“Are you ready for this?”
Ava met his gaze without blinking. “I won’t miss, Master Chief.”
Sullivan held her eyes for a long moment, then gave a slow nod. “You’d better not. If this goes sideways, you’re the only thing between us and a body bag. Don’t make me regret believing in you, Roor.”

As he walked off, Corporal Hayes leaned against the nearby wall, arms folded. “Inspirational,” he muttered. “Too bad confidence doesn’t stop bullets.”
Ava hoisted her rifle case onto her shoulder. “Neither does cynicism, Corporal.”

She left him there and headed for the armory to prep her gear. The M210 still needed final calibration. She’d be shooting at altitude, in cold air, with shifting wind conditions. The margin for error was razor thin.

Alone in the weapons bay, she broke the rifle down with smooth, practiced motions, inspecting every component. The barrel was spotless. The bolt cycled clean. The trigger broke at exactly three pounds. She slid five rounds of M118 LR into the magazine, then chambered a sixth. At 175 grains and a muzzle velocity of 2,580 feet per second, each round could reach beyond 1,200 meters with lethal accuracy.

If she did everything right. If she didn’t second-guess herself. If she could silence the voice whispering that she was about to prove every doubter correct.

“Your weapon ready?”
Ror’s voice made her turn. The commander stood in the doorway, his own rifle slung across his back.
“Yes, sir.”

He stepped inside, closing the door. “Sullivan’s worried. Hayes thinks I’m making a political statement. Half the team thinks you’ll lock up once rounds start flying.”
Ava straightened. “And what do you think, sir?”

Ror’s expression stayed neutral. “I think you’ve got something to prove. And soldiers like that are either the bravest or the most dangerous.” He paused.

“Your father once told me the hardest shot he ever took was the one where he had to trust himself completely. No spotter. No backup. Just him, the target, and the certainty he’d done everything right. That’s what tomorrow will be like for you.”
“I’m ready, Commander.”
“I know.”

Ror turned to leave, then stopped. “Morgan—when I call your name tomorrow, when everything’s gone to hell and we’re taking fire from places we didn’t expect—remember this. I chose you because I’ve seen hundreds of snipers. You’re one of maybe five I’d trust with my life. Don’t let the noise in your head make you forget that.”

After he left, Ava sat alone in the silent armory, the rifle’s weight resting across her knees. Outside, helicopter rotors spun up for preflight checks, their rhythmic thunder shaking the walls. Sixteen hours until insertion. Sixteen hours until she found out whether she was worthy of the uniform—or just another soldier who mistook confidence for competence.

The helicopter banked hard over the mountains, turbulence rattling bolts and rivets. Ava sat wedged between Hayes and Patterson, her rifle locked in a vertical hard case. Through the open side door, Afghanistan stretched below in layers of gray beneath a moonless sky. No one spoke. The rotors made conversation impossible.

But more than that, every operator was inside their own mind, rehearsing contingencies. Sullivan checked his med kit for the third time. Colby tested radio encryption. Hayes stared into nothing, jaw working gum. Ror sat across from Ava, his face lit green by a tablet streaming live satellite imagery. He looked up once, caught her eye, and nodded. No encouragement. No warning. Just acknowledgment.

The pilot’s voice crackled in their headsets. “Two minutes to LZ Phoenix. Weather’s deteriorating. Winds gusting twenty-five knots. Dust storm pushing in from the west.”
Ava’s stomach tightened. Variable wind meant shifting trajectories. She’d need to read the mirage, watch dust patterns, maybe even account for Coriolis at extreme range. Every complication was another chance to fail.

“Thirty seconds. Green light.”
The helicopter flared, blasting a cloud of brown dust that swallowed the terrain. Before the skids touched down, Sullivan was out, weapon raised, scanning. The others followed in drilled sequence.

Ava exited fourth, boots hitting rocky ground as the downdraft nearly knocked her sideways. The helicopter lifted immediately, leaving a sudden, heavy silence. Ror signaled a diamond formation. Ava took center. They moved into the mountains, night vision turning the world into glowing green shadows.

