A Navy officer in digital camo cut through the sea of blue uniforms like a blade. A silver eagle rested on his collar. A SEAL trident caught the light on his chest. Colonel Marcus Hail. He didn’t pause. Didn’t greet anyone. He walked straight to the front and spoke in a voice that shut every side conversation down instantly.
“General Neves. Active crisis in Sierra Tango zone. I need a tier-one asset. Deep recon. Sniper-qualified. Black clearance. I was informed the operator is in this room.”
My pulse slammed against my ribs. I already knew who he meant.
I stood.
The scrape of my chair against the tile sounded like a gunshot. Two hundred heads twisted toward the back of the room.
My father reacted instantly.
“Sit down, Lucia,” he snapped. “Colonel, my daughter handles inventory and transport coordination. She gets… imaginative at times.”
A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the crowd. Someone behind me whispered, “Wow.” My father smiled tightly, the way people do when they think they’ve regained control.
Then Colonel Hail did something that made the room freeze for real.
He turned his back on a three-star general.
“Major Neves,” he said calmly, “confirm identification and operational status.”
I didn’t look at my father.
I met Hail’s eyes.
“Call sign Ghost-Thirteen,” I said. “Sierra Tango assignment. Hindu Kush overwatch. Level Five access. Yankee White cleared. Special compartmented.”
The glass in my father’s hand began to slip…
It hits the floor. It doesn’t shatter. It just tips over on its side and rolls, the water spilling across the tile in a thin, trembling line. No one moves to pick it up. No one breathes. My father stares at me like he’s looking at a ghost wearing his daughter’s face.
“This is impossible,” he says quietly, but the room hears it anyway. His voice, usually iron, sounds hollow.
My father finally turns to him, anger rushing in to replace the shock. “You will not take my daughter into a black op without my authorization.”
Hail doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. “With respect, sir, she was authorized long before this briefing began. You just never had the clearance to know.”
A murmur ripples through the auditorium now. Real unease. The kind that doesn’t fade with nervous laughter. My father’s jaw tightens. I can see the calculations behind his eyes—how much control he has left, how much is slipping.
“You lied to me,” he says to me.
I shake my head once. “You never asked the right questions.”
Silence stretches between us, thick with everything we’ve never said. Every promotion he helped me earn. Every holiday I missed. Every unexplained injury I brushed off as training accidents.
Hail gestures toward the exit. “Major, with me.”
I walk. Each step feels unreal, like the floor might tilt out from under me at any moment. The weight of every stare presses against my back. My father doesn’t try to stop me again. That frightens me more than if he had.
The corridor outside is colder, quieter. The hum of secure systems replaces the murmur of the crowd. Hail doesn’t slow down. “Mission profile is live,” he says. “Target acquisition failure in the Sierra Tango AO. Our asset went dark six hours ago. Last transmission indicates optic confirmation on a high-value target. Then nothing.”
“Extraction window?” I ask.
“Collapsed. You’re the reinsert.”
I nod. It’s what I expect. “Rules of engagement?”
“Override authorized.”
That tells me everything. I adjust the strap over my shoulder. My rifle case is already being wheeled toward the hangar. They’ve planned this longer than my father realizes.
We move through blast doors, biometric scans, layers of clearance stacked like walls. By the time I reach the briefing room inside the secure wing, the mission is already burning on the screen. Mountain ridges. Heat signatures. A blinking marker where the last sniper vanished.
“This is where he disappears,” Hail says, pointing. “Taliban splinter unit. Unknown support. Possible state-backed electronics. Your job is eyes first, trigger only if necessary.”
“Who was the last shooter?” I ask.
Hail’s mouth tightens. “Your former spotter.”
The air shifts. My stride falters for half a step. “Name.”
“Elias Voss.”
The room blurs for a moment. Elias. The only person in this world who ever knows what Ghost-Thirteen really is. The man who covers my six in a sandstorm so thick the sky disappears. The one who shares silence better than most people share words.
“You’re telling me he goes dark and you send me in alone?” I ask.
“I’m telling you you’re the only one who can find him without triggering the entire valley.”
My jaw locks. “Then load me now.”
The flight out is violent with speed. I sit strapped in across from Hail, the roar of the engines drowning everything else. No speeches. No dramatics. Just the brutal clarity of purpose.
Drop zone green in three minutes.
When the ramp lowers, the night rushes in—cold, thin, unforgiving. The mountains cut black against a sky blistered with stars.
I jump. Continue reading…
