The safehouse squatted like a forgotten bunker in the middle of nowhere—stone walls sagging under decades of cold, the scent of damp earth crawling up through floorboards. No lights. Just a flickering lantern on a cracked table, casting long shadows that didn't sit still.
Soap shoved the door open with his shoulder and staggered inside, boots dragging. His rifle clattered onto the table. He grabbed a bottle of water and downed half in one go, breath hitching like his lungs hadn't caught up to him yet. "That was too close," he muttered, wiping his mouth on a sleeve. "Should've been easier. Bastard had his hooks in everything."
No one answered.
Price kicked the door shut behind them, peeled off his vest, and dropped into the corner chair like gravity had finally won. Mud and blood crusted the edge of his fatigues. His eyes didn't move from the small, warped window where the last glow of fire still pulsed on the horizon. "He burned everything," he said flatly.
Ghost walked through the door last, slower than the others, hands still flexing open and closed like they didn't know what to do anymore. He passed through the room without a word, vanished down the hallway into the back.
Soap looked after him but didn't follow. Not yet.
The place creaked in the silence. Wind whispered through the seams in the stone. Somewhere, water dripped in the walls.
Price leaned forward, elbows on knees, jaw set. "We're not done," he said, voice gravel-low. "Not yet."
Soap let the silence swallow that, then twisted the cap off another bottle. The air smelled like ghosts and gunpowder. He drank anyway.
---
The back room was darker than the rest—window boarded, light barely cutting through the slats. Dust floated in the stale air. The mirror on the wall, spiderwebbed with cracks, leaned sideways like it had given up holding itself straight.
Ghost stood in front of it, motionless.
The mask stared back at him.
Scorched at the edges. Blood dried in the seams. His own breath ghosted the surface with every slow exhale. He didn't blink. Didn't move.
The reflection wasn't a man—it was the sum of bad decisions stitched into black fabric.
His hand lifted. Fingers brushed the glass.
Footsteps behind him. A single knock, then Soap pushed the door open without waiting.
"You good?" he asked.
Ghost didn't answer. He stepped back from the mirror, picked up his tac vest from the chair. Velcro hissed as he locked the straps down with sharp, practiced movements. The kind you don't think about. The kind that become habit after too much war and too little peace.
Soap leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. Watching. Waiting. "You know," he said, voice low, "it's okay to let some of it go. You don't have to carry the whole damn graveyard."
Ghost kept buckling gear. Each snap of plastic punctuated the silence.
Finally, his head turned. One glance, empty of expression. "I don't know how," he said.
Soap nodded once. Didn't push. "You don't have to figure it out tonight. Hell, maybe not ever."
He left the door open behind him.
Ghost looked back at the mirror. The mask still stared.
But this time, he turned away first.
---
The safehouse creaked with the wind, old beams groaning under the weight of years and cold. Inside, a dim bulb swung above the table, casting jittery light across the spread of files. Scorched edges. Ink smudged by heat and blood. It smelled like smoke and old secrets.
Soap leaned in, squinting at the decrypted file. "This one's from Berlin. Logistics manifest… military-grade comms rerouted through shell companies. Voss wasn't freelancing."
Price grunted, flipping another page. "Spectre had backing. Real backing. Not just rogue ops—this stinks of sanctioned silence."
Soap's jaw clenched. "NATO. CIA. Maybe even FSB. He had hands in every goddamn pocket."
The room quieted. Pages turned. Outside, something howled—a coyote or the wind—didn't matter. The world felt smaller in that moment. Trapped.
Price laid out the documents like cards in a bad hand. "It was never about leverage. He wanted us gone. All of 141. Buried clean."
Footsteps thudded down the hall. Ghost stepped in, gear half strapped, eyes scanning the mess on the table. He didn't sit. Just hovered like a loaded trigger.
"What's that?" he asked, voice like gravel.
Soap pushed the Berlin file toward him. "Spectre wasn't the end. Just the knife they threw."
Ghost scanned the lines, lips tightening. He looked up, face unreadable behind the mask, but his body tensed—shoulders squared, fingers curling.
