The desert didn't whisper. It pressed. It weighed.
The Hilux rattled like bones in a steel drum, tires kicking dust that didn't settle—just hung in the air like ash. No radio. No GPS. Just a sunburned compass duct-taped to the dash and Ethan's knuckles white on the map he hadn't unfolded in three years.
Ghost drove like he didn't trust the wheel, like anything with a motor could betray them. His mask stared straight ahead, unreadable as ever.
Ethan scraped dust from the dashboard with a fingernail, carving points into it. Seven dots. Three aligned. Orion's belt, skewed for the Southern sky.
> "He wasn't given a number," he muttered. "Just a constellation."
Ghost didn't respond. Didn't flinch.
The Hilux shuddered as it crested a dry ridge, the salt flat stretching infinite ahead of them. White. Silent. Like the dead waiting with their mouths full of sand.
Ethan shifted in his seat, elbow brushing the stock of the suppressed AX-50 wedged beside his leg. He glanced up at the sky—not for answers. Just habit. The stars wouldn't show for hours.
Didn't matter. He knew where the grave was.
He'd helped dig it the first time.
---
The Hilux rolled to a dead halt beside the outcropping—its shape wrong for nature, right for camouflage. Once a watchtower. Now a cairn.
Ghost killed the engine. Heat swallowed the silence.
Ethan stepped out first. The air scorched. Boots crunched over salted gravel as he approached the slab—charred stone, crusted with age and smoke. Seven dots etched in with a combat knife long dulled. Orion's belt.
He crouched and pulled the e-tool from his ruck, blade rusted at the hinge. His hands wouldn't steady. Not with this. Not here.
> "His name was Morgan Sykes," he said, low. "Ghost Recon liaison. He refused Valk's test runs in Mali. Just... disappeared."
Ghost stood back, arms crossed, weight in the hip like he didn't plan on helping. The mask didn't blink.
> "Orders said he went rogue. Broke chain of command."
Ethan dug harder. The sand fought back—dry, packed, thick with memory. His palms bled across the grip. He didn't stop.
> "And who wrote the orders?"
Ghost didn't answer.
The shovel clanged. Metal.
Ethan dropped to his knees and swept the dirt with bare hands. A military ammo crate, half-eaten by rust. No coffin. No ceremony.
He cracked it open.
Inside: scorched dog tags. Ash sealed in a black pouch. And a field journal—pages water-warped, corners burned, spine snapped.
---
Ethan sat on the crate's edge, sun baking the back of his neck. He thumbed through the journal—pages stuck from time, corners singed like someone tried to torch it but hesitated. Field-grade paper. Sykes' handwriting: blocky, neat, the kind you learn when details mean court-martials.
Each entry cut like a scalpel.
Mission: Blacksite Kilo-9
> "Subject neutralization without psych clearance. Operator flagged for thrill-seeking behavior. Valk signed off."
Mission: Harrow's Gate
> "Deliberate exposure to trauma loops. Civilian minors used as 'authentic stressors.' Nobody pulled the plug."
Page after page. Ethical redlines crossed like they were speed bumps. Operators groomed for compliance, not conscience.
Then the last page.
Written fast. Ink smeared, but legible:
> "Valk's algorithm doesn't filter sociopaths—it engineers them. SPECTRE isn't an outlier. He's the prototype."
Ethan didn't breathe for a full ten seconds. Then he tore the page clean and handed it to Ghost.
Ghost took it without a word. Read it once. Folded it twice.
> "This was buried," Ghost said, voice flat. "Burned for a reason."
> "And that reason's sitting at a desk," Ethan snapped, "while we carry coffins made of silence."
The air stretched thin between them.
Ethan's stare drilled through the skull under Ghost's mask.
> "You knew, didn't you?"
Ghost didn't blink.
> "I knew someone had to carry it. Someone had to keep it buried."
Ethan nodded once—slow, like it confirmed something ugly he already suspected. Whatever they'd built between them—trust, rhythm, the kind of battlefield bond that doesn't need words—cracked.
Not shattered.
But nothing would glue it back the same way.
---
The moment the gull-shaped drone banked left, Ethan knew it wasn't a bird. Too smooth. Too deliberate. Its wings shimmered in the sun like chrome.
Ghost didn't hesitate. One round from his suppressed M4 snapped it from the sky. The drone crashed into the salt crust in a hiss of sparks and fractured polyfiber.
> "Too late," Ghost muttered, cycling his bolt.
Ethan rose slowly, dusted salt from his hands, eyes scanning the horizon. The shimmer warped distance, bent shapes. Mirage or movement—it didn't matter. Instinct said both.
Then the figures emerged.
Four of them, cloaked, rifles slung low but not relaxed. They kicked up powdered salt as they moved—trained cadence, not locals. Not militia. Hired eyes.
No comms. No flag. But they weren't blind. They walked like they already knew where to stop.
> "They're not here to kill us," Ghost said, squinting behind his mask. "They're here to see what we're digging."
Ethan dropped behind the collapsed watch post, rifle already braced on a rusted girder. He dialed wind. Heat shimmer distorted his scope's edge, but he focused on movement—breath, not outline.
The first shot broke the silence. Not his.
A warning round hissed past the rocks.
> "Eyes up, Star," Ghost called. "They're testing our perimeter."
Ethan didn't flinch. He tracked the lead silhouette—broad shoulders, flak armor under the robe, comm bead tucked into a scarf.
Then it spoke. Projected across the flats like theater.
> "The past doesn't matter, Star. Valk writes the future."
Ethan's finger settled on the trigger. One steady breath. His scope framed the speaker's neck—bare, sweat gleaming under a mesh hood.
The round hit like punctuation. The merc crumpled without drama. No scream. Just dropped—throat blown out and silence reclaiming the salt.
> "Then he'll bleed in the present," Ethan said, racking another round.
The other three scattered, but they didn't return fire. They weren't here to win. They were here to witness.
Ethan watched them fade into the distortion—phantoms unbothered by failure. Watching was enough.
And someone, somewhere, had already seen what they needed.
---
The last merc bled out behind a wind-sheared boulder, rifle still clutched like it mattered. Salt crusted the air, stinging open skin. Ethan stood over the grave again, its edges darkened by boot prints and bullet casings. Ghost lit the journal with a single match, pages curling inward like wounded skin.
The fire crackled soft against the wind, eating through names, dates, codes—evidence that had survived years buried in silence. Ethan didn't look away. Neither did Ghost.
Only the final page remained. Ash flaked off its edge, the words still legible in black ink and spite. Ethan snatched it before the fire could finish what Valk started.
He folded it once. Slid it into the pouch above his heart.
Not burning that.
---
The drive back cut through flat desert, tires humming against cracked asphalt. Inside the armored scout rig, the silence wasn't peaceful. It clung—tight and wired.
Ethan stared out the passenger window, sweat drying in streaks across dust-caked skin. His fingers tapped the edge of his knee like a metronome stuck in interrogation mode.
> "You ever wonder if we're the bad guys?" His voice landed low, like a bullet that knew where it was going.
Ghost didn't glance over. Hands steady on the wheel, eyes fixed dead ahead.
> "Every day," he said. "But I wonder louder when I stop moving."
Ethan let that hang. Let the weight of it stretch.
Then:
> "Morgan didn't stop moving," he said, quieter now. "He just moved without permission."
Ghost said nothing. Didn't correct him. Didn't defend command. Didn't deflect.
That silence? It was louder than a yes.
They drove on. Dust behind them. Ash ahead.