Chapter 8: Forged in Silence
Location: "The Compound" – Undisclosed Facility
Delta Force OTC – Day 1
Zane Cross stood in a plain gray hallway. No insignias. No posters. Just cold concrete and the hum of fluorescent lights.
Beside him stood twelve others — the few who made it through Selection.
Former SEALs. Green Berets. CIA SAD.
All elite. All dangerous.
But no one talked.
They didn't need to. They were ghosts now — future Specters of war.
The Briefing
A man in a black sweater stepped into the room. No rank. No name. Just presence.
"You passed Selection," he said. "Good. That means you're stubborn. But out there? That just gets you killed."
He paced.
"Welcome to OTC. Six months of hell. You'll train to kill silently, speak like locals, and disappear from sight without a trace. Fail once, you're gone. Ask too many questions, you're gone. Freeze under pressure—dead. Got it?"
They all nodded.
The man stared hard at Zane.
"You… I've been hearing about."
Zane didn't flinch.
"Let's see if you live up to it."
Phase 1 – CQB (Close Quarters Battle)
Urban warfare. Room clearing. Live rounds. No margin for error.
Zane pieced it together fast: slice the pie, corners first, shoot center mass, no hesitation.
One drill: two targets, one hostage.
The timer screamed.
Zane moved like instinct.
Tap. Tap.
Both enemies down. Hostage untouched.
Instructor: "You've done this before?"
Zane: "No. But I've imagined it a thousand times."
Phase 2 – Surveillance & Disguise
Weeks of learning to be no one. How to blend into a street in Cairo, disappear into Moscow, navigate Tehran unnoticed.
Zane learned tradecraft:
Trail detection
Mirror tracking
Switching disguises mid-movement
Dead drops and burner phones
He practiced in real cities with live civilians. Failed once — got tailed.
So he adjusted.
Next time, he became invisible.
Phase 3 – Demolitions & Breaching
Claymore. C4. Door charges. Under-vehicle placement. Timing was everything.
Zane learned to shape a blast to go through a wall instead of destroying it. He built his own remote charges from scrap.
His instructor, an ex-SAS sergeant, said, "This one's not just sharp — he's surgical."
Phase 4 – Foreign Weapons & Languages
He learned to field-strip everything from an AKM to a Tavor in under a minute — blindfolded.
They taught him Arabic and Pashto. He picked them up faster than most. Not perfect, but fast enough to give orders or bluff locals.
Phase 5 – The Live Mission Sim
Final week. They dropped them in a mock city. Real actors. Real targets. Full gear.
Mission: Infiltrate, extract a "hostage," and kill the warlord — all without civilian casualties or being detected.
Most candidates made noise. Got spotted. Lost points.
Zane?
He slipped in wearing local robes, posed as a food vendor, poisoned the guards' tea, used a silenced pistol, and ghosted out with the hostage without a single shot fired.
No alarm. No trail. No mistakes.
When they reviewed the footage, the instructors just shook their heads.
"Kid's not normal," one said.
"Kid's perfect," said another.
Graduation
No ceremony. No parade. Just a locker with a patch and a call sign.
Call Sign: GHOST-9
Assigned Unit: A Squadron, Delta Force
Zane put on the patch — sword through lightning — and stared at himself in the mirror.
No more waiting. No more training.
Next time he leaves this building…
It's for war.
For real.
And this time, no one's watching.