Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Story

In April 2004, the Georgian president is assassinated, after which Georgian billionaire Kombayn Nikoladze seizes power in a bloodless coup. In August 2004, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer and Gulf War veteran Sam Fisher is recruited by the National Security Agency to work in its newly formed Third Echelon division. Along with his old friend Irving Lambert, Fisher meets tech expert Anna "Grim" Grimsdóttír and field runner Vernon Wilkes Jr. In October 2004, Fisher is sent to Tbilisi, Georgia, to investigate the disappearance of two CIA officers. Fisher tries to meet an informant, Thomas Gurgenidze, but finds him dying in a burning building. Gurgenidze warns that an agent's transmission contained evidence that could start a war. When Fisher finds the agents' bodies in a morgue, he learns that a former Spetsnaz agent, Vyacheslav Grinko, removed their subdermal tracking devices. Third Echelon tracks Grinko's license plate using video surveillance and comes upon him at the Georgian Ministry of Defense. Fisher arrives at the ministry and records a meeting between Grinko and Canadian hacker Phillip Masse, where he learns that Nikoladze is running an illegal operation in Azerbaijan. Fisher hacks Nikoladze's computer and learns that Nikoladze has been conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in Azerbaijan, using Georgian commandos. In retaliation, NATO forces invade Azerbaijan, after which Nikoladze goes underground. Third Echelon learns that Georgian soldiers stationed on a Caspian oil rig have been exchanging data with the Georgian presidential palace. Fisher penetrates the oil rig during a NATO airstrike to arrest Lejava, a local technician, and take his laptop containing the rig's computer data. After interrogating the technician, he learns that the data includes a file on the "Ark." Fisher retrieves the laptop and the encryption key and disappears. Upon examining Lejava's laptop, Grim realizes that the information could have come from a CIA mole. Lambert then reveals that North America has just been hit by a massive cyberattack, primarily targeting military targets. In a radio broadcast, Nikoladze takes responsibility for the attack and officially declares war on the United States and its allies. Fisher infiltrates CIA headquarters and gains access to the CIA computer mainframe, allowing Grim to trace the data leak to Mitchell Dougherty's computer. Dougherty is captured for interrogation and claims to have known nothing about the data leak, but the NSA learns that his obsessive-compulsive disorder caused him to back up data on an insecure laptop that was being exploited by a Kalinatek, Inc. network. Mobsters hired by Georgia attempt to remove all traces of Nikoladze from the Kalinatek offices by destroying the building and murdering the employees. Intercepting a distress call from a technician named Ivan, Fisher is sent into the building and retrieves Ivan's encryption key while the FBI rescues Ivan. Fisher escapes with the help of Wilkes, who is mortally wounded and later dies. Using the key, the NSA discovers that Nikoladze has been using a network of unconventional relays to communicate with Georgian military cells. NSA tracks the entire relay network to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar. Worried that Chinese support could trigger World War III, Fisher sneaks into the embassy and overhears a conversation between Nikoladze and General Kong Feirong and learns that the two are working together. Fisher learns that captured U.S. Army soldiers and high-ranking Chinese officials are in a local slaughterhouse, so he delays interrogating Feirong to save the hostages, who are scheduled to be executed in a live broadcast. Fisher meets with a Chinese official among the hostages and learns that Feirong is part of a renegade collective that is not supported by the Chinese government. Fisher is discovered and in a firefight he kills Grinko. Returning to the embassy, Fisher grabs the drunken Feirong before he can commit suicide and forces him to share the information stored on his computer; the information reveals that Nikoladze has fled back to Georgia, where he is trying to activate a suitcase bomb called "The Ark." Fisher infiltrates the Georgian presidential palace, where Nikoladze and the new Georgian de facto president Varlam Cristavi are staying, and tries to find the key to the Ark, which has been deposited somewhere in the United States. Fisher corners Nikoladze, who hands over the Ark key in exchange for safe passage out of Georgia; before Fisher can retrieve it, Cristavi soldiers take Nikoladze and the Ark key elsewhere. Fisher is about to be executed and escapes when Lambert causes a brief blackout. When he finds out that Nikoladze is offering the Ark's location for protection, Fisher murders Nikoladze. When the U.S. Army discovers the Ark, it evacuates an apartment complex in Hope Gate, Maryland, because of an alleged gas leak and secretly retrieves the Ark. Although World War III has been averted, Nikola