The ridge trembled under the rotors' downdraft, snow dust curling into the night like smoke from a lit fuse.
Ghost stood with his back to the wind, visor down, scanning the digital overlay from the drone feed on his wrist tablet. Blips marked movement—heat signatures tucked deep in the radar station's belly.
Behind him, Soap yanked open his gear case and started checking magazines, methodical and fast. His voice cut through the engine whine. "CQB loadouts only. Buckshot, breachers, short barrels. If you're thinking about hesitation, don't."
Price tightened the strap on his vest, face lined with frost and time. He pulled his mask up just enough to breathe deep, then down again. "We don't get a second run at this. No backup, no failsafe."
Laswell's voice buzzed through comms. "Final thermal scan uploaded. Voss has a hardened bunker beneath the station—concrete, reinforced doors, two security rings. If he runs, it'll be through that tunnel."
Ghost closed the tablet, clipped it back to his chest rig. "He won't run. He's expecting a siege. But this isn't a siege."
Soap glanced up. "Then what is it?"
Ghost turned toward the edge of the ridge, looking down at the dim silhouette of the Soviet ruin in the valley below. "It's a kill operation."
The squad fell silent. Each man checked his weapon—steel on steel, no wasted motion. They didn't pray. They didn't talk about home. Just one last scan of gear, eyes locked forward.
Price adjusted the comms earpiece. "We hit fast, we hit final. No retreat, no survivors."
Ghost's voice came low, steady. "We cut the head. No speeches. No warnings."
Snow flurried against them, fine as powdered glass. The helicopters idled behind them, ready to carry in the reapers.
---
Snow crushed under boots like bones ground to powder. No voices. Just the low crunch of movement and the whisper of wind carving across the Tatra ridgelines. The mountains loomed—monolithic, ancient—watching the small team cut through the dark like wraiths.
Soap took point, body low, rifle tight to his shoulder. His breath steamed through the balaclava, vanishing as quickly as it formed. Night-vision goggles painted the world in green ghosts—trees, rocks, the faint heat shimmer of distant wildlife. None of it mattered. Only the structure ahead: half-buried, Cold War steel, dead quiet.
"Two clicks to the wall," Soap murmured over comms, voice flat. "No patrols. Either they're cocky or they've pulled in."
Ghost followed five paces back, every step measured. He watched the treeline, thermal overlay mapping cold spaces where heat should be. Nothing moved. That made it worse.
"They know we're coming," Ghost said. Not a guess. A read.
Price's voice broke in, hushed but firm. "Team Bravo's splitting now. East slope infiltration. You two breach the front. Draw the bite."
Soap didn't answer. He adjusted the sling on his shotgun and kept moving.
A ridge break revealed the target—gray steel fused into the mountain like a wound left open too long. Fences rusted out. Towers dark. No movement on the surface, but heat flared faintly beneath, low and tight. Sublevel power draw.
Ghost studied the feed. "Generators are on. They're deep. No sentries."
Soap slowed to a crouch behind a frozen boulder, scanning the approach. "Feels wrong."
"It is," Ghost replied. "That's why it works."
They moved again, silent shadows gliding through the snow. The air was thinner here—breath shallow, heartbeat loud.
At the perimeter, Soap knelt and tapped his comm twice—ready.
Price responded instantly. "Move."
---
The radar station rose from the snow like a bunker carved from the bones of the Cold War—steel ribs, concrete skin, all rusted and wired for pain. The outer fence sagged, barbs drooping like claws dulled by time. Still, Ghost didn't trust the silence.
He knelt at the gatepost, gloved fingers brushing ice off the locking mechanism. A quick glance confirmed no tripwires, no mines—at least none visible. Soap crouched beside him, scanning the roofline through the lens of his rifle.
"Too easy," Soap muttered.
Ghost planted the thermal charge on the side panel without a word. The indicator pulsed red. He pressed the arm switch.
Four seconds.
They stepped back.
The door blew inward with a snarl of fire and shrapnel, the boom muffled by the snow but still echoing off the cliffside like a war drum.
Soap surged forward, shotgun raised. Ghost followed, rifle sweeping the dark corridor beyond. The cold hit them like a fist—metal and mildew, blood beneath the rust. Overhead, a flickering light buzzed but gave up after a second.