The terrain was brutal—loose scree, hidden gullies, thorny brush clawing at gear. Ava kept her breathing steady, matching the team’s pace. Her rifle case was strapped diagonally across her back. Forty pounds. It felt like a thousand by the time they reached overwatch.

She didn’t complain. Didn’t ask for a break. Just kept moving.

Two hours into the climb, they reached a narrow canyon pass. Sullivan went first, testing holds. Hayes followed, then Colby and Patterson. Ava went fifth, Ror anchoring the rear. Halfway up, her boot slipped on damp stone.

For one terrifying second, she dangled by her fingertips, the rifle case pulling her off balance. Fifty feet below—jagged rock. A hand clamped her wrist. Hayes, braced above her, muscles straining.
“I’ve got you,” he grunted. “Right foot. There’s a ledge.”

She found it, pushed, scrambled over the rim. Hayes hauled her the rest of the way up, then immediately turned away, almost embarrassed.
“Thanks,” Ava said.
“Move faster next time,” he muttered—but the edge was gone.

They reached overwatch at 0525, five minutes early. Perfect position. A shallow depression behind a rock outcrop, solid cover with a clear view of the compound below. Ava pulled out her rangefinder.

Main building: 1,142 meters.
North guard tower: 987.
Southern wall breach point: 1,056.

She entered the data, adjusted for altitude and temperature, and set the rifle on its bipod. Through the scope, the compound sharpened—four buildings around a central courtyard, two vehicles near the main structure, a generator humming, at least eight guards moving with disciplined precision.

“Iron Wolf Actual to Iron Wolf Six,” Ror whispered. “Overwatch in position. Confirm?”
“Affirm. Eight hostiles visible. Three more probable inside main structure based on thermal.”
“Copy. Stand by for assault movement.”

Ava settled in, slowing her pulse, feeling wind patterns on her cheek. The dust storm was rising on the western horizon—a slow, advancing wall. Below, the assault team emerged from the darkness, ghosts in tactical gear, reaching the southern wall unnoticed.

Sullivan placed the charge. Hayes covered the courtyard.

Then everything unraveled.

A guard stepped out unexpectedly, radio to his mouth. He’d seen something. Before Ava could warn them, the alarm sounded. Floodlights ignited. Armed figures poured from doorways.
“Contact!”

Sullivan’s voice burst over comms. “We’re compromised. Abort. Abort!”
Gunfire erupted. Tracers streaked red across the night. The assault team scattered, pinned as automatic fire tore chunks from the wall above them. Ava swept the scope—too many targets. Coordinated. Professional. This wasn’t panic. It was an ambush.

Through the chaos—Patterson hit. Flanking fire from the north—cut through Ror’s voice, calm and iron-steady.
“Iron Wolf sniper. You’re up.”

Training took over. First target: a machine gunner in the guard tower laying suppressive fire. Center mass. Breathe. The rifle kicked. The man collapsed.

Second target: squad leader behind a vehicle, partially obscured. She aimed for the narrow gap between door and frame. Fired. He dropped.

Third: an RPG operator climbing to a rooftop. Nearly 1,200 meters, wind gusting. Ava read the dust, held three feet left, squeezed. The figure pitched backward, RPG clattering uselessly across the tiles.

“Good hits!” Sullivan shouted. “Keep them off us!”

But more kept coming. Not eight. Twenty. Maybe thirty. Vulov had reinforced the compound and anticipated the hit. Iron Wolf was pinned with a wounded man and no clear exit.

A muzzle flash flared from a window Ava had already cleared. She saw it half a second before the round cracked past Ror’s position. Ava swung, fired twice. The first shattered glass. The second found flesh.

Then the bolt jammed.

Dirt from the fall. She swore, cleared it by hand, chambered a new round. Three seconds lost. An eternity.

“Iron Wolf Six—”

Ror’s voice came over the radio, tight now.
“We’ve got enemy reinforcements moving from the north canyon. Two vehicles. Multiple dismounts. We’re about to be surrounded.”

Ava swung her scope toward the northern approach. Two technical trucks, each with a heavy machine gun mounted in the bed, tore down the road toward the compound. At least a dozen fighters were visible, silhouettes bouncing with the vehicles’ speed.

