The air down here didn't move. It just sat, heavy and wet, smelling of old copper and unwashed bodies. Thirty feet under the Pakistani hardpan, the bunker felt less like a fortress and more like a grave waiting to be filled.
A single halogen strip buzzed overhead—zzzt, zzzt—a dying fly trapped in the ceiling. It threw a sickly yellow light over the concrete walls, illuminating the black mold that spread through the cracks like a slow infection.
Then, a sound.
Thud.
Thud.
Steps. Heavy, but not hurried. Just… inevitable.
The man walking out of the dark wasn't posing. He didn't look like an action hero. He looked tired. His t-shirt was soaked through with sweat, sticking to shoulders that rolled with a grim, practiced mechanical rythm. Faded denim, bleached white at the knees.
He wore a hard plastic half-mask. It hid the jaw, the nose. But the eyes were visible. They weren't burning with rage. They were just flat. Grey. The kind of eyes you see on a dead fish in a market stall.
He stopped at the first iron door. The hinges were crusted with orange rust. Through the warp in the metal, you could hear low voices, the slap of cards, a laugh.
His gloved hand covered the knob. He didn't kick it. He turned it, slow, careful. The latch clicked—a dry snap, loud in the silence.
He shoved.
Inside, three men sat around a folding table. The air was blue with cheap tobacco smoke. The draft swirled it away, and for a second, everyone just stared.
The guy closest to the door started to turn. Mouth opening.
Phut. Phut.
The suppressor didn't make a cool movie noise. It sounded like a nail gun. A sharp cough of compressed air.
The first guard's head snapped back. He slumped, sliding out of his chair. The playing cards in his hand—queens—drifted down into the coffee-colored blood spreading on the table.
The second guy, big, bearded, froze. Brain lagging behind reality. The bullet took him in the temple. He folded forward, forehead hitting the table with a wet, heavy smack.
The third kid—couldn't have been twenty—panicked. He kicked his chair back, scrambling, boots slipping on the linoleum. He lunged for an AK-47 leaning against the lockers.
Phut.
Shoulder bone snapped. You could hear it crack across the room. The kid spun, arm dangling like a wet sleeve.
Phut.
The next shot chewed through his thigh. He hit the concrete hard. He tried to scream, but the air just wheezed out of him, shock locking his lungs. He gasped, looking like a fish on a dock.
Before he could crawl, a boot landed next to his face.
The intruder reached down. Tangled his fingers in the kid's greasy hair and yanked him up to his knees. He jammed the hot end of the suppressor into the kid's good kneecap.
"Hey."
The voice was rough. Scraped raw.
"I'm going to put a round through this joint. You'll never walk right again. Where is Abhur?"
The kid's eyes darted left. Just a flicker. A reflex.
Phut.
The knee turned to mush.
The scream wasn't a word. It was a high, thin shriek that bounced off the walls and drilled right into the teeth. The kid convulsed, snot bubbling at his nose, hands clawing at the ruined leg.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!" He was sobbing now, incoherent. "East Wing! Munitions! Sector Two! Just him! Please!"
The masked man nodded. Just once.
"Thanks."
Crack.
The shot took the kid between the eyes. The screaming stopped. The silence that rushed back in was loud, ringing in the ears. The body slumped over, sliding into the mess on the floor.
The intruder stepped over the blood. He didn't look down. He just checked the chamber of his pistol, holster-checked it, and walked back into the dark.
Sector Two.
Abhur al-Issar sat at the head of a steel table, wiping oil onto a sniper bolt. He felt good. Safe. Six of his best guys were lounging on crates, laughing, picking their teeth. They were expensive, and they knew it.
Then the world went away.
The vents died. The lights cut out. The room plunged into a blackness so thick it felt like physical pressure on the eyeballs.
"What the—"
The sound of a slide racking. Metal on metal.
Then, the flashes.
TAT-TAT-TAT.
Strobe lights. Horrible little vignettes cut from the dark.
A guard falling back, chest erupting red. A face frozen in surprise before vanishing. Brass casings spinning in the air, catching the sparks.
Then black again.
"Is he… is he down?" someone whispered.
Thud. Thud.
Bodies hitting the floor. Wet sacks of meat.
Abhur scrambled back, boots skidding on the slick floor. He dropped the rifle parts. Clawed at his belt for his pistol, but his hands were shaking, slick with gun oil.
Something hit him.
Not a sound. A sledgehammer. Three impacts. Bam-bam-bam.
Leg. Hand. Shoulder.
Fire bloomed in his nerves. He hit the ground, pistol skittering away into the dark. He dragged himself backward, heels scraping, breath coming in ragged, sobbing hitches.
Buzz.
The emergency light flickered on. A single, caged bulb. Red. It washed the room in the color of dried blood.
He was there.
The masked man. Standing in the center of the slaughter.
He wasn't panting. He wasn't shaking. He stood with his gun lowered, watching Abhur crawl. The floor was a butcher shop, but the man's boots were clean.
Abhur's back hit the wall. Nowhere to go. He squinted through the pain, through the red haze. He knew that mask.
"You…" Abhur whispered.
A week ago. A threat. He'd laughed at it then. Poured a drink.
He wasn't laughing now.
"Wait!" Abhur stammered, holding up his good hand. "Don't… listen! Money! I have accounts. Cayman Islands. Millions! I can make you a king! You don't have to do this!"
The masked man tilted his head. Under the resin, his mouth twitched. Not a smile.
He put the gun away. Slow. Deliberate. He reached down to his boot and pulled two knives. Matte black.
THUNK.
He threw the first one before Abhur could blink. It punched through Abhur's shoulder, pinning him to the drywall.
Abhur screamed, spine arching.
THUNK.
The second blade drove through his good palm, nailing it to the floor.
Abhur wasn't a man anymore. He was a specimen on a board.
The intruder walked forward. Knelt. He smelled like gunpowder and cold air. He reached into a pouch and pulled out a pair of pliers. Old, rusted things.
"No…" Abhur's voice cracked, dissolving into a whimper. Tears blurred the room. "Please… I'm just a businessman! I'll quit! I swear to God!"
"You aren't a businessman," the man said. His voice was quiet. Intimate. "You're a disease."
He gripped Abhur's thumb with the pliers. The metal was cold.
CRUNCH.
The sound of the bone shattering was louder than the scream.
Then the index finger.
Then the middle.
Systematic. Boring. Like a mechanic tightening bolts. Abhur convulsed, vision graying out, begging for his mother, begging for it to stop.
When the hand was just a ruin of splintered bone and meat, the man reached into his belt one last time.
A needle. Slender. The tip glowed with a faint purple sheen.
Abhur's eyes rolled back. "What… what is that?"
"Neurotoxin," the man said. No pulse in his voice. "It fires every pain receptor you have. And it paralyzes you."
He jammed the needle into Abhur's shattered knee.
Abhur tried to scream.
His mouth opened. Jaw strained. Veins in his neck bulged like ropes. But nothing came out. His throat locked. His lungs froze, stuck halfway between a breath and a cry.
trapped.
The masked man stood up. Wiped his gloves on his jeans.
"You're going to die," he said, looking down. "Takes about thirty minutes. Your diaphragm stops working. You'll feel every second of it. Suffocating while your blood feels like it's boiling."
He turned his back.
Abhur watched him go. He tried to blink. Tried to twitch a finger. Tried to beg for a bullet. But only a wet, frothy bubble escaped his lips. The fire in his veins was absolute, consuming him, and he couldn't even close his eyes to hide from it.
The intruder walked into the hall.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
He didn't look back.
Behind him, in the red glow, the silence was heavy. Heavier than the dirt above them.