The holo-display flickered once and faded, leaving the command center bathed in the quiet blue glow of the screens.The silence returned like a living thing, humming through the glass.
Niko exhaled slowly.“Wraith, huh?Can’t decide if that’s comforting or terrifying.”
Kael didn’t answer right away.He walked to the far window, gazing out at the tree line and the waterfall’s glint below.The morning sun struck the glass and fractured into light across the floor.Down in the garage, the team was already moving—engines roaring to life, voices echoing faintly in the distance.The hum of purpose vibrated through the structure, a heartbeat he could feel in his bones.
He could see his reflection in the glass, the calm face of a man who’d been through hell and learned to stand in the ashes.The word Wraith still echoed in his thoughts, stirring something deep he couldn’t name.Ghosts didn’t just resurface for nothing.
“Trouble or trustworthy,” he murmured.“Maybe both.”
Behind him, Niko was already on comms, calling the others, issuing orders.Keanu’s laughter crackled through the channel, followed by Luca’s grumble about needing more time and Tane’s calm efficiency.The garage came alive with purpose, a living organism of motion and unity.
Kael stayed by the window, coffee forgotten, watching sunlight spill over the camp.He thought of the path that had led them here, the men who’d followed him through fire and back again.Whatever this new ghost wanted, whatever Sokolov was building—it didn’t matter.They’d face it the same way they always had.
Together.
****
Five days after theRidge briefing, Newark smelled like salt, rust, and summer heat that settled thick in the air.Kael leaned over a cluttered table inside their temporary base—a converted warehouse overlooking the docks—and watched cargo feeds loop across Tane’s monitors.The space was wide enough to hold the team and their equipment, its concrete floors still stained with paint from whatever business had been here before.The bay door had been reinforced with steel, the windows blacked out.They’d made it their own—quickly, efficiently, the way they always did.
Niko had flown them in the morning after Bateman’s call.The team worked like a storm cell, tight and coordinated.Within a day they had turned the warehouse into a functioning command hub, folding tables lined with laptops, crates of weapons and tech stacked by the far wall, sleeping cots pushed into corners.The attached garage gave them cover for their vehicles—three unmarked SUVs they’d acquired through a contact of Tane’s.Nothing flashy, nothing traceable.The setup was temporary but strong enough to feel like control.
The ocean was close.Kael could hear it through the ventilation at night, the rhythm of waves clashing against steel and rock.It should’ve been calming.Instead, it kept him awake.
He scrolled through the port manifests on his tablet, every file marked and color-coded.Wraith’s intel had been solid—too solid.Every container, every movement, every crew rotation had checked out exactly as reported.Sokolov’s schedule ran like precision clockwork.Petrov’s truck ran the same route every Tuesday, the same guards rotated shifts, the same cranes lifted the same coded containers.It was efficient, mechanical.Predictable.
And that was what made Kael nervous.
He glanced across the table at his team.Niko sat hunched over a map of the port, coffee cup balanced on one knee.Tane leaned against the wall, weapon partially stripped down for cleaning, every motion methodical.Luca typed steadily, eyes flicking from feed to feed, his drones giving live aerial overlays of the docks.Keanu sprawled on a chair backwards, flipping one of his knives over his knuckles, metal glinting in the low light.
They were home in chaos, each man an extension of the others.Kael led, Niko handled logistics and extraction, Tane took interrogation and overwatch, Luca ran tech and counter-surveillance, and Keanu handled anything that could explode, sharp, or required fast fists.They had fought long enough together to operate on instinct.
“Manifest three still matches.”Niko flicked a pen at the screen.“Petrov’s truck leaves the holding yard at oh-two-twenty.Security shifts at oh-one-forty-five.Crew’s small.We could intercept and be ghosts before the sun hits the water.”
Tane checked his watch.“Feels too easy.”
“That’s because it is,” Kael said quietly.“Everything lines up too clean.Makes me itch.”
Luca didn’t look up from his screens.“No pings on sensors.No external interference.Wraith scrubbed local surveillance.Drones show no heat anomalies.We’re ghosts.”
“Exactly,” Kael said.“And that’s the problem.It’s all too perfect.”
Niko leaned back, arms folded.“You want to abort?”
Kael hesitated.The team fell silent.The air pressed heavy.
“Not yet,” he said finally.“We move as planned.But if anything shifts, we pull.No heroics.We’re not here to play savior, we’re here to shut this down.”
Keanu grinned, spinning the knife once before catching it by the hilt.“Define heroics.”
Kael shot him a look that made him grin wider.“The kind that gets you dead.”
“Copy that,” Keanu said, still smiling.“Always good to have a definition.”
Tane looked between them.“If this goes sideways, what’s the exit?”
Kael nodded toward the whiteboard.“Two exfil routes.We move the kids through the west gate and load the trucks at the south road.If it burns, we take the barge on the jetty.Niko, you handle evac timing.Luca, jam comms and redirect cameras once we breach.Tane, you take high ground and keep eyes on the east dock.Keanu, you’re point.Quick and clean.”
“Always am.”Keanu slid the blade away.