He slammed his palm flat against the table, the crack of it cutting through the room. "Then we stop waiting. No more waiting."
Price met his stare. "We don't even have a full list of who's involved."
"Don't need one," Ghost said. "Just need a trail."
Soap rubbed a hand down his face. "We don't even know where to start."
Ghost pointed at a line of code in the satellite uplink file. "We start there. The uplink Spectre was hijacking—it's active. Still transmitting. That's our window."
Price leaned in, eyes sharp. "You sure?"
"I'm not sleeping until this ends. You?"
No one answered. They didn't need to.
Price exhaled slow, then nodded. "Alright. We hit first. No warnings. No mercy."
Soap tapped the uplink coordinates. "Let's finish what the bastard started. Then bury it deeper than hell."
Ghost's voice cut in, low and final. "We end it before it ends us."
---
Metal clinked against metal—magazines locking into place, rifle bolts checked, gear strapped tight. No one spoke. The room pulsed with a silent tempo: the rhythm of men preparing to kill.
Ghost stood over the map, eyes fixed on the red mark etched across Eastern Europe. A facility deep in the Carpathians, scrubbed from satellite maps but not from Spectre's files. Hidden, buried, and still humming with classified heat.
Soap adjusted the sling on his M4, then tested the weight. "Place is blacker than black. Not even whispers on the darknet."
Price loaded a final mag, snapped the pouch shut. "Which makes it real. No chatter means someone's still guarding it."
Ghost didn't lift his head. He traced a gloved finger from the marked coordinates to the nearest exfil route. "One entrance. Reinforced. No air cover."
"Sounds like a trap," Soap muttered.
"Everything's a trap," Ghost said. "Only question is who's on the other end."
Price folded the map with surgical precision and shoved it into his vest. "This isn't revenge. This is cleanup. Final sweep."
Ghost turned, eyes locked behind the skull mask. "It's a burial."
Soap grabbed his sidearm, holstered it with a click. "Then let's dig the hole."
They moved without ceremony. Each man hit the door with weight behind his stride—no hesitation, no speeches. Outside, the cold bit harder than before, but they didn't feel it. Not really.
At the vehicle, Price tossed a duffel into the back seat and slid behind the wheel. Soap took passenger. Ghost paused, hand on the door, scanning the treeline.
"This ends in blood," he said.
Price met his gaze in the mirror. "As it should."
Ghost got in, door slamming shut like a vault sealing. No one looked back. The safehouse would still be there. Or not. Didn't matter.
What mattered was the mark. The mission.
One last war. One last shot.
---
The C-130 thundered down the runway, wheels lifting from cracked tarmac under the weight of history, grit, and whatever was left of Task Force 141. Inside, the cabin vibrated with a low, constant growl—metal, engine, momentum.
Ghost sat by the window, arms folded, helmet resting on his knee. His gaze cut through the reflection, past the clouds building on the horizon. He didn't blink. Didn't move. The mask stayed on.
Soap leaned back against a supply crate, chewing a piece of gum like it might bite him first. "Feels different this time."
Ghost didn't respond.
"I mean, it's always been bad," Soap continued, voice louder to cut through the noise. "But this… this is something else."
Price was across from them, elbows on his knees, eyes sharp despite the hours. "Because it is different."
Soap tilted his head. "We've done black sites, coups, assassinations. This is worse?"
"This is scorched earth," Price said. "No politics. No orders. No backups. Just us cleaning house before they bury us next."
A beat of silence. The kind that landed heavy.
Ghost's voice cut in, low and firm. "Let them try."
Soap snorted. "Hell of a eulogy, mate."
Ghost turned, just enough to meet Soap's eyes. "It's not a eulogy. It's a warning."
The plane hit turbulence. A soft jolt. Nobody flinched.
Price pulled out a sat phone, thumbed through encrypted notes, then put it away like it didn't matter anymore.
The rest of the flight passed in silence. The kind built on decisions already made. No second thoughts. No regrets.
Only ghosts.
---
[This is extra chapter]