Kill List
last update2025-06-09 19:07:22

SHADOW OPS: BLOOD DEBT

Chapter 3: Kill List

Soviet Outpost – Helmand Wastes

0630 Hours

For a long moment, Gabriel Knox said nothing.

His name. On the list.

His breath slowed, deepened. Not from panic—but from calculation. Every operator knew what it meant when your name showed up on a burn list.

You were marked.

Not as a threat.

As an asset gone rogue.

He met Jessa’s eyes. “Start talking.”

She was pale, sweat running down her temple. But her voice was steady. “Two weeks ago I intercepted an encrypted file buried in a dormant CIA relay node—one we abandoned five years ago.”

“Which would’ve been wiped,” Knox said.

“Exactly. But something got missed. The file had no name. Just a string code. When I decrypted it, I saw ops logs. Black missions. Executions. Disappearances. Most were scrubbed from every system... except this one.”

“And my name?”

She nodded. “Not just yours. Yours was tagged with a greenlight protocol.”

Knox’s face hardened. “Authorized termination.”

“By someone with Level 9 clearance.”

That narrowed it down. Less than a dozen people in the entire intelligence community held that power.

Jessa pulled a blood-stained USB from inside her bra. “This is a copy. I sent the original to a dead drop in Istanbul. But they knew. Someone’s watching all legacy networks.”

Knox didn’t take it. Not yet.

“Who else knows?”

“Just you.”

He rubbed his face. Every instinct screamed that they were already being hunted. That USB was radioactive.

And Vance knew it.

0655 Hours – Eyes on Them

Outside, through the scope of an M110 sniper rifle, a man watched the outpost.

The shooter was still. Precise. He wore desert-camouflage fatigues, no insignia, no tags. His name was Carter, and he had killed men in five languages.

He keyed his radio mic.

“Visual confirmed. Both targets inside. Orders?”

Vance’s voice crackled back.

“Kill the woman. Wound the asset. I want him bleeding.”

Carter smiled.

“Roger that.”

0700 Hours – Bullet and Blood

Inside the outpost, Knox pulled Jessa to her feet. “We move in five.”

Then he felt it.

The hair on his neck stood up.

Too quiet. The desert had gone still again.

“Down!” he shouted—

The window shattered. A round screamed through. Jessa dropped, blood painting the wall behind her.

“Sniper!” Knox yelled, dragging her to cover. She was conscious—but barely. The bullet had grazed her neck, slicing a bloody arc just below the jawline.

Another shot struck the stone near Knox’s head. Dust and concrete exploded in his face.

He rolled, slung his rifle, and scanned the horizon through the ACOG. High ridge, 800 meters out.

There.

One glint of glass, a whisper of movement.

Professional.

Knox took a breath.

Centered his reticle.

Fired.

The glint vanished.

A moment later—nothing.

Then smoke.

He’d hit the bastard.

0710 Hours – The Chase

Knox grabbed Jessa and hoisted her over his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” she groaned.

“Out of hell,” he said.

He knew a cave system two klicks west—used by smugglers and worse. But it was cover.

They moved fast. Knox’s back burned from tension. Every muscle screamed. He wasn’t twenty anymore. But every inch of his body remembered war.

He heard the drone again.

Lower this time.

It wasn’t searching.

It was tracking.

The USB.

He stopped. Dropped Jessa. Yanked the drive from her and slammed it against a rock. Shattered it.

The drone paused overhead… then veered off.

He looked at Jessa.

“That was our only copy,” she rasped.

“No,” he said, standing. “The original’s in Istanbul.”

0725 Hours – SIGMA Moves

Carter stood now, clutching a blood-soaked sleeve. Knox’s shot had winged him.

But he smiled anyway.

He keyed his mic. “Knox is moving west. Looks like he’s aiming for the caves.”

Vance’s voice was calm, lethal. “Let him.”

Carter raised a brow. “I thought we wanted him alive.”

“We do,” Vance said. “But he needs to understand who’s hunting him.”

Then a pause.

“And I want you to leave a gift in the cave.”

Carter laughed. “Which one?”

“The kind that breathes.”

0735 Hours – The Caves

Knox reached the mouth of the cave system just as the sun rose fully over the ridge. Inside, cool air kissed his skin—dry, damp, full of echoes.

He settled Jessa near a stone ledge. Her pulse was stable—for now.

He swept the cave with his rifle.

Too late.

He heard it.

A low mechanical click.

Behind him: movement.

He spun.

A man emerged from the shadowed tunnel—hooded, shackled at the wrists, gaunt but tall. His eyes were hollow. His arms tattooed with agency barcodes.

Knox’s eyes widened.

He knew this man.

Corporal Elijah Reece.

Long thought dead in Ukraine.

Except he wasn’t dead.

He was programmed.

And he had a knife in his hand.

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