Footsteps. Low voices. Movement to the right.
Ghost froze at the corner, spotted two silhouettes behind a pile of collapsed equipment—guards. Not reacting yet. Not aware.
Soap tapped twice on Ghost's shoulder. Left hand up, thumb curled: flashbang.
Ghost pulled one from his rig, yanked the pin, and lobbed it past the threshold.
The blast cracked like lightning in a cave. Screams followed—brief and sharp.
Soap turned the corner before the echoes faded. Two shots barked from his shotgun—clean, close, final.
"Clear," he hissed.
Ghost moved in, scanned the bodies—no insignia, no names. Just dead men wearing borrowed time.
Behind them, more boots hit the floor—Price's team breaching from the rear, merging with their path.
"Stack up," Price ordered.
Ghost nodded once, already moving toward the next hallway.
---
The hallway pressed in like a tomb, concrete sweating with years of stale oil and colder intentions. Blinking red lights pulsed from the ceiling, more warning than illumination. Ghost moved ahead of the stack, rifle up, muzzle whispering through the dark.
Soap's voice crackled low in his ear. "Movement up ahead. Two o'clock."
Ghost held up a fist. The team froze.
Footsteps echoed—slow, deliberate, not panicked. Voss's security. Trained. Not cannon fodder.
Ghost signaled: two fingers, then a closed fist. Breach and clear.
Price nodded, then kicked the steel door ahead. It groaned open—then all hell snapped loose.
Gunfire shredded the corridor. Muzzle flashes lit the walls in staccato bursts. Soap returned fire, rounds thudding into armor. One hostile dropped, another ducked behind a pillar.
Ghost didn't join the barrage. He slipped right, hugged the wall, found a side corridor where shadows bled deeper.
Two guards flanked the far door. One checked his mag, the other glanced toward the firefight.
Ghost stepped forward, blade low.
The first didn't see it coming. The knife slid in under the jaw, quiet and fatal. Ghost let the man drop and caught his body before it hit the ground. The second turned, too slow.
Ghost buried the blade into his ribs, twisted hard, then shoved him back against the wall. The man gasped once and folded.
"Flank's clear," Ghost said into comms.
"Copy that," Price answered, voice clipped between gunshots. "Pushing forward."
Ghost moved to the corner, caught a flash of Soap reloading behind cover, brass shells piling at his boots. Price stepped past, covering the advance with short bursts.
"The bastard's close," Soap grunted, slamming a fresh mag home. "We've got a date with destiny."
Ghost didn't answer. He moved ahead, stepping over a body still twitching, his eyes locked on the reinforced door at the end of the hall.
---
The hallway ended in a vault-like door—reinforced steel with hydraulic locks and scorch marks from the earlier skirmish. The kind of door meant to keep the world out.
Soap checked the charge on his last mag. "This has to be it."
Ghost said nothing. He moved to the panel beside the door, pulled a signal jammer from his belt, and slapped it onto the comm node. The lights flickered.
Inside, the hum of servers and machinery vibrated through the walls.
Price stepped up. "On you."
Ghost keyed the override. Hydraulic seals hissed, then groaned. The door cracked open an inch.
The room beyond lit up with sterile blue light—monitors, servers, a massive screen dead center, scrolling satellite schematics and a red countdown: 00:02:07.
And there—center stage—stood Voss.
He didn't flinch at the intrusion. No weapon in hand. Just one finger resting beside the launch button like a vulture near carrion.
"Right on time," Voss said, tone calm as if briefing a boardroom. "You've already lost. You just haven't realized it yet."
Ghost stepped through the doorway, rifle locked on target. "You've got ninety seconds to live. Use them wisely."
Voss smiled, slow and cold. "I've spent years planning for this. The systems are autonomous now. Killing me won't stop what's coming."
Price entered next, scanning corners. "Then we make damn sure nothing leaves this room."
Soap followed, rifle aimed high. "You always were a smug prick."
Voss turned slightly toward the screen, where nuclear payload vectors streamed across a global map. "You think you've won just because you made it here? That's your mistake. You never saw the game. Only the pieces."
Ghost stepped closer. "We saw enough."
He raised his rifle.
Voss stared down the barrel, unblinking. "You're not ready for what's next."
Price's voice cut in, sharp. "He's stalling."
