Metal Slug: The Origin of Evil Chapter 4 "A BONE?"
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“As we have just seen, this press conference ended abruptly, and now we, the citizens, are left with more questions than answers...”
Suddenly, that woman turns into a pixelated image on a television screen hanging from a mount attached to the ceiling of a dimly lit room. The voices of a group of people begin to gradually drown out the woman's words behind the screen until the image vanishes, leaving the illuminated space completely dark.
“Poor devil, I don't give that reporter more than forty-eight hours before he commits suicide by shoving a knife into the back of his neck or ends up like Jimmy Hoffa,” exclaims Allen O'Neil as he points the remote control in his hand toward the screen.
“I doubt it, Sergeant O'Neil. Kosher may be a son of a bitch, but he is very smart. Killing that man right now would raise suspicion toward him; public opinion is scrutinizing every single one of his words,” responds a soldier sitting in front of Allen, who, upon finishing his sentence, refills his pipe with more tobacco.
“And that will not stop his imminent rise. In a few months he will be named Head of State, and then things will get ugly,” adds a third man sitting at the table. In the background, an improvised operations center—well-lit by dozens of screens—functions perfectly; several men and women work in small cubicles, gathering data and writing code.
“So what? Are we going to sit on our hands?” asks Allen O'Neil.
“And what do you propose?” asks the pipe-smoking soldier, letting out a large cloud of smoke.
“Attack! Strike first, catch them off guard. We can mobilize a couple of squads, along with you, Sergeant Graves...” and he points at him, but Graves remains serene, enjoying the taste of his tobacco.
“And start a war against your own brothers, Sergeant O'Neil?” asks the third man present.
“They made their choice, Lieutenant Colonel Miles. In war, there are only two sides: those who smell lead and those who smell like lead; and I prefer to be among those who, at the end of the day, smell the scent of wounded, burned flesh, sir,” Allen responds.
Miles remains silent, staring at O'Neil. Then he responds calmly:
“I admire your enthusiasm, Sergeant, and I do not doubt that together with Sergeant Washington Graves you would succeed in the mission; but you must not forget that you are facing the Regular Army, and Kosher will certainly not hesitate to use every last resource to destroy us.”
Then, a figure sitting peacefully in a massive swivel chair with his back turned is contemplating the painting of Ivan the Terrible and His Son. General Morden remains in absolute silence with his gaze locked onto the portrait, his fingers intertwined over his chest and his head tilted back. He looks at it one last time, takes a deep breath, and swings around with his huge chair, adopting a new posture; he extends his arms across the table, abruptly standing up.
“We are going after the Order of the Seven,” he snaps with a firm voice full of authority.
“That seems most reasonable to me,” Miles admits.
“Any reports?” Morden asks.
Miles presses a small switch held between his hands; four large screens on the table power on, exposing an intelligence briefing file.
“Well, they are no longer seven, sir, though I suppose that is hardly news. Despite that, the big fish remain: Ghallib Al-Mansoor, founder of the Order of the Seven and co-founder of the Triumvirate of the Veil.” The four men look at the monitors displaying the leader's image.
Upon seeing him, Morden feels a knot in his stomach, but limits himself to observing passively. “The other is Saif al-Din; he is considered the brain behind the creation of the cult known as the Triumvirate of the Veil,” Miles adds.
“What happened to the other five?” Washington asks.
“Do you want to start with the poor fool who choked to death on a chicken bone? Or would you prefer we jump straight to the loose ends wiped out by the Regular Army?” Miles responds to the question.
“Gentlemen, from the classified archives of Regular Army Intelligence, we declassify the following files:
‘The Order of the Seven’
Founded in 1996 by:
Ghallib Al-Mansoor, a paramilitary officer of unknown origin. Some sources indicate he was born somewhere in the Sarawat Mountains. He served in the Arab Army until 1995, when, following an incursion through those vast mountains, he deserted without a trace. Years later, the son of a bitch reappeared armed to the teeth under a new alias:
المنوَّر
Which means ‘The Illuminated One.’ At the same time, he founded the Order of the Seven alongside—” and with a quick click, he advances to the next image.
“Saif al-Din, co-founder of the Order of the Seven, master planner, and founder of the cult known as the Triumvirate of the Veil. Their identification symbol consists of three intertwined circles with an ancient message engraved inside them—one that became public knowledge following several attacks at the turn of the century, revealing its true meaning:
‘Knowledge, Chaos, and Destruction.’ ” Miles adjusts his uniform and continues recounting: “Pakistani, fifty-one years old. He deserted the army at thirty-one to become a mercenary. In 1993, he met Ghallib Al-Mansoor, and three years later, they founded the Order of the Seven and the Triumvirate of the Veil.
