The Arizona sun scorched Fort Ironwood like a punishment from heaven. Dust and the smell of gunpowder hung thick in the air. On the firing range, hundreds of soldiers stood frozen like statues. Even the wind seemed to stop blowing.
Major General Marcus Hargrove stared at the tattoo across my back, his face turning pale as if he had just seen a ghost rise from the grave.
“That’s impossible…” he muttered, his voice trembling slightly.
I slowly turned around, letting the symbol show clearly under the blazing sunlight: a black raven trapped inside a sniper’s crosshair — the mark of Wraith Unit Seven.
A unit the Army had erased from existence eight years ago.
Including me.
The young lieutenant standing beside the general forced out an awkward laugh.
“Sir… do you know this guy?”
Hargrove didn’t answer. His eyes remained locked on me, as though he was trying to convince himself the man standing before him wasn’t a ghost from the past.
“Rowan…” he whispered.
Hearing my real name again felt strange, almost unfamiliar after so many years.
Across the range, rifles slowly lowered. The murmuring stopped. Every eye was fixed on us.
I bent down, picked up the rifle receiver from the ground, and calmly brushed the dust off the metal.
“So you still remember your dead soldiers, General,” I said evenly. “That’s comforting.”
A colonel stepped forward.
“Can somebody explain what the hell is going on here?”
Hargrove’s jaw tightened.
“You were declared killed in action.”
I looked straight into his eyes.
“No. I was betrayed… and left behind to die.”
The entire range fell into a crushing silence.
Hargrove took one slow step closer, lowering his voice.
“You don’t know what really happened that night.”
A cold smile spread across my face.
“Then tell me, General…”
“…why was the extraction team ordered to pull out three minutes before the explosion?”
The enemy patrols were closer now. I counted six armed men moving in a line along the ridge. Their flashlights swept the rocks like predator eyes. I pressed myself against a jagged boulder and held my breath. Titan crouched low beside me, barely breathing, eyes locked on mine.
I could see the faint outline of a ridge fifty meters ahead. If we could make it there, the Black Hawks’ extraction point would be visible.
I shifted 884-Bravo to fire-ready. The rifle’s weight was a constant, familiar comfort. Every scar, every teeth mark Titan had left in the stock, was a reminder: we survive. Always.
A distant shot cracked the night air—a warning. One of the enemy scouts had spotted movement. Titan growled low in his throat, a sound so primal it made the hairs on my neck stand up. I squeezed the trigger.
The recoil slammed into my shoulder, pain shooting down my arm, but I kept firing. One guard went down. Another dove behind cover. The rest froze, confused by the sudden, accurate suppression from an unseen shooter.
“Move!” I hissed. Titan surged forward, bounding over rocks, silent and unstoppable. I followed, dragging my injured shoulder, firing blind bursts to cover our retreat.
The canyon narrowed. Dust swirled around us like smoke from a fire. Titan’s paws kicked up gravel in a precise rhythm, always keeping me between him and danger. We hit the ridge.
Above us, the helicopter hovered. The warm wash of its rotors was a promise of life. I waved frantically, trying to signal our position.
Then I saw him. Al-Hassan. The warlord had left his compound to intercept us. He stood tall, flanked by three bodyguards. His silhouette was monstrous in the half-light, a predator who thought he had cornered his prey.
Titan growled. I could feel his energy vibrating through the ground, through my bones.
I raised 884-Bravo, aiming carefully. Each round would have to count.
Titan lunged. Not at Al-Hassan, not at the bodyguards. He jumped at the base of the ridge, knocking a man off balance. The surprise bought me two precious seconds. I squeezed the trigger.
The first bodyguard went down instantly. The second scrambled, firing wildly, but Titan was a blur, disarming him with the same precision he’d shown in the cave.
Al-Hassan’s face twisted in fury. “Stop that dog! Stop her!” he screamed, but Titan was already gone, invisible, a shadow in the dust.
I sprinted the last twenty meters, dragging myself toward the hovering Black Hawk. Titan matched my pace, muscles burning, but he never faltered.
A hail of enemy fire followed. Rounds zipped past my head, slamming into the rocks around us. I felt the sting of grazed skin and burning adrenaline.
“Load up! NOW!” I shouted. Titan leapt onto the helicopter’s skids first. I followed, slinging 884-Bravo over my shoulder, pulling the dog’s harness with one hand.
Inside, the C-17 was chaos—rotors thrumming, the cabin shaking, Delta operators shouting over the roar. I dropped Titan onto the padded floor. He collapsed, but he was alive. Breathing. Alert.
I slumped next to him, my shoulder screaming in protest. My chest heaved. I couldn’t stop shaking.
One of the operators handed me a medical kit. I didn’t want it. I just held Titan’s massive head in my lap, tracing the scars on his fur with trembling fingers.
“You brought him back,” a voice said. It was General Vance, speaking over the comms. “You did it. You did what no one else could.”
I let my head rest on Titan’s flank, exhausted, but for the first time in two years, I felt something I hadn’t felt since the Korangal Valley: hope.
The helicopter banked hard over the mountains. Below, Al-Hassan’s compound was a burning inferno. He had lost, utterly, and yet we both knew he would survive—he always did—but this night, we had won.
Titan lifted his head, ears twitching. I whispered to him, the words carrying weight beyond the desert night:
“Wolfpack Alpha… mission complete.”
And for the first time, we both knew—we were home.