weapon can even fire a camera that sticks onto surfaces, allowing Fisher to covertly perform surveillance from a safe area. Flexibility of movement is a focuspoint of Splinter Cell. Fisher can sneak up on enemies from behind to grab them; allowing interrogation, quiet incapacitation, or use as a human shield. Fisher is acrobatic and physically adept, and has a variety of maneuvers including the ability to mantle onto and climb along ledges, hang from pipes and perform a "split jump" in narrow spaces to mantle up a steep wall. Plot In August 2004, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer Sam Fisher joins the National Security Agency, as part of its newly formed division "Third Echelon" headed by his old friend Irving Lambert. Two months later, Fisher, aided by technical expert Anna "Grim" Grimsdóttír and field runner Vernon Wilkes Jr., is sent to Georgia to investigate the disappearance of two CIA officersAlice Madison, who had been installed in the new government of Georgian president Kombayn Nikoladze, who seized power in a bloodless coup d'état following the assassination of his predecessor earlier in the year; and Robert Blaustein, who was sent in to find her. Fisher discovers both were murdered on Nikoladze's orders by former Spetsnaz member Vyacheslav Grinko. Further investigation soon reveals that the CIA agents had discovered that Nikoladze is waging an ethnic cleansing campaign across Azerbaijan with Georgian commandos. In retaliation, NATO forces enter Azerbaijan, prompting Nikoladze to go underground. Third Echelon soon discovers a data exchange is taking place between a Caspian oil rig and the Georgian presidential palace, and assign Fisher to recover the data. Narrowly avoiding an airstrike by NATO, Fisher recovers a technician's laptop with files on an item called "The Ark", as well as evidence that there is a mole in the CIA. Shortly after this, North America is hit by a massive cyber warfare attack directed at military targets, to which Nikoladze claims responsibility before declaring war on the United States and its allies. Investigating the leak, Fisher discovers a back-up of data by a staff member to an unsecured laptop that was exploited by a Virginian-based network owned by Kalinatek, Inc. After Grim's efforts spook the Georgians, Fisher is sent to the company's Virginia offices to recover an encryption key from Ivan, a technician in the building, as Georgian-hired mafiosos attempt to liquidate all the incriminating evidence. In his escape, Wilkes is mortally