The Karimi brothers: Shiavas and Babak. Iranians. Both joined the army at twenty-one and twenty-two years old, respectively. They served their nation for eight years; excellent marksmen. They had disciplinary issues throughout their time in the military and deserted the army after being accused of war crimes. They were set to face a court-martial for a massacre in a town near the capital...” Miles presses the small button between his hands once more, and the file opens a pair of videos attached to the report. “The following recordings were taken by UN members; they are from the town where the Karimi brothers allegedly massacred eighty-seven civilians, including men, women, and children. This was not done by a squad or a regiment... it was carried out entirely by just two soldiers.”
On the screens, a video recording exposes the terrible slaughter executed by the Karimi brothers, where rather than a mere massacre, it resembles a bloody ritual.
“Both fled without a clear destination. It is presumed their destination was the Sarawat Mountains; nothing was heard of them until after 1996, when they were linked to the terrorist group the Order of the Seven.
Becoming the most lethal enforcement wing of the organization, they recruited hundreds of soldiers, mercenaries, and ruthless individuals, until they were killed four years ago in a Regular Army operation—which was more of a purge to eliminate loose ends.”
Morden observes the grotesque recording on the screen; in it, an inhumane butchery of dozens of corpses is being filmed. Children, youths, adults, and the elderly are murdered in cold blood. But what chills their blood the most is a pile of human heads perfectly stacked inside the town's mosque.
“Sons of bitches...” Allen mumbles.
Graves merely clenches the stem of his pipe between his teeth, letting out a thin trail of smoke that vanishes into the air.
“Next on the list: Zhanibek Ismailov, born in Kazakhstan on October 31, 1968. Since childhood, he joined the ranks of the paramilitary army in his region. Raised as an orphan and abandoned to his fate from the age of four, he roamed the most dangerous streets of Mangystau. Although the country boasts one of the highest security indices, transnational criminal groups occasionally cross paths with vulnerable individuals. He belonged to ISIS-K for a good portion of his life and was taken to Afghanistan, where he received military training starting at age fourteen. He learned from the worst scum of the world, virtually living through the culmination of the war in that region in '79. Later, with the arrival of the 1990s, he vanished alongside new extremist groups emerging in the region. Like the rest, he disappeared for long years until, after 1996, he was linked to the Order of the Seven. It is worth mentioning that he was one of the most highly trained within the organization; he died five years ago when he choked on a chicken bone at a KFC.” Allen cracks a slight smile and lets out a barely perceptible chuckle.
Morden, shifting his posture, folds his arms behind his back as he listens to the briefing.
“The sixth: Sohail Stanikzai, Afghan by birth but adopted by Yemen, militarily speaking. In his early years, he lived with his family in the mountainous district of Charkh. Born on March 19, 1969, raised in a deeply religious household, everything changed with the arrival of the 1980s and the onset of the conflict with the Kabul government. In his village, all the women were murdered and the men were recruited for hard labor.” Robert pauses briefly and looks at the monitor in front of him, where the terrorist's photograph glows on the screen.
“The children were mostly trained by the Mujahideen after displacing and murdering the former tribal chiefs. It is presumed that in that environment he likely met Zhanibek Ismailov, as Sohail disappeared in the nineties—around the exact same time Ismailov went off the radar. As you can imagine, nothing was known until after 1996, when the Order of the Seven was founded; he died last year, betrayed. He was poisoned.” Robert adds not a single word more; silence becomes just another witness in the room, with only the plastic click sounding like a loud echo vibrating off the four walls.
“This last one was recruited in 2000 and breaks from the classic terrorist mold to an extent. If very little information exists regarding the leaders, practically nothing is known about this individual: Yasan Al-Rifai, born in Syria on July 6, 1980—without a doubt the youngest of the group. During his youth, the only factual data available about him is that he belonged to Huras al-Din until the day he was recruited by Ghallib Al-Mansoor when he was barely twenty years old. He was found with a gunshot wound to the mouth in a village back in 2015. He used his surroundings to conceal himself; his death, as mysterious as it was, left more questions than answers within the operational core, and was undoubtedly a heavy blow to the Order.”
Robert finishes the briefing, and the screens freeze on the image of Yasan.
“Were these the reason the Regular Army was founded?” Graves asks, exhaling a large cloud of smoke.
