In the Darkness of Shadow Moses : The Unofficial Truth, By Nastasha Romanenko
A biographical and complete review of the Shadow Moses, the events leading up to and the results of the mission
My first short exchange with Solid Snake ever, I was beginning to understand why he was called the man who "makes the impossible, possible." The icy calm in the face of insurmountable difficulty, the absolute confidence, made it suddenly seem possible that he would pull off this deadly mission. He had the power to make me believe. I grew conscious of Richard's gaze. "What?" "Oh -- just that you have a kind of glow about you when you're working. I like it." "A glow? Funny, you used to call it workaholism in the past. You found it very unappealing, I recall." "Time flies. People change their minds." "It's called nostalgia. You'll dislike it again soon enough." "Perhaps..." Richard continued to look at me. Solid Snake certainly managed to live up to his reputation.
He adroitly wove his way through the enemy's patrols and infiltrated the nuclear weapons disposal plant, where he made contact with Donald Anderson, the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) director. Throughout
the mission, we had radio monitoring capability over Snake's every movement thanks to his internal nano- machines. It was through this access channel that I learned a shocking fact. Donald Anderson -- discovered in solitary confinement by Solid Snake -- confirmed that the terrorists had full nuclear capability, and that Shadow Moses Island was the site of a field exercise for Metal Gear. Metal Gear. The very mention of that name sent me reeling. It was the ultimate weapon, a nuclear-capable bipedal tank that could launch a rapid and accurate nuclear strike from virtually any terrain, from mountains to marshlands to the desert dunes. It could bestow the dubious privilege of initiating a missile strike from sites that were previously out of the question as launch locations.
For that very reason, analysts had long predicted that if brought to fruition, Metal Gear techno- logy would rewrite the tactical map of the world. There are speculations that this Unholy Grail of weapons development was being pursued late last century in the South African fortress state of Outer Heaven, then in the ultra-nationalist sovereignty of Zanzibar Land in Central Asia. One source went so far as to claim that a working prototype had been produced, but the weapon never made it onto the world military stage; instead, it was destroyed by a special forces operative. The squad in question was FOXHOUND, and the operative was a man codenamed Solid Snake. I briefly wondered if it were some strange quirk of fate that had brought Snake into this latest incident, but I knew Richard too well. Snake had to have been called in because of his past battles. Whoever had planned this mission had been thorough, and the more I realized the fact, the less I liked it.
A few years ago, I interviewed a high- ranking DOD official and led the conversation to the subject of Metal Gear. His response at the time was that the U.S. had very little interest in developing a weapon like Metal Gear (not that he officially admitted that such a thing as the Metal Gear existed - on a purely a hypothetical level, IF such a techno- logy were available.) With the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear arsenals built to enforce the idea of mutually assured destruction had lost its justification, and the deterrent argument was losing ground. In the current "multilateral world order rife with smaller regional powers" as he put it, development priority lay with cruise missiles and smaller weapons with lower lethality that could be carried by stealth bombers. He also went on to note that Metal Gear, with its affinity for rough terrain, would be extremely difficult to discover and destroy. Hence, it was the perfect nuclear strike system for rogue states. He was deeply concerned that if such non-democratic sovereignties were to get a hold of Metal Gear technology, the resulting upset in the balance of military power would lead to a massive rupture in world order. It was a fear that I myself shared.
An artifact of the Cold War. The devil's candy, created by nuclear proliferation. That was what Metal Gear seemed to be. So why was this weapon, a cutting-edge technology that was politically long-obsolete, being developed once again on American soil? It was possible that the Defense Department wanted to restore last century's nuclear strategy to the national agenda. Or did this new Metal Gear have something that set it far apart from Metal Gear as I knew it? Anderson had more to say. Metal Gear's launch key consisted of two separate pass- words, one held by Anderson himself and the other by Kenneth Baker, the president of ArmsTech. Anderson's own password was already in the terrorists' hands, and he feared that the same was true for Baker's. A renegade FOXHOUND psychic, codenamed Psycho Mantis, had literally read Anderson's mind and obtained the key. The bottom line was that the terrorists could activate Metal Gear and launch the missile whenever they pleased.
The worst- case scenario had come true. However, Anderson revealed that there was still a way to prevent the nuclear strike. Kenneth Baker alone had the emergency override key that could be used to reenter the launch code and cancel the missile launch. Even if the terrorists had already completed preparations for a strike, the override would reverse the process. His only hope now riding on obtaining the override key, Snake attempted to leave the cell area with Anderson in tow. We heard the terrible cries over the radio at the same time Snake did. Anderson had suddenly started to clutch at his own chest in agony, and before we could even recover from our initial shock, he was dead. Dr. Naomi Hunter, monitoring the situation from onboard USS Discovery, tentatively diagnosed the cause of death as a heart attack. Snake walked out of the cell alone in search of Kenneth Baker, leaving behind what had until recently been Donald Anderson, chief of DARPA.
