The convoy crawled up the mountain like a ghost convoy—lights cut, tires grinding gravel into dust. Pine trees flanked them like sentries, branches clawing at the windows. Fog hung low, swallowing the peaks ahead in thick, gray jaws. No moon, no stars. Just the hum of diesel and the crunch of mud under all-terrain tires.
Ghost rode shotgun in the lead Hilux, balaclava rolled up, eyes locked on the terrain through NVGs. His left hand gripped the dash. The right hovered near his suppressed sidearm. Every bend in the switchback felt like it might snap the road in half.
Laswell's voice crackled faint through comms, buried under static. "Last satellite ping matches the uplink node. Grid matches Cold War facility specs. Deep rock. Triple-bunkered. You're close."
"Close is a myth up here," Ghost muttered, mostly to himself.
In the backseat, Soap adjusted the straps on his plate carrier, checking his mags. His voice was quiet, low. "Doesn't feel like a 'simple' raid. We going in cold, Ghost?"
Ghost didn't turn. "Radio stays off. Signals give us away. We're ghosts again. We bleed quiet."
Soap let out a tight breath and clicked the last mag into his vest.
Behind them, Price's vehicle growled along the trail, one hand steady on the wheel, the other thumbing his earpiece. His gaze tracked the slope to the east—rocky ridgelines that funneled down into a black tree line. "The head of the snake is coiled up there," he said flat. "Let's cut it off before it strikes."
Ghost gave a single nod, jaw set. "No posturing. No warnings. We breach and burn."
The trail narrowed—stone on one side, sheer drop on the other.
The last safe turn behind them vanished in the dark.
They were in the serpent's mouth now.
--
Cold air pressed in from all sides, thick with pine and the stink of wet rock. Ghost crouched at the treeline, eyes on the ridge where Soap's silhouette flashed once—two fingers, then a closed fist. One sentry. Moving slow. Routine patrol.
Ghost tapped Price's shoulder, pointed toward the slope. Price nodded, low and tight, then ghosted forward between the trees—rifle tucked close, feet finding only soil and moss. No words. No noise.
Above, Soap and his squad melted into the ridgeline, scopes tracking the perimeter. The wind barely moved, enough to carry the faint crack of a suppressed shot. The guard staggered, dropped sideways into the brush, legs twitching once, then still.
Price didn't stop. He stepped over the body like it wasn't there.
The approach narrowed. A jagged rock face loomed ahead, broken by a seam of old concrete, its edges moss-covered and cracked with age. Camouflage netting draped over a recessed door—almost invisible unless you were looking for it. Ghost was.
He brushed the netting aside with his knife, eyes scanning for wires, sensors. None. Just an old Soviet service hatch, barely big enough for a man in gear.
He leaned in close, whispering, "Northwest flank. Service entrance. Dead zone confirmed."
Soap's reply crackled, barely audible: "Copy. Perimeter clear. No thermal pickup."
Price unslung a small pack and began prepping the breach kit—cutting torch, fiber scope, charge just in case. Ghost held position, rifle leveled, NVGs flaring faintly against the cold dark.
One last glance at the tree line. Nothing moved but the mist.
---
The cutting torch spat sparks, licking at the rusted steel like fireflies gone rabid. Ghost kept his hands steady, mask soaked in sweat beneath the black hood. One wrong twitch and the whole door might scream instead of sigh.
Steel peeled open with a soft groan, just enough for a man in kit to squeeze through sideways. No alarms. No sirens. Just the breathing mountain and the torch's hiss fading into dead air.
Price slipped in first, rifle up, boots ghosting over cracked concrete. Ghost followed, ducking low. The hallway beyond was coffin-dark—one long, narrow chute of Soviet-era decay, cables hanging like vines from the ceiling.
The team filed in behind them. Nobody spoke. Not a single click of a safety, not even a breath above a whisper.
Price's fist came up, halting them.
Footsteps. Faint. Far off.