“Barely five years after their foundation, they managed to maintain a level of global tension like no other extremist group. They overthrew Jihadists imposed by ‘Divine’ will, cleared out conflict zones across the Middle East and parts of Asia, and erased the defeated; those who survived had two choices: join them or perish under the same fate as their slaughtered leaders. They gained vast territory and followers, and from those followers emerged the Triumvirate of the Veil—the enforcement wing for each and every one of their terrorist attacks. As the years passed, their purchasing power skyrocketed under the names of various corporate security firms, the famous PMCs... and we know what all of that entails,” Miles states firmly.
“False flag attacks, tactical training, logistics and transport services—an operational facade through and through,” Morden adds coldly.
“And guess whose name appears as an overseas contractor?” Robert asks mockingly.
“Kosher?” Allen O'Neil asks, but the lieutenant colonel merely looks at him and nods.
Morden, who spent most of the time listening in silence, breaks the tension:
“What about the attackers?” he asks.
“Well, this is the grimmest part, sir: every single one of them was a voluntary member of the cult,” Miles answers.
“That doesn't surprise me,” Morden exclaims, still standing with his arms extended across the table.
“Patrick Mirage: he was a prominent Wall Street tycoon. In 2010, during a family trip through Europe—specifically in Spain—the community where he and his family were spending their vacation was bombed by the Regular Army.
As a result of the attack, the man lost his entire family: Elizabeth, his thirty-eight-year-old wife; his fifteen-year-old firstborn, Patrick Jr.; a pair of eight-year-old twins, Tim and Tom; and a two-year-old little girl named Tracy.” Miles pauses and looks at Morden, who takes a seat, swiveling his chair back around with his back turned. Graves continues smoking his pipe while Allen stands with arms crossed, listening intently, so Miles proceeds: “During the attack, the man lost both legs, which left him crippled and bound to a wheelchair. He was shattered both physically and spiritually. Upon his return to the United States, he fell into a deep depresión. The two dogs accompanying him were a gift for the twins.” He halts briefly. “The week following their death was their birthday, so he kept the dogs until the final minutes of his life. He vanished overnight; his companies went bankrupt, and before disappearing, he withdrew a large sum of money. That led to the assumption that the man had perhaps escaped or been kidnapped; at least, that was the working hypothesis for years, until a few weeks ago when he was scooped up with a shovel in Central Park,” Robert Miles concludes.
All is silence in that room, but Miles continues his account:
“Moving on to the next ones: Tomassi Chappa and Jason Pecott, circus performers. In 2008, they worked for a circus; while traveling in a caravan through the counties, they ran into a small detachment of the Regular Army. Intoxicated and out of their minds, the soldiers initiated an assault. Seeing this, the men tried to defuse them with a quick display of magic and laughter, but it was in vain. The soldiers of that unit raped every woman before the helpless eyes of the men, who remained gagged, and were then executed by firing squad.” He clenches his jaw before continuing.
“The women met the same fate. That night, twenty-six people were abused and murdered. To erase evidence, the soldiers burned the circus camp. What they didn't account for was that two survivors of the slaughter would return years later to claim vengeance.” He points his finger at the image of a man with a disfigured face. “Tomassi Chappa, ‘The Magician,’ forty-one years old, a survivor of that night.
He had to watch his girlfriend being repeatedly raped until her death. He fired multiple times at defenseless civilians; he wore a vest with blocks of C-4 perfectly distributed and wired to a manual detonation system. He was shot dead by New York police in Central Park before he could turn himself into a human bomb.” He continues detailing every aspect fluidly: “Jason Pecott, forty-two years old. Like Tomassi, he is one of the sole survivors of that massacre. He had to watch his partner being raped to the point of exhaustion. Alongside his companion, he went unnoticed until a few days ago, when he detonated an explosive device—one built by the following man.”
“How did none of this ever come to light?” Allen asks.
“A pair of soldiers—” he pauses, leaning his shoulders forward, “—who, in fact, didn't participate... Over time, remorse and guilt gnawed at their minds; they confessed everything in full detail to their superiors.” Miles halts and looks at Morden, who continues contemplating the painting on the wall. “Fatal mistake. What the poor bastards didn't know was that Kosher's illegitimate son commanded the unit that slaughtered the circus troupe. That very night, they were sent back to the battlefield. Kosher didn't lift a single finger; a week later, their squad fell in a surprise attack by the Order of the Seven's militia,” Robert exclaims calmly.
“Now, gentlemen, the architect of all this damned chaos:
Infantry Corporal Ryan Simone: active from 2005 to 2009, thirty-two years old. Multiple missions with his squad, known as the Specters. They were practically wiped out on an expeditionary mission in one of the most arid and dangerous regions of the Middle East. As the sole survivor, he was sent home, where upon his return he experienced survivor's guilt over the next three years; he isolated himself from society due to his medical condition.”
