The Black Hawk lifted off, slicing through the night sky as San Diego turned into a glittering patchwork below. Inside, the cabin lights dimmed, and the crew snapped into operational mode. I tightened the straps on my tactical vest, feeling the familiar click of my sidearm against my hip.
Chief Petty Officer Ramirez sat across from me, studying my face. He’d been one of the few who knew where I’d been hiding.
“You did well staying under the radar, Commander,” he said. “No leaks.”
“No choice,” I replied. “If they knew I was alive, Phoenix Protocol would’ve been compromised.”
The “they” he meant wasn’t foreign. They were domestic. Embedded. Dangerous.
Ramirez tapped his tablet, pulling up a set of grainy photos. “Hostage site is a warehouse outside of Carson City, Nevada. Private militia. Ex-military. They claim they have intel that compromises national security.”
“And they want to trade the hostages for what?” I asked.
He hesitated. “For you.”
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
Ramirez continued, “They think you’re still active in counterintelligence, which… well, you technically are. But they also think you’re dead. That was the point of you disappearing.”
“And the hospital cover?” I asked.
“To keep you out of sight until we knew who within the government could be trusted again.”
It finally made sense. The months of invisibility. The humiliation. The silence.
The hospital had been my shield.
Ramirez passed me a headset. “There’s more. The militia leader—Vance Krueger—says he has classified files involving the Phoenix Protocol. Files he shouldn’t even know exist.”
Phoenix Protocol wasn’t just classified. It was compartmentalized beyond top secret. If Krueger had even a fraction of it, the entire western command was at risk.
I exhaled slowly. “So he wants to trade the hostages for a ghost.”
“Exactly.” He raised a brow. “And we’re going to let him see the ghost.”
“Temporarily,” I corrected.
He smirked. “Temporarily.”
The pilot’s voice crackled through the cabin. “ETA twenty minutes. Commander Vuković, we’ll insert you a quarter mile from the site. Aerial eyes will stay dark until you signal.”
I nodded.
As I checked my gear, I couldn’t help thinking about the hospital. About how the nurses smiled at me kindly while the doctors dismissed me. About how no one realized that every night when I mopped the floors, I listened to news briefings through a hidden earpiece.
The janitor had been a mask.
A perfect one.
Ramirez’s voice pulled me back. “Nadia. You ready?”
I met his gaze. “I didn’t spend six months pretending to be invisible just to fail now.”
The Black Hawk descended into the shadows of the Nevada desert.
The mission was beginning.
And for the first time in months, I wasn’t hiding anymore.
The night air was sharp as I slipped from the helicopter into the desert brush. The team faded into the darkness behind me, each operative moving with disciplined silence. I crouched low, studying the warehouse ahead—its broken floodlights casting a half-lit glow across the gravel lot.
Ramirez whispered through comms, “Thermals show six hostiles, three hostages. Krueger is inside the main office.”
“Copy,” I murmured.
I approached the side entrance, picking the lock in under ten seconds. The smell of oil and dust hit me instantly. Voices drifted from deeper within.
“—I told them she’s alive! She has to be!” a man shouted.
Krueger.
I moved swiftly, clearing one corridor after another. Two guards approached from the far end, rifles slung casually. I waited for them to pass, stepped forward, and incapacitated them both before either hit the ground.
As I approached the office, I heard it:
A terrified woman sobbing softly.
“Please… please don’t hurt my husband…”
Hostages.
I slipped my micro-camera under the door. Three civilians, tied to chairs. Krueger pacing, jittery, paranoid.
I pushed the door open slowly. “Looking for me, Krueger?”
He spun, eyes widening as if I’d stepped out of a myth.
“Nadia Vuković,” he breathed. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
I entered the room fully, gun raised. “You’ve been reading the wrong reports.”
He laughed—a manic, broken sound. “I knew it! I knew they didn’t erase you completely. They couldn’t. Not when you know the truth.”
“Which truth is that?” I asked, circling him.
“That Phoenix Protocol wasn’t just surveillance,” he hissed. “It was an unauthorized domestic operation. And I have proof.”
He lunged toward a file on the desk. I shot once—clean, controlled—hitting the metal frame of the table inches from his hand. He froze.
“Kick it over,” I ordered.
He did.
When I opened the file, my stomach dropped.
Names. Dates. Conversations from high-level U.S. officials discussing unauthorized operations against civilians. Someone had leaked these to Krueger.
Someone inside our own chain of command.
“Where did you get this?” I demanded.
Krueger’s smile twisted. “From the same people who set you up to disappear.”
That stopped me cold.
Before I could press him further, he swung a blade from his boot and charged. I sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and slammed him into the ground. Ramirez burst through the door with the strike team seconds later.
“Hostages secure,” he said, cutting their restraints.
Krueger snarled up at me. “You think you’re saving the country? You’re protecting criminals.”
Ramirez cuffed him. “Save it for the interrogation.”
Later, as we lifted off with the hostages safe and Krueger detained, Ramirez sat beside me quietly.
“You know he wasn’t lying,” I said flatly.
Ramirez nodded. “Which means your cover isn’t over.”
I stared at the lights of Nevada fading below us.
I’d returned to duty tonight.
But the mission was far from over.
Because now I knew the truth:
The real enemy wasn’t hiding in a militia compound.
It was hiding inside the government I had sworn to protect.