This was no longer a rescue mission.
It was survival.

And she was the only thing standing between her team and annihilation.

The trucks roared closer, headlights slicing through the darkness. Ava tracked the lead vehicle, her mind already calculating intercept angles.

Standard anti-vehicle doctrine said to take the driver. But these trucks had armored cabs. The gunners in the beds were exposed, but killing them wouldn’t stop the vehicles themselves.

She needed another solution.

The lead truck hit a rut, its suspension bouncing hard. For a split second, the fuel tank mounted behind the cab was exposed.

Ava adjusted her aim six inches lower than the driver’s position, accounting for metal thickness and angle of penetration.
Breathe.
Wait for the rhythm.
Now.

The rifle barked for half a second.

Nothing happened.

Then orange flame erupted beneath the truck’s chassis.

The vehicle swerved violently, rolled twice, and slammed onto its side, black smoke pouring skyward. The second truck veered to avoid the burning wreck.

Ava fired twice, punching rounds through its right front tire at thirteen hundred meters. The vehicle fishtailed, clipped a boulder, and spun out, ejecting its occupants into the dust.

“Reinforcements neutralized,” she reported. “But you’ve got dismounts converging on your position. At least eight, closing from the northeast.”

“Copy,” Ror replied. “Sullivan, get Patterson stabilized. Hayes, Colby, set a defensive line at the breach. Morgan—” He paused as gunfire intensified. “We need a way out. Find us one.”

Ava pulled back from her scope and studied the broader terrain.

The compound sat in the bowl of a horseshoe canyon. The northern road was now blocked by burning vehicles. The canyon walls were too steep for a wounded man to climb.

They were boxed in.

Then she zoomed west.

The dust storm rolling in had begun to obscure visibility, but through the haze she spotted it—a narrow cleft in the rock face, barely visible even in daylight. It appeared to snake over the ridge into an adjacent valley.

If they reached it before the main enemy force arrived, it might be their only escape.

“Iron Wolf Actual,” Ava said. “I have a possible exfil route. Western canyon wall, approximately two hundred meters from your current position. There’s a cleft that may lead through. It’ll be tight, especially with a casualty—but it beats staying here.”

“Sullivan,” Ror said. “Can Patterson move?”

“Negative on self-ambulatory,” Sullivan replied. “Through the thigh. Bone’s intact, but he’s lost blood. Needs carry assist.”

“Hayes. Colby. You’re on Patterson. I’ll provide rear security.”

Ror’s voice stayed calm, but Ava could hear the math running beneath it. Moving a casualty under fire was a nightmare. Every second of exposure invited disaster.

The team began their withdrawal, moving in coordinated bounds. Hayes and Colby carried Patterson between them, his face gray with pain. Sullivan laid down suppressive fire while Ror coordinated movement.

Ava shifted back into her scope.

An enemy fighter appeared at the compound entrance. She fired. He dropped. Another rose from behind a vehicle. She fired again—the round missed by inches.

The wind picked up as the dust storm closed in, creating erratic eddies.

“Contact left!” Hayes shouted. “Hostiles on the eastern ridge!”

Ava swung right.

Movement along a rocky outcropping nine hundred meters away. Not compound guards.

These were reinforcements from the disabled trucks, climbing for elevation to rain fire onto Iron Wolf’s retreat.

She took the first man—clean chest hit. Reacquired. Fired again. The second dove for cover.

She waited. Controlled her breathing. Watched.

There—helmet edge, just visible.

She aimed six inches below where she knew his head would be, compensating for the rock shielding him. Fired.

The helmet snapped backward, empty.

But there were too many.

For every enemy she dropped, two more appeared. Her ammunition was finite. She’d started with fifty rounds.

By her count, she had twenty-three left.

“Iron Wolf Six,” she said. “Multiple hostiles establishing positions on the eastern ridge. At least ten, possibly more. Height advantage. Clear sight lines on your escape route.”

“Can you suppress them?” Ror asked.

Ava ran the numbers.

Ten targets across two hundred meters, dug in, covered.
“Negative. Not enough rounds. I can take three, maybe four. The rest will have free shots on your team.”

