The Ghost in the Warehouse
PART 1
The first round didn’t sound like a gunshot. It sounded like a dry branch snapping under a heavy boot—sharp, final, and utterly out of place in the morning stillness.
It took a fraction of a second for the sound to register, but physics is faster than sound. By the time that crack reached my ears, Arthur Donovan was already dead. The bullet had taken out his throat before he could finish his sentence.
I saw it happen. I saw the red mist spray against the beige concrete of the Operations Center wall. I saw the look of total confusion on his face as his hands flew to his neck, trying to hold in a life that was already gone.
Then the second crack tore through the air. Clayton Hayes—former Green Beret, a man made of granite and scar tissue—dropped mid-stride. The round punched through his chest armor like it was wet cardboard.
Then, the world exploded.
But let me back up. Because to understand why a logistics coordinator—a woman who spent her days counting toilet paper rolls and arguing with vendors about vegetable delivery—was the only one who didn’t flinch, you have to understand the lie I’d been living for fourteen months.
My name is Carolyn Spencer. To everyone at the Sentinel Security Group compound in the Alcader Province, I was “Carol from Supply.” I was the quiet, thirty-eight-year-old blonde woman with the practical ponytail who made sure the ammunition counts matched the manifest and that the cafeteria never ran out of coffee.
I was boring. I was invisible. I was safe.
And that was exactly how I wanted it.
The Alcader Province is a special kind of hell. It’s a landscape of jagged rock and endless dust, baking under a sun that feels personal in its hatred. The air shimmers at 0600, turning the horizon into a liquid, unstable mess. Sentinel Security sat in the middle of this oven like a concrete fortress. Twelve-foot walls topped with razor wire, surveillance cameras every fifteen meters, and enough firepower to start a small war.
It was designed by men who understood that in this part of the world, security wasn’t optional. It was the difference between going home in a plane seat and going home in a pine box.
For fourteen months, my world had been reduced to barcodes and inventory tablets.
“Carol, we short on the 5.56 rounds again?”
I looked up from my tablet in the supply warehouse. It was Kenneth Foster, the compound manager. Good man. Soft around the middle, sweat stains perpetually mapping the armpits of his polo shirt. He was a former Army supply sergeant who had figured out that private contracting paid three times as much for half the stress.
“We’re not short, Ken,” I said, my voice leveled to a pitch I’d practiced. Calm. Unthreatening. “The count is correct. The QRF team just forgot to log their range usage yesterday. I adjusted it manually.”
Kenneth wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that had seen better days. “You’re a lifesaver, Carol. Seriously. I don’t know how you keep track of all this. It’s mind-numbing.”
“I like mind-numbing,” I lied. The lie was smooth, worn down like a river stone. “It’s peaceful.”
Peaceful meant I could sleep at night without seeing Patrick Coleman’s face. Peaceful meant I didn’t have to feel the recoil of a rifle against my shoulder or calculate the windage required to end a human life from eight hundred meters away. Peaceful meant burying the person I used to be so deep that even I couldn’t find her.
“Well, brace yourself,” Ken said, leaning against the doorframe. “Peaceful is over. We’ve got a VIP inbound. Marilyn Fitzgerald.”
I paused, my finger hovering over the screen. “Tech Vantage Corporation?”
“The one and only. Forbes 500. Worth about twelve billion. She’s coming to evaluate the security posture. Art wants the full dog and pony show. Close protection, hardened perimeter, the works.” He handed me a printed list. “Her team sent this over. Dietary requirements, secure comms setup, medical upgrades.”
I scanned the list. It was standard high-maintenance executive nonsense. Gluten-free options in a combat zone. High-speed encrypted Wi-Fi. It was written by lawyers who thought a war zone was just a spicy business trip.
“I can have this staged by 1400,” I said.
