"Perseus" (1920 - 1983) was the code-name for a Soviet officer and spymaster of the titular Perseus, a Soviet-aligned spyring that sought to destabilize the West and allow the Soviet Union to become the only superpower on Earth. Perseus utilized terrorist, criminal, and military connections to achieve his goals, though his plan of detonating American nukes stored in European cities failed at the hands of his former right-hand man who was brainwashed into becoming "Bell."
Two years later, Perseus died from an unknown cancer, leaving his new right-hand man Vikhor Kuzmin to assume the title of Perseus.
Biography[]
Early life[]
The man that would become known as Perseus was born in 1920 in the Russian SFSR. He grew to despise the West, becoming a devout communist. The man joined the NKVD and ascended their ranks in the 1930s, gathering intelligence on Nazi Germany and planting communist spies that would allow the Soviets to gain the upper hand in World War II and its aftermath. While in this position, he took the code-name of Perseus, after the mythological Greek hero.
One of his spies managed to infiltrate the top secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States in 1943, which was where the atom bomb was developed. His spy managed to elude American authorities, returning behind the Iron Curtain with valuable information on the creation of atomic bombs. Perseus was soon promoted to a higher rank in the NKVD, keeping this rank during his transfers to the NKGB, the MGB, and finally the KGB.
Perseus[]
In the 50s and 60s, Perseus built a powerful spyring encapsulating the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, gaining valuable intelligence on the West and neutral countries while destabilizing their governments. He slowly became disillusioned with his Soviet overseers and politicians, believing them to be weak and unable to surpass the West in their current state. As a result, Perseus decided to split his spyring from the Soviets, though he still aligned with Soviet goals. He concocted several plans that would enable him to utterly destroy the West, which would allow Soviet leaders to seize the opportunity and claim these lands for Greater Russia. Should they not accomplish these goals, Perseus would replace them with more fanatical men.
Perseus managed to recruit people from many walks of life under his cause, though they all shared a common motivation to ensure communism becomes the primary, and only, ideology across the world. In 1968, Perseus utilized implanted Viet Cong soldiers to attack Firebase Ripcord in South Vietnam, where the US forces there stored a nuclear device as part of Operation Fracture Jaw; however, this plan was stopped by a CIA MACV-SOG team led by senior agent Russell Adler.
In 1976, Perseus orchestrated the escape of ex-Nova 6 scientist Vikhor Kuzmin from the Petropavlovsk Gulag, who was punished by Colonel Lev Kravchenko for allowing Rebirth Island to be assaulted, the Nova 6 supplies to be destroyed, and the scientists to be captured or killed. Kuzmin took the nickname of "Stitch," before beginning to reproduce Nova 6 to help achieve Perseus' own plans.
Greenlight[]
In January 1981, Russian Mafia boss and implanted Perseus spy Anton Volkov informed Perseus of a hidden nuclear bomb underneath Berlin as part of Operation Greenlight, a top-secret CIA program dating to the 1950s that would plant nuclear devices underneath strategic European cities to deny the Soviets from occupying the rest of Europe. This nuke would be extracted from Germany to an abandoned Cuban compound south of Havana.
Perseus then sent a regiment of Soviet Army troops loyal to Perseus to the destroyed base at Mount Yamantau to extract a mainframe containing lists of deceased General Nikita Dragovich's sleeper agents that would have unleashed Nova 6 gas across the United States if not stopped by CIA agents Jason Hudson and Alex Mason. These lists were obtained, allowing Perseus to kidnap Thomas Hastings, a former Dragovich sleeper agent and scientist who worked on Greenlight, and his team of scientists to reverse engineer the radar signal that would detonate the Greenlight nukes. This radar signal would be broadcast at the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, though his hierarchy would fool NATO spies by going to the Duga radar complex in Ukraine initially.
Perseus would suffer a serious setback when his right-hand man was shot and left for dead out of jealousy by Arash Kadivar at an airfield in Turkey; this allowed the CIA to capture him and brainwash the agent to their side as Bell, who was an old friend of Russell Adler. Bell would begin causing setback after setback for Perseus, including the capture of Volkov, the deaths of CIA defector Robert Aldrich and KGB handler Vadim Rutnik, the recovery of the Yamantau mainframe, and the capture of the agent lists from the Lubyanka. The CIA later assaulted the Cuban base while Perseus retrieved the radar code, though Perseus escaped by helicopter before he could be captured or killed. He manged to get to the Solovetsky base, preparing to activate the signal on 15 March 1981. However, a day prior, Bell informed the CIA of the true location of Perseus' base, allowing Alex Mason, Frank Woods, Russell Adler, and Bell to assault the base and destroy it, stopping Perseus' plans.
Aftermath and death[]
In the years afterward, Perseus was diagnosed with cancer and went deeper underground, having Stitch be his right-hand man after Bell's betrayal. He mentored Imran Zakhaev, a Soviet Interior Ministry official, during this time, though Zakhaev realized the depths of Perseus' insanity and stopped him from taking control of a facility holding NOVA-4 gas. Perseus died from cancer in 1983, with Stitch taking full control of Perseus and adopting his mentor's code-name.