SSD2: Wrath of Tigershark

The warehouse was alone, ringed by barbed wire at a hundred feet. There were no people visible near it, save the pair of winos who had cleared out recently from the protective form of the structure, perhaps feeling trouble in the air. The full moon was an arbiter – a warning, perhaps.

Lord Hugh Crumpet the Younger kept his eyes on the warehouse, readying his submachinegun. It was a UZI, made by the Israelis. The SSD didn’t trust American MP5s anymore, like it had before he took charge. Back then was before America had gone insane and tried to conquer the world.

Seven men were behind Crumpet, with an assortment of UZIs, FAMAS rifles, USP pistols and grenade launchers. One woman even had a shotgun, carefully selecting a breaching charge even as she fingered the thermite on her belt.

Crumpet ignored them. The warehouse was all that mattered to him. Three years since the Atlantic War – three years of hunting. One man had escaped the SSD, avoided them at every turn – one man had killed several of Crumpet’s soldiers.

One man would be apprehended tonight. A drama that began in Miami, three years ago to the day, would be ended.

The sniper rifle wasn’t just on Crumpet’s back – but on his mind, as well. Oh, how he wished to draw it, to lie in wait and simply kill the man who had been his greatest adversary! But no, Colonel Price wanted him alive. But no, the Prime Minister of Britain himself wanted the man alive. Even the President of the United States and the Secretary-General of the UN wanted him alive.

Crumpet was, after all, a loyal soldier. The commander of the SSD let out a deep breath, steadying himself. The man would face justice, after all. Even if it wasn’t the kind Crumpet wanted to give – the kind that Crumpet felt he deserved, after losing nearly half a dozen bright soldiers to him. Their names ran through his head – their faces.

For a second, Crumpet thought of his goddaughter, two-year-old Nadia, and now her little brother Ulrik. Katrina had insisted on naming her son after his father. Crumpet smiled for a second – his goddaughter and godson were close to him. He had, after all, served with their father in the original SSD, under the command of their mother. Hell, he’d been the best man at the wedding!

Time.

Crumpet jumped forward, four men behind him. The other three fanned out in a second wave, rifles raised. No one expected a serious fight until they were inside the warehouse, but Crumpet wasn’t inclined to take chances. Hell, as much as the President wanted the target alive, there was a wing of Nighthawk bombers and a Comanche gunship on standby in case Crumpet needed them, as well as a whole platoon of National Guard troops.

He didn’t plan on needing them.

The barbed wire didn’t last long against the first man at it. Louis cut a hole with his wirecutters, utterly silent. Crumpet liked that about the short Frenchman – he didn’t speak unless he needed to, but he always had something important to say when he did.

Crumpet dove through first, UZI raised. Still no response. After the rest of his team had entered, he waved them forward, rushing to the main door into the warehouse. The men pressed against the walls, raising their weapons and nodding their readiness. Crumpet wasn’t the only one who wanted this finished.

“Caroline,” Crumpet said. The woman with the shotgun peeled forward, planted the breaching charge on the door’s handle. She pressed a button, then retreated. Crumpet turned his head, knew his men were doing the same.

A detonation filled his ears. He turned, darted through the door, UZI flying up. It was instinctive. Crumpet fired, catching a man with a pistol as he popped from behind a stack of crates. Caroline’s shotgun thumped, Louis’ assault rifle chattered, a volley of other gunshots echoed through the warehouse. Five tangos were down in seconds, none of them getting a shot off.

Crumpet ran to the box, ignoring Caroline and Louis as they stayed with him. The other five men raced forward, sprinting around through the maze of boxes. Crumpet grabbed a box’s lid, heaved it off.

He was confronted by a massive pile of C4.

Caroline hissed in surprise, then threw open a box herself, revealing more C4. Crumpet shook his head.

“On the ground!” a Russian voice shouted. Crumpet shook himself, turned and sprinted after his men, Caroline and Louis behind him. They burst around into a large open space, saw the other five all arranged around one man.

The man was decked in power armor, kneeling under a skylight, fiddling with a long wooden box. He was laughing now, something sinister in it.

“Stand down, old chap,” Crumpet growled, raising his UZI. “Game’s up.”