Then Graves interrupts the briefing with the noise he makes cleaning his pipe. Allen looks at him sternly while Graves continues with his business; right when he feels the uncomfortable silence he caused, he reacts to the stare.
“I'm sorry, sir,” he exclaims, addressing Robert Miles.
Miles doesn't say a single word, but continues with his report:
“A few years after his return, his mother fell gravely ill, which forced him to work every day washing dishes at a soup kitchen. One day, when he returned from work, he found his mother unconscious; he rushed her to a hospital, but because they lacked the money, let alone insurance, the staff couldn't treat her.
However, the doctors checked her pulse, only to find the woman had already been dead for hours. Upon being informed, the man lost his mind. When they told him they had to notify the police, he flatly refused. They tried to reason with him and stop him, but he escaped with his mother's body in his arms, getting into his car and fleeing to parts unknown. Nothing was heard of him until a few weeks ago, when he was found with his brains scattered all over the place.”
Morden, turning his back to them, closes his eye, well aware that he was the last person to see the soldier alive in that infirmary.
“And last, but not least: Graeme Craddock. A simple fanatical, crazy, unhinged twenty-seven-year-old; single, no family, an only child. He lost his parents six years ago in an accident; even though his family didn't amass a great fortune, whatever little they made during their lives was inherited by this guy.” Miles rises from his seat and slightly rolls his neck before continuing: “Honestly, he had a pathetic and boring life. I wasted an hour of my time reading a report on a guy who masturbated every twenty minutes.”
He finishes the report while the monitors return to the image of the tycoon Patrick Mirage.
“Who the hell hires guys like that?” Graves asks the open room.
“Anyone with enough money and power,” Morden responds, still seated with his back to the others. “Where are the last two hiding?” he asks.
Miles's words float through the room, blending with the dense smoke from Graves's pipe; the indignant look on those men's faces is evident. The institution they swore to serve and protect had turned into a nest of vipers and scorpions—one that they, of course, intend to destroy.
“Well, sir,” Miles exclaims with his arms behind his back, “with the help of the Regular Army's satellites, we managed to detect heavy movement right in this area.” Miles points his finger at a map, which causes the images on the digital screens to vanish; but before it disappears, Morden observes the photograph of Patrick Mirage for a millisecond to make way for the map Robert is pointing to.
“The Sarawat Mountains?” Morden asks.
“That's right, General. Before our friends disconnected us from their satellites, my intelligence team marked a search radius, which is the following—” he points to an extremely arid and rocky zone, “—a one-hundred-and-fifty-kilometer radial search area.”
He draws a circle around the indicated spot.
“It will take us weeks, even months to flush them out of their hole,” O'Neil adds.
“Going from nearly two thousand kilometers of mountains to one hundred and fifty seems like a lot less, but in reality, it's still massive. Even so, they could be anywhere—or in any country,” Washington Graves exclaims.
Then Morden, who remains static up to that moment, suddenly swivels the chair in which he is seated.
“I don't give a damn if I have to drench every single inch of that mountain range in liquid napalm, or if I have to blow it into a thousand pieces; and if I have to go down to hell itself to find them, so be it.” Morden's voice takes on a sepulchral tone amidst the silence of his men. “O'Neil, Graves, prepare an Assault Brigade of no more than fifteen hundred men; the rest will stay contained, pending further orders.”
“General Morden, with all due respect, mobilizing an army of that scale will put us right on the Regular Army's radar. We wouldn't make it halfway across the ocean or through the sky before Kosher decides to attack us; it's a funeral march,” Miles responds.
“He won't,” Morden says. “He's scared, terrified—like a pup with its tail between its legs.”
Morden stands up from his seat, adjusts his military uniform, and continues in a measured tone: “He wouldn't dare. Public discontent with his persona is burying him; starting a public conflict wouldn't suit him, he couldn't handle it.” Donald stands firm before Miles's doubt. “Alright, gentlemen, it's settled. Ready your men, we take off shortly.”
The three soldiers give a firm salute to their general, turn around, and as they do, Morden calls out to Robert:
“Lieutenant, I'll trouble you for five minutes of your time.”
Miles stops while Allen and Graves walk toward the exit. Morden advances toward the figure of Miles, who remains motionless in the center of the small room. In silence, Miles listens to Morden's footsteps drawing closer to him; once face-to-face, he stares intently at him.