Ghost pivoted left, scanning through night vision. Nothing but dead power boxes and mildew-streaked walls. Still, the itch along his spine told him they weren't alone.
He leaned close to Price. "Keep it clean. Keep it fast."
Price nodded once and moved. The soft tap of their boots echoed in the concrete tomb, magnified and warped by time. Dust danced in their wake, stirred up from decades of disuse.
No chatter. No light.
---
The hallway stank of ozone and mold, thick enough to coat the back of Soap's throat. Concrete walls closed in, narrow enough that every movement echoed off them like a warning shot.
Ghost raised two fingers—pause. Then pointed left, where a faint glow flickered to life under a doorway.
A low hum buzzed through the air. Power just came back on.
Price crouched at the junction, rifle steady. The others fell into formation—silent, precise.
Then: boots scuffed tile. Fast. Close.
The first guard rounded the corner mid-turn, rifle half-raised. He didn't get the second half.
Soap lunged. One hand yanked the barrel sideways, the other drove a forearm into the man's throat. The guard collapsed with a strangled gurgle, his weapon skittering across the floor.
Second one—taller, faster—emerged behind him, gun swinging wide.
Ghost was already there.
No warning. No hesitation.
He stepped in close, hooked the man's arm, and twisted hard. Bone cracked. The guard dropped his weapon and gasped. Ghost grabbed his head and wrenched.
A sick pop echoed.
The body slumped to the floor. No time for ceremony.
Soap exhaled, sharp. "That's not perimeter security. These bastards were waiting."
"No," Ghost muttered, already checking corners. "They were guarding something."
Price moved to the door ahead, boot tapping the threshold. "Stack up. We push now."
Behind them, the corridor hummed louder. Somewhere, deep inside the station, machines were waking up. Systems booting. And with them, whatever Voss had buried here.
Ghost checked his mag, clicked it back in with finality.
"Let's move."
---
The reinforced corridor ended in a steel door the size of a freight container—bolted, sealed, wired. Beyond it, the heartbeat of the station thumped low and mechanical.
Price knelt beside the control panel, flipping open the casing with a flick of his knife. "This thing's triple-layered. I can blow the relay, but we'll only get one shot."
Ghost pulled the biometric override from his pouch—a gloved hand, severed mid-wrist, wrapped in cloth to keep the sensors clean. He said nothing as he pressed the palm against the reader. The machine beeped once, then again. A pause. Green light.
The locking bolts snapped back with a heavy thunk. The door jolted open an inch, then slowly creaked wide under its own weight.
The room beyond thrummed like a living organ.
Rows of server towers loomed in the dark, blinking with green and amber lights. The air was thick—metal, ozone, heat. Cooling fans whispered like whispers in a crypt.
Soap stepped inside, rifle up. "Looks like the brainstem."
Ghost followed, eyes locked on a central console ahead, the only one still booting. A flickering holographic display shimmered on the far wall—network routes, global relays, hundreds of data streams pulsing like veins.
Price scanned the room. "No bodies. No guards. No Voss."
"Too quiet," Ghost muttered, stepping to the terminal. He typed fast, pulling local drives, decrypting feeds.
The map shifted—lines redacted, folders vanishing mid-query. One by one, the servers began purging.
Soap swore. "He's wiping it. Full burn."
Then the comms cracked.
A voice, smooth and surgical, bled through the static.
> "You really thought you could stop this? You're just ghosts. Nothing more."
Voss.
Ghost stared at the screen, jaw clenched. "He's off-site."
"Then he's watching us fail," Price said coldly. "Pull what you can."
"Trying." Ghost's fingers danced over the keys. File paths fragmented, dead-end strings. "He's got a kill-switch wired through a remote satellite loop. Probably scrambled the origin."
"Then cut the goddamn wire," Soap snapped.
"I'm cutting smoke. It's already on fire."