Voss didn't deny it. He simply smiled again—and tapped a sequence into the control panel.
The screen flashed red. Alarms shrieked to life. The countdown blinked 00:01:00.
---
A sharp beep sliced the air. The countdown accelerated. Explosions rippled somewhere deep in the station, rocking the walls. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, coughing sparks.
"Contact left!" Soap barked, already dropping behind a server rack as gunfire shredded the air.
Price hit the deck, returning fire toward the guards scrambling out of the far corridor—Voss's last line, loyal to the bitter end.
But Ghost didn't blink. Didn't fire. His eyes locked on Voss.
"Thirty seconds," Voss said, a satisfied snarl curling his lips. "Let's see what you've got without a scope."
Ghost dropped his rifle.
It clattered across the floor, sliding to a stop beneath the console.
Then he charged.
Voss met him head-on, two decades of covert training erupting in a blur of fists and elbows. The first hit—a wild cross from Voss—caught Ghost's jaw, but he absorbed it, drove forward, shoulder-checking him into the control panel.
Metal groaned. Screens cracked.
Ghost grabbed Voss's vest, yanked him off-balance, and kneed him hard in the ribs.
Voss coughed, then retaliated with an open palm strike to the throat—fast, dirty. Ghost staggered. Voss spun, landed a boot to his knee, tried to drop him.
Didn't work.
Ghost surged up, caught Voss by the collar, and rammed his head into the reinforced glass beside the countdown.
00:19.
"You should've stayed in the shadows," Ghost growled, voice low, rough.
Voss grinned through a smear of blood. "I became the shadows. You just wore the mask."
He headbutted Ghost—sharp, sudden.
Ghost reeled, blinked out blood, then drove a hook into Voss's side, another to the jaw. Voss dropped to a knee. Ghost didn't hesitate—grabbed him, flipped him, pinned him flat on his back.
Knees on his arms. One hand locked around Voss's throat.
Voss clawed at him. Kicked. Snarled. But Ghost's grip didn't falter.
"You talk too much," Ghost muttered.
Pressure. More pressure. Until the fight in Voss's eyes dimmed.
His last breath rasped out.
Gone.
Behind him, Soap shouted over the alarms: "Ghost, we've got five seconds until this place goes!"
Ghost stood slowly. His fingers shook. Not from fear. From rage finally spent.
---
The lights died as the building began to tear itself apart.
Alarms screamed. Concrete groaned like a wounded animal. Ceiling tiles cracked loose and shattered across the floor. Smoke belched from the vents. The control room no longer existed—it had become a furnace waiting to light.
Ghost stood over Voss's corpse, still breathing hard, knuckles blood-slicked, chest rising and falling like a piston. Something deep inside him wanted to stay. Watch it all burn.
"Ghost!" Price's voice cut through the chaos. "Move!"
He didn't hesitate after that.
They ran.
Down the hall, debris rained from the ceiling in chunks. The power grid surged—lights flared white, then plunged to red. Every step felt like it came too late.
Soap kicked open a steel door ahead. "Stairwell's intact!"
The moment they turned in, a section of the upper walkway gave out. Metal screamed as it collapsed behind them.
"Bloody hell—go, go, go!"
They pounded down the stairwell three at a time, boots hammering the concrete, lungs dragging in smoke and cordite. Price tossed a shoulder into a half-jammed door at the bottom. It gave, barely.
The corridor on the other side was flooded with emergency lights and flame. A gas line had ruptured—fuel hissed from the walls, feeding the fire climbing toward the ceiling.
Ghost didn't blink. He led through it, covering his mouth with a sleeve, pushing forward as heat pressed in from all sides.
"Ghost, this whole place is coming down!" Soap coughed behind him.
Ghost didn't look back. "Then don't stop."
Ahead: the outer hallway. The last corridor before open snow.
The far wall cracked. Concrete shifted. Dust snowed down like ash.
Ghost slammed into the last door with his shoulder—twice. On the third hit, it burst open, and cold night air rushed in like salvation.
They sprinted out into the open. The blast from behind shoved them forward like a giant's hand. Ghost turned just enough to catch the fireball chewing through the roof. The radar tower split and caved like a snapped bone, vanishing in a roar of thunder and flame.
They didn't look back again.
"Chopper's two clicks out!" Price shouted, voice ragged.
