A SOLDIER'S CREED

📖📖 Chapter 8 - Into the Sand

Location: CIA Safehouse, Kandahar Outskirts

Time: 04:58 Hours

The safehouse door groaned open, spilling a band of shadows into the pale half-light of dawn. The desert air was sharp, bitter with dust and the faint copper tang of rusted wire. Above them, the sky was bleeding from black into bruised purple.

Rockefeller moved first, rucksack strapped tight, rifle slung across his chest. Behind him, fifteen figures filed out, ghosts in tactical gear, their boots crunching over gravel. The mercs wore smirks that never reached their eyes. The operators stayed silent, their faces carved from stone.

No words were exchanged. None were needed.

Kruger dragged one last breath from his cigarette, dropped it to the dirt, and crushed it under his boot. His gaze lingered on Rockefeller a heartbeat too long before he fell into step with the others.

The safehouse door slammed shut. Whatever safety it had offered was gone now.

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Location: Desert Road, South of Kandahar

Time: 06:12 Hours

Two unmarked trucks rattled across the sand, suspensions screaming under the weight of weapons and men. The engines coughed, the smell of diesel clinging to the morning air.

Inside the lead truck, Rockefeller sat at the front, one hand gripping the door frame as the vehicle jolted over a dune. His eyes scanned the horizon—empty plains, jagged ridges, and a sun already burning too hot for its hour.

Naomi tapped her wristwatch, then glanced at him. “Seventeen hours before we hit the drop point. Seventeen hours of open desert, no cover.”

He didn’t answer. His mind replayed the cracked ammo crate, the swapped scope. Someone had already made their move. And now, locked in two steel coffins crawling across hostile land, the team was nothing but targets.

From the back of the truck came Bear’s low growl of a voice. “Feels like a funeral procession.”

No one laughed.

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Location: Mountain Pass, Approaching Helmand Border

Time: 11:44 Hours

The convoy slowed as the terrain tightened. The desert stretched into broken ridges and jagged cliffs that clawed at the sky. Heat shimmered off the rocks, twisting the horizon into mirages.

Sarah adjusted her rifle, eyes flicking over the crags above. “Perfect ambush country,” she murmured.

Rockefeller nodded once. He felt it too—the weight in the air, the invisible hand pressing against his chest.

The second truck backfired, the sound echoing like a shot. In an instant, rifles came up, safeties clicked off, men swore under their breath.

But it was only the engine coughing.

Still, the silence that followed was heavier than before.

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Location: Dune Crest, Deep Desert

Time: 14:03 Hours

The trucks finally ground to a halt on the crest of a massive dune. Nothing but sand and sky stretched in every direction.

Rockefeller stepped out, boots sinking into the soft grit. He pulled his cap low against the glare, scanning the emptiness. This was where the desert stripped men down to what they truly were. No walls. No shadows. No place to hide.

The team dismounted in silence, rifles slung, water canteens passed around. Naomi crouched in the sand, sketching the next leg of the route with the tip of her knife. “Another twelve hours, give or take. Then the real fun begins.”

Rockefeller looked across the faces of his team—operators, mercenaries, strangers bound together by money, loyalty, or nothing at all. Somewhere among them, a serpent coiled tight, waiting to strike.

He swallowed the dryness in his throat. His voice cut sharp through the heat.

“Remember this. From this point forward, we’re not a unit—we’re a ghost. Operation Scorpion Fang begins now.”

The wind rose, carrying grit into their teeth, their eyes. Somewhere, far out beyond the dunes, an enemy waited. Watching. Preparing.

And as Rockefeller turned back toward the endless horizon, he felt it deep in his bones. The desert wasn’t just a battlefield. It was a graveyard.