Part 2
Just as Vance’s finger began its final, fatal squeeze, a flashbang grenade detonated in the doorway. The blinding white light and deafening roar shattered the tension. Vance cursed, his grip loosening just enough for instinct to take over. I slammed my forehead into his nose, hearing the cartilage break, and scrambled backward into the blinding smoke.
Footsteps rushed in. It was Dr. Emma Novak, a rogue military physician who had decoded my emergency distress signals weeks ago, alongside a tactical team loyal to General William Cross. They dragged me out through the ventilation shafts as gunfire erupted behind us.
But my escape was short-lived. By the time they got me to an underground medical bunker, my body finally gave up. The trauma, the blood loss, and the sheer exhaustion of running for three years caught up to me. My vision went black. The heart monitor flatlined.
For nearly three hours, I was clinically dead. Emma worked feverishly, cracking my chest, pumping adrenaline directly into my cardiac muscle, refusing to let the “Ghost” fade away. And then, against every law of medicine, my heart shuddered back to life. My eyes flew open, my chest heaving as I gasped for air, tasting the metallic tang of oxygen through a mask.
There was no time to recover. General Cross was standing over my gurney, his face pale.
“Sarah, thank God,” Cross whispered, his voice trembling. “But we have a national nightmare. Ten minutes ago, a rogue splinter group allied with Vance seized the high-altitude radar station on Mount Rainier. They have twenty-three hostages, including twelve children from a touring school bus. They’re demanding Vance’s safe passage out of the country, or they start executions. In twenty minutes.”
“Send in a strike team,” I croaked, my throat raw.
“We can’t,” Cross said, showing me a satellite feed. “The mountain is hit by a massive blizzard. Sixty-kilometer-per-hour winds, minus twenty degrees. Any helicopter that gets close will be shot down by anti-air missiles. There is only one vantage point: a jagged peak on the northeast ridge. But it’s exactly 4,112 meters away from the radar tower’s observation deck where the leader is holding the detonator.”
Four thousand, one hundred, and twelve meters. Over two and a half miles. The current world record for a sniper kill was far below that, set in perfect conditions.
“Nobody can make that shot,” Emma protested, checking my vitals. “She was dead twenty minutes ago! Her muscles are shaking, her core temperature is shot!”
“I can,” I said, tearing the IV lines from my arm. The physical pain was excruciating, but the fire of vengeance and the image of those children burned hotter. “Get me a CheyTac M200 Intervention. And get me on that peak.”
Ten minutes later, I was strapped into a modified Blackhawk helicopter, battling severe turbulence. When we reached the drop point, the wind almost ripped me from the cabin. I crawled onto the icy ledge of the northeast peak, the freezing wind clawing at my face, my hands numb inside my tactical gloves.
I lay prone in the snow, the heavy sniper rifle anchored against my shoulder. Through the high-powered scope, the radar station was a tiny speck swallowed by white fog. My heart was beating too fast. Every pulse shook the crosshairs. I had to lower my heart rate, to find the silence of the dead I had just returned from.
I adjusted for the staggering wind. I factored in the extreme air density, the freezing temperature, and the Coriolis effect—the actual rotation of the Earth pulling the bullet to the right over its long flight.
Suddenly, through the scope, the fog cleared for a split second. I saw the leader of the terrorists. He had a young girl by the hair, holding a gun to her head, his thumb resting on a detonator.
“I have target acquisition,” I whispered into my comms. My finger rested on the cold trigger. My injured shoulder screamed in agony. I took a deep breath, let half of it out, and held it.
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