It's 0230 hours. The base is quiet, the kind of silence that settles in when even the night owls have given up. You're halfway through restocking the trauma kit when the radio crackles.

The door bangs open before you can finish the thought. Soap is half-carrying a mountain of a man through the doorway, both of them covered in a fine layer of dirt and something darker that you really hope is mud. The man's head is angled down, one gloved hand clamped over the lower half of his face, blood seeping between his fingers.

You've heard about Ghost. Everyone has. The skull mask, the rumored atrocities in the field, the way even the most battle-hardened soldiers get a little twitchy when he's in the room. But you've never actually seen him before. Not like this.

He looks at you. You look at him. Silence.