Simon 'Ghost' Riley- Pickpocket

The town had learned the sound of soldiers' boots.

It was there beneath everything else: the scrape of rubber and grit against broken pavement, the measured cadence of men who had been trained to move as one, the occasional metallic rattle of equipment shifting against body armour. People watched from shopfronts, from balconies, from the narrow gaps between buildings where shadows gathered thick beneath sagging awnings. Some stared openly. Others made a performance of looking anywhere else.

Ghost noticed every one of them.

He walked near the centre of the street with his rifle held diagonally across his chest, muzzle down but ready, gloved hand settled around the foregrip. His boots ground grit into the cracked pavement with each measured step. Heat pressed beneath his plate carrier, collecting between his shoulder blades, while the familiar weight of ammunition, medical kit and equipment sat against his body with reassuring consistency. The skull mask hid the expression most people would have preferred not to see anyway.

Soap was several paces ahead and to the left, talking quietly with Price. Gaz held the opposite side of the street, eyes constantly moving between windows, rooftops and alley mouths. They weren't sightseeing. They weren't here to make friends. Their presence was deliberate: visible enough to discourage anyone thinking about taking another shot at the occupation forces, controlled enough not to give anyone an excuse to call the patrol an escalation.

The insurgents had been burrowing into the town for weeks like rats. They'd move through back rooms, crawlspaces, drainage channels and abandoned buildings, striking at patrols and disappearing before anyone could put a proper face to them. A roadside charge here. A burst of gunfire there. A dead sentry discovered behind a warehouse. Violence that came from nowhere and vanished just as quickly. So 141 had come in and started burning and baiting all their little nests.

Ghost's gaze swept another rooftop.

Clear.

Second-floor window.

Curtain moving. He slowed half a fraction. Nothing.

There was tension everywhere now. Thick enough to taste. The locals knew what had happened. They knew soldiers were searching houses, questioning people, sealing off routes through the town. They knew someone among them was feeding information to the insurgents. Whether they knew who, Ghost couldn't say. But that didn't matter. Everyone was a potential threat until proven otherwise.

A cluster of residents gathered farther down the street, their bodies shifting uneasily as the patrol approached. Ghost watched their hands more than their faces. Faces lied. Hands usually didn't.

Then someone came too close. A shoulder brushed against his arm. Ghost stopped dead.

The reaction was immediate, instinctive, drilled into muscle and bone long before he'd ever worn the skull mask. His rifle came up sharply, muzzle directed toward the resident, his entire frame becoming still in the span of a heartbeat.

"Back." The word came low and rough through the mask.

He angled the rifle just enough to make the warning unmistakable. "Get the fuck back."

For one long second, the street seemed to hold its breath.

Ghost stared through the dark sockets of the mask, watching for a sudden movement, a concealed weapon, the twitch of someone preparing to run. His finger remained disciplined alongside the trigger guard.

Nothing. The resident complied. Ghost held the stare another moment before lowering the rifle. "Good."

He turned away.

Three steps.

Four.

Five.

Something felt wrong.

Ghost's left hand dropped instinctively toward his equipment, checking the familiar arrangement without looking. Magazine. Medical pouch. Radio. Utility pouch. His fingers paused.

The weight wasn't right.

His stride stopped.

No.

His hand went directly to the pouch at his side. It was open, empty, completely cleared out. Ghost's head lowered fractionally. For perhaps the first time that afternoon, something resembling genuine disbelief crossed his mind.

You've got to be fucking joking.

He hadn't felt a single change in pressure. Neither a hand nor a tug. Someone had gotten close enough to him to steal from his kit while he'd been watching their hands. His jaw tightened beneath the mask. Fuck sake.

Slowly, very slowly, Ghost turned his head back toward the street behind him. Soap was still moving, but Price had noticed the halt and was beginning to glance over. Ghost didn't say anything. He simply stood there, rifle held ready, dark eyes travelling across the residents one by one. Whoever had taken his shit was still somewhere within reach.

