Flashback Continued — Siberia
By the ti the sun slid beneath the ridge, the mountain had frozen over. The cold bit into skin even through layers, a rciless reminder that Siberia wasn’t built for n. The old prison sat hunched in the snow like so dead beast, iron bars and shattered walls half-swallowed by drifts. No guards outside, no caras on the periter , but figures moved in the windows, shadows pacing doors.
Ghost lay flat on his stomach, sliding over the ice like part of it. His breath ca controlled, asured. His gloved hand pressed the radio to his mouth.
"Status."
"Red, in position," a voice crackled back.
"Snake, in position."
"Skull, in position."
Ghost’s eyes narrowed under the hood. "Snipers?"
A calm voice answered, low and sure. "All in position. You’re good to go."
That was all he needed.
The operatives moved like smoke, circling from different sides. No sound. No wasted steps. Then the first break
"Contact," Red’s voice snapped.
Gunfire erupted in the distance. Bursts of light flared through the windows.
"eliminated," Red finished, breath steady.
The prison roared awake. Boots pounded on concrete floors. Shouts, scrambled orders. A door slamd open. A man stepped out, rifle raised, searching the dark.
Ghost rose out of the snow like a phantom. The knife flashed once. A wet choke, the man’s eyes widening, then his body slumped as Ghost shoved it silently into the drift. Ghost stepped past without pause, slipping through the open door.
Inside, the air was stale, rank with damp concrete and unwashed bodies. He tore off the night-vision goggles. Too close now. Too narrow.
The corridors filled with noise , boots hamring, guns clacking, shouts bouncing off walls. Ghost blended into the dark, a shadow that didn’t wait.
A man turned the corner. Ghost’s knife sank deep under his ribs. A hand clamped over his mouth. The body dropped without a sound.
Two more stord down a stairwell. Ghost raised his rifle, the suppressor coughing twice , one bullet through the throat, the other through the eye. Both n folded before they could even register the attack.
Another tried to swing his rifle around in the cramped hallway. Ghost was faster. He closed the gap, grabbed the man’s barrel, twisted the crack of bone echoed as the soldier’s arm snapped. Ghost’s knife drove across his neck in the sa motion. Blood splattered the wall in an arc before the body hit the ground.
He didn’t stop moving.
The fifth one was crouched near a doorway, radio pressed to his ear. Ghost ca from behind. A sharp jerk , the knife ripped across the spine, then the throat. The radio clattered uselessly as the man fell sideways, limbs twitching.
The gunfire above carried on, Red and Snake keeping pressure on the enemy. Ghost pressed forward, footsteps careful, movents controlled.
Then he stopped.
At the end of the corridor, a heavy door sat chained shut. Rusted links twisted around the handles, padlocked tight. Behind it , faint cries. Small. Choked. The kind that crawled under your skin and stayed there.
Ghost lifted his rifle. One, two, three shots. The chains split and clattered to the floor.
The door groaned open.
And the dark inside breathed back at him.
They were all there , bodies huddled on cold concrete, hands and feet bound with rough rope, faces streaked with gri and fear. n, won, old heads bowed in shock, and children with eyes too big for their small faces. The light from Ghost’s flashlight skimd over them, catching the hollow of cheeks, the shine of panic in pupils.
He stepped inside like a shadow folding into the room. The stench , bleach and fear and stale air , slamd into him for a beat. People flinched, whispering prayers and nas. So began to cry softly, the sounds brittle in the small space.
Soone else ca through the doorway behind him , loud boots, a shout, the scrape of a radio. But the intruder’s eyes only saw the bodies for a second. In that flash, Ghost was gone. He moved like soone who belonged to the dark: no sound, no hesitation.
"Where is he?" the man barked, voice raw. "Who’s hiding him "
A slug of cold tal cut the words off. A bullet punched through the back of the man’s skull and he collapsed, a red bloom spreading across his collar. The room went jagged with a new kind of noise. People scread, a single long wail that split the cramped air.
