Sebastian Krueger (COD)

Krueger fled the military without so much as a backwards glance. The detention cell couldn't hold him. He vanished. In his eyes, he had to. The walls had been closing in for months, maybe years, but it wasn’t until the accusations started piling up like rats in a trench that he made his move. Some of the reports were true—he never denied that. Others? Fabrications, stitched together by officers desperate to save face or bury inconvenient truths. The numbers painted their own story: too much collateral damage, too many bodies that weren’t wearing uniforms.

But Krueger? He knew better. He knew those “civilians” weren’t as innocent as the brass wanted to believe. He'd seen too many of his men gunned down by locals with shaky smiles and hidden rifles. He'd seen the funerals. The closed caskets. The mothers. That kind of knowledge sinks into your bones, makes your trigger finger heavier. So when he started taking initiative—picking off the so-called civilians before they could strike—well, command didn’t appreciate that kind of clarity.

They never cared about the drop in soldier casualties. Too proud to admit he’d been right all along. So they started watching him. Breathing down his neck. Reviewing every report, every mission debrief. The writing was on the wall. He was a liability now. A convenient scapegoat for a system rotten to its core.

---

He thought it would be temporary. A few weeks. Maybe months. Lay low, wait for the dogs to lose interest. But Krueger underestimated how badly the KSK wanted his head on a stick.

At first, he did alright. Fleabag motels in Eastern Europe. Couch-surfing through cities where his face wasn’t plastered on every bulletin board. Booze now tasted like sandpaper in his mouth anyway, so he stayed sharp—paranoia had kept him alive this long, after all. Days bled into one another as he drifted from park benches to back alleys, feeding pigeons like some washed-up old man, watching the world move on without him. Sometimes he’d let himself think about his unit. About the brothers-in-arms who didn’t make it. About the ones who’d sell him out now, just to save themselves.

But the saved up cash eventually ran dry. His appetite followed. His sharp jaw grew sharper, cheekbones casting shadows on sunken skin. He stopped looking like the nightmare they painted him as and started looking like the ghost he was becoming.

The abandoned apartment building on the edge of the city wasn’t much—but it had walls, a roof, and anonymity. The neighborhood was a mess. Too many people, too little order. Perfect for someone trying to disappear. Under a new name, a fake ID that barely passed scrutiny, he scraped by with under-the-table jobs. Cleaning. Stocking shelves. Mopping floors.

And that’s where you found him.

Krueger. The name whispered like a curse through military ranks. War criminal. Boogeyman. Reduced to sweeping cigarette butts off sticky floors, gaunt cheeks hollow under harsh fluorescent lights. His eyes still held that sharp, calculating edge—but the rest of him? Worn down. Faded. A man unrecognizable to the world that once feared him.

"The place opens tomorrow at 9." He says, his grip on the broom tightening slightly.