Silence on the radio.

Then, “What do you recommend, Lieutenant?”

It was the first time Ror had asked her opinion in combat.

Despite the chaos, despite the fear, clarity settled in.

“I need to reposition. If I move to the ridge line four hundred meters south of my current location, I’ll get flanking angles. They’re expecting fire from the west. I hit them from the south, they’ll be exposed.”

“That’s outside comms range,” Ror said.

“If I get in trouble, I know, sir. But it’s the only way to keep them off you long enough to reach the cliff.”

Another pause. Gunfire crackled behind his breathing.

“Do it. You have fifteen minutes before we hit the cliff. After that, we can’t wait.”

“Understood. Iron Wolf Six moving.”

Ava broke down her position in seconds—collapsing the bipod, securing her kit.

She took one last look at the compound below, muzzle flashes flickering like deadly fireflies. Her team was down there, counting on her.

Then she turned and ran into the darkness, alone—beyond support, carrying nothing but her rifle and the thin hope that she could do the impossible.

Behind her, the dust storm swallowed the canyon whole.

The terrain was treacherous in the dark. Night vision turned the world into alien greens and blacks. Loose stones slid under her boots. Thorny shrubs tore at her sleeves.

Every few seconds she checked her compass, holding her bearing toward the southern ridge.

The storm was both enemy and ally. Visibility dropped to near zero—good for masking movement, bad for precision shooting. At extreme range, even minor atmospheric distortion could turn a perfect shot into a miss.

She reached the ridge with three minutes to spare.

The position was exactly what she’d hoped for: a rocky promontory overlooking the eastern ridge, where enemy fighters had settled in, confident they had time to pick Iron Wolf apart.

They were wrong.

Ava set up quickly, ranging targets. Closest: eight hundred forty-seven meters. Farthest: eleven ninety-four.

Difficult. Not impossible.

She pulled out a small notebook—the same one her father had carried.

On the last page was his Mirage formula: reading heat distortion through the scope to estimate wind speed and direction at the target. Dust followed the same principles.

She watched particles drift across her sight picture.

Wind left to right, roughly twelve miles per hour. Temperature down to fifty-eight. Altitude already factored.

She dialed her adjustments.

Then she settled in behind the rifle.

And waited.

“Iron Wolf Actual to Iron Wolf Six.” Ror’s voice crackled through the radio, barely cutting through the static whipped up by the storm. “We’re nearing the cleft, taking sporadic fire from the eastern ridge. Whatever you’re going to do—do it now.”

Ava found her first target in the scope. A man with a Dragunov rifle, prone, completely focused on the canyon below. He never saw it coming. Her shot thundered through the canyon.

The man twitched once and went still. The others reacted instantly—but they reacted wrong. They assumed the shot had come from the west, from Ava’s original overwatch position. They pivoted to face that direction, turning their backs to her. She dropped the second man. Then the third. Then the fourth.

By the fifth shot, they realized their mistake. Rounds slammed into the rock around her, ricochets screaming, but the damage was already done. She had opened the window Iron Wolf needed. The fighters on the eastern ridge were no longer focused on the canyon. They were fighting to survive, pinned by an unseen shooter in the dust.

“Eastern ridge suppressed,” Ava reported. “You’ve got a window. Move now.”
“Copy. We’re moving.” A pause. “Outstanding work, Lieutenant.”

Ava gave herself three seconds of relief. Then she saw it. Movement on the compound’s northern approach. Not the wrecked technicals—something larger. Through the dust, she caught the angular shape of an armored personnel carrier, desert camouflage streaked with grime.

The kind of vehicle that belonged in a military depot—not in mercenary hands. But Victor Vulov wasn’t an ordinary mercenary. He was former Russian special forces, with access to weapons networks spanning continents. The APC’s turret rotated slowly, thermal optics searching. Ava felt dread tighten her chest.

The dust storm shielding Iron Wolf from sight would be useless against thermal imaging. The APC would see their heat, track them, run them down before they reached the cliff.
“Iron Wolf Actual, be advised—you have an APC entering the canyon from the north. Thermal equipped. You are visible to it.”