"All right, what exactly is going on here?" I confronted Richard as soon as I confirmed Snake's safe departure. "You know the situation. There was a Metal Gear field exercise being conducted on Shadow Moses. FOXHOUND and the next- generation commandos were in charge of the exercise, and now they're threatening to use the Metal Gear to launch a nuclear strike." "Apparently, I didn't know about that particular situation." "If you say so." I glared at Richard, but he didn't turn a hair. He knew as well as I did that I could not abandon the mission. Even if I did refuse to cooperate further, there was an entire group of DOD personnel around me that would not permit that to happen. I briefly closed my eyes and brought the recent events into focus again. "What happened to Anderson? Why is he dead?"
This time, I could see a trace of a reaction in Richard's eyes. "It's hard to say from our end. Naomi thinks it was a heart attack but -- I'll have his medical records pulled just in case." He turned and left the study, presumably to give orders to that effect. The sounds and the voice being broadcast from the radio told me that Snake was moving deeper into the complex in search of Kenneth Baker. Snake found the ArmsTech president in one of the underground levels. Kenneth Baker was bound to a steel girder along with multiple packets of C4 explosives. Before Snake could free Baker, he came face to face with the originator of this trap: a FOXHOUND operative called Revolver Ocelot. It seemed that he had anticipated Baker's rescue attempt upon receiving news of Snake's arrival.
According to Naomi Hunter, the former director of FOXHOUND's genetic manipulation program, Revolver Ocelot is a former Spetznaz. He moved into OMON (Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, the Interior Ministry riot squad, AKA Black Berets) and the SVR (the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) -- a successor to the KGB's First Chief Directorate -- after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but was unable to adapt to the new regime and dropped out. He cut a swath through the world's hot spots as a mercenary before being recruited by FOXHOUND. As his codename indicates, Ocelot is a master marksman with a marked preference for revolvers. We could hear the gun battle between Snake and Ocelot over the radio. Ocelot was using an antique Single Action Army revolver against Snake's SOCOM pistol. The first Single Action Army Revolver was manufactured in 1873. A small number of them are still in production today, but strictly for collectors and antique weapon fanciers; using this out- moded weapon for live combat is unheard of. But Ocelot seemed to invest the vintage gun with diabolical powers. He would purposefully fire against walls and the floor, weaving a tight web of ricocheting bullets around Snake, gradually hemming him in.
All we could do was silently monitor the battle. However, Snake was slowly but surely gaining the upper hand by dodging the ricochets and exploiting the revolver's lengthy reload window. Finally, just as Snake was about to deliver the decisive blow, an explosion rang out. "My hand!" Ocelot's scream came a second later, followed by more explosions. "What the hell is going on!?" Richard cried. The controller in charge of the data sent in by Snake's nanomachines started a running commentary. "We don't know yet. I'm seeing a life sign other than those of Snake, Ocelot or Baker." Explosions continued to boom out over the radio. "The unidentified fourth subject is knocking down girders. No sign of firearm use! Whatever it is, it's moving fast!" The controller's voice rose with excitement. "The speed is well above anything a human being should be able to handle." The situation was chaotic. I could make out Ocelot's voice through the roar of collapsing metal.
"Stealth camouflage! Someone left a job only half done... As for you -- we'll continue this later!" It seemed Ocelot had left the area. The explosions went on one after the other as girders
crashed to the ground. In the midst of the collapse, Snake confronted what we could only guess was the fourth life sign. "Who are you?" "I'm like you...I have no name." It was not human, but an artificial machine voice that answered. In spite of the metallic tones, there seemed to be in that voice an unspeakable pain. Baker's labored groans could be heard over the conversation. "You have a reinforced skeleton -- !?" Suddenly, the possessor of the metal voice let loose an animal howl. The shattering scream set the communication speakers screeching, and I instinctively covered my ears to shut out the maddened sound. The cry went on and on, then cut out as abruptly as it had begun.
