“Sit Down, You’re A Nobody. ” My General Father Said — Until He Heard My Call Sign “Ghost 13.”

Three rounds slammed into the dead operative’s back armor, the kinetic transfer punching directly into my already shattered ribs.

The pain was blinding—a white-hot, jagged spike that stole the breath from my lungs.

My vision blurred, gray static creeping into the edges of my sight.

I let the dead man drop, dropping to one knee with him.

I drew my secondary weapon, a compact Glock 43 strapped to my ankle, and fired two rounds upward into Target Three’s exposed pelvis, shattering his hip joint.

He screamed, collapsing onto the concrete, his weapon skittering away.

I stood up, fighting through the agonizing fire in my chest, and walked over to him.

He was clutching his bleeding hip, staring up at me with a mixture of agony and terror.

“Who the hell are you?” he choked out, blood bubbling on his lips.

“I’m logistics,” I whispered, and put a single round through his forehead.

The loading dock went dead silent, save for the hum of the HVAC turbines.

I leaned against the cold concrete of the pillar, clutching my ribs, gasping for air.

Four heavily armed operatives neutralized in under twenty seconds.

But as I looked back toward the rear of the S-4 truck, the victory turned to ash in my mouth.

Target One, the bomb rigger I had dropped first, had fallen forward onto the C4 block.

His dead weight had shifted the explosive charge.

And on the side of the C4, a small, digital LCD screen had flickered to life.

Red numbers were counting down.

03:00.

02:59.

02:58.

Upstairs, in the hyper-secure G-3 Operations conference room, the air was suffocatingly thick.

Lieutenant General Richard Caldwell stood at the head of the heavy mahogany table, surrounded by maps of the Pacific theater and encrypted laptops.

But his eyes were fixed entirely on Colonel David Hayes, who was sitting two seats down, quietly scrolling through a secure tablet.

“David,” my father said, his voice a low, rumbling baritone that commanded the attention of the four other staff officers in the room.

“Tell me again about your assessment of the Vanguard Security proposal for domestic infrastructure reinforcement.” Hayes looked up, a perfectly practiced mask of professional detachment on his face.

“As I briefed earlier, General, local law enforcement is woefully under-equipped to handle military-grade asymmetrical threats.

Vanguard has the manpower and the specialized CBRN—Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear—training to lock down civilian sectors in the event of a catastrophic incident.” “A catastrophic incident,” my father repeated slowly, letting the words hang in the air.

He walked slowly around the table, the rhythmic thud of his combat boots echoing in the quiet room.

“You know, David, you and I have seen our share of catastrophes.

Fallujah.

Korengal.

We know what it smells like when things burn.” Hayes smiled thinly, though a microscopic twitch in his left eye betrayed a sudden, rising anxiety.

“We do, sir.

Which is why preparedness is vital.” “Indeed.” My father stopped directly behind Hayes’s chair.

He looked at his watch.

Ten minutes had passed since Nora had called.

“But what I’ve always found fascinating about catastrophes, David, is how often they are engineered.

How often a man will burn down his own house just to sell his neighbor the fire extinguisher.” Hayes froze.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

The other staff officers shifted uncomfortably, sensing the sudden, predatory shift in the General’s demeanor.

“I’m not sure I follow your analogy, General,” Hayes said, his voice losing an octave of its confidence.

He reached for his encrypted phone resting on the table.

My father’s massive hand shot out, clamping down on Hayes’s wrist with the crushing force of a vise.

“Leave the phone, David,” Caldwell ordered, his voice suddenly stripped of all cordiality.

It was the voice that ordered airstrikes.

The voice that sent men to die.

Down in the loading dock, I was losing the battle against time.

01:45.

01:44.

I knelt over the Soviet KhAB-250 shells.

There were four of them, each roughly the size of a scuba tank, painted a sickly olive drab with yellow Cyrillic stenciling.

They contained enough VX nerve agent to kill three hundred thousand people in a confined space.

The C4 block was wired directly to a commercial digital timer, but that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was the secondary circuit.

Vanguard hadn’t just wired a simple timer; they had installed an anti-tamper mercury switch.

A small glass vial of liquid mercury rested on top of the explosive.

If I tried to move the C4, the mercury would shift, completing the electrical circuit and detonating the blasting cap instantly.

I couldn’t move the bomb away from the gas shells.

I had to defuse it perfectly in place.

I pulled a multi-tool from my belt, my hands shaking violently as the pain in my ribs radiated up my spine.

Breathe, Nora.

Focus.

You are Ghost 13.

You survived Damascus.

You can cut a wire.

I leaned in, examining the circuitry.

The timer was counting down to a primary detonator, but there was a secondary bundle of wires running underneath the C4 block, disappearing into the foam packing of the artillery shells.

01:10.

01:09.

It was a rigged game.

If I cut the primary power wire to the timer, the sudden drop in voltage would trigger a hidden relay, firing the secondary detonator.

It was designed to kill EOD technicians.

I needed to sever both the primary power and the secondary relay simultaneously, within a microsecond of each other, to prevent the circuit from completing.

I wedged my multi-tool’s wire cutters around the thick red primary wire.

I drew my Karambit with my left hand, sliding the razor-sharp steel beneath the bundle of secondary yellow wires hidden under the block.

My chest was screaming.

The concrete floor was slick with the blood of the Vanguard operatives.

Above me, the highest-ranking officers in the United States military were drinking coffee, completely oblivious that a logistics captain was currently holding their lives in her trembling, bloody hands.

00:30.

00:29.

I aligned the blades.

My hands were slick with sweat.

If my left hand moved a millimeter slower than my right, the relay would close.

The explosive would detonates.

The KhAB-250 shells would shatter, and the HVAC turbines roaring behind me would suck the aerosolized nerve agent directly into the auditorium upstairs.

My father would die gasping for air, his nervous system tearing itself apart.

00:15.

00:14.

“Ghost to J-TOC,” I whispered, the words barely escaping my throat.

“It’s been a privilege, General.” I didn’t wait for a response.

I closed my eyes, visualizing the circuit board in my mind, perfectly syncing the muscle memory of both hands.

00:07.

Snap.

I severed both wires at the exact same millisecond.

The red LCD numbers froze.

00:06.

I stayed frozen on my knees for ten agonizing seconds, waiting for the concussive shockwave of a delayed fuse.

Waiting for the smell of bitter almonds that accompanied VX gas.

Nothing happened.

The only sound was the drone of the HVAC turbines.

I slumped backward onto the concrete, a ragged, breathless laugh tearing itself from my throat.

I had done it.