“You’re a wizard, Carol.” Ken pushed off the doorframe. “Steven Murphy is handling the convoy. Art has the whole security team on standby. Everyone’s tense.” He paused, looking at me with a strange expression. “You ever do close protection work? Before you came here?”
My heart didn’t skip a beat. My pulse didn’t rise. I had trained my autonomic nervous system better than that.
“No,” I said, offering a small, self-deprecating smile. “Just logistics. Supply chain management. Boxes and spreadsheets. That’s my speed.”
Ken nodded, buying it, just like everyone else. “Right. Well, keep doing what you’re doing.”
As he walked away, I looked down at my hands. They were steady. No tremors. They looked like the hands of a woman who filed paperwork. But beneath the skin, the muscle memory was screaming. A VIP visit meant heightened protocols. It meant the security team would be on edge. It meant the compound would be buzzing with the kind of kinetic energy I had spent three years running away from.
I walked past the Operations Center an hour later. It was the nerve center of the compound, a dark room lit by the glow of forty-two monitors.
Art Donovan was holding court. Art was fifty-two, carved from granite, a former Marine Force Recon legend. He moved with an economy of motion that demanded respect. Around him stood the “Titans”—Sentinel’s best operators.
There was Clayton Hayes, the former Green Beret. Warren Blake, the Navy Corpsman who had seen more trauma than a downtown ER. Rachel Turner, sharp-eyed and lethal. Owen Mitchell, the young Army Ranger who still had the restless energy of a man looking for a fight.
“You got that supply list sorted?” Art asked as I entered.
“Everything is staged in the guest quarters,” I said, handing him the manifest.
Clayton Hayes turned to me. He was strapping on his gear, checking the fit of his plate carrier. “Heard good things about your logistics work. Supply chain runs smooth, operations run smooth.”
“Just doing my job,” I said, stepping back. I didn’t like being this close to them. They smelled like CLP gun oil, sweat, and adrenaline. It was a smell that triggered memories I kept locked in a box in the back of my mind.
“Clayton is running point on the VIP,” Art explained, pointing to the tactical map on the table. “We’re running four-man rotations. Observation Ridge,” he tapped a jagged line on the map, “is the main concern. It has clear sight lines to most of the compound.”
I looked at the map. My eyes didn’t see lines and topography; they saw firing solutions.
Observation Ridge. Elevation advantage: sixty meters. Distance: four hundred to eight hundred meters depending on the angle. Rock formations offering natural defilade. If I were setting up an ambush, I’d put a spotter there, and a shooter there.
I realized the room had gone quiet. Art was looking at me.
“Something wrong, Carol?”
I blinked, the tactical overlay in my brain fading back to gray. “No. Just… wondering if you need extra water staged for the patrol teams on the ridge. It’s going to be hot.”
“Good thinking,” Art said, dismissing me. “Get with Carl and Frank.”
I walked out of the Ops Center, my heart hammering against my ribs. I had almost done it. I had almost started talking about fields of fire and dead zones. I had almost let the Ghost out.
Fourteen months of hiding. I couldn’t blow it now.
The convoy arrived at 1600 hours. Marilyn Fitzgerald stepped out of an armored SUV looking like she owned the sand she was standing on. Fifty-five, silver hair cut sharp, wearing business casual that probably cost more than my annual salary.
I watched from the warehouse door. I saw Clayton and his team swarm around her—a perfect diamond formation. Text book executive protection. Nothing sloppy. These guys were good. They were professionals.
But as I watched them move, a cold prickle danced down the back of my neck.
It’s a feeling you get. Some call it a sixth sense; I call it survival instinct honed by six years of hunting humans. It’s the feeling of being watched.
I scanned the horizon. The heat haze made everything wobble, but my eyes were drawn to the ridge. It sat there, silent and imposing, looking down on us like a judgment.
