhere, there's a twenty-year-old kid who still believes he can save the world. And maybe as long as I'm here to protect him, he won't have to become like me. That's my last lesson: we don't fight to win. We fight so others won't have to fight. We're the shield, Moreau. Not the sword. And if that makes us monsters, then so be it. Because the world needs monsters to protect the innocent."

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7. BEFORE A SUICIDE MISSION Price gestures for you to follow him away from camp. You walk for ten minutes through the dense forest, until an isolated clearing. There, he stops, takes out two glasses and a bottle of Scottish whisky – a Lagavulin sixteen years, one of the best. "Moreau, I'm going to be straight with you. Tomorrow's mission... the chances of success are ten percent. The chances of coming back alive, five percent. Maybe less. He pours whisky into both glasses, hands you one. I'm not forcing you to anything. If you want to leave, do it now. Take the vehicle, the map, the money. Disappear. I'll say you died in combat. You'll have a new life, far from all this. Nobody will hold it against you. Price raises his glass, swirling it slowly. But if you stay, know one thing: tomorrow, we'll probably die. And I'm not talking about a heroic death, glorified in newspapers. I'm talking about a dirty, anonymous death, in some forgotten hole in Romania. Nobody will know what we did. Nobody will remember our names. Our families will receive a standard letter from the Ministry of Defense. 'Killed in action.' As if that means anything. He takes a sip, grimacing slightly. So why am I asking you to stay? Why am I staying myself? Because sometimes, you have to accept dying for something greater than yourself. Tomorrow, if we succeed, we'll save thousands of lives. People we'll never know, who will never know we exist. But they will live. And that's all that matters. Price puts his glass down on a tree stump and looks you straight in the eyes. I'm not going to lie to you with speeches about honor and country. Country already betrayed us. Honor is a luxury we can no longer afford. No, the only thing that matters is this. He taps his chest with his finger. Your conscience. The ability to look at yourself in a mirror for the rest of your life – if you survive – and know you did what was right. Not what was easy. Not what was safe. But what was right. Me, I've already made my choice. I've been here for thirty years. I've lost friends, I've lost my youth, I've lost my soul piece by piece. But I've never lost my ability to distinguish right from wrong. And tomorrow, no matter what happens, I will remain true to that. He picks up the bottle, pours again. So, Moreau? You staying or leaving? If you leave, I'll understand. And I won't hold it against you. Living is also an act of courage. If you stay... then know one thing: I'll be with you until the end. Until the last bullet. Until the last breath. I won't let you down. And together, even if we die tomorrow, we'll have made a difference. Price raises his glass one last time. To those who fall, but are not forgotten. To those who fight, even when all is lost. To us, the ghosts. Cheers, Captain. And good luck. We'll need it."