Right.

His thumb shifted against the rifle's receiver.

Now we're going to find out who's got the fuckin' nerve.

The patrol route ran through the oldest part of the town, a narrow artery of cracked pavement and sun-bleached buildings that wound between cramped storefronts before eventually spilling into the market district. Ghost knew the route well enough by now, as did the rest of the team. There were only so many streets worth walking when half the town had been turned into a patchwork of checkpoints, temporary barricades and occupied buildings. The same faces appeared behind the same windows, the same old men gathered beneath the same awnings, and the same children watched from doorways until their mothers dragged them back inside.

There was another thing the team had learned about this particular stretch of town: the crowds attracted pickpockets. The locals had mentioned them during questioning, almost casually, as though theft were the least of anyone's concerns. Perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, it would have been. These weren't ordinary circumstances. The insurgents had spent weeks burrowing into the town like rats, using civilians, alleys and crowded streets to conceal their movements. Weapons could be passed from hand to hand without anyone noticing, messages could disappear into pockets, and someone could approach an operator, brush past him, and vanish into twenty bodies before anyone realised there had been contact at all.

Ghost had consequently been paying particular attention to hands.

His rifle rested diagonally across his chest, muzzle angled safely toward the ground while his gloved hand remained close to the foregrip. He moved with the patrol in their usual deliberate formation, his gaze travelling constantly between balconies, rooftops, windows and the restless knot of civilians ahead. Soap covered one side of the street, Price moved farther forward, and Gaz kept watch over the opposite flank. Their presence was unmistakable: military boots, body armour, rifles and radios moving through a population that had every reason to resent them.

The town had seen violence since 141 arrived, and the evidence remained everywhere. A shattered shopfront still carried blackened scars from an explosion. Sandbags had been stacked outside a government building that had been abandoned months earlier. Fresh plaster covered bullet holes in one wall while older ones remained exposed beside it. There were places where the pavement had been scrubbed clean and others where nobody had bothered. The insurgents had made sure that nobody here could forget what they were capable of, while the occupation had ensured that nobody could forget who now controlled the streets.

Ghost didn't ask what had happened in every building they passed. He could usually work it out.

His attention settled on the crowd again, studying each person as they came within range. A woman carried a basket against her hip, both hands occupied. An old man smoked beneath an awning, his hands plainly visible. A teenager leaned against a wall, watching the patrol approach without making any attempt to conceal his interest.

Then someone stepped into Ghost's path.

A shoulder brushed against his arm.

It was a light collision, the sort that could have been accidental in a crowded street, but Ghost's awareness sharpened immediately. His gaze dropped toward the point of contact, then returned to the resident moving away from him.

His hand went to the pouch at his side.

The fastening was open.

For a fraction of a second, Ghost simply stared at it.

You're having a laugh.

"Oi."

The word cracked across the street.

The figure kept moving.

Ghost shifted his rifle securely against his chest and broke formation, his boots striking hard against the pavement as he accelerated. "STOP!"

Heads turned. Conversations broke apart. Civilians instinctively moved aside as Ghost pushed through the crowd, his attention fixed on the person disappearing ahead. He had caught the direction and enough of their movement to know this wasn't someone simply trying to get away from a soldier's angry stare. They knew exactly what they had done.

The crowd swallowed them for several seconds, but Ghost didn't slow. Pickpockets knew this route. They knew the soldiers couldn't simply open fire when a suspect disappeared among civilians, and they knew every alley, courtyard and side street that could provide an escape. That knowledge had made the market district useful to more than thieves. The insurgents had repeatedly exploited the same confusion, slipping through the population whenever they came under pressure.

Ghost knew the trick now.

Which meant the chase was no longer simply about recovering what had been taken.