“Can you disable it?” Ror asked, though the strain in his voice told her he already knew.
Ava studied the vehicle. Armored hull. Reinforced turret. Bullet-resistant glass. Her rifle could punch through a lot—but not military-grade armor.
“Negative on rifle fire. Armor’s too thick.”

“Options?”
She scanned frantically. The APC rolled past the burning technicals, and there—mounted on the overturned truck bed—was an RPG-7 launcher. Thrown clear in the crash. Sixteen hundred meters from her position. Possibly damaged. Possibly empty. But it was the only weapon in the canyon capable of stopping an APC. And it lay exposed, two hundred meters from the enemy vehicle.

“I have an idea,” Ava said carefully. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“There’s an RPG near the burning trucks. If I can reach it before the APC locks onto me, I might be able to disable the vehicle.”
“That’s over a klick from your position, across open ground, with hostiles everywhere.” Ror’s tone hardened. “Negative.”

“Lieutenant, your orders are overwatch—not a solo assault.”
“Sir, if that APC reaches the cleft, your team dies. All of you. This is the only play.”

Silence. Ava counted five heartbeats. Then ten.
“Your father once disobeyed a direct order in Fallujah,” Ror said at last. “Saved fifteen Marines doing it. Got a medal and a court-martial. Spent six months explaining why he was right.” Another pause.

“I’m not your superior right now. I’m a commander with no good options. If you believe you can reach that RPG and stop that APC, I’m trusting your judgment.”
A beat. “But if you die doing this, I’m going to be very angry at your father’s ghost for teaching you to be this stubborn.”

Despite everything, Ava smiled. “Copy that, sir. Iron Wolf Six is moving.”

She slung her rifle across her back and sprinted down the ridge toward the burning vehicles.

The dust storm thickened, visibility shrinking to maybe thirty meters. It was the only reason she had a chance. The ground was a maze of rocks, thorns, and sudden drop-offs she couldn’t see until she was already falling. She went down twice, skin ripped from her palms on jagged stone—but she kept moving.

The APC’s engine growled somewhere to her left. How close? The dust made it impossible to tell. Fifty meters—or five. She nearly collided with the burning technical before she saw it, heat slamming into her face like a wall.

The RPG lay ten feet away, half buried in dust. Ava lunged, hands closing around warm metal. The launcher was intact. She cracked open the tube, checking the mechanism. It looked functional. Now she needed a rocket.

She tore through scattered wreckage and found a canvas bag flung clear. Inside—three RPG-7 warheads. Anti-tank. Exactly what she needed.

A metallic squeal sliced through the storm. Treads on rock. The APC was close—very close. Ava loaded a warhead, primed the launcher, and waited.

Training echoed in her mind. Optimal range: two hundred meters. Closer improved accuracy but risked backblast. Farther risked drift.

The APC emerged from the dust like a steel ghost. Seventy meters. Sixty. Fifty. Ava aimed for the thinner side armor beneath the turret, steadied her breathing, waited for alignment. Thirty meters.

She fired.

The rocket screamed from the tube, trailing white smoke. For one terrible second, Ava thought she’d missed—the round climbing too high.

Then it dipped. Impact. Detonation. The canyon erupted in light and force.

The blast wave slammed her flat. Shrapnel rained down. She rolled behind the burning technical as machine-gun fire tore through the ground where she’d been standing.

The APC wasn’t dead. The explosion ripped away part of the armor skirt and wrecked a tread, but the vehicle still moved. Still lethal. And now it knew exactly where she was. The turret rotated toward her cover.

Ava grabbed the second warhead, hands shaking as she loaded. The APC fired—autocannon rounds shredding the technical’s remains. She had maybe five seconds before the gun walked onto her position and erased it.

She rose, aimed, and fired without hesitation.

The rocket struck the APC’s turret ring—the vulnerable seam where the rotating assembly met the hull. The blast was smaller, but far more devastating. The turret locked in place, frozen mid-rotation as thick smoke poured from the hatches. Ava didn’t pause. She loaded the third and final warhead, circled to the rear where the engine compartment had the thinnest armor, and fired the last rocket straight through the grill.

