PROLOGUE: The Ashes of Nyala
UNMARKED COMPOUND – OUTSIDE FORT NYALA – NIGHT – 2003
The fire's still breathing.
It crackles behind them, eating what's left of the corrugated steel compound.
The heat ripples the air. The stench of charred flesh smothers the wind.
A single crow circles overhead. No one speaks.
Avery Fontaine stands alone in the dirt, her boots blackened, her gloves soaked in something darker than oil.
Her rifle hangs limp at her side. The safety's still off.
Forty-seven bodies lie beneath the flames—men, women, teens.
Some with hands still bound. Some without faces.
They were supposed to find one man—a bomb maker.
They didn't find him.
She killed them all anyway.
Behind her, Sgt. Landon Kreel and Private Darnell Banks stare.
Not at the fire.
Not at the bodies.
At her.
Like they just saw something that should not exist.
BANKS (quiet):
"Jesus Christ..."
KREEL (flat):
"He didn't make it to this part."
Avery turns. Her face is smudged, but her eyes are clear. Unshaken.
AVERY:
"There were no innocents here."
BANKS:
"There were children."
AVERY: (without blinking)
"They would've grown up to kill ours."
She walks past them—calm, slow, deliberate.
AVERY:
"No witnesses. No records.
This mission never happened."
KREEL (tense):
"What do you think Washington's gonna say when they see this?"
Avery stops.
Turns back. Her voice like steel behind velvet.
AVERY:
"They won't.
Because you...
are going to help me bury it."
Kreel stares at her.
Then tosses his last match into the flame.
KREEL:
"You're not who I thought you were."
AVERY:
"Neither are you."
The rotors thunder. Ash whips around them.
Only three soldiers board that bird.
Fontaine. Kreel. Banks.
Everyone else? Dead. Burned. Vanished.
As they lift off, Banks looks down at the inferno below.
BANKS (softly):
"She's gonna be somebody one day..."
KREEL: (cold)
"She already is."