Paranoia, I told myself. Just old ghosts rattling chains.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. My room in the staff quarters was a twelve-by-fifteen box. I lay on the single bed, staring at the ceiling fan cutting through the stagnant air.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Patrick. I saw the Afghan dirt turning black with his blood. I saw the surprise in his eyes—not fear, just surprise—that I hadn’t taken the shot. That I had hesitated. That I had let a flicker of humanity cost him his life.
156 confirmed kills, the voice in my head whispered. And the only one that matters is the one you didn’t take.
At 0200, I gave up. I dropped to the floor and did push-ups until my triceps screamed. Then sit-ups until my core felt like it was on fire. I needed pain. Pain was grounding. Pain was real.
By 0540, I was showered, dressed, and heading to the warehouse. If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well count inventory.
The compound at dawn is deceptive. It’s the only time the desert feels almost beautiful. The sky is a bruised purple, fading to pale orange. The air is cool.
I was checking a crate of 7.62 ammunition when the radio on my belt crackled.
“Operations, this is East Tower. I’ve got movement on Observation Ridge. Single individual, approximately six-fifty meters out.”
It was Carl Jensen’s voice.
Art Donovan responded immediately. “Confirmed. West Tower, you see it?”
“Negative,” came the reply from Frank Butler. “No visual from this angle.”
“Probably a local,” Art said. “Carl, keep eyes on.”
I stood frozen in the warehouse aisle. A single individual on the ridge at dawn.
It could be a shepherd. It could be a traveler.
Or it could be a scout.
I shouldn’t have moved. I should have stayed with my boxes. But my feet were moving before my brain gave permission. I walked to the warehouse computer terminal and pulled up the security camera feeds. I wasn’t supposed to have access, but I’d “borrowed” a login months ago.
I cycled to the East Tower feed. The screen was grainy, but I saw the ridge.
My eyes narrowed. I leaned in, tracing the shadows.
There.
It wasn’t a shepherd. Shepherds move with animals. They meander. This figure was stationary. Prone. Tucked into the shadow of a rock outcropping.
He wasn’t resting. He was waiting.
My breath hitched. My brain began running calculations. Range: 675 meters. Angle: steep.
Then the radio crackled again. The voice was tighter this time.
“Operations, the individual is stationary. Prone position. Wait… I’ve got… Jesus. I’ve got multiple contacts. Repeat, multiple contacts on the ridge. Count is seven… eight. Eight individuals taking prone positions. Ranges from four-hundred to eight-hundred meters.”
Silence. Absolute, terrifying silence on the net.
Then Art’s voice, turning into steel. “All personnel, battle stations. Hostile reconnaissance confirmed. Assume hostile intent.”
I was already running.
Not away. Towards the Operations Center.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe I thought I could help. Maybe I just needed to see.
I skidded into the Ops Center just as Art was barking orders. Clayton was suiting up. Owen was checking his magazine.
“Art,” I said, breathless.
He turned, eyes wide. “Carol? Get back to the barracks. Lock it down. This isn’t for you.”
“Art, look at the formation,” I said, pointing to the screen. “They aren’t just scouting. That’s a firing line. They’re spreading out to create overlapping fields of fire. They’re setting up a kill box.”
“I know what it is!” Art snapped. “Clayton, get the VIP to the hardened room. Warren, Rachel, on the wall. Suppressive fire if they so much as twitch.”
I backed away. I was a logistics coordinator. I was in the way.
I stepped out of the Ops Center into the blinding morning sun. The compound was waking up fast. Operators were sprinting to positions. The heavy thud of boots on concrete. The metallic clatter of charging handles.
I saw Art step out behind me, radio in hand, looking up at the tower. “Carl, what’s the—”
CRACK.
It wasn’t loud. It was just a snap.
Art’s head snapped back violently. A spray of bright arterial red painted the air. He crumbled. Just like that. The man who was the rock of this compound, gone.
“Sniper!” someone screamed.
CRACK.
Clayton Hayes, running toward the VIP quarters, spun around as if yanked by an invisible wire. He hit the ground hard.