The APC died with a long, metallic groan, collapsing onto its shattered treads as internal fires devoured it from within. Ava dropped the empty launcher and keyed her radio.

“Iron Wolf Actual. APC neutralized. Repeat—threat eliminated.”

“Copy.” Ror’s voice came back carrying something she’d never heard before. Awe.

“We’re at the cleft. Everyone made it through to the secondary valley. Extraction bird inbound. ETA twelve minutes.”

“Good to hear, sir.” Ava swayed on her feet, the adrenaline crash slamming into her like a sledgehammer. “I’m—”

The world detonated.

She never heard the grenade. Never saw it arc through the dust. One second she was upright, the next she was airborne, tumbling as the world fractured into spinning fragments of flame, grit, and darkness.

She hit the ground hard enough to crack ribs. Her helmet spared her skull, but not her consciousness. The last thing she saw before everything went black were figures advancing through the dust. The last thing she heard was her father’s voice, a memory from childhood.

When you fall, you get back up. Every time. No exceptions.

Then—nothing.

Ava woke to pain.

Ribs screaming. Skull pounding. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She tried to move and realized her hands were zip-tied behind her back. Through blurred vision, she made out three figures standing over her.

The one in the center crouched down. Cold blue eyes stared back at her from a face carved out of Siberian granite.

“Lieutenant Morgan,” the man said in accented English. “The famous Iron Wolf sniper. You have cost me many men tonight.”

Victor Vulov. Up close, he was older than she’d expected—maybe fifty, silver threaded through his dark hair—but there was nothing frail about him. He moved like someone who had lived his entire life in violence and learned to savor it.

“My employer will be displeased,” Vulov continued. “He paid well for discretion and the CIA man. Instead, you’ve created an international incident. Still, perhaps you can help me salvage something from this mess.”

“You will tell me how many SEALs are operating here, their reinforcement timeline, and where your commander is headed.”

Ava said nothing.

“You were trained to resist interrogation,” Vulov said calmly. “Name, rank, serial number. Yes. But I am not interested in your name. I already have your identification. Nor am I interested in information you don’t possess.”

“I am interested in—”

He moved faster than she thought possible.

His fist drove into her broken ribs. White light detonated behind her eyes.

“—making you scream,” Vulov finished.

“You killed my brother tonight,” he said quietly. “He commanded that APC. I heard him burn alive over the radio, crying for our mother. So before I kill you, I will teach you what pain truly is.”

Through the agony, Ava’s mind kept working.

She was behind the burning technical. Zip-tied. Injured. Alone. Her rifle was gone. Her pistol was gone. Her knife—

Her knife was still in her boot.

They’d searched her vest and belt, but missed the small blade strapped to her left ankle.

If she could reach it—

“Nothing to say?” Vulov asked. “No final bravado? No threats?”

Ava met his gaze. When she spoke, her voice was steady despite the pain.

“My commander taught me the most dangerous person in any room is the one with nothing left to lose. You should’ve killed me while I was unconscious.”

Vulov laughed. “I would miss watching the light leave your eyes. Miss hearing you beg.”

He drew a knife from his belt. “No, Lieutenant. You die slowly.”

The radio on his belt crackled. “Sir, movement on the ridge. Possibly Americans doubling back.”

Vulov’s expression hardened. “Deal with it. I’ll finish here.”

He looked back down at Ava. “Thirty seconds. Tell me where your team is going. If you comply, I kill you quickly. If not, I start with fingers.”

Ava flexed her wrists. The zip ties cut into her skin but held.

She needed him distracted. Just seconds more.

“I’ll tell you,” she said weakly. “Just—just don’t hurt me anymore.”

Vulov smiled. “Where?”

“The cleft,” Ava whispered. “Western canyon wall. Through to the next valley.”

“How many?”

“Five. No—four. One was too wounded to move. They might’ve left him.”

“Extraction?”

“Helicopter. LZ Falcon. Four clicks southeast.”

Her voice cracked. “Please. I told you everything.”

Vulov knelt beside her, blade glinting. “You think I’m a fool? There is no LZ Falcon in this sector.”

