When she stepped outside
Raised her eyes to the sky
The fatal stare is somewhere up there
Looking for someone to die
Soap and water
Will never get rid of that spot
That she’s got
—Coriky, Clean Kill (2020)
The first three minutes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are perfect.
We start in medias res, camera absorbing into the body of British special forces operative Simon “Ghost” Riley as he makes his way through a narrow canyon to an overlook point in an otherwise nondescript desert. This is supposed to be “the United Republic of Adal,” and knowing this only really does two things: signify to us that we’re in the Middle East, and let us know that we’re definitely not pulling a beat-for-beat recreation of a real-world high-profile assassination. Geographically, Adal is supposed to be a neighboring country to the last Middle Eastern country Call of Duty: Modern Warfare made up, Urzikstan, which is absolutely not Iraq or Syria.
As we clamber up the canyon walls to our designated position, three voices chatter in our ears. General Shepherd, Gold Eagle Actual, the US Army official in charge of this operation; Kate Laswell, CIA analyst, our intelligence expert; and Phillip Graves, the CEO of a private military contractor called Shadow Company. The perfect marriage of the public and private sectors, synergy between the state and capital in motion.