In the ringing silence, the controller's voice floated out, thin and hollow. " -- the fourth subject has disappeared." The words brought us out of a state of shock. "Can we track him?" "Negative. He's vanished, no traces." "Collect as much data as you can." "I have the full results on information relayed by the nanomachines. There's an electromagnetic pattern that resembles a stealth camouflage signature." "Stealth camo and reinforced exoskeleton..." Richard muttered, deep in thought. "Not everything is happening according to plan, I take it?" I inquired with some sarcasm. "It's within acceptable deviation. The mission will go on as planned." For a split second, his eyes betrayed his disquiet; then he quickly recovered his characteristic arrogance. "You just concentrate on your job." Snake had called the fourth life sign the "Ninja." I could not help but wonder about the identity of the name's bearer, and what it was that accounted for the superhuman abilities he had just demonstrated.
Far away on Shadow Moses Island, Snake was attempting to raise the shaken Kenneth Baker back on his feet. We could hear Snake asking him about the nuclear launch code, knowing the answer even as he spoke. Baker painfully acknowledged that he had volunteered the information. His arm hung broken and useless by his side, presumably Ocelot's handiwork. According to Naomi Hunter's intelligence, Revolver Ocelot had served as a Special Interrogations Consultant in the Soviet gulags during his days with the Spetznaz. In other words, he was an expert in torture. There was no way that the weapons technology executive, an untrained civilian, could withstand the techniques of coercion developed in the cells of Lubianka. We now had confirmation that the terrorists possessed both launch keys. The situation was more desperate than ever.
Baker's response to Snake's queries about the emergency override key was almost as grim. He had entrusted a soldier, a woman who had refused to join the mutiny, with it while they had been sharing the cell. I caught Snake's sudden murmur. "The Colonel's niece?" The "Colonel" was presumably Campbell, and Snake seemed to know something I certainly did not. I stole a glance at Richard, but his expression was as closed as ever. He no doubt had known from the outset about the presence of Campbell's niece on Shadow. Snake was pressing Baker, asking him whether there was a way to stop the launch without the override code. The executive gave him a name: Dr. Hal Emmerich. If it were indeed the case that the launch codes were in hostile hands and the strike sequence had been started, it stood to reason that the only person who may know of a way to cancel the launch was the chief of Metal Gear's development program.
As Snake promised to search out Emmerich, Baker handed him a single optical disc. It contained, he said, all the data from the training exercise. What exercise data? He had to be referring to the Metal Gear exercise. I saw Richard raise his eyebrow sharply. Baker, oblivious to the frenzy of speculation he had remotely set off, continued. "There's no need to feign ignorance. You were sent to retrieve this, and we both know it." I was now even more puzzled than ever. If Metal Gear was being developed on Shadow Moses, surely the research data was backed up somewhere outside of the ArmsTech lab. Not only that, but why would the president of the company have been carrying the data himself? I was apparently not alone in my disconcertment. Snake took the disc, obviously uncertain. It was clear that he, like myself, had not been briefed on the existence of the disc. The disc safely out of his hands, Baker's tones became pleading.
"You have to stop them. If the truth got out, AT would be finished -- I would be finished -- " "But Metal Gear technology is already a known factor." "The core technology is, but that's not -- " Baker trailed off, suddenly pale with pain. "Oh God, what did you do to me...?" We could hear his labored coughing as he gasped out. "It can't be... That thing. Damn Pentagon bureaucrats... I get it now... You son of a -- " He tried to lunge at Snake, but reeled back in fresh wave of pain. Still clutching his chest, he fell down, dead. It was too similar to the last moments of Donald Anderson's life, and the fact had not escaped Snake. He was immediately on the radio with Campbell. "Colonel, you'd better be listening real well. This one dropped dead too." Snake demanded an explanation, but neither Campbell nor Dr. Hunter could provide an adequate one. Snake was clearly dissatisfied, but Campbell directed Snake to cooperate with his niece, Meryl. The only way left to prevent a nuclear strike was to obtain the emergency override key, and the key was in Meryl's hands. Snake walked away from Baker's body in search of the elusive commando.
Kenneth Baker had been colluding with Donald Anderson, the DARPA chief, to secretly develop a new Metal Gear on the government's so-called Black Budget. My later investigations revealed that regular payments in the tens of thousands of dollars had been made to the corporate account of a firm for which Anderson's wife ostensibly acted as a consultant. The ArmsTech payoff into this dummy company had started several years ago. The total amount is difficult to estimate, but there is little doubt that Anderson had been bribed to the tune of an astronomical sum. Even the government Black Budget had limits, however. I recalled a rumor from some years before the Anderson payoff started. The CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) at the time had a classified pet project, and the scuttle- butt was that it involved the construction of a completely new type of battleship. Just what kind of a ship was never revealed, since the entire program fell apart after the CNO suddenly passed away.