He reached for her hand.

Ava moved.

Her legs snapped up and around his neck, years of training igniting in a single instant. She locked her ankles, crushing with everything she had, cinching a perfect triangle choke.

Vulov clawed at her legs, slammed her into the ground once—twice. She held on. Vision dimming. Ribs screaming. Held on as he groped for his knife. Held on as darkness pressed in.

Then his resistance faltered.

Stopped.

He went limp.

Ava released and rolled away, gasping. She had seconds—maybe less. She twisted, ignoring the pain, and pulled the knife from her boot sheath. Three inches of steel. Enough.

She sawed through the zip ties, hands slick with blood, until they snapped free.

Vulov stirred. Unconscious, not dead.

Ava didn’t hesitate.

She took his rifle. His radio. His sidearm.

Then she ran into the dust storm toward the western canyon wall—toward her team.

Behind her, shouts erupted. Gunfire cracked. They’d found their commander.

Ava didn’t look back.

She ran blind through the storm, following her compass. Every breath was agony, broken ribs grinding. Her head throbbed, but she kept moving.

Russian voices barked over Vulov’s radio. They were organizing pursuit. Thermal optics would cut through the dust.

Minutes. Maybe less.

The canyon wall emerged from the brown murk. She found the cleft more by instinct than navigation—a narrow vertical scar in the stone. Blood smeared the rock where Patterson had been dragged through.

Ava squeezed into the gap, rifle overhead, jagged stone scraping her vest as the passage swallowed her whole.

And she kept moving.

She pushed farther in—ten feet, then twenty—until she slipped into a narrow defile on the far side.
“Don’t move.”

She froze.

Hayes stood five feet away, rifle leveled at her chest. Behind him, Sullivan and Colby had taken defensive positions while Ror knelt beside Patterson, replacing blood-soaked bandages with fresh ones.

“It’s me,” Ava managed. “Lieutenant Morgan.”
“Prove it,” Hayes said. “What did Commander Ror say to you in the armory yesterday?”

Smart. Testing for Russian infiltrators fluent in English.

“He said my father once told him the hardest shot is the one where you have to trust yourself completely.”

Hayes lowered his weapon. “How are you alive? We heard the explosion. Saw you go down.”
“Vulov captured me. I got free.”

She swayed, catching herself against the rock wall.

“He knows you’re heading this way. He’s got at least twenty men left—maybe more—and they have thermal optics.”

Ror stood, face set. “Patterson can’t move any faster. We’re barely ahead of them.”
“If they catch us in this defile—”
“They won’t.”

Ava pulled out Volkov’s radio and switched to the Russian channel. The chatter was constant, clipped and urgent, coordinating pursuit.

“I can hear their movements. And I have this.”

She lifted the rifle she’d taken—a VSS Vintorez. Suppressed. Subsonic. Russian special forces issue. Effective to four hundred meters, and nearly silent.

“I can slow them down,” Ava said. “But I need a position overlooking the cleft entrance.”
“No,” Ror said flatly. “You’re injured, exhausted, and we’re not leaving anyone behind again.”
“You’re not leaving me.”
“I’m volunteering.”

She met his eyes. “Sir, you taught me leadership means making hard calls. This is that call. Patterson needs medical care now. That means you have to reach the extraction bird.”

“I can buy you the time. Not by sacrificing myself—but by trusting myself to do my job.”

She smiled faintly, tasting blood. “Just like my father would.”

Sullivan stepped forward. “Commander, she’s right. We’re not making the LZ with hostiles on us. Someone has to hold the choke point.”

Ror looked at each man. Saw the same reluctant agreement. Then he turned back to Ava.

“If you do this, you use every trick you know to stay alive. You hold them ten minutes. Then you run.”

“That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”

He held out his hand. She shook it—and in that grip felt everything he couldn’t say aloud. Respect. Gratitude. And the crushing knowledge he might be sending her to die.

“Hayes stays with you,” Ror said.
“Sir—” Hayes started.
“You heard me. Two rifles are better than one. You keep her alive. Then you both move to the LZ.”

“Extraction in eight minutes. The bird waits sixty seconds. Miss it, and you’re walking to Cobble.”

