THE GHOST PROTOCOL

CHAPTER TWO: THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE

Flames tore through the old headquarters as Adrian crashed through a collapsing hallway, smoke burning his lungs. The explosion hit like a giant fist, blowing him off his feet and slamming him into a concrete wall. The world spun. Alarms howled. Metal groaned overhead.

For a moment, everything was muffled.

Heat. Ash. Silence.

Then sound returned in a harsh wave, gunfire, boots, falling rubble.

Adrian forced himself up, blood running down his brow. His ears rang, but he could still hear the soldiers moving in. They weren’t searching anymore. They were hunting.

And Marcus had given the order.

Adrian… you should have stayed dead.

He felt that sentence like a knife twisting inside him. The betrayal burned deeper than the fire around him. Marcus Hale, the man who carried him through a bullet storm in Kandahar, the man who shared rations with him when they were trapped behind enemy lines, was now aiming to kill him.

Adrian pushed the pain down, sealed it inside the cold part of his mind. He had no time for emotion. Not now.

He grabbed a shard of metal beside him and jammed it beneath a fallen door, prying it open enough for him to slip through. Smoke curled around him as he stepped into the next room, the old communications bay.

He remembered standing here months ago, briefing his squad before that last mission. They laughed. We teased each other. Called themselves unkillable.

They are gone now.

Burned. Buried. Erased.

Adrian clenched his jaw.

If they thought fire could kill him, they didn’t know him anymore.

A shadow moved across the smoke. Boots clicked. Adrian pressed himself against the wall, eyes narrowing as he listened.

Three soldiers.

Standard pattern.

Two sweepers, one rear guard.

Adrian moved before they even saw him.

He grabbed the rear guard from behind, choking him silent with one arm while ripping the pin from the soldier’s own grenade. He shoved the grenade into the man’s vest and dragged him backward as the nearest soldier turned,

Boom.

The explosion blew both enemy soldiers off their feet, tearing through the comms room. Adrian rolled behind a metal crate, dust and shrapnel raining over him.

The building screamed as more support beams snapped.

He had seconds before the entire east side collapsed.

Adrian sprinted toward the back exit, or what used to be one. Concrete blocked half the path, but he slipped through the narrow opening and made it into a half-caved hallway. Sparks hissed from broken wires overhead.

He checked the drive he had found.

Still intact.

Still the only reason he came back.

He slung it into his inner pocket and moved on.

Then he heard it, Marcus’s voice echoing through the smoke:

“Fan out! If he’s not dead, put him down. Cipher wants a body.”

Cipher.

That name again.

The voice behind the betrayal.

The one pulling Marcus’s strings.

Adrian’s breath steadied.

Not fear.

Not hesitation.

Rage.

Cold, silent rage.

He stepped into another room, the weapons storage. Blackened shelves lined the walls. Broken rifles lay scattered on the floor. Most were useless.

But not all.

He picked up a compact SIG MPX, checked the barrel, and slid in a magazine from a fallen soldier. It wasn’t perfect, but it would kill.

The door burst open.

Marcus’s men flooded in.

Adrian moved like a shadow.

Three-round bursts.

Controlled fire.

Precise kills.

Two soldiers dropped immediately. A third crouched to return fire, too slow. Adrian shot him through the visor. The room was filled with choking dust and gunpowder.

Marcus shouted from somewhere behind the smoke:

“Kaine! Stop running!”

Adrian didn’t answer.

He pushed through a fallen steel plate and climbed up a cracked stairwell. The air thinned as he reached the second floor, where parts of the roof had collapsed. Rain poured through the gaps, sizzling as it hit the flames below.

The moment he stepped out onto the balcony, a bullet sliced past his ear.

Sniper.

Adrian dove behind a half-crushed pillar. Another shot rang, hitting the concrete beside him, sending chips flying.

He scanned the rooftops across the dockyard,

There.

A glint near a rusted crane tower.

The sniper had height, angle, and clear view.

Adrian had one chance.

He tossed a piece of broken glass far to the left. The sniper fired instantly, revealing his position again. Adrian leaned out and fired five quick shots, each one measured by instinct and training.

The glint vanished.

He didn’t wait to confirm the kill.

He dropped down from the balcony, landing on a lower walkway. Pain shot through his leg, but he pushed on. Behind him, shouts rose again. More soldiers. More boots.

Marcus’s voice cut through the storm:

“Adrian! Don’t make me do this!”

Adrian stopped.

Just for a second.

Marcus sounded different. Not confident. Not angry.

Afraid.

And Adrian knew why.

Marcus wasn’t just following orders.

He was being watched.

Controlled.

Used.

But that didn’t erase the fact he had tried to kill him.

Adrian’s voice came out cold:

“You already made your choice.”

He moved on, disappearing into the smoke.

He reached the edge of the factory floor, a huge open space where the ceiling had fallen in. Rain drenched the cracked concrete, mixing with black ash. Fires burned in scattered pockets.

And bodies.

Shadows moved in the smoke. Not soldiers this time.

Drones.

Small. Fast. Armed.

Adrian cursed under his breath.

These weren’t standard issue.

Someone with money deployed them.

Cipher.

The drones locked onto him, blinking red.

Adrian ran.

Bullets rained down behind him, shredding the floor. He zigzagged through debris, leaping over a fallen beam and sliding behind a rusted generator. Sparks burst beside him as another drone fired.

He counted three.

No, four.

He grabbed a metal rod, snapped the exposed power cable next to him, and jammed it into the puddle on the floor.

Water sparked violently, and the nearest drone flew straight into it.

Electrical burst.

Drone down.

Three left.

Adrian rolled to the next cover point as two drones fired in sync, bullets ripping through a collapsed wall. One drone hovered low, trying to flank him.

Adrian timed its path.

One second.

Two.

On the third, he stood, aimed, and shot it clean through its rotary wing.

It spiraled into the fire.

Two left.

He grabbed a flash grenade from the dead soldier’s belt beside him and threw it upward.

White light exploded across the hall.

The drones glitched mid-air.

Adrian shot both.

Silence returned, broken only by thunder and distant shouting.

He breathed hard, chest burning, vision blurred.

He’d survived the explosion.

Survived Marcus.

Survived drones.

But he was bleeding.

And the building was dying around him.

He staggered toward the far exit.

He was only ten steps away…

…when a familiar voice echoed behind him:

“Adrian.”

Marcus.

Adrian turned slowly.

Marcus stood at the far end of the hall, rifle lowered, rain dripping off his gear. His face twisted with conflict, anger, guilt, something else.

“You should have stayed dead,” Marcus repeated, voice shaking this time.

Adrian didn’t answer.

Marcus stepped closer. “You don’t understand. I had no choice. None of us did. Cipher”A gunshot cracked.

Not from Marcus.

From above.

Marcus jerked as the bullet tore through his shoulder. He fell to one knee, gasping.

Adrian spun toward the upper walkway

Another figure stood there.

Black tactical suit.

Rain slicked off his mask.

Rifle still raised.

A kill-squad operator.

And beside him, more shadows moved.

Five.

Seven.

Ten.

A whole strike team.

The one elite unit sent only for impossible targets.

Adrian Kaine.

A ghost who should have died.

The operator stepped forward and clicked on his comms.

“Cipher, visual confirmation. Target alive. Marcus Hale compromised. Orders?”

A cold voice replied through the storm:

“Kill them both.

And burn the evidence.”

Marcus looked up at Adrian, pain and shock flooding his eyes.

“Adrian… run.”

The kill squad opened fire.

The ceiling supports cracked.

The roof began to fall.

A blinding flash lit the hall

And the entire building collapsed on top of Adrian.