Chapter 4 Ghost Protocol

Location: Langley, Virginia

POV: Rachel Bolt

The cafeteria in Langley was quiet at 3 a.m., lit by the dim hum of vending machines and a single flickering bulb that had been "under maintenance" for seven weeks.

Rachel Bolt sat alone at the back, sipping stale coffee and staring at the file spread out before her. Redacted lines. Crossed identities.

One name remained untouched.

Nura Al-Khaled.

Princess. Prisoner. Political pawn. And now-Rachel's unofficial assignment.

She tapped her pen against the margin, circling the only sentence that mattered: High risk.

Non-sanctioned contact is forbidden.

Which meant one thing: the CIA was watching her too closely, and Nura was on someone's kill list.

Her phone buzzed once-then again. Unknown number.

Incoming transmission. Scrambled audio.

"Phase Zero breached. Collapse Protocol initiated."

[Ping: file received]

Rachel's stomach clenched. That phrase wasn't in any training manual. Not even in Langley's buried archives. But she knew the voice.

The Vulture.

It had been two years since they crossed paths in Istanbul. Back then, he was hunting cartel names for the highest bidder. Now, he was whispering about a program that didn't exist and sending her a file that could get them both killed.

She looked around the room-empty. Still, her instincts flared.

She shut the laptop and moved fast, slipping the encrypted flash drive into her boot and clearing the table.

As she exited the cafeteria, a janitor rolled a mop bucket past her. Harmless.

Until he glanced up, and she caught the reflection of a gun tucked behind his belt-military-issue, Russian grip.

Rachel didn't flinch. She just kept walking. Cool, steady. She passed the security hub, nodding at a bored tech on duty, then stepped into the elevator.

Basement level: Archive Wing.

She needed a secure line, and Langley's old tunnels had one thing the rest of the building didn't-blind spots.

Ten Minutes Later – Sublevel C

The floor smelled of mildew and secrets.

Concrete walls.

Flickering lights. No cameras.

Rachel crouched beside an old relay box and pulled the panel open. Her fingers moved fast, bypassing the security chip and inserting the drive.

The file opened with a black screen.

Then lines of data. Static. Voice distortion.

Operation: Collapse Protocol

Status: Fragmented

Targets: Kito, Bolt, Al-Khaled, Vulture

Objective: Dismantle global crime alliances via infiltration and forced destabilization of trust networks.

Initiated by: [REDACTED]

Authorized by: [REDACTED]

Deployed Agents: [ACCESS DENIED]

Rachel stared at the screen as a cold wash spread through her limbs. Her name was on the list. So was Nura's.

And Laz Kito's-the man she was being forced to marry in six weeks.

What the hell was this?

Before she could copy the rest, a proximity sensor flared red. Someone was in the tunnel.

She yanked the drive out, slipped it into her coat, and killed the power feed. Darkness swallowed the hall. She didn't wait-just bolted down the emergency passageway, turning corners until she reached the maintenance ladder.

Voices echoed behind her.

"She has it-go dark, no cameras."

Langley was compromised.

Meanwhile, Basra, Iraq

POV: Nura Al-Khaled

Nura blinked through the heat haze as her convoy rolled through the southern oil fields.

Soldiers lined the road. Men in suits too clean for the dust watched from rooftops.

Her husband-Mahdi al-Nari, the oil dealer-sat beside her in silence, fingers tapping rhythmically against his knee.

She'd learned to measure danger in his silences.

"You're quiet today, my dove," he said finally.

"I'm thinking about oil prices," she replied, eyes fixed on the burning horizon.

He chuckled. "Good. A wife who thinks of power is worth keeping alive."

She smiled tightly, but her hand trembled slightly beneath her cloak. Beneath her sleeve, a tiny transmitter blinked once-green. The message had been sent.

She hoped Rachel got it.

But hope was dangerous here.

Back in Langley-Surface Level

Rachel burst out of the access tunnel into the old library wing-abandoned for years.

She tore off her jacket. changed into a hoodie stashed in a vent, and slipped out a side door toward the parking garage.

A black SUV was already idling.

She approached the window.

The driver turned. It was her father-Samuel Bolt, long thought dead.

"You're late," he said, as if it were just a normal pickup.

Rachel froze. "You're not real."

He tossed her a burner phone. "Nothing in Collapse Protocol is. Get in-we're being hunted by your agency and mine."

She got in without another word.

The SUV peeled into the night.

Somewhere in a Langley server farm, a terminal screen flickers:

"Subject Bolt has retrieved Phase One. Activate sleeper inside Kito network."

A second screen loads. Camera feed: Laz Kito's penthouse. Then static.

Collapse has begun.

Langley, Virginia

3:46 a.m.

The hum of the SUV's tires was the only sound as Rachel Bolt stared at the man driving. Her father, Samuel Bolt-former field commander, presumed dead in the Balkans, 1998-was very much alive. Older, sure. Scar-lined. But his eyes still held the same unshakable authority that used to freeze entire rooms.