The unexpected death coincided with ArmsTech's launch of the Metal Gear development program. The Black Budget earmarked for the CNO's little project must have been freed up by his death; the question was whether it had been freed up for allocation to the new Metal Gear development. The manner of the CNO's death was officially ruled a suicide, but I could not help recall the theories to the contrary that had made its rounds back then. Whatever the background, Anderson and Baker's deaths could not be a coincidence. Anderson's dying words included a reference to the Pentagon, and I was certain that there was more to it than met the eye. "So now Baker is dead as well. Are you looking into his medical records too?" I asked Richard. "We'll do that. Just as a precaution." He did not seem particularly disturbed. "It may have been for the best, anyway. Having to babysit a senior citizen with a broken arm sure wasn't going to help Snake with his mission." "You haven't changed a bit, I see."
"What?" "That bad-boy act of yours. You only talk like an insensitive jerk to divert attention from something. I wonder what you're hiding?" Richard turned away. "Nothing. There's nothing to hide." Having successfully made radio contact with Meryl, Colonel Campbell's niece, Solid Snake agreed to put off a rendezvous with her in favor of rescuing Dr. Hal Emmerich, the chief of Metal Gear development. He reached the lab just as the Ninja was attempting to attack Dr. Emmerich, and the two fighters immediately squared off. Snake and the Ninja launched into a silent hand-to-hand combat, a balletic exchange of blows that seemed almost to serve as a private dialog. The fighting seemed interminable to us as we followed over the radio, but just as in the last encounter, the Ninja suddenly let loose an inhuman howl, and vanished in the maelstrom of its ragged echo.
It was our second encounter with the Ninja, and we were as in the dark about him as ever. But Snake had recognized something during their battle, and he raised Campbell on the radio. "It's Gray Fox -- the Ninja is Gray Fox. I'm 100% sure." "That's impossible. You took him -- in Zanzibar Land -- " We could hear the perturbation in Campbell's voice. Naomi Hunter suddenly cut in. "Yes, he was supposed to have been killed. But he wasn't." Dr. Hunter revealed that her predecessor at the helm of FOXHOUND's genetic treatment program, one Dr. Clark, had been conducting human testing. Gray Fox, the alpha soldier of FOXHOUND and the only member allowed the FOX designation, was the subject. After he had been shipped back from Zanzibar Land mortally wounded, his superior physical abilities and combat skills had marked him as an ideal test subject for genetic manipulation and skeletal reinforcement experiments. He was listed as killed in action, but kept alive in a lab. I could not help but note with some surprise the emotional tone in which the normally collected geneticist described these events.
When Snake asked why she had not volunteered the truth of the Ninja's identity earlier, Naomi had only a terse reply. "It was classified information." According to records she had seen, the subject -- Gray Fox -- had died in an acci- dental lab explosion two years ago. I turned to Richard. "Is this true?" "What's true?" "The accident in the lab." "It's true. The cause of the explosion was never determined. Dr. Clark died in the accident, and the only remains they could find of Gray Fox were fragments of the reinforced skeleton." "So Naomi wasn't the only one who knew about this and didn't say anything." "It was classified information." Richard mimicked. Snake secured Dr. Emmerich after the Ninja's departure. Amazingly enough, the engineer had believed Metal Gear to be a portable tactical missile defense system, rather than a nuclear-capable tank. It was a peculiar irony that the chief developer himself had been unaware that the project was one of offense, rather than defense.
On discovering that he had been deceived, Dr. Emmerich volunteered his expertise to Snake. He mentioned his grandfather's involvement in the Manhattan Project, and the ethical turmoil the man had carried with him to the end of his days as a result. Ironically enough, the older scientist's son, Hal Emmerich's father, was born the day the atomic bomb had found Hiroshima. "Three generations -- sometimes I wonder if nuclear warfare is our personal albatross, an inherited pathology." We could hear the pain and the regret in Dr. Emmerich's voice. He seemed genuinely upset that the technology he had developed purely for the furthering of knowledge and betterment of mankind had been exploited for weapons development. You may call me harsh, but I felt little sympathy for him. Technological and scientific innovation need not have direct bearing on nuclear or virological research to contribute to the making of weapons of mass destruction.
After all, the Ninja was born of genetic engineering and cybernetic research, which could easily have healed a civilian rather than improved upon a soldier. A scientist cannot plead naivete to the practical products of their own research. The consequences must be anticipated, and the ethical burden of a newly developed technology must ultimately rest with the individual researcher. I wondered if Dr. Emmerich would ever realize that onus. Freed from the laboratory where he was being held, Emmerich cloaked himself with a stealth camouflage of his own making and promised to keep out of sight. With the stealth camo, he could easily evade the terrorists' surveillance. His rescued charge safe, Snake departed for a rendezvous with Meryl.
