Old Soldier Never Dies

07/07/2009—Moscow, Russia.

Snow fell sideways over Moscow, paying silent witness to our quiet operation.

We were ghosts moving through glass towers, black-clad, night-eyed, trained to vanish between shadows and crossfire. Operation Iron Chapel had us deep inside a privatized weapons contractor’s corporate headquarters. Intel said they were moving prototype railgun parts through civilian channels. Our job was to grab proof and get out.

“Room clear,” I muttered into my radio, sweeping the corner of the cubicle floor. Rows and rows of pastel dividers stretched around me, like a maze built for accountants. Filing cabinets, overturned monitors, blood on a fax machine.

I moved to the next row. Bootfalls behind me. Then the low grumble of Blackhammer, the Major Graham Butler, our team lead, moving with all the grace of a freight train but none of the noise.

“You good, Blitz?” he asked me, using my callsign, one earned from having a great instinct and a deadshot aim.