Then, the ridge erupted.
It wasn’t random fire. It was a symphony of destruction. Precision fire. Crack-thump. Crack-thump.
I dove behind a concrete Jersey barrier, the rough stone scraping my cheek. Dust puffed up inches from my face as a round impacted the ground where I had been standing a second ago.
“Man down! Man down!” Warren was screaming over the radio.
I peeked around the edge of the barrier. It was a slaughterhouse.
Jackie Palmer was caught in the open—hit three times before he hit the ground. Derek Wallace was crawling, trailing blood from his leg.
The security team—Sentinel’s best—was returning fire, but they were shooting blind. They had M4 carbines with holographic sights or simple scopes. They were trying to hit targets at 600 meters who were invisible behind rock and brush.
They were fighting ghosts. And the ghosts were winning.
I huddled behind the concrete, my hands over my ears, trying to block out the sounds. The screaming. The wet thud of bullets hitting flesh.
Stay down, Carol. Stay down. You count boxes. You don’t do this anymore.
I saw Brian Hutchkins. Brian, the dad. The guy who showed me pictures of his daughter’s soccer games every Tuesday. He was pinned down near the generator shed. He popped up to fire, desperate to suppress the incoming rounds.
The shot took him in the chest. I saw the impact. I saw the life go out of him before he even finished falling.
Something inside me broke. Or maybe… maybe it snapped back into place.
I looked at the Armory. It was forty meters away. Forty meters of open ground being swept by eight professional snipers who didn’t miss.
I looked at the bodies of the men I’d eaten lunch with.
I looked at my hands. They weren’t shaking anymore. They were cold. Deadly still.
I keyed the radio on my belt.
“Warren,” I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Flat. Monotone. The voice of the Ghost.
“Carol? Get off the net! Stay cover—”
“Warren, listen to me,” I cut him off. “I need thirty seconds of maximum suppressive fire on the ridge. And I need the armory access code.”
“What? Carol, are you crazy? You need to hide!”
“I am former Army SFOD-D,” I said. The words tasted like ash and iron. “Counter-sniper specialist. 156 confirmed kills. I can stop this. But I need to get to the rifle.”
Silence. The kind of silence that stretches forever.
“Warren!” I barked. “Do you want everyone to die?”
“Code is 4729-Alpha,” Warren said, his voice trembling. “Owen, Rachel, Todd… on my mark. Pour everything you have at that ridge. Give her the window.”
I crouched low, digging the toes of my boots into the dust. I visualized the path. Zig-zag. erratic intervals. Low center of gravity.
“Three… two… one… MARK!”
The compound erupted in noise as five M4s opened up on full auto. It was wild, inaccurate fire, but it was loud. It forced heads down.
I moved.
I sprinted. The air hissed around me. A round sparked off the pavement by my left heel. Another tugged at the fabric of my sleeve.
Move. Don’t think. Move.
I hit the armory door, punched the code. 4-7-2-9-Alpha.
Green light.
I threw myself inside and slammed the heavy steel door behind me.
Silence again. The hum of the air conditioner. The smell of gun oil.
I walked to the rack. And there she was.
The M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle. .300 Winchester Magnum. Leupold Mark 5 scope. A chassis system designed for one thing: surgical removal of problems at long distance.
I reached out. My fingers brushed the cool metal of the barrel.
For fourteen months, I had been Carol from Supply. I had been a civilian. I had been harmless.
I grabbed the rifle. I grabbed a chest rig with eight loaded magazines. I grabbed the bolt and cycled it, the mechanical clack-clack sounding like the heartbeat of a monster waking up.
Carol from Supply was gone.
The Ghost was back.
I keyed my radio. “Warren. Cease fire. I’m moving to the rooftop. Tell everyone to keep their heads down.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I headed for the stairs.
PART 2
The rooftop platform was an oven. The HVAC units hummed, vibrating the concrete deck, but I didn’t feel the heat. I didn’t feel the sharp gravel digging into my elbows as I settled into the prone position.