Hayes looked like he wanted to argue. Instead, he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The rest of Iron Wolf moved out—Sullivan and Colby carrying Patterson between them. Ror paused at the defile entrance, looked back once, then vanished into the dust.

Hayes turned to Ava. “So. Any brilliant plans, Lieutenant?”

Ava scanned the terrain. The defile opened into a small clearing before narrowing again—a perfect kill zone if set right.

“How many grenades?”
“Three.”
“Good. Triangle pattern around the cleft entrance. Twenty-foot spacing. Remote detonation if you’ve got it.”
“I do. But even then, it won’t stop them all.”
“It’s not supposed to. It funnels them.”

She pointed to a rocky outcropping on the left. “You get elevation there. When the grenades go, they’ll instinctively move away from the blasts—right into the open. You take the left. I’ll take the right. They won’t know where to run.”

Hayes studied it, then nodded slowly. “That might work. At least for the first wave.”
“Then we improvise.”

They moved fast. Hayes planted the grenades while Ava set up behind a fallen boulder with clean sight lines. The VSS felt different from her M210—lighter, less punch—but at this distance it would do the job.

Radio chatter intensified. The Russians were close.

“Here they come,” Hayes whispered.

Three figures emerged from the cleft, rifles up, moving clean and disciplined. They cleared the area and signaled back.

Four more.
Six.
Eight.

When the tenth man stepped into the clearing, Ava triggered the detonator.

The grenades went off in sequence, turning the space into fire, shrapnel, and screaming metal. Men shouted. Dust swallowed everything. Visibility dropped to zero. Ava fired into the chaos—short, controlled double taps.

Beside her, Hayes’s rifle cracked steadily. They couldn’t see targets, only muzzle flashes in smoke. The suppressed VSS barely whispered—soft coughs swallowed by the roar.

The survivors fell back into the cleft. Ava counted at least four bodies.

“How long?” Hayes asked.
“Two minutes.”
“We need eight more.”

Russian voices flooded the radio—urgent, angry. Ava caught fragments. RPG. Suppress. Flank.

“They’re splitting,” she said.
“Can they?” Hayes asked.
“No. This canyon’s a funnel. But they can bring firepower we can’t match. RPG team’s coming.”

Hayes let out a tight laugh. “So we bought two minutes and now we die to rockets. Fantastic plan.”
“You got a better one?”

Something arced out of the cleft.
“Grenade!”

They dove as it detonated, stone fragments slicing the air. More followed—flashbangs, smoke. Prep fire.

Through the chaos, Ava heard the unmistakable sound of an RPG being loaded.
“Move!” she yelled.

They scrambled as a rocket screamed from the cleft, slamming into the boulder Ava had been using as cover. The blast hit her like a truck. Her ears rang—nothing but tinnitus and her own heartbeat.

She looked up. Russians poured through the cleft—twenty at least—firing as they advanced.

Hayes was pinned, returning fire from behind a rock, hopelessly outnumbered.

This was it. They’d done their job. Now they were going to die here.

Ava raised the VSS for one last shot.

And then the sky roared.

A Chinook burst through the dust like a mechanical angel, twin rotors beating the air into submission. Door guns opened up, 7.62 tracers ripping through the clearing where Russians had stood seconds before.

Ava stared, stunned.

A rope dropped.

Commander Ror slid down, boots hitting hard as the helicopter hovered thirty feet up. He sprinted to Ava, yanking her upright.

“You said sixty seconds at the LZ!” she shouted over the rotor wash.
“I lied.”

Ror grabbed Hayes, hauling him toward the rope. “Figured you’d refuse to hold if you knew we were coming back. Now shut up and climb.”

Sullivan was already coming down another rope, firing his M4 to cover them.

Ava wrapped herself around the line and felt the winch pull her upward. Her ribs screamed. She didn’t care. Hayes rose beside her. Then Ror. Then Sullivan.

The moment they were aboard, the pilot banked hard, tearing away from the canyon as RPG trails chased them into the sky.

Ava collapsed onto the deck, gasping, as someone wrapped a thermal blanket around her.