"You're supposed to be buried in a Sarajevo crater," she said.

Samuel snorted. "The crater was real. The burial wasn't."

He made a hard right onto a service road flanked by pine trees and concrete barriers. No GPS. No headlights.

Rachel stayed silent. Her brain spun through classified files, ghost ops, and blacklisted missions. All roads led back to one thing.

Collapse Protocol.

"What is it?" she asked, eyes narrow.

Samuel didn't answer. Instead, he handed her a weathered folder marked U.S. State Dept./OP-Blackwire. Inside were satellite photos, decrypted transcripts, and a picture that made her stomach twist.

Laz Kito. Standing beside a corpse.

"You think Laz is in on this?" she asked.

Samuel kept his gaze on the road. "Think? I know. He's the firewall and the back door. He's playing both ends against the middle. And you-"

"I'm in the middle," she finished bitterly.

Rachel gritted her teeth. Her mission was supposed to be surveillance. Control. Covert stability through infiltration. Not walking into a trap dressed as a bride.

"You were never supposed to fall in love with him," Samuel said sharply.

Her jaw tightened. "I didn't. I was supposed to get close to Kito and map the chain. But he's not a link, Dad. He's the lock."

Samuel finally glanced at her, eyes dark. "Then it's time to break the chain."

Location: Kito's Penthouse, Manhattan

POV: Laz Kito

4:12 a.m.

Laz stood shirtless on the balcony, cigarette smoldering in his fingers. Below, the city sparkled like a million lights. He'd always loved heights-every powerful man did. But tonight, the air tasted sour.

He turned as his fixer, Marija, entered the room, heels echoing off the marble floor.

"You told me Rachel's father was dead," she said coldly.

"He was," Laz replied without turning. "Apparently death is just a rumor now."

Marija tossed a tablet onto the bar. On the screen: footage of Rachel entering the Langley archives. Then-static.

"You've got a leak," she said. "And she's found Phase One."

Laz picked up the tablet, his expression unreadable. Then he crushed it in one hand.

Marija didn't flinch. "You're running out of time. If Collapse reactivates-"

"I'll kill it," Laz cut in.

"How?"

He turned slowly, eyes like polished obsidian. "By killing the people keeping it alive."

Basra, Iraq

POV: Nura Al-Khaled

4:22 a.m.

The caravan halted just outside the refinery, where the air shimmered from heat and corruption. Nura stepped out, cloak trailing like oil on sand. Mahdi al-Nari barked orders to the guards, who moved fast, nervous. They always were around him.

She smiled faintly.

The transmitter beneath her sleeve buzzed again-two blinks this time.

Confirmation. Rachel was alive.

But that meant something worse. Collapse wasn't dead.

She slipped into the refinery's main chamber, where pipes groaned with pressure and fire kissed the air. Her contact waited by the turbine-a Russian named Kolya, once a spy, now a mercenary. He handed her a slim case.

Inside: a voice modulator, a vial of synthetic blood, and a fingerprint key. Escape tools.

"I'm risking my neck for you, Princess," Kolya muttered.

"You'll get your payment."

He smirked. "I'm not worried about payment. I'm worried about Collapse waking up."

She didn't blink. "It already has."

Washington, D.C.-Undisclosed Bunker

POV: The Vulture

4:41 a.m.

Banks of monitors cast cold light across the bunker as The Vulture paced barefoot, a cup of mint tea in one hand and a custom 9mm in the other. His long gray beard twitched as he chuckled softly, watching the feeds.

"Samuel Bolt alive," he murmured. "Delicious chaos."

A message pinged across the central screen:

Subject: Bolt located. Protocol reactivated. Targets realigning.

He sipped the tea, eyes gleaming.

"This is where the real war begins."

Then he clicked open another screen-showing a child's bedroom.

A little girl with bronze skin and wild curls slept soundly under a starlight mobile.

He zoomed in on the nameplate above the bed: Ava Kito.

"You're the insurance policy, little one," he whispered. "Let's see what your father does when you enter the game."

Back in Transit-Rachel and Samuel

4:58 a.m.

The SUV pulled off the main highway and down a dirt road leading to an old farmhouse. Satellite blind zone. No surveillance. No drones. A perfect dead zone.

Rachel stepped out and scanned the horizon. Empty.

Samuel opened the trunk and handed her a bag.

Inside: combat gear, a burner laptop, untraceable cash, and a 1911 Colt.

"This is the last gift Langley will ever give you," he said.

Rachel looked up, eyes steeled. "We need to find Nura."

Samuel nodded. "And kill Collapse before it kills everything else."

A heavily encrypted server comes online deep beneath an embassy in Brussels. A message queues silently on the darknet.

Collapse Protocol-PHASE TWO: ENGAGE

Sender: [UNKNOWN]

Recipient: [Laz.Kito.Encrypted]

Subject: "What will you sacrifice, Lazarus?"

And somewhere in Manhattan, Ava Kito's mobile spins.

Her eyes flutter open. She hears... footsteps but couldn't see what was coming.