I only felt the rifle.
The M2010 is a beautiful, terrifying machine. I unfolded the stock, adjusted the cheek weld, and settled the buttpad into the pocket of my shoulder. It felt like coming home. It felt like a sin I couldn’t stop committing.
I dialed the scope magnification up. The world narrowed. The chaos of the compound—the screaming, the confusion, the blood—disappeared. There was only the reticle, the wind, and the target.
Target One.
Range: 675 meters. Wind: 4 mph, left to right. Target status: Prone behind a jagged rock.
He thought he was invisible. To the naked eye, he was. But through the Leupold Mark 5, I saw the exhaust signature of his rifle. I saw the slightest movement of fabric. About six inches of his left shoulder were exposed.
Inhale. Exhale. Pause.
I didn’t think about Art Donovan bleeding out. I didn’t think about logistics. I became a calculator of ballistics and geometry.
I squeezed the trigger. It wasn’t a pull; it was a press, smooth as glass breaking.
The rifle recoiled, a solid shove against my shoulder. The .300 Win Mag round covered the distance in roughly 0.7 seconds.
Through the scope, I saw the impact. The shoulder disintegrated. The body jerked violently, flailing out from behind the rock, exposing the rest of him. He was dead before he hit the ground.
One down. Seven to go.
I cycled the bolt. Clack-clack. The brass casing spun away, chiming against the concrete.
The compound below had gone silent. The suppression fire from my team had stopped. They were listening. They were wondering who the hell was shooting back with a bolt-action rifle.
Target Two.
Range: 520 meters. Target status: Partially concealed in brush.
He made a mistake. He saw his buddy die and he flinched. He shifted his weight, and the bush moved against the wind.
“I see you,” I whispered.
I adjusted the turret. Two clicks up. One click left.
Bang.
The bush stopped moving. The figure behind it slumped, a puppet with its strings cut.
Two down.
That was when the dynamic changed. The remaining six snipers realized they weren’t shooting fish in a barrel anymore. There was a shark in the water with them.
I waited. Patience is the sniper’s currency. If you spend it too fast, you die broke.
Target Three.
He was smart. He’d moved. He slid backward and left, trying to break my line of sight, tucking himself into a depression between two boulders at 580 meters.
But I’d tracked his muzzle flash earlier. I knew his rhythm.
He popped up, just for a second, to scan the compound. He was looking for the security team on the ground. He wasn’t looking at the roof.
The angle was tricky—shooting downward into a depression. I held under, compensating for the slope.
The shot took him in the neck.
Three down.
My heart rate was resting at 58 beats per minute. The familiar coldness had spread through my chest. This was the “Zone.” It’s a place where morality doesn’t exist, where human beings are just physics problems to be solved.
Target Four.
720 meters. Northern edge.
This one was a ghost. No movement. No flash. Just stillness. I scanned the ridge, grid by grid. Rock. Bush. Shadow. Rock.
There.
A glint. A tiny, microscopic flash of sunlight reflecting off glass. His objective lens. He was looking right at me.
It was a duel now. Him or me. He was dialing his scope. I could feel it.
I didn’t dial. I used the reticle holdover. I trusted the math I’d done a thousand times in the mountains of Kandahar.
I fired a split second before I saw his muzzle flash.
My round hit him. His round cracked over my head, missing by inches, burying itself in the HVAC unit behind me.
Through my scope, I saw his rifle tumble down the rocks. He followed it a second later.
Four down.
Panic set in on the ridge. The discipline broke. They were watching their team get deleted by an invisible hand, and they didn’t know how to handle it.
Targets Five and Six.
They rabbit-ed.
Two of them broke cover simultaneously. One sprinted backward toward the reverse slope. The other scrambled laterally, trying to get to a gully.
“Mistake,” I breathed.