“You have no reason to know, and I have no reason to tell, but my father owned a beautiful farm in Ontario, Mr. Miles. I grew up most of my life in that province, surrounded by livestock and green pastures. When I was a boy, I felt immortal, you know? My father was always a modest man, but righteous—” Morden takes a cigar out from his clothes, removes the tip with his teeth and savors that bitter taste; he spits out the remaining piece of the cigar and pulls out a silver wick lighter. The flame illuminates his face for a few moments, and after exhaling a large cloud of smoke, he continues:
“My father was a good man, and my mother was a great woman in every sense of the word. I remember one afternoon, when I was ten years old, I was with my father—a great tracker and a great hunter,” Morden exclaims with a faint smile on his face. “We walked past a small creek and, near a tree, inside a sort of den, we found a dying pup—skinny down to the bone, weak, and with a broken leg; it was a wolf cub no more than a month old. Beside it lay the completely decomposed body of its mother.”
Donald keeps his eye fixed on Miles, who listens intently to the story. “Upon seeing us, it growled with what little strength it had left, as if trying to protect its mother's corpse. My father approached slowly and the little bastard tried to bite him; in that moment, I felt fear because, despite being small and fragile, I assumed that made it more dangerous. But he decided to bring it home with us; he nursed it, fed it, and raised it as part of the pack of sheepdogs. He named him Midas, and he was the smartest of the pack, the most obedient. Hell, I even came to feel jealous of the wolf because I thought my father loved him more than me.”
Then he stops dead in his tracks; for a few seconds, silence fills the room.
“One night, years later, it was early morning when my father woke up to a loud noise in the barn. He grabbed his shotgun, rushed down the stairs, went out of the house, and ran across the yard as if his life depended on it. I tried to catch up to him while my mother came down the stairs in her pajamas and, behind her, my sisters. When I crossed the yard, I could hear the howling of several wolves not far from our farm. Then I saw my father standing at the doorway with the shotgun aimed straight ahead; and there was Midas...” Morden pauses his story, and another large cloud of smoke escapes from his lungs, “...he had slaughtered every single animal, Mr. Miles. Not a single one was left alive. And there was Midas, tongue hanging out, lying over the corpse of the dog that nursed him, surrounded by the bodies of the dogs he had grown up with over the last three years, wagging his tail out of pure happiness just to see his master.”
He halts without breaking eye contact with Miles.
“The wolf didn't even try to run away; it just stayed lying over the body of the dog that raised it. So my father raised his shotgun, aimed directly at Midas, and without hesitating, pulled the trigger...” Morden exhales large clouds of smoke once more before continuing, “...something changed inside him. He didn't say it, but he was no longer the same man, Mr. Miles. Weeks went by, and one day, while we were out hunting, we passed by that same creek again; a few meters away, caught in a bear trap, was a small wolf cub with a shattered leg. Upon seeing it, my father knew immediately what he had to do. So he pulled out his shotgun and, without uttering a single word, shot the poor animal dead. The last thing I heard was my father telling me, ‘LET'S GET MOVING, IT'S GETTING LATE, AND THIS TRAIL IS FULL OF WOLVES.’ We kept walking,” Morden finishes his account, resting his hands on Miles's shoulders.
“Do you understand what you are doing, Mr. Miles? Do you grasp the nature of your actions?
There is no turning back; once this begins, we are all marked by the same fate. Tell me, what motivated you to be where you are today?”
“I too have lost something, sir, and I understand your analogy perfectly,” Miles responds.
Morden listens to him in silence and responds subtly:
“I want the head of the founder of the Triumvirate of the Veil. I don't want his body; I want his head severed from whatever keeps it attached. Understood, soldier?... Ghallib Al-Mansoor I will handle personally.”
Miles, who remains composed, merely responds with a smile on his face:
“And it will be a pleasure, General,” he adds without further ado.
Both men execute a solemn salute. Miles turns around and, as he prepares to leave, Morden's voice echoes through the room once more:
“Lieutenant Miles?” The man stops dead in his tracks at the sound of his general's voice. “What is your opinion of Mr. Shifer?” he asks in a calm voice.
Miles remains silent and, after a few seconds, answers:
“To be honest, he is a nuisance—both to Kosher and now to us. If he speaks, the whole world finds out; and if the world finds out, it will only expose us and everything we are organizing will end up in an international court-martial. If Kosher doesn't kill him, someone else should, sir. With your permission...”
Miles holds the doorknob for a brief moment and, before turning it, Morden orders once again:
“Mr. Miles, send eight of your best men to keep watch over Mr. Shifer. I need him alive for the next forty-eight hours; until then, I don't want a single hair on his head missing without my knowledge. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”
Miles simply looks at him and, after a few seconds of analysis, responds:
“I have the right men, sir. Count on it.”
Then Miles departs, leaving the general alone in the room. He walks once more toward the painting of Ivan the Terrible and His Son; he stares at it in silence, answering to himself the questions that still linger in his mind.
To be continued...