THE GHOST PROTOCOL

Rain fell in sheets thick enough to drown the moonlight. The night was cold, metallic, unforgiving. Perfect weather for a ghost to walk.

Adrian Kaine moved along the rusted shipping containers of the abandoned port, his boots silent against the slick concrete. Water slid off his black jacket, dripping from the edges like blood he no longer noticed. The shadows wrapped around him naturally; he didn’t need to hide. He was in the darkness now.

Eighteen months.

That was how long he had been dead on paper.

Eighteen months since the ambush that turned his elite team into ash and painted him as the traitor who killed them.

Eighteen months since someone inside the system decided Adrian Kaine needed to disappear.

But ghosts don’t stay buried.

They rise.

And tonight, Adrian came back to the place where they tried to end him.

The remains of Shadow Unit’s Tactical Headquarters loomed ahead, burned walls, collapsed roofs, shattered windows. Rain hit the ruins like a drum, echoing down the empty coastline. Yellow tape still clung to a bent metal fence, swaying like a warning.

The government had labeled the explosion a “critical systems malfunction.”

The media called it an “accidental fire.”

Adrian called it what it really was:

A betrayal engineered by someone who knew every move his team would make.

He reached the broken main entrance, stepping over debris that had once been hallways and briefing rooms. The sharp smell of burned wires and old smoke still lingered. Nothing here had healed.

Adrian pushed deeper into the building, flashlight in hand, sweeping through the remains of what used to be the operations wing. Cracked screens, melted desks, and bullet holes starred the walls like cold memories.

His heart stayed steady.

His breathing is slow.

Nothing inside him trembled anymore.

He didn’t come for grief.

He came for answers.

He reached the end of the corridor and stopped. A thick slab of concrete blocked what should’ve been the door to the main strategy room, the room where his entire squad died around him.

The room he barely crawled out of.

He shoved debris aside with the silent determination of a man who had nothing left to lose. Under torn insulation and rusted pipes, something metallic glinted.

A steel case.

It was scratched, dented, burned… but not destroyed.

Adrian wiped grime off the surface and saw the stamp burned into the metal:

PROPERTY OF SHADOW UNIT – INTERNAL BLACKBOX SERVER

His pulse finally spiked, not with fear, but with rage. Not everything had been wiped that night. Someone missed this. Someone got sloppy.

He pried open the case. Inside sat a secured drive, half-melted but still whole.

This could contain everything: mission logs, access codes, internal comms.

And maybe…

the trail to the person who set them up.

He slipped it into his jacket,

A soft crunch echoed behind him.

Adrian froze.

Not debris.

Not an animal.

Boots.

He moved to cover behind a collapsed beam, body low, hand near his sidearm.

Voices came through the ruined hallway.

“Sector three is clear.”

“Check the left flank.”

“Command wants confirmation.”

Three men entered the ruined strategy room. Their shadows cut sharp lines across the broken walls.

Adrian narrowed his eyes.

He recognized the walk before he recognized the voice.

Marcus Hale.

Once his right hand.

Once his closest friend.

Now hunting him.

Marcus scanned the room. He moved with the ease of a man used to command, every step precise, every angle covered.

“Command said he was sighted near the port,” Marcus murmured. “If he’s alive, this is where he’d come.”

Adrian watched him from the darkness, silent as a breathing corpse.

Marcus.

Why Marcus?

Why now?

The second soldier kicked a piece of metal aside. “You think the ghost actually came back?”

Marcus didn’t answer immediately. His eyes drifted across the room, calculating, remembering. His expression shifted, just for a moment, as if he could feel Adrian’s presence.

“He never leaves loose ends,” Marcus said quietly. “If Adrian Kaine survived that night… he’s not running. He’s hunting.”

The third soldier scoffed. “Then why hasn’t he hit us yet?”

Marcus’s jaw tightened.

“Because he hits when we least expect it.”

Adrian almost smirked. Marcus, of all people, should have known how true that was.

The rain intensified, tapping harder against the broken structure.

Then Marcus tensed.

His gaze dropped to the ground.

To the wet footprints leading across the rubble.

Fresh.

Heavy.

Precise.

Adrian’s footprints.

Marcus followed the trail slowly, rifle raised.

“Someone’s here,” he whispered. “Someone who knows how to move.”

One of the soldiers stepped closer to him. “Orders?”

Marcus lifted his radio.

Static buzzed, then a distorted voice filled the room.

Cold.

Metallic.

Inhuman.

“Marcus. Report.”

Adrian’s blood ran cold.

He knew that voice only from rumors.

Cipher.

The ghost in the system.

The invisible hand behind operations.

The one name that surfaced in every whisper about the betrayal.

Marcus’s voice hardened. “We found footprints. He was here minutes ago.”

“Then he is alive,” Cipher replied. “Proceed with Protocol Red.”