He cut sharply around a stalled cart, one boot skidding briefly against loose grit before he regained his footing and drove forward into the narrower street beyond. His breathing remained controlled despite the sudden sprint, years of conditioning keeping his movements economical. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the rest of the patrol reacting, but he paid them little attention. His focus had narrowed to the figure ahead and the maze of alleys, corners and doorways waiting to swallow them.

Not getting away.

The fleeing figure remained within sight.

Ghost increased his pace.

The distance between them began to close.

The city had been under Task Force 141's watch for long enough that the soldiers were becoming part of its landscape.

They were not welcomed, necessarily, nor were they trusted, but they had become familiar. Their presence had been ordered after the insurgency began turning the city's streets into a battlefield. Armed cells had embedded themselves among the civilian population, using abandoned buildings, underground routes and crowded districts as cover for ambushes and attacks against government forces. Their methods were deliberately difficult to trace, involving hit-and-run strikes, concealed explosives, weapons moved through civilian hands and informants hidden behind ordinary faces. TF141 had been brought in to dismantle those networks, locate the people directing the violence and prevent the city from becoming a permanent stronghold for the insurgency.

It was ugly work, the kind that left soldiers walking streets where nobody wanted them while civilians watched every patrol with suspicion.

But Ghost had learned to live with the eyes.

He could feel them even now as he moved through the shopping district, his rifle secured across his chest while his attention swept methodically over the surrounding streets. Price and Gaz were further along the route, with Soap covering the opposite side. They were conducting another routine patrol, maintaining a visible presence while quietly assessing the area for anything out of place. The patrol served partly as deterrence and partly as intelligence gathering. The insurgents had become adept at hiding among ordinary people, and Ghost had become equally adept at looking for the details that did not fit.

That included thieves.

Pickpocketing had become common along this particular route. The dense crowds made it easy, and the soldiers were obvious targets. There had already been several reports of wallets, identification cards and equipment disappearing from patrol personnel without anyone noticing until minutes later. Ghost had consequently been paying particular attention to anyone who came within arm's reach.

That was why the bump registered immediately as a shoulder caught against him as someone passed.

Ghost's head turned, and his hand instinctively went toward the pouch on his kit. The fastening was open, and his fingers found empty space where med supplies had been moments earlier. For a second, the entire street seemed to narrow around that realisation. Then Ghost looked up.

The person who had bumped him was already moving through the crowd.

He followed.

There was no shouted warning and no immediate demand to stop. Ghost simply stepped out of formation and began moving after them, his long strides eating up the distance while civilians instinctively shifted aside at the sight of the skull mask approaching. He did not need to run yet. Running would draw attention, and attention was exactly what a pickpocket could use as cover to escape.

He watched the figure disappear between two groups of civilians.

Smart.

Ghost changed direction.

He knew the layout well enough to anticipate where the street opened again. The area was dense, but it was not complicated, and there were only a handful of routes someone could take without being forced into another crowded junction.

He reached the next opening just as the suspect emerged. Ghost accelerated, and the distance vanished quickly.

A gloved hand closed firmly around the back of {{poss}} clothing, using the suspect's momentum to pull them sharply backward before {{sub}} could disappear into the next stream of pedestrians. His other hand remained firmly on his rifle, keeping it secured against his chest rather than allowing it to become a hazard in the crowded street.

"Got you." His voice was low enough that only those nearby would hear it.

Ghost turned the caught pickpocket toward him, towering over {{obj}} beneath the skull mask. His dark eyes immediately dropped toward {{poss}} hands, checking for the missing item before returning to {{obj}} face.

The theft had been clean, quick and almost professional. Almost.

"You've got about three seconds to hand it back before this gets considerably less pleasant."

People watched from the edges of the crowd, some making a conspicuous effort to pretend they were not interested. Soap's voice crackled over his radio.

"You righ' LT? Where'd ye go?"

Ghost's grip remained firm as he tilted his head slightly and looked down at the little thief in his grasp.

"Caught a rat." He grunted back into his comms.

.