"Shshsh," Ghost hissed, pressing a finger to his lips as if the quiet itself might steady them. He crouched low, voice low and urgent. "I’m not them. I’m here to get you out."
"Where’s Cassie?" he demanded, scanning the room with a fast, practiced sweep.
A thin teen girl in the third row ,eyes wide and wet , hesitated, then lifted a trembling hand. "I’m Cassie," she whispered. Her voice shook like a leaf.
Ghost stepped forward and untied her hands with quick, rough fingers. The rope ca loose, slapping her wrists. She didn’t move at first; it took a second for the reality to sink in. Tears slid down her face in hot tracks. Ghost didn’t offer a speech. He only nodded. "Cassie. Your father sent us. We’ll get you ho."
Her shoulders shook, a sound half-sob, half-relief. She blinked up at him with a look that mixed disbelief and sudden hope. Ghost’s jaw softened for the barest beat before the mission clicked back into place. "No ti to cry now. Be strong. Help each other."
He barked orders like a tempered thing. "Untie them. Move quick. Don’t make a sound unless you have to."
Hands fumbled at ropes, awkward at first. A man near the wall tried to pull loose a woman’s bindings, lips moving as if mumbling an apology to his child. An elder coughed and, with trembling fingers, began cutting rope with the blunt edge of a belt. The room filled with small noises, ropes sliding, soft gasps as circulation returned to fingers, the scrape of shoes as bodies shifted into stances they hadn’t used in months.
Ghost moved among them, steadying, shouting a na here, a direction there. He found an old man, still stubborn with pride, helping him to his feet with a grunt and a harsh whisper: "Keep moving." The old man’s eyes were frightened but they obeyed.
Outside, through the barred window, Miles flicked the flashlight. One long blink, then off. A pause. Blink. Off. The signal cut across the snow like a small pulse a simple language between n who made violence their work.
"Spotted," the sniper’s voice breathed into the earpiece. "West window. Clear path."
"Extraction en route," the strategist confird, voice flat but quick. "Sending the unit now. Two vehicles, east ravine. ETA three minutes."
Ghost didn’t wait to breathe. "Red, Snake ,keep them engaged. Make noise, draw attention away from the exits. Don’t let them lock down."
Red’s voice answered, clipped and ready. "On it.""Snake — copy."
They moved. The freed people shuffled, so leaning on each other, so still stunned into silence, but all moving with the single, bright determination of those who have been handed a second chance. Ghost stayed at the doorway a second longer, counting heads, eyes sharp for anything that might go wrong. Then he slid out into the corridor, boots finding the old echo of the prison, and the operation circled onward cold, precise, desperate.
Skull’s voice cut in, flat and quick. "The mad scientist isn’t here."Strategist breathed out. "Yeah. He is spotted in town. Team Sparrow is en route."
A beat later, Red’s voice ca, clipped and tight. "Ghost , incoming."
Ghost didn’t wait. "Stay here." He shut the heavy door behind him, latched it quick so it would sound like nothing more than a click to anyone listening. Then he stepped out.
Gunfire answered the snow , single, hard reports. n folded one after another like bad puppets with cut strings. The corridor lit and went dark, lit and went dark.
Soone lunged from the flank, knife flashing. Ghost spun. He caught the arm like he’d been waiting for that move all his life. Fingers closed on wrist. The man scread, a raw animal sound, trying to wrench free.
Then Ghost saw the tattoo. A small spider, inked tight at the wrist.
Everything in him tilted. mory slamd forward , another place, another ti. n with spider tattoos. A base, the Graveyard, a night of blood .
"You," Ghost said. The word had no softness left. "You’re one of them. I will destroy you."
The attacker flailed. He pushed, fought, cursed. Ghost’s grip tightened until the sound left the man’s lungs. Then a single shot, clean, brutal , punched through the back of the attacker’s skull. He slumped.
Blood hit Ghost’s glove. Dark, quick. He tasted iron in the air, the old, familiar cold that ca with close work. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t turn away.