A new screen blinked red—one word looping over the interface:
PROTOCOL: PURGE
T-MINUS: 04:00
Ghost didn't blink. "He didn't leave this place standing."
Price's jaw tightened. "Then we bury the bastard's ghost, even if we miss the man."
Ghost's eyes flicked to the top of the screen. A single line of coordinates lingered, buried in metadata.
He memorized it.
"Move. We've got four minutes before this place eats itself alive."
Soap's rifle was already up. "Then let's carve our way out."
Ghost pulled the override key from the port, the hologram shattering into static as behind them, the servers began to overheat.
And somewhere outside, locks were slamming shut.
---
The steel bulkhead slammed shut behind them with a violent hiss, locking like a tomb seal.
Ghost spun toward the server room entrance. "Lockdown," he snapped.
Across the terminal bank, every screen flashed the same red warning:
CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
ALL ACCESS POINTS SEALED.
A low mechanical hum pulsed through the floor. In the walls, servos whined as blast doors clamped down corridor by corridor.
Soap checked the side panel. "Exit's boxed."
Price shoved past him to a wall console, slammed the butt of his rifle against the touchpad. Nothing. Dead glass.
Then Voss's voice returned, smug and precise, bleeding through the comms system like a poison drip.
> "You walked right into it. I should thank you. Made cleanup easy."
Ghost didn't flinch. He was already jacked into the security interface, fingers flying. "Manual override's buried under four layers. He's spliced access through remote satellites—encrypted, staggered feed."
Soap paced behind him, suppressor swinging from his barrel. "Can you break it?"
"If I had ten minutes and a miracle. We've got fifty seconds."
From the security cam feed, Soap watched shapes fan out across the perimeter—heat signatures flaring bright against the static background.
"Contacts closing. North and east flanks—looks like a security platoon."
Price checked his watch, then the C4 he'd left rigged by the main generator. "We set charges for nothing?"
Ghost didn't answer. His focus drilled into the code, lips moving with each command. Sweat tracked down his temple, untouched. One more bypass. One more string.
Then the room's tremor deepened. A new alert crawled across the bottom of the screen:
DETONATION SEQUENCE INITIALIZED.
T-MINUS 01:00
Price slammed his fist on the console, knuckles cracking. "We're out of time, Ghost!"
"Working it!"
Soap turned toward the corridor, rifle up. A distant clatter echoed through the tunnel—boots, weapons, steel-on-stone.
"They're coming in hard!"
Ghost muttered under his breath, "Come on, come on…" The interface blinked—access granted. Too late. The system already shifted to hardwired countdown.
---
Ghost's knuckles bled from the keys.
The override code was in. The terminal responded with a mechanical chirp—but the screen flashed red again.
OVERRIDE DENIED. FINAL SEQUENCE LOCKED.
T-MINUS 00:10
"Shit," Ghost growled, pushing back from the console hard enough that his chair slammed into the server rack behind him. His breath fogged in the cold air. The servers hissed like snakes, heat bleeding off their sides.
"Ghost!" Soap's voice cut in from the corridor. "We're outta time!"
The station groaned—metal stressed under its own weight. Somewhere deep below, an explosive relay primed. They could feel it through their boots.
Ghost reached for his last resort.
He ripped a flashbang off his vest, yanked the pin with his teeth, and hurled it into the glassed-in security booth. It shattered mid-air—brilliant white pulse, a thunderclap in the narrow chamber. He didn't look back.
"Move!" Soap shouted again, and this time, Ghost ran.
His boots pounded the steel floor, lungs burning. Soap took point, clearing the way. Price brought up the rear, watching their six. Shadows flickered through the smoke behind them—too many to count.
Five seconds left.
They hit the main corridor. The maintenance door was half-open, torqued by the blast from earlier. Ghost didn't slow. He shouldered through, caught the edge with his ribs, and staggered out into the freezing night.
One Mississippi.
The mountain trembled. A roar followed—deep and building, as if the earth itself was exhaling.
