The sun poured down on the border town like punishment. Every stone radiated heat. Every gust of wind carried dust instead of relief. The Moroccan checkpoint at Ceuta had never been friendly, but Kabri had expected the same tired suspicion, the same crooked officials, the same lazy bribes.What he didn’t expect was the silence.Not the absence of noise—but the silence of recognition.The guard looked at his passport, nodded once, and stamped it without a word.“Bienvenue,” the man muttered without eye contact.Not Welcome home. Not Safe journey.Just silence.Even the system knew he no longer belonged.Beyond the checkpoint, the desert stretched out like a battlefield waiting to happen. The old Renault that picked him up was driven by a kid—no older than 17—with a blade tucked into his sock and no interest in small talk. Kabri didn’t ask his name. He didn’t offer his either. In this part of the world, anonymity was currency.They rode in silence for four hours, headed south, hugging t

Marseille was a city made of whispers.Its alleyways were narrow veins pulsing with secrets. Boats creaked in the harbor like they were muttering stories from ports long forgotten, and the wind—thick with salt, oil, and memory—swept over the ancient city like a thief stealing yesterday’s footprints.Kabri didn’t look like a stranger as he stepped out of the rented Fiat onto Rue des Trois Mages. But he was. Every step he took felt like it left a mark he couldn’t afford. His eyes, once fire, now burned cold with the purpose of a man stripped of illusions. Jamil had left him nothing but a grave. Or so he’d thought.The location was scribbled on a torn envelope hidden in the seams of the duffel Yusuf had given him: 23 Rue Marat – Chez Bouchra.A bookstore. Of course Jamil would’ve chosen a bookstore. It wasn’t just about secrecy. It was about memory. About the kind of hiding place that didn’t just protect—it remembered. Kabri pushed the glass door open.A bell jingled overhead, old and d

The warehouse on the outskirts of Ivry-sur-Seine looked ordinary from a distance—just another rust-colored blot in the industrial stretch south of Paris. But beneath its steel ribs and silent corridors was a trove that mattered more than gold. It was Fred’s western nerve—an arms cache laced with encrypted comms, falsified manifests, and a miniature server farm whispering secrets across Europe.It was also the perfect place to send a message.Kabri stood in the back of a speeding Peugeot van with five men hand-picked by Yusuf. None of them spoke. They didn’t need to. They’d trained together for three days in a farmhouse outside Lyon—rehearsing entry points, fallback signals, internal geometry. Kabri had given the raid a name himself: Operation Jackal.This was no mere hit.It was a test of loyalty. And a declaration of war.Inside the van, Kabri reviewed the blueprint one last time. The facility had three floors. One main loading bay. Two exits—north and rear fire escape. Cameras rotat

Kabri didn’t believe in ghosts— —but he believed in warnings from the dead.The message arrived on a Thursday, slipped under the door of his inn room in Glasgow, folded in half and sealed with wax. No one knocked. No one lingered. Just the silence of damp hallways and the faint creaking of wind-rattled windows.He stared at the wax seal.It wasn’t from Yusuf.It wasn’t in Arabic.It was Scottish linen paper, written in stiff, narrow cursive."K, If you still wear the ring, the drive is where the sand meets iron. He said you’d understand. — C."Kabri read the note three times.Then twice more.He didn’t move. His fingers clenched the edge of the note so hard it tore slightly. The phrase—“the sand meets iron”—rang like an echo he couldn’t place. But it was the first sentence that made him sit down.“If you still wear the ring…”His hand drifted slowly to his chest.Around his neck, hidden under layers of fleece and leather, hung a dull silver chain. And from it dangled Jamil’s old si

Marseille in the early hours was a city of salt, steel, and secrets.Kabri arrived under a drizzle that stuck to his coat like sweat. He had no time to dry off, no time to breathe. The ferry from Bastia had barely docked before he slipped down the port’s industrial ramp, flanked by crates of counterfeit luxury goods and barrels that stank of old diesel. France was hostile ground now—he could feel it in the air.He was back not for Fred, not for Yusuf, not even for Jamil.He was back because of a whisper. A name.Vorel.It had come to him through a dead drop in Antwerp. Scrawled across a blood-smeared envelope left in his Marseille contact’s mailbox. The message was simple:“Vorel is hunting you. He’s already in the city.”No return address. No bluff.Kabri knew the name.Erik Vorel. Fred’s most trusted foreign enforcer. Czech descent. NATO-trained. Former ghost operative turned private butcher. A man who killed with silence and left only burnt fingernails as proof.Fred had officially