Original Continuity=
When Umbra emerged as a result of the world's escalating civil unrest, the Elite Squad Initiative was authorized in order to combat the growing threat they posed. Max was named the leader of the new unit and was first tasked with recruiting elite soldiers from across the world. He worked with various counter-terrorists organizations to obtain volunteers for the unit. He also negotiated agreements with several of these units that Elite Squad would share critical Intel on Umbra should they be allowed to use their personnel, as was the case with Rainbow. Due to the global threat Umbra, Max was also forced to recruit infamous criminals from well-known terrorist organizations. Max obtained presidential pardons for each of these members in order to secure their allegiance with Elite Squad.
Elite Squad was first called into action to stop Umbra from attacking Nightingale prison. Max intercepted a transmission between Umbra soldiers and discovered that they had been attacking Nightingale in order to free one of their leaders. Elite Squad managed to push back Umbra though several criminals managed to escape from Nightingale. Only one Umbra soldier still onsite after the firefight, Coda. Max ordered Elite Squad to bring Coda back to headquarters for interrogation where she revealed the location of Umbra's old headquarters to be in the city of Valletta, Malta. With this lead, Max deployed Elite Squad to Malta to find any evidence they could. Upon arriving at the old headquarters, Elite Squad found it to still be well protected, despite no longer being in use. While Umbra attempted to destroy as much evidence as they could, Anna Grímsdóttir found an encrypted file in a device that they had retrieved. Anna was unable to crack the encryption but told Max that she knew of an expert named G1U who could crack it but did not know his current location.
Max interrogated Coda again and she revealed that G1U was located in Singapore. Elite Squad traveled to Singapore and managed to find and escort G1U to safety. G1U decrypted the device and found it to have terabytes of information of the Dollar Flu Virus which could be be used to cause another large-scale pandemic should a sample of the virus be obtained. Max gathered Jessica Kandel's research on the virus and anything else he could find in order to determine what Umbra was planning. He was later notified that Umbra was attempting to obtain a sample of the virus from the SHD's base of operations in New York City and deployed Elite Squad to help the SHD agents fend off the attack. Unfortunately, Coda broke out of her restraints after Elite Squad was deployed and took Max hostage. After Elite Squad was successful in fending off Umbra, they found Max to be radio silent and sent Scott Mitchell and Megan Collins back to headquarters to search for him. They found no sign of Max or Kandel's research on the virus when they were suddenly contacted by Coda on Max's secure video line. She revealed that she taken him hostage and that Elite Squad had given her everything she had needed to unleash the virus. Coda then told Mitchell and Collins that she did not call to negotiate Max's release and proceeded to shoot a tied up Max in the back, killing him. Scott Mitchell subsequently took Max's place as the leader of Elite Squad and vowed to put a stop to Coda and Umbra once and for all.