Marcus hesitated. Only half a second, but enough for Adrian to notice.

“Understood,” Marcus finally said.

Another voice entered the channel , deeper, sharper, dangerously familiar.

Colonel Mason Kade.

The man who signed off the mission that killed Adrian’s team.

“Kaine must not leave this building,” Colonel Kade said. “Terminate on sight. We cannot risk him exposing everything.”

Everything.

So Marcus did know.

They all knew.

They tried to murder him.

Framed him.

Buried his team.

And now wanted to burn the last evidence.

Anger pushed through Adrian’s ribs like a blade, but he controlled it. Rage didn’t win battles. Precision did.

Marcus turned to his men.

“Sweep the south wing. No mistakes.”

The soldiers moved deeper into the building.

Marcus stepped toward the very beam Adrian was hiding behind.

Closer.

Closer.

One more step and he would see him.

Adrian stayed perfectly still.

Heartbeat steady.

Breath controlled.

Marcus paused, inches away. Rainwater dripped from his rifle onto the floor.

He whispered to himself:

“Adrian… if you’re here… don’t make this harder than it already is.”

A spark of pain flared in Adrian’s chest, not emotional pain, but the pain of recognizing the tone.

Guilt.

Why was Marcus guilty?

Before he could understand, another voice rang through the hall.

“Movement! West corner!”

The soldier’s shout shattered the tension.

Bullets exploded through the room as the two soldiers opened fire on shadows.

Adrian moved.

He dove from behind the beam, rolled through debris, and came up silent behind the closest attacker.

One swift motion.

A blade to the throat.

The man collapsed without a sound.

The second soldier spun, firing wildly. Adrian grabbed his arm, twisted, and slammed him into a broken wall, hard enough to break bone.

Marcus turned in shock. “Adrian”

Adrian’s silence was more violent than shouting.

Marcus raised his rifle halfway but didn’t pull the trigger.

“Don’t,” he said, voice shaking. “Just don’t.”

Adrian stepped forward, cold fury pouring off him.

Marcus swallowed. “I didn’t know, Adrian. I swear”

A gunshot tore through the wall.

Marcus dove for cover as bullets ripped the air.

Adrian moved on instinct, sliding behind a collapsed steel beam as a kill squad stormed the corridor, six men in tactical armor, aiming to shred everything alive.

“Target confirmed!” one shouted. “Engage!”

The room erupted into chaos, glass shattering, bullets chewing through metal, sparks spilling across the ruins like fireflies.

Adrian returned fire with sharp precision, dropping two instantly. But the squad pressed hard, forcing him into the inner chamber.

It was a trap.

They knew he’d come.

They knew exactly where to push him.

He fired again. One more kill, but he was pinned.

Rain poured through the destroyed ceiling. Lightning flashed.

Marcus yelled something, drowned out by the roar of gunfire.

Then Adrian heard a sharp beep.

His eyes widened.

Not a drone.

Not a radio.

A charge.

He looked up.

A shaped explosive had been planted above him, blinking red.

Someone had set it earlier.

Someone who expected him to be here.

And that someone…

wasn’t Marcus.

Marcus saw it too, his face twisting with horror.

“Adrian!” he shouted. “Move!”

But Adrian already knew the truth.

Marcus wasn’t the one trying to kill him.

Marcus was following orders he didn’t understand.

The real betrayal…

the real plan…

came from someone much higher.

The blinking grew faster.

Beep.

Beep.

BEEP.

Adrian sprinted toward the far exit,

The world exploded.

A wall of fire and metal swallowed the chamber, ripping the building in half. Heat slammed into him, hurling him across the rubble like a dead weight.

Smoke.

Flames.

Silence.

Adrian lay on the ground, vision fading, blood running down his face.

Through the ringing in his ears, he heard a voice,cold and distorted through a comm speaker.

Cipher.

“Marcus, confirm the kill. Kaine must be dead.”

Marcus’s footsteps approached Adrian’s nearly unconscious body.

Adrian forced his eyes open.

Marcus loomed over him, gun in hand, expression torn apart by conflict.

For a moment… It looked like Marcus would help him.

Instead, he lifted the gun.

Aimed it at Adrian’s head.

Rain hit the barrel.

Marcus whispered, voice breaking:

“Forgive me.”

Another set of footsteps approached from behind Marcus, fast, heavy.

Someone else.

Someone Adrian didn’t recognize.

A rifle cocked.

A new voice, sharp, cold, unfamiliar:

“He’s still breathing. Finish it.”

Marcus froze.

Adrian’s vision darkened.

His body wouldn’t move.

Sound muffled.

He watched, helpless, as Marcus slowly tightened his grip on the trigger.

The shadows behind him shifted, more soldiers approaching.

Adrian had seconds.

Maybe less.

Flames crackled around him.

Rain fell harder.

And Marcus whispered:

“Goodbye, brother.”

The trigger clicked.