The wind was still. Too still. On the ridge above the Khoran Valley, Brandon Beckett adjusted his scope, sweat tracing lines through the dust on his brow. Twenty years in the shadows, and this mission felt different—not because of the target, but because of the silence. He wasn’t just hunting anymore. He was being watched. The intel was vague: a rogue paramilitary cell, deep in disputed territory, with a prototype weapon and no allegiance. But Beckett knew better. This was more than terrorism. This was a test. Of him. Of what he had left to give.
Down below, the convoy approached, dust rising like smoke signals across the canyon. Through the lens, Beckett saw the face he was sent to erase—an ex-CIA ghost turned warlord, a man who once trained the same snipers who now hunted him. The irony wasn’t lost on him. But as he steadied the rifle, a second shape moved beside the target—smaller, nervous. Young. Not in the file. Not part of the plan. Beckett hesitated. His trigger finger had ended dozens of lives without a tremor. But this wasn’t a clean shot anymore. It was a message. A trap. Or both.
He tapped his comm twice—code for “abort.” The voice that responded wasn’t command. It was Collins, his old spotter, thought dead two years ago in Syria. “They’re expecting you,” Collins said, voice cold, metallic. “They want you to die up there. A legacy kill. Last of the old guard.” And then the signal cut. Beckett exhaled slowly, recalibrated. Betrayal was familiar ground. But so was survival. He crawled back from the edge, counted the seconds, felt the earth shift beneath him. He would not go quietly. Not in this place. Not like this.
When the final bullet left his rifle, the night lit up in fire and confusion. Command was gone. The warlord was dead. But so was the illusion. The last stand wasn’t about defending a line. It was about drawing one. Beckett limped down the ridge under the cover of smoke, rifle slung, wounds burning. He didn’t care about medals or orders anymore. He had buried too many friends, obeyed too many lies. From now on, he chose his own missions. As the dawn broke over the bloodstained cliffs, he disappeared into the haze—just another ghost in the war they never wanted to end.