“Is it, Crumpet?” the man asked. He turned, rising to his feet. He stood taller than Crumpet – would have even without the armor, in fact. He had a holstered pistol and a combat knife, but those were his only weapons.

“I rather think so,” Crumpet confirmed. “The game is up, Tigershark.”

Tigershark, AKA Kevin Haulsee, laughed, his brown-blond hair swaying slightly with his motion.

“I don’t agree,” he said conversationally, pressing something on the hip of his armor.
Something burst apart with a crash of timbers behind Crumpet. He spun, as did the rest of his team – all save Caroline, who remained focused on Tigershark.

A massive lizard slammed into the company, roaring with the fury of Valhalla. Crumpet fired for its eyes – finally, he understood. Former President Dale’s cloning projects had managed to revive dinosaurs.

The beast grabbed a man in its jaws, kicked another. Bullets slammed into it, rivers of blood pouring from its size. It crushed its prey between its jaws, then threw him away. The other man was dead too – his neck had snapped. Tigershark was laughing.
Caroline turned, fired – the beast dropped, roaring. It landed atop a man, turning him to paste. Crumpet’s heart winced at the loss of three of his companions, but he steadied himself, firing away.

The dinosaur caught another man in its jaws and started devouring him, trying to heave its bulk upright after the shotgun blast to its head. Crumpet fired a burst into an eye, caused the beast to roar in agony. Finally, it crashed to the ground, dead.
There was a loud thud from behind him. Crumpet turned, aimed up. Tigershark stood on a walkway, pistol drawn but held in the air, a smile on his face.

“Call it a prologue,” he said cheerfully. Louis, Caroline and the Russian, Boris, gathered behind Crumpet, raising their own weapons.

“Surrender,” Caroline called.

“Sorry, no,” Tigershark sighed. “But, dear, any night with you – well, it’s sure to be a blast.”

Crumpet tackled Caroline, hoping that Boris and Louis would hit the floor.

The wave of explosions was only a fraction of a second behind him, sweeping over the facility. All the C4 from the crates detonated, mixing with gasoline and thermite, perhaps, to create a fiery hellstorm in the warehouse. Crumpet stayed low, shielding Caroline with his body.

It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than seconds. When the explosions stopped, Crumpet looked around for Boris and Louis. The Russian was missing, save for a burning arm, but Louis was visible – rather, his shattered body. Crumpet swallowed – Caroline and himself were all that was left of the SSD.

He rolled upright, drew his pistol, reached down to help Caroline up. Someone grabbed him from behind. He threw his elbow back, trying to dislodge his attacker’s grip, but whoever it was held firm, twisting Crumpet around and slamming a foot into his knee. Crumpet felt the bones give even as he came face to face with a grinning Tigershark, the apocalyptic flames reflecting in the madman’s eyes.

“You bloody madman!” Crumpet gasped.

“Guilty as charged,” Tigershark laughed. Then something in his face hardened. “But perhaps a bit more. The Red Spy is dead, you know – I drowned him in Marseilles Harbor. And I threw Dilver into the propellers of a Navy carrier. I wish I could tell you who’s next!”

“No one!” Crumpet growled, drawing his knife and slamming it into a in Tigershark’s armor. The man grunted, but the power armor’s motors whirred and he hurled Crumpet a good forty feet into a wall. Caroline jumped up, aimed her shotgun.

Tigershark grabbed the gun, twisted the barrel hard enough it snapped. He laughed as Caroline dropped it, drew an energy pistol. He planted a fist into her face, and she flew into the flames.

“No!” Crumpet gasped. Tigershark turned, holding up Crumpet’s own pistol – he must have taken it during the fight.

“Lights out, Limey!” Tigershark called. Crumpet howled as three bullets slammed into his chest.

A moment – or was it an hour? – passed. Tigershark was gone, and Crumpet wasn’t seeing clearly. But he heard the ticking of a timer, the beeping of a countdown.
Then he saw a massive flash of light, felt a wave of heat – and then blackness.

Early in 2014, the Second Special Services Division was formed, lead by Colonel Damian Wayne of the United States Army, with Captain Katrina Andropov as field commander for the SSD. There was a wave of signups – young, brash Jason Wayne of the United States, Hans “Viking” Nørup of Denmark, The Red Spy from France, Sasha Coronova of Russia, Lord Hugh Crumpet the Younger of Britain, and a few others.

