Smoke Without Fire

(John's POV)

Thirty miles through cold mud, thornbrush, and aching silence.

That's how long it took for us to reach the old Soviet relay station Nikolai spoke of. A forgotten husk of rusted steel and crumbling concrete, buried deep in the forest's throat where satellites didn't reach and drones couldn't fly.

It was perfect.

We arrived just before nightfall, dragging our bodies up through the gravel slope behind the collapsed comm tower. Nikolai pried open the bulkhead door, and we stepped into the dark—shrouded in the wet smell of dust and metal, shadows thick on the walls.

We had a roof. We had isolation.

We had time.

Inside the cracked mainframe room, I slid to the ground, breathing hard. Ghost collapsed beside me, pressing fresh gauze to his ribs. Price leaned against a rusted locker, eyes narrowed but steady. Soap sat on an overturned crate, trying not to grunt every time he shifted his weight.

Nikolai began work immediately—wiring a damp panel to bring power to a few lights. His fingers danced with the precision of a surgeon, never asking for help.

The silence stretched.

And I knew it was time to say what had been boiling in my mind since we jumped from that plane.

"I have a plan," I said at last.

They all turned.

"No matter what we do next," I continued, "we can't go back."

Price raised an eyebrow. "You thinking of cutting contact with the Council?"

"I'm saying we already have."

They exchanged looks.

"I want us dead."

Soap blinked. "You what now?"

"I want them to think we're dead. All of us. Off the map. Gone."

Ghost stared. "You got a plan for that or is this you finally breaking under pressure?"

I ignored the jab.

"There are no official records of any of you," I said. "You were ghosted. Sanitized. That was part of the deal with General Bennett and the president. They brought you back into black operations under my command—but off-book. No service tags. No formal chains."

Price gave a slow nod. "That much, I figured."

"And me?" I continued. "I was never in the system to begin with. I entered the military through a backdoor entry—private records, hidden channels, shadow files handled personally by Bennett's office."

Nikolai glanced at me. "So… you mean there's no paper trail?"

"Exactly," I said. "No records, no evidence, no confirmed photos. To the world, we don't exist."

Ghost's eyes narrowed. "Which means if we die… no one questions it."

"That's the point."

I looked around the dim room, light flickering across their weathered faces.

"They tried to erase us. Twice. But they made one mistake—they didn't finish the job. We're still breathing. That's our advantage. We make it look like they succeeded. We leave the battlefield and consolidate our strength."

"You've got a way to do that?" Price asked.

I nodded.

"With Sage's help, I can access surveillance logs, mission records, and enemy tactical intel. We'll plant fake footage—burned bodies, wreckage of the crash. We'll use leftover comm traces from the canyon ambush to suggest we were caught in a crossfire and wiped out. No witnesses. No need to verify."

"And Lewis?" Nikolai asked carefully.

I paused.

"She'll know. She always does. And Andrea… she'll keep it secret."

The team was silent again.

It wasn't the plan that bothered them.

It was what it meant.

"We disappear," Ghost muttered. "That's it. No more teams. No more tags. No more country."

"Exactly," I said. "We don't belong to anyone anymore."

Soap leaned back, breathing in through his teeth. "That's a hell of a move, mate."

Price finally spoke. "So what comes after? We fake our deaths, then what—hide?"

"No," I said. "We build."

He leaned forward, interested.

"Everything I've created—my safehouses, the vaults, the tech, the off-grid assets—Eteon barely scratched the surface. They took what I had with me. That's it."

"And what's left?" Ghost asked.

"A fortress beneath a mountain in Nevada. A micro-satellite rig in orbit that hasn't gone online yet. AI defense grids. Prototype weapons. Stored cash. Millions. And encrypted blackmail files I dug up on Eteon operatives and their corporate proxies."

Soap gave a low whistle. "You've been busy."

"Busy enough to launch a private war," I said.

"But not alone."

I looked at each of them.

"You've followed me into fire. I won't ask you to follow me into shadow unless you choose it. But if you say yes… then this isn't just survival anymore."

"This is the beginning of our war."

No one moved.

Then Price stood up and walked over, standing face to face with me.

"You've got my answer," he said. "You always had it."

He held out his hand. I took it.

"We'll be ghosts," he said. "But not for them. For us."

Soap clapped his hands once, ignoring the pain. "Hell yeah. Can't say I ever liked being part of a uniformed death squad anyway."

Ghost tilted his head slightly. "As long as I get to shoot Eteon bastards in the face, I'm in."

Nikolai smiled faintly. "You know me, brother. I go where the family goes."

That word echoed in my mind—family.

They weren't just my squad anymore.

They were the first people I gave names to.

The first who knew who I really was.

And now… they were the first I would build a world with.

I stood up and turned toward the broken terminal in the wall.

"Great Sage," I whispered internally.

"Ready, Master."

"Begin network recon. Reconstruct satellite backtrace for canyon and flight logs. Plant faked engagement footage. Simulate bio-scan death confirmation using residual DNA markers from the wreckage."

"Processing. Estimated time: 4 minutes."

I turned back to the others. "Give me five, and we're officially dead."

They chuckled grimly.

"Should we say a few words?" Soap asked.

Ghost rolled his eyes. "Yeah. 'Here lies a bunch of stubborn bastards who refused to die when told to.'"

Price nodded. "Fitting."

We sat in the quiet, our wounds momentarily forgotten. The air inside the bunker no longer felt stale—it felt clean. Like we'd just shed years of blood and chains in one breath.

Beep.

"Process complete," Sage said inside my mind. "All data trails aligned with mission kill logs. You are officially KIA as of 03:42 Zulu time."

I exhaled.

It was done.

We were gone.

I stood up and looked at my team.

"No more ghosts."

I paused.

"Now we become monsters for the monsters."

[To be continued.]