You never run from a sniper. You die tired.
I took the one running backward first. Range: 615 meters and opening. I led him by three feet.
Bang.
He cartwheeled. Down.
I cycled the bolt fast. The second runner—the lateral one—was at 680 meters, diving for rocks.
I tracked him. Swing through. Press.
The bullet caught him mid-air. He dropped into the stones like a sack of wet cement.
Six down.
Target Seven.
790 meters. The furthest shot.
He was climbing the ridge line, trying to escape over the top. The wind was gusting now, maybe 8 mph. At that distance, the wind would push the bullet two feet off course.
I aimed into the empty air to his left, aiming at nothing, trusting the wind to carry the bullet to him.
It felt like an eternity while the round was in the air.
I saw the puff of dust on his back. He slid down the rock face, leaving a dark streak behind him.
Seven down.
Target Eight.
Silence returned to the valley. The last one was dug in deep.
I scanned for three minutes. Nothing. He was good. Or he was terrified.
I keyed my radio. “Rachel. East Tower.”
“Carol?” Her voice was shaky. “Is that… is that you?”
“I need eyes. Thermal. What do you see?”
“I’ve got one heat signature,” she said. “Bearing 285. Range 447. He’s in a hole. I can’t see him, but the thermal says he’s there.”
“I can’t see him either,” I said. “Mark him.”
“Mark him?”
“Put tracers on his position. Now.”
“Copy.”
A second later, Rachel’s M4 rattled. Red streaks of light arced across the sky, slamming into a cluster of rocks near the base of the ridge.
The sudden violence spooked him. He popped up, rifle swinging, trying to find the source of the tracers.
“Gotcha,” I whispered.
It was the easiest shot of the day. 448 meters. Stationary target.
Bang.
He slumped forward over his rifle.
Eight down. Zero to go.
I stayed on the scope for another full minute. Scanning. Waiting. Breathing.
“All stations,” I said into the radio. “Ridge is clear. Eight hostiles neutralized. You can move the wounded.”
I lay there for a second longer, letting the adrenaline drain out, leaving me hollow. The rifle barrel was hot to the touch.
I stood up, my knees cracking. I slung the rifle. I picked up my brass casings—force of habit, never leave a trace—and pocketed them.
I walked down the stairs.
When I stepped out of the Admin building, the compound was a different world.
The silence was heavy. Security operators were standing up from their cover, looking at the ridge, then looking at me.
I walked toward the medical station. My face was streaked with gun smoke and sweat. My ponytail was fraying. But I wasn’t Carol from Supply anymore.
I saw Owen Mitchell standing near the fountain. He looked at me with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open.
“Carol?” he whispered.
I didn’t stop. I walked straight to the medical tent.
Inside, it was a butcher shop. The metallic smell of blood filled the air. Warren was elbow-deep in Clayton’s chest cavity, trying to clamp a bleeder.
“He needs a surgeon,” Warren grunted, not looking up. “I can’t hold this forever.”
“Medevac is inbound,” I said. My voice was calm. Too calm.
Warren looked up then. He saw the rifle slung over my shoulder. He saw the way I stood—feet apart, weight balanced, ready.
“What…” He paused, his hands shaking slightly. “Who are you?”
The room went quiet. Marcus, on the other table with a shattered hip, stared at me. Derek, clutching his bleeding leg, stared.
Rachel walked in behind me. “She just cleared the ridge, Warren. Eight shots. Eight kills. In twelve minutes.”
“Who are you?” Warren asked again, louder this time.
I looked at them. These were my friends. We’d shared meals. We’d complained about the heat. And I had lied to them every single day.
“My name is Carolyn Spencer,” I said. “Former SFOD-D. Counter-sniper specialist.”
“Delta?” Derek wheezed from the corner. “You were Delta?”
“156 confirmed kills,” I said. “Before today.”
“Why?” Owen asked, stepping into the tent. He looked betrayed. “Why hide it? We could have used you. We could have trained with you.”
