Chapter 9 - The Ghost
Over the next year, the team went on more than a dozen missions. They rescued hostages, took down terrorist cells, stopped weapons shipments, prevented attacks that could have killed hundreds of people. They became the best of the best, the unit the Pentagon called when no one else could get the job done.
Olivia became the team’s lead sniper, and one of Captain Reed’s most trusted advisors. Her reputation grew even larger. People in the special operations community started calling her “The Ghost”—because she could hit a target from a mile away and disappear before anyone even knew she was there.
She made friends with the other members of the team. There was Sergeant Mia Torres, the team’s medic, a tough, funny woman from Texas who could patch up a bullet wound while telling a joke. There was Sergeant Javi Ramos, the engineer, a genius with explosives and electronics who could build a bomb out of almost anything. There was Sergeant First Class Tom Bennett, the close-quarters combat expert, a big, gentle giant from Georgia who could break a man’s neck with his bare hands but cried every time he watched The Notebook.
They became her family.
But even as she threw herself into her work, even as she built this new life for herself, there were still moments when the past came back to haunt her. Moments when she’d wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, dreaming of David Hale’s face, dreaming of the day he’d died, dreaming of the sound of Sergeant Major Cole’s laugh.
And then there was the mission in Syria.
It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance operation. The team was sent to a small village near the border, to gather intelligence on a terrorist leader who’d been hiding out there. They were supposed to observe, to take photos, to report back. No contact. No engagement.
But things went wrong.
A local informant had betrayed them. The terrorists knew they were coming. They’d set up an ambush.
The team was walking through a narrow alley in the village when the shooting started. Bullets rained down on them from the rooftops, from the windows of nearby buildings. Two of the team members were hit immediately—Bennett took a bullet to the shoulder, Torres took a graze to the arm.
“Fall back!” Reed shouted, firing back at the rooftops. “Fall back to the extraction point!”
The team moved quickly, returning fire, dragging the injured Bennett with them. But the terrorists were everywhere, dozens of them, firing from all directions. They were trapped.
Olivia ducked behind a low wall, her rifle shouldered, scanning the rooftops. She took out one terrorist, then another, then a third. But there were too many. They were being overwhelmed.
Then she saw him.
A man standing on the roof of a building at the end of the alley, holding a rocket launcher, aiming it right at the team.
Olivia’s blood ran cold. She knew that face. She’d seen it before, in photos, in case files. It wasn’t the terrorist leader they’d been sent to find.
It was Cole’s second-in-command. The man who’d escaped from the depot raid a year and a half earlier. The man they’d thought had fled the country, who’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
He smiled when he saw her, recognizing her. He adjusted his aim on the rocket launcher.
Olivia didn’t hesitate.
She raised her rifle, aimed, and fired.
The bullet hit the rocket launcher right as he was about to fire. It exploded, blowing the man apart, sending a fireball into the sky. The shockwave knocked Olivia back, slamming her into the wall behind her. Her head hit the hard stone, and everything went black.
She woke up in a military hospital in Germany, a dull throbbing in her head. Captain Reed was sitting in a chair beside her bed, his face tired, his arm in a sling.
“Hey,” he said, smiling faintly when he saw her eyes open. “Welcome back.”
Olivia tried to sit up, but Reed pushed her back gently. “Easy. You took a pretty bad knock to the head. Concussion. You’ve been out for two days.”
“The team?” Olivia asked, her voice hoarse.
“Everyone’s alive,” Reed said. “Bennett and Torres are going to be fine. A few cuts and bruises, but nothing serious. You saved us, Carter. That guy with the rocket launcher? If you hadn’t taken him out when you did, we’d all be dead.”
He paused, his expression serious. “We ID’d the body, by the way. It was Voss. Cole’s old right-hand man. The one who got away from the depot.”
Olivia nodded slowly. She’d known it was him. She’d never forget that face.
“He recognized me,” she said quietly. “He smiled when he saw me.”
Reed nodded. “The intel we found after the ambush confirms it. Voss has been working with this terrorist cell for months. He’s been selling them weapons, explosives. The same kind of stuff Cole was moving out of the depot. He’s been building a network, Carter. A big one. And it looks like Cole wasn’t the one running things. He was just a middleman. There’s someone higher up. Someone we haven’t found yet.”
Olivia felt a cold chill run down her spine. She’d thought it was over when Cole was arrested. She’d thought the conspiracy had been dismantled, that Hale’s death had been avenged. But it wasn’t over. It was just getting started.
There was someone else out there. Someone more powerful, more dangerous, than Cole ever was. Someone who’d been pulling the strings all along.
And now that someone knew who she was. Knew what she’d done. Knew that she was the only one who could stop them.
Olivia looked up at Reed, her eyes hard, determined.
“Then we find them,” she said. “Whoever they are, whatever it takes. We find them, and we finish this.”
Reed nodded, a grim smile on his face. “That’s what I thought you’d say. The Pentagon just gave us the green light. This is our mission now, Carter. We hunt them down. We take them apart. And we make sure they never hurt anyone else ever again.”
Olivia reached up and touched the silver bracelet on her wrist, David’s name cool against her skin.
She’d thought her fight was over. She’d thought she could finally move on. But fate had other plans.
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The ghost from her past had come back to haunt her.
And this time, she wasn’t going to stop until the job was done.