Another figure charged down the hall, rifle raised. There was no ti for elegance. Ghost shoved the dead man’s weight between him and the muzzle, a living shield, and fired twice. The rifle barked and stilled. The gunman crumpled, eyes wide and already done.
Silence dropped like a heavy blanket. The last echo of gunfire died and the building held its breath.
"All down," Snake reported, voice low, almost a whisper through the earpiece.
"No other heat signatures," ca the calm reply from up high.
Strategist’s voice sliced back in. "Help with extraction. Move. Siberian forces will sweep fast if they detect the disturbance."
Ghost moved through the bodies, boots soft on pooled dark. He checked wrists one by one spider tattoos, small and identical, stamped like a brand. Not ordinary thieves. Not local brutes.
"They were not ordinary thieves," he said into the coms, voice steady but hard as flint.
"What do you an?" the strategist asked, imdiate.
Ghost didn’t answer right away. He wiped his glove on a sleeve and, with a look that carried the chill of a long mory, said, "You’re new. I want Ray."
The radio humd with activity — extraction crews confirming routes, n counting off, boots scraping. Ghost stood in the doorway a second more, watching the snow through the narrow window where the light bled in.
Then he slid back into the darkness where the saved people were gathering, one by one, shaky, alive.
...
The trucks rattled up through the white like slow iron beetles. Extraction had worked quiet, ssy, perfect. People climbed aboard, blankets wrapped tight around their shoulders, faces drawn but alive. Ghost slid off the last vehicle and stood for a long beat, letting the cold hit him properly. His breath smoked in the air. The camp slled the sa as it always did after a raid: hot tal, diesel, the thin, clean scent of antiseptic from the d tents.
The strategist t him at the edge of the convoy, jacket zipped, voice already moving through the checklist. "Volkov’s in custody. Team Sparrow secured him. He’s sedated, in restraints. They’ll get a proper interrogation once we’re on the move." He sounded tired but satisfied. "Good work out there."
Ghost said nothing. He let the words land and roll off like snow from a coat. He’d been thinking of other things of wrists and ink and the way those tattoos stared back like questions. The silence stretched.
The strategist frowned, searching his face. "Hey. What is it?"
Ghost’s jaw flexed. He looked over the dark shapes of the people being led past, the children clinging to their rescuers, the way one teen kept staring at the sky as if afraid it might fold in. "We’re leaving," he said simply.
There was no debate. Trucks rolled again, engines grumbling awake. The convoy pulled away across the frozen plain, leaving the old prison hunched and soundless behind them.
On the comms, his channel clicked. "Ray," Ghost said into the static.
A familiar, rough voice returned, warr than it had any right to be after a night like this. "Ghost. Good work. Well done." Ray’s tone carried a tired pride.
Ghost didn’t let the praise warm him. He kept his voice level, hard. "You lied to ."
There was a pause long enough for the wind to pick up over the cab and scatter fresh specks of snow. "What are you talking about?" Ray asked. Confusion tightened his words.
Ghost’s eyes weren’t on the road. They were on the n he’d killed, on the spider tattoos still visible under torn sleeves. "Those n. The ones you told were handled. I found the sa tattoos. Spider marks. You said the revenge was finished. You said they were dead."
Ray’s breath on the radio went flat, then quick. "You saw them? Are you sure?"
"It’s them." Ghost’s voice was rawer now, a thread pulled tight. "I’m sure. There’s more. They aren’t finished."
Silence answered for a mont the kind of silence that carried maps of consequence. Then Ray’s voice hardened. "You get back here. I’m taking this to command. If there are more of them we’ll hunt them down. We’ll give them hell."
The radio clicked and then fell quiet.
Miles let the radio go dead and folded his hands over his knees. In the motion of tucking them there, his fingers brushed sothing small in his coat pocket. His thumb found it ,a tiny jewel, smooth and warm from being carried for years. It had been in his hand since childhood, a keepsake, useless in a fight, priceless under mory.
He pulled it out, holding it in the palm like a prayer.
"I will take the revenge," His voice was low, iron and oath. "I promise."
User Comments
0 comments from readers