I felt the wall inside me crack.
“Because I didn’t want to be her anymore,” I said softly. “I left the unit three years ago. I didn’t want to touch a rifle again.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“Because I hesitated,” I said. The truth spilled out, vomit-sour. “Kandahar. I had a target. He had a kid with him. An eight-year-old boy. I had the shot, but I froze. Because of the kid.”
I looked down at my hands. “My spotter, Patrick Coleman… he died because I hesitated. He took two rounds in the neck because I was trying to be human.”
Silence in the tent.
“I killed the sniper afterward,” I whispered. “But Patrick was already gone. So I quit. I came here to count boxes. I came here to forget.”
Warren pulled his hands away from Clayton’s chest, packing the wound with gauze. He looked at me with eyes that had seen too much death.
“You didn’t hesitate today,” Warren said.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“Then you saved us,” he said firmly. “Patrick… that was war. War is messy. But today? You saved everyone in this room. Don’t you dare apologize for that.”
Before I could answer, the sound of rotors thumped in the distance.
“Medevac,” I said. “Let’s get them moved.”
PART 3
The evacuation was chaotic, but controlled. We loaded Clayton and Marcus onto the birds. Bernard Walsh, the regional director, arrived with the medevac team. He looked at me, and I saw zero surprise in his eyes.
“Walsh,” I said, walking up to him as the rotors spun. “You knew.”
“I read your file, Carol,” he said, shouting over the noise. “The unredacted one. Why do you think I hired you? I needed insurance. And today, the policy paid out.”
I wanted to punch him. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t have time.
“We have a problem,” Angela Morris, the VIP’s security chief, ran up to us holding a tablet. “Intercepted comms. The snipers were just the opening act. There’s a secondary team. A mechanized assault element.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Inbound. North gate. Three minutes out.”
“We need to get Fitzgerald out of here,” I said. “Walsh, put her on the second bird. Now.”
“It’s too risky to lift off if we’re under fire,” Walsh argued.
“It’s riskier to stay,” I snapped. “Get her on the bird. I’ll buy you time.”
I turned to the team—what was left of them. Rachel, Owen, Shane, and Graham.
“We have vehicles inbound,” I yelled. “North Gate. Heavy weapons. We hold them here until the birds are wheels up. Understood?”
“Understood,” Rachel said. She grabbed an AT4 rocket launcher from the emergency locker. “Let’s welcome them.”
We sprinted to the North Gate defensive positions. The dust on the horizon was already visible—three plumes rising into the sky.
Technical. Pickup trucks with heavy machine guns mounted in the beds. Apex Strategic Solutions mercenaries. These guys weren’t hiding. They were coming to smash and grab.
“Contact front!” Owen screamed.
The first truck smashed through the outer barrier, the .50 caliber machine gun on the back hammering away. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Concrete chips rained down on us. The noise was deafening.
“Rachel! The rocket!” I yelled.
“Safety’s stuck!” she screamed, struggling with the tube.
The truck was fifty meters out and closing. The gunner was raking the helicopter landing zone. If he hit those birds, it was over. Marilyn Fitzgerald, the pilots, the wounded—all dead.
I looked at my M2010. Useless at this range against a moving vehicle.
I grabbed an M4 from a dead guard’s prone position.
“Cover me!” I shouted.
“Carol, no!” Owen yelled.
I didn’t listen. I vaulted the concrete barrier.
I ran. Not away from the truck. Toward it.
It was suicide. It was madness. It was the only way to get the angle on the driver.
The gunner saw me. He swung the heavy barrel toward me. I saw the muzzle flash, huge and orange. Bullets tore up the ground at my feet, the shockwaves hitting me in the legs.
Zig. Zag.
I moved on instinct, fueled by adrenaline and a death wish I hadn’t fully acknowledged until right now.
I hit the dirt, sliding on my knees, bringing the M4 up.