Soap peeled off first, angling toward the treeline. Ghost and Price followed, breath clouding, boots tearing across frozen ground.
Behind them, the last remnants of Voss's empire collapsed in on itself—screaming steel, shattering glass, and the death of a legacy born in shadows.
---
The treeline broke wide—frost-bitten pines giving way to open ground scarred with rotor wash. Snow whipped in furious spirals as the helo hovered low, its searchlight slashing through smoke and darkness.
"Move your ass!" Soap barked, half-shoved Ghost forward, his own breath fogging like steam.
The radar station behind them detonated again—secondary explosions ripping the sky open with orange teeth. Chunks of flaming debris punched into the trees. The ground kicked. Ghost staggered but didn't fall.
They sprinted across the clearing. Blades thundered above them. The wind pulled at their gear like fingers trying to drag them backward.
Soap reached the skids first, leapt, caught the side rail, and hauled himself in with a grunt. "Let's go! Let's go!"
Price was next, bounding up the ramp with one hand still clutching his rifle. He twisted mid-step, firing a single shot past Ghost's shoulder—one last straggler, stumbling from the smoke. The body dropped before it could raise its weapon.
Ghost didn't blink. He sprinted, boots slamming into frozen ground, and threw himself onto the chopper's ramp just as it started to rise. Soap grabbed him by the harness and yanked him in hard.
The blast wave hit a heartbeat later.
The entire forest behind them lit up as the rest of the radar station swallowed itself in fire. The shockwave slapped the helicopter sideways. Metal shrieked. Everyone inside braced as the pilot fought to level them.
Ghost rolled to his knees, pushed upright. Smoke coated his mask. Blood smeared one glove. He looked down—no idea if it was his or someone else's.
"Status?" Price called out, crouched near the door.
"Clear!" Soap shouted back, breathing hard. "We're clear."
The door gunner swept the treeline with his scope. Nothing moved.
Above the chaos, the pilot's voice crackled in their ears: "We're out. Thirty seconds to ridge."
Ghost stood near the open hatch, watching the inferno shrink below. The snow around the blast site glowed like molten glass, black smoke clawing at the sky.
Price joined him, one hand braced on the frame. "Voss is done," he said. "But that network of his... it won't fold easy."
Ghost didn't look at him. Just reloaded his rifle with sharp, practiced hands. "Doesn't have to fold. Just has to bleed."
Soap leaned in between them, panting, bruised, grinning like a man who'd outrun death again. "How many ghosts left to put down?"
Ghost stared at the fire. Voice flat. "One ghost at a time."
---
The helicopter climbed, rotors slicing through soot-thick air. Below them, the radar station crumbled into a hell-pit of flame and steel, its towers collapsing like rusted bones. Snow turned to ash mid-air. Trees glowed from the inside, charred black from the shockwaves. The night wasn't dark anymore—it burned.
Ghost stood near the open hatch, gripping the frame hard enough to blanch his knuckles. The heat from below licked at his boots, a final warning from the grave he'd left behind. He didn't flinch.
Soap eased into the bench across from him, sweat crusted into the cuts on his face, fingers still twitching from the fight. "Hell of a bonfire," he muttered, rubbing his jaw.
Price sat between them, helmet off, hair matted to his scalp. "Voss thought he could win by hiding underground. Arrogant bastard never saw the reaper coming."
Ghost didn't respond. His gaze stayed locked on the inferno. Something about the way it moved—wild, aimless, angry—looked familiar. Like the part of him he'd buried a long time ago was still down there, clawing up through smoke.
Soap leaned forward, elbows on knees. "You ever think this ends, Ghost?" No sarcasm in it. No smile. Just the kind of question you ask when you're not sure you want the answer.
Ghost's reply came low. Flat. "Not until everything's gone."
Price glanced between them. Didn't push.
The chopper banked left, pulling away from the mountain's edge. Wind screamed through the open hatch. Snow chased them into the dark, and the glow of the fire finally disappeared behind the treeline.
Soap lit a cigarette with a shaky hand, took one drag, then flicked it into the cold. "One ghost at a time," he said, echoing Ghost's words. "What happens when there's none left?"
Ghost checked his weapon, chambered a round, and leaned back into the hull. "We'll find another war."
No one argued.