Snake's objective was to meet with Meryl and re-enter the launch code using her over- ride key, outwitting the FOXHOUND psychic Psycho Mantis all the while. To this end, he headed towards the hangar where Metal Gear was being stored. The best laid plans... Meryl was ambushed on the way by the FOXHOUND sharpshooter Sniper Wolf. Snake, attempting to rescue the wounded commando, was himself captured. He was taken to the terrorist command post still unconscious, stripped of all his gear. However, his cochlear-implant radio passed unnoticed, and we could hear the terrorists' conferring about the incapacitated operative. We gathered from their talk that the prepara- tions for the nuclear launch were complete. Richard was unusually intent on identifying the individual terrorists in the room. From the voices involved in the conversation, we confirmed the presence of Sniper Wolf, Revolver Ocelot, and the leader of this uprising himself, Liquid Snake.
What little I knew of Liquid Snake was troubling, and it came entirely from a slim file folder Richard showed me just prior to mission commencement. The man with the same designation as Solid Snake was recruited into FOXHOUND after Solid Snake's departure from the unit. His fighting skills were formidable, and he quickly rose to leadership position in FOXHOUND's field operation team. His real name, place of origin and other information remained classified. Only a single photograph accompanied the documents, and I had not been able to contain my astonishment at the sight of it. "It's not a mistake. That IS Liquid Snake," said Richard, echoing my thoughts. "But -- how?" The face in the photo was the spitting image of Solid Snake. "I wouldn't know. But once the two Snakes run into each other, something may come out." His words were noncommittal, but Richard's tone spoke volumes. And now, the two Snakes -- Solid and Liquid -- had indeed come face to face. But Liquid had little to say. "So long, brother."
He called out before turning and walking away. The voice was full of hatred, but there was also something in it that seemed to confirm and gleefully anticipate another meeting. Why this was so was as mysterious to me as the reason he called Solid Snake "brother." I would not find out the truth until a little later. What awaited Snake after his brief encounter with Liquid was Ocelot's KGB- tested "interrogation" techniques. Ocelot apparently had no interest in extracting information, but rather appeared to be enjoying the acts of torture for their own sake. Snake's ragged gasps echoed from the radio in the silence of the control room. The heart rate and other physiological data transmitted by his nanomachines graphically demonstrated the extent of his suffering. All we could do was listen and wait. After Ocelot was done, the battered Snake was taken to a cell. Campbell soon established radio contact with him, but Snake had some hard questions for his former CO instead.
He had realized that Metal Gear was a nuclear delivery system, and for once, Campbell was at a loss for an answer. "So you did know about this all along..." Snake rasped out bitterly. Campbell continued to be silent. It was all the confirmation Snake needed. "You should have told me." "...I'm sorry." "Pawns don't need to know, is that it? You've changed." Campbell had no rebuttal to Snake's barbs. According to Campbell, even the President had apparently been unaware of the existence of Project Rex until the day before. To make matters more complicated, he was due to meet with the Russian president the following day for the formal signing of START3. The treaty stipulated further reduction of the nuclear arsenal, picking up where START2 left off. The agreement would reduce the number of Russian and American tactical ballistic missiles to somewhere between two thousand and twenty-five hundred, and the signing was a historic event that had been made possible by long and arduous process.
If the fact that a new nuclear weapon was being developed by the United States were made public, there was a significant chance that the signing would never take place. Worse still, the loss of confidence in America's commitment to non-proliferation could create international turmoil. The government clearly had every reason to keep the situation under wraps, and there were ample indications that the terrorists had counted on the fact. The timing of this takeover as well as the twenty-four hour deadline said as much. Campbell continued to plead his case with Snake. "Snake, you've got to stop them." "Sing it to someone else." "You're the only hope we have."
"All right then, tell me what this new war- head is about." "I told you, I don't know." "I don't believe you." "..." "If the situation is so desperate, why don't you accept their demands? Give them Big Boss' body. It's just a corpse." "That's not an option..." Campbell was floundering under the barrage of Snake's questions. "Is there a reason you can't comply with that demand? A reason you haven't told me?" Naomi broke in as Campbell fell silent. "The President's passed a number of policies that severely restrict genetic engi- neering on humans. He can't afford to have the public know about the military's use of genetically-enhanced soldiers." "Is that really all there is to it?" Campbell did not reply.