The truck was twenty meters away. I could see the driver’s face through the windshield. He was screaming.
Center mass. Controlled pairs.
Pop-pop. Pop-pop.
The windshield spiderwebbed. The driver’s head snapped back.
The truck swerved violently to the left. It hit the inner Hesco barrier at forty miles per hour. The impact was sickening. The vehicle flipped, rolling over the gunner in the back, crushing the weapon and the man into the dust.
The other two trucks saw the lead vehicle disintegrate. They saw the rocket Rachel finally got free.
Whoosh. BOOM.
The second truck exploded in a fireball.
The third truck slammed on its brakes, threw it in reverse, and peeled out. They were done. They wanted a paycheck, not a martyrdom.
I lay in the dirt, panting, staring at the burning wreckage.
Behind me, the pitch of the helicopter rotors changed. They lifted off. I watched them climb into the blue sky, safe.
I rolled onto my back and laughed. It was a jagged, hysterical sound.
“You are insane,” Shane Cooper said, standing over me. “You charged a .50 cal.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” I wheezed.
Two days later.
The compound was quiet. The bodies were gone. The blood was scrubbed. But the bullet holes in the walls remained—scars on the building, scars on us.
I was packing my bag in the barracks. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay in Logistics. Carol from Supply was dead. She died on that rooftop.
There was a knock on the door. It was Walsh.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“I figured I’m fired,” I said. “Or arrested.”
“Hardly,” he said. He tossed a file onto my bed. “Tech Vantage doubled our contract. They want a dedicated high-threat protection detail for their executive team. Global travel. Highest pay grade we have.”
I looked at the file. “And?”
“And they specifically asked for you. By name. ‘The woman on the roof,’ they called you.”
I sat down on the bed. “Walsh, I told you why I quit. I can’t be that person. I’m a liability. I hesitate.”
“You didn’t hesitate with the snipers,” Walsh said. “You didn’t hesitate with the truck.”
He sat in the chair opposite me. “Carol, I spoke to Dr. Hayes, your old shrink. She told me something interesting. She said your hesitation with Patrick wasn’t a weakness. It was proof that you aren’t a psychopath.”
He leaned forward. “We don’t need mindless killers. We can hire cheap thugs for that. We need operators who know the value of life. Who know the cost. That’s what makes you dangerous, Carol. You care. And that makes you better than them.”
I looked at my hands. They were the hands of a killer. But they were also the hands that had bandaged knees and organized food drives.
“I have conditions,” I said.
Walsh smiled. “Name them.”
“I pick my team,” I said. “Owen, Rachel, Warren. If they want in. We train my way. No cowboy nonsense. And if I say a mission is a no-go, it’s a no-go. I answer to you, and only you.”
“Done,” Walsh said. He stood up and extended his hand.
I looked at it.
For three years, I had run from the ghost of Patrick Coleman. I had run from the violence in my blood. But standing there, I realized something.
You can’t outrun your shadow. You have to turn around and face the sun so the shadow falls behind you.
I stood up and shook his hand.
“When do we start?”
SIX MONTHS LATER
The wind on the rooftop in Caracas is different than the wind in Alcader. It’s humid, smelling of rain and exhaust.
I adjusted the earpiece. “Eagle One, this is Ghost. Principal is moving to the vehicle. Check your sectors.”
“Sector One clear,” Owen’s voice came back, crisp and professional.
“Sector Two clear,” Rachel said.
I looked through the scope of the M2010. My eye scanned the crowd, looking for the anomaly, the threat, the glitch in the matrix.
I am not normal. I will never be normal. I am a weapon.
But I am a weapon held by human hands—my own. And for the first time in a long time, the ghosts aren’t screaming. They’re just watching, keeping guard.
“Move the principal,” I said. “We are green.”
I watched the convoy move out, safe under my watch.
I lowered the rifle, just for a second, and let myself smile.