In Miami, the SSD was put to its first test – Wayne, Viking and the Spy, under Andropov’s direction, attempted to capture the drug baron Carmillo Dante, but he was shot and killed during the operation. Briefly, the notion was considered to shut the SSD down, but after Viking, Red and Andropov saved hundreds from terrorists on a cruise liner in the Caribbean, the SSD was left alive.

A new pair of recruits joined the team then – Ulrik Svensgaard of Massachusetts and an American known only as “Player.” After a swift operation again in the Caribbean, the SSD was back in good standing with the UN and was moved to a more important problem – a terrorist takeover of the docked battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk harbor. Viking was killed in the assault, but the rest of the team managed to secure the ship and end the threat of gas shells bursting in the city.

Meanwhile, Operative Wayne struck up a relationship with Rose Valentine, a woman who had appeared in Miami and on the cruise ship, both times as an independent agent for someone else. She revealed to Wayne that the “Crimson Brotherhood” terrorist organization was really a secret society managed by the government of the United States, though she did not reveal what their motives were. As it happened, she was a member of their organization, but claimed to be spying on them for the benefit of her own network. Her operative Haulsee – codename Tigershark – first appeared here.

Soon after Wayne became attached to Rose and Tigershark, an operation in Dallas revealed another problem – the new operative, Svensgaard, had fallen in love with Captain Andropov. She did not return the affection, and there was little peace for a while between them.

But then Wayne was abducted by strange men in gray suits, and Player revealed that he had already met them – indeed, already been to their headquarters beneath Washington DC. Andropov and the team launched an assault upon the bunker, managing to defeat the guards with the aid of Tigershark and break through to the cellblock, freeing Wayne and a captive Rose from the results of their ill-fated escape attempt, which left them facing Vice President Penny Young and a small army of mutated green-skinned “supersoldiers.” After a furious round of further fighting, it was revealed that President Christian Dale was behind the entire plan, and that his scientists had perfected human cloning – he was nigh immortal, as were his gray-suited Agents.

The team blasted their way out of the base into the White House, then escaped the Secret Service and the appearance of another Dale clone by jumping on a friendly helicopter. Tigershark and Rose managed to escape in the chaos. Andropov finally revealed that she indeed did return Sven’s love, but had been hiding it for reasons of her own. They kissed as the helicopter soared away.

But that wasn’t the end. The team returned to action for a mission in Venezuela, breaking into a US-run cloning base with the intent to destroy it. After being surrounded by the guards, they found another clone tank – inside was Viking, having been restored from a small DNA sample. He attempted at first to destroy the SSD team, but after being knocked out he came to his senses. The team destroyed the facility, but were unable to extract by helicopter. Things looked bleak until an unlikely savior arrived – Rose, with Tigershark and a few other companions.

The team was brought back to Rose’s safehouse, where it was revealed that she and Andropov had both been members of the original SSD – as had Christian Dale. The British member of the team, Richard Price, was still alive in the SAS, but Fritz Adler, Louis Durand, Han Taijing and Amerigo Valencia had all died during the assault on a facility in the Baffin Islands. Andropov claimed she and Price had escaped, believing Dale and Rose to be dead, but Rose declared Andropov hadn’t cared about hers or Dale’s survival and knowingly left them to die.

This bitter dispute hung in the air as the team navigated a mission for Rose – securing a boat in the Caribbean in order to gather more information about the location of Dale’s cloning facilities. After completing the operation and escaping, Viking and Wayne attempted to interrogate the woman they had captured, Eve. She knew nothing, but Wayne still began to torture her for information until Andropov and Viking stopped him. The man they had taken was unconscious, and would be left for Rose.

