Location: Rockefeller Residence, Virginia Time: 05:45 Hours Lt. Michael Rockefeller’s eyes snapped open as if someone had yanked him from the edge of a cliff, the remnants of a dream clinging to his mind like smoke, thick and choking. He had been running across the Afghan desert, sand burning beneath his boots, gunfire tearing through the air in jagged bursts, explosions shaking the ground in violent rhythm, the screams of the unseen ringing in his ears, a cacophony that still vibrated inside him even as the soft morning light filtered through the blinds and settled across the room in pale, indifferent stripes. He hadn’t reached the extraction point; he hadn’t survived, and yet here he was, alive, though the taste of dust and fire lingered like a warning on his tongue. Beside him, Lila stirred, a faint smile teasing her lips, half-dreaming, half-aware, and for a moment, he allowed himself a pause, leaning down to press his lips to h

Location: Nevada Desert Training Facility Time: 05:00 Hours – Two Days Later The hangar doors yawned open, spilling cold desert air across the concrete floor. Rows of gear lay neatly arranged on steel tables—rifles cleaned to perfection, magazines stacked like bricks, night vision goggles glowing faintly green under fluorescent lights, and rucksacks packed so heavy they could break a spine. This wasn’t just preparation; it was ritual. Every operator moved with precision, checking, loading, double-checking. Mistakes here meant funerals later. Michael Rockefeller stood at the edge of the hangar, arms folded, eyes scanning the controlled chaos. He didn’t say a word, didn’t need to. The team knew what today meant. In less than an hour, they would leave behind the comfort of American soil and step into a furnace where one wrong move would erase them from history. Bear Thompson tested the weight of a grenade launcher, grinn

Location: CIA Safehouse, Kandahar City Time: 20:40 Hours The safehouse was supposed to be secure. But Michael Rockefeller had been in enough warzones to know walls were only as strong as the men guarding them, and he didn’t trust these walls one bit. The operators filled the operations room in uneasy silence. The fan creaked overhead, the lightbulb flickered, and the heat pressed down on them like a second enemy. On one side of the table sat Rockefeller’s team—Sarah, Naomi, Bear, the hardened special forces agents whose loyalty had been tested in fire. On the other side, lounging like jackals in borrowed gear, sat Kruger’s mercenaries. The divide was obvious. The air between them thick with contempt. “Cute maps,” one of Kruger’s men drawled, tapping the satellite photos spread across the table. His beard was patchy, his smirk lazy. “But we all know we’re walking into a meat grinder. Tell me, Colonel, wh

Location: CIA Safehouse, Kandahar City Time: 02:35 Hours The safehouse had gone quiet, but it wasn’t the kind of quiet that brought peace. It was the brittle silence of men wound too tight, of wolves pacing the same cage for too long. Bear sat at the table, polishing his shotgun for the third time that night. Across from him, one of Kruger’s mercenaries leaned back in his chair, chewing khat leaves, spitting into a tin. He hadn’t looked away from Bear in twenty minutes. Finally, the merc spoke. “Big man cleans his toy more than he uses it. Afraid it won’t work when you need it?” Bear’s hands stilled. He set the weapon down slow, deliberate. “Say that again.” The merc grinned, showing green-stained teeth. “You heard me.” The chair screeched as Bear surged forward. His fist connected with the merc’s jaw, sending him crashing back. The room erupted. Chairs overturned, boots sl

Location: Deep Desert, South of Helmand Time: 20:47 Hours The desert at night was a different beast. The heat bled out of the ground and the cold crept in, sharp and cutting, slipping beneath clothes and biting skin. The horizon had disappeared, swallowed by a black so complete it pressed down like a physical weight. The convoy had halted hours ago, engines silenced, the trucks half-buried against the slope of a dune to mask their outlines. A small fire burned low in the sand, giving off more smoke than warmth, its glow licking at the hollow faces gathered around it. No one spoke much. The silence was broken only by the wind, carrying whispers across the dunes, and the occasional cough of grit in a throat. Rockefeller sat apart, canteen balanced between his knees, his eyes scanning the void beyond the firelight. Every time the wind shifted, the darkness seemed to move with it—shapes forming, dissol