Two Mississippi.
A white flash split the trees behind them. Fire bloomed upward in a slow, hungry tower. The shockwave hit a second later—knocking them forward, hard.
Ghost hit the snow, rolled, came up on one knee, rifle still in hand.
Behind them, the radar station was gone—swallowed in flame and smoke, a black wound against the stars.
Three Mississippi.
Price coughed beside him, brushing debris from his beard. "Tell me that was the whole thing."
Ghost didn't answer. His eyes tracked the fire, jaw clenched. That wasn't a death—it was a decoy.
Soap spat snow and stood. "Voss?"
Ghost rose last, already moving. "Not dead."
Four Mississippi.
The blast still echoed through the valley.
The silence that followed was worse.
---
Rotor wash shredded the smoke like a buzzsaw. Snow and ash whipped sideways, stinging eyes, clinging to wet gear.
Ghost didn't flinch.
The Black Hawks dropped fast—no spotlight, no ceremony. Just steel, blades, and precision. NATO boots hit dirt. Suppressed rifles barked into the darkness.
Soap ducked behind a mangled support strut, rifle up, firing tight bursts. One hostile dropped near the treeline—head snapped back. Another tried flanking left. Soap adjusted his aim, clipped the bastard mid-sprint. The man folded into the snow like a broken hinge.
"Two down, right side!" Soap shouted.
Price moved past him, covering fire steady, methodical. Ghost brought up the rear, scanning for stragglers. The air still reeked of scorched plastic and burnt ozone. The radar station had been gutted—its skeleton lit by sporadic fires.
More movement. Ghost turned, dropped a man with a double tap to the sternum. Another rushed through the smoke, screaming. Bad mistake. A short burst from Ghost's M4 stitched red across his chest. He crumpled without a sound.
"Bird's waiting!" Price yelled, waving them forward.
The team pushed through the chaos, sprinting under the blade wash. Soap climbed in first, then Price. Ghost paused at the ramp, eyes sweeping the burning horizon.
Too clean.
He boarded last, boots thudding against the metal floor. The pilot shouted something, but Ghost didn't register it. He sat, rifle across his lap, face unreadable behind the mask.
"He's gone," Price said, still catching his breath. "Spectre's dead."
Ghost's response was silence. He checked his mag, then his comms, then the flash drive he'd pocketed during the breach.
No celebration. No confirmation.
Just a hunch.
The snake had slipped its skin.
---
The bird cut through the clouds like a scalpel—no lights, no chatter, just the low thrum of rotor blades grinding against the frozen air.
Ghost sat against the cabin wall, head tilted slightly, gaze locked on nothing. Helmet on, rifle across his chest. Still as stone.
Price leaned forward, voice pitched low. "We got what we came for."
Ghost didn't blink. "We got a piece. Not the one that matters."
Soap stripped his gloves off, fingers raw from frost and blood. "He torched the site. Burned his own network. That's not survival instinct. That's legacy control."
Price gave a nod. "Kill the past before the truth catches up."
The comms hissed, then Laswell's voice punched through the static. "We tracked a partial relay ping—came from Slovakia, then bounced. He's moving something. Big."
"Payload?" Ghost asked, eyes narrowing beneath the mask.
"Unclear. But it's not over. You hit his shell. He's still out there."
Ghost stood. Unclipped his harness. Boots thudded against the deck. "This was theater. He wanted us to see it fall. Every lead we've had—he let us have it."
Price frowned. "Then we flush him into the light."
Ghost grabbed a fresh mag, slammed it into place. "No. We don't flush him. We drag him. Claw by claw."
Soap muttered, "Tatra was a bluff…"
"No," Ghost cut in. "Tatra was bait."
Wind roared outside as the helo gained altitude, slicing through the veil of mountain fog. Below, the world burned quiet.
Ghost's voice was flat steel. "We go again. And this time, we don't stop until his ashes are cold."