But when they returned, everything went to hell. First, Rose took the captives away, Wayne accompanying her. Svensgaard and Andropov danced together, sharing comments about children and marriage – until Andropov revealed why she had so furiously stopped Wayne. In her words, he had reminded her of Dale during their tenure in the First SSD. Wayne and Rose themselves had come back upstairs at that point, perhaps sensing the scathing condemnation – married to an accusation that Rose and Dale had slept together. Lord Crumpet tranquilized them both, but Wayne managed to fight off the affects of the drug and throw a grenade at Crumpet. Andropov burst out to see what was happening and dove on the grenade, saving the rest of her team. Wayne was shot by Lord Crumpet, and Andropov barely survived, thanks to extreme luck and her body armor. The team, acting on their own, swept out and killed Rose, intending to clear the entire facility, but found her soldiers already dead, save Tigershark, who had disappeared. He would not return for a long time.
Also joining in there escape was the woman Elsa Adler, sister to the Fritz Adler of the original SSD. She blamed Andropov and Rose equally for her brother’s death, vowing to gain revenge on both of them.

There were a few more small operations in the meantime, but the team’s focus had shifted to the US. They battered away at several cloning bases, eventually destroying all save the last two in Seattle and Area 51. But it was in Seattle that disaster would again strike the team.

Viking met with Elsa inside a massive cloning warehouse, using a DNA sample of Fritz’s to try and clone him. But before they were able to do so, Dale and his agents appeared, fighting the Team for control of the facility. The vats were activated midway through, and hundreds of agents began pouring forth – though they weren’t as capable with an army of them, sheer numbers began to overpower the team which began to retreat. Andropov tried to flee, but was prevented and instead left behind by the team. Elsa disappeared.

The new captain, Arthur Nix, was a bombastic Canadian who claimed Andropov had been a bad decision by the SSD’s leaders, and that she had been an emotional time bomb. The team didn’t like him, and in fact on their first mission together he was killed by Svensgaard. A chance meeting with Richard Price himself of the SAS occurred, but no one thought much of it.

The team broke into a US cloning outpost on Svalbard, destroying it quickly. During the raid, Elsa appeared and attempted to convince Viking to join her and her new ally – Dale. Viking refused and a battle ensued, culminating in Elsa’s capture. She was taken back to the SSD base, along with Violet Valentine, Rose’s younger sister. Elsa shook Svensgaard’s faith in Andropov by claiming that she had been in love with Dale prior to the breakup of the original SSD, and insinuating that the Russian captain had once been a prostitute.

The SSD team was suddenly pulled from the clone-hunting when they learned that Price had gone rogue and paradropped into Virginia, seemingly defecting to the other side. After a running gun battle with American forces, the team located Price and his squadmates securing a house from a clone of Dale. Inside, battered, bloody and weak, they found Andropov, barely alive from her ordeal as a captive. She was taken back to an offshore carrier and the team prepared for its final two missions.

Dale began activating nuclear missile silos across the United States, aiming for cities across Europe and Asia. The SSD, again under Andropov, assaulted the NORAD command bunker in Cheyenne Mountain, managing to secure it and permanently end the nuclear threat. Unfortunately, Viking killed himself on the operation after Andropov executed a prisoner that they could not afford to guard.

Svensgaard and Andropov had a vicious fight once back at the aircraft carrier used as a base, as Sven confronted her about Elsa’s claims and Andropov did not deny them. Eventually, both came around and Andropov dragged Sven into her sleeping quarters.

The final mission was against the last cloning facility, in Area 51, Nevada. The team broke into the compound, destroyed the last cloning tanks, defeated the last of the agents – only for Dale to attempt to flee aboard a large private aircraft capable of unbelievable speed. Sasha Coronova and Svensgaard jumped aboard, with Crumpet giving chase at the controls of a captured F-22 Raptor. Meanwhile, Red treated one of Andropov’s wounds and discovered she was pregnant with Svensgaard’s child.

Svensgaard and Sasha defeated the guards aboard the aircraft while Crumpet kept it pinned from escaping the region with his missiles and cannons. Finally Svensgaard and Sasha killed the last Dale clone and crash-landed the craft in the mountains, being rescued by Crumpet and Andropov. Sasha lost her hand in the battle, but refused the Russian President’s offer of a cybernetic replacement.

Crumpet became leader of the Third SSD, Red was honored and joined the French Intelligence Arm and Sasha became one of the President of Russia’s high-ranking enforcers. But you don’t care about that. You care about whether Sven and Andropov ever got married. They did, and retired to Florence, Italy.

Elsa, however, was released – but on her flight back to Germany from SSD headquarters in Wales, the plane crashed into the North Sea. The wreckage was never found, despite much searching, and neither were the passengers.

Thus did the Special Services Division come to an end.