Operation Silver Nightmare, an Operation Runestone Thriller

Epilogue

Kalypso 17, Virginia, United States, January 7th, 2024

The makeshift office at the unofficial training site was better than the CEO of Shadow Company Philip Graves expected. It held his secure laptop and phone. Speaking of the secure laptop, it rang. He knew who the caller was, and it was time to give him an update on the situation.

"Glad to hear from you Gold Eagle."

"What intelligence did you get from the raid in Uzda?"

"We're still sifting through the data but we got a location on another cell and an arms manifest from Africa. Looks like the Inner Circle is trying to gain more capital by selling weapons."

"I see. Anything else?" General Shepard pressed

"We found emails with the name V. Makarov in them. Which is strange considering this guy is in a Russian Black Site Prison." Graves explained

"I see. He might have friends in high places. He might be planning something."

"We'll be ready Sir."

"I'd expect nothing less. Continue the good work. Gold Eagle out."

Putting the phone back in his secure phone case. Looking at the stack of paperwork. His contract in Chernarus would be coming to an end soon and he and his boys would be called to another hotspot.

Russian Black Site Prison, Unknown Location, Russian Federation, January 10th, 2024

Vladimir Makarov sat in the cell meditating. Hearing the footsteps of the guard, he smirked. The man walked toward the cell and gave him a piece of paper.

"The plan is nearing its fruition. Raven's Rock will begin operations in March. Their cartel friends in Las Almas will ship the "present" to the border of the United States and distract them. During this, you'll get out and take your rightful place in the family."

Makarov smiled, as he found out that everything was going according to plan. He could probably use the chaos to escape. Years of planning were coming together. He just hoped Andrei Nolan and Ivan Alexxeve had an assault team picked for the operation. Getting out his smuggled lighter, he burned the letter to hide the evidence. Viktor came through this time.

Group for Specialized Tactics Headquarters, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States, January 10th, 2024

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mitchell was in his office going over the paperwork he asked for. He wasn't in a good mood, he just got the letter from General Townie regarding his demotion to Major and found out that the head of his Intelligence unit Major Alice Dennison was being sent to some spooky task force he didn't know about or had security clearance to know of. Rubbing his face, he sighed. How was he supposed to know that Cole Walker would have a mental breakdown and kill his commanding officer during a mission in Afghanistan? Because of that fuck up, the Ghosts were limited in what operations they could or could not do. All eyes were on them and the swamp of Washington was waiting for them to make another mistake.

Well, that investigation ended and now Townie was hammering down his judgment. He should have retired like Keating did. Now some other General named Shepard wanted to talk to him. Hearing a knock on his wooden door, he shouted to enter. Looking at the face of Lieutenant Kirk Graham.

"Sir. General Shepard is here to see you now."

"Understood. Kirk, I want you to run point with Nomad's team on the Waraabe Operation."

"Understood Sir."

Seeing the General walk in, he immediately stood up at attention and saluted.

"You can sit down Lieutenant Colonel."

"It's going to Major again, unfortunately."

"I see, so Townie is fucking with this unit as well."

"What did you want to see me about sir?"

Mitchell was a bit confused. He didn't understand why some general wanted to talk to him. His direct superior was Townie, the head of JSOC. Figuring this had something to do with the tension between Shepard and Townie.

"Mitchell, General Townie fucked up with TF Armistice."

"I've heard the reports of what went down."

"Well, I fear that this will give the Ultranationalist factions within Russia and the Volodin government to act."

"And you want my unit to be ready?"

"Yes. Your unit impressed a lot of people with Operation Kingslayer and I've read your file. It's very impressive. Commanding AFO Alpha in hotspots in Korea twice, Kazakhstan, and Mexico."

"Thank you, sir. But I only follow orders."

"Exactly, with all the controversy surrounding our military lately. I'm wondering if your unit is still capable of conducting operations?"

"Sir. My unit has around 300 men and women with 250 of those operators ready to be deployed in any hotspot around the world."

"Good. Do you have any AFO teams training?"

"I have a team codenamed Predator about to go to the kill house."

Shepard smiled, if there's anything Townie is good at, he thought to himself. It was destroying relationships. Walking to the training area, he noticed that the AFO Team wasn't there at the facility.

"Where's your team? I don't have all day you know."

Mitchell just smirked and all of a sudden. Four operators appeared out of thin air. Hiding his surprise, Shepard smiled. He heard of a unit of special forces personnel using advanced equipment. He just didn't realize it was the Ghosts.

"DOD's contract with Skell Technology has been nice to our unit and JSOC in general. The adaptive camouflage is still in the beta stage and won't be operational until at least 2027."

Shepard nodded and watched as the elite four-man team proceeded to clear out the building in record time. He was impressed by their professionalism and the ghost-styled bandanas were a nice touch. The silent tip of the spear would crush anyone who stood in America's way.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, United States, January 10th, 2024

Deputy Director of Operations Peter Miles was in a perfect mood. Operations in Chernarus and other hotspots were going according to plan and his secretive paramilitary group, known as the Wolves, was finally operational. He'd have to congratulate Walker for a job well done. It wasn't easy getting the funds for this little side project, but with his position, he was able to get it done. Now the only thing that concerned him was that General Townie needed to keep his end of the bargain. He needs to eliminate Shepard's Shadows. Megiddo has plans for Townie, but his petty rivalry with Shepard is a liability along with his connection to EuTropic. But the man did take care of the James Recce situation. So, that had to count for something.

Miles quietly thought to himself, we're all puppets of Megiddo, even if we didn't realize it. He began to flick his lighter on and off. It was a habit he's had since his time in Afghanistan when he was station chief in Kabul. Back when the government was friendly to the United States. Now he was expecting a call from his plant in the White House. It was surprisingly easy for the shadowy group to put a member of their organization on the Cabinet. Plus they had Vice President Calvin Samson on board with the plan and if things went wrong, he had a secret PDF of the members of the cabal. For insurance purposes of course. Names include House Speaker Andrew Ellis, Senator Michael Lomax, Secretary Calvin McManus, Vice President Samson, General Townie, Billionaire Industrialist Leon Fairrow, Businessman Lucius Galliard, Brent Lassiter, and Himself of course.

His secretive communications device went off. Alerting him that he was about to receive a private call from someone important. Taking the call, he disabled any listening devices. Not that anyone would be spying on such a high-ranking CIA official.

"Hello?" He said

"Ah. Yes. Mr. Company man. Our plant is within the Black Box. Has the information we requested. It should come up on your secure tablet now."

Black Box is a nickname for the National Security Agency's headquarters. Getting a mole in there was extremely difficult. But it was effective at gaining secure information.

"Perfect. Anything else?"

"We have a potential operation planned if needed. Again it's on the file."

"Understood. This will be our last communication for quite some time. Make sure Samson is completely on board. There's no turning back once we start."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it personally."

The call ended and he opened the file. The information he was reading was a gold mine. He came through this time, a few months before he wasn't sure if Secretary McManus of Homeland Security had the stones for such an undertaking. He heard rumors that he had a private army called Hunters but that couldn't be verified, but the man had planted a mole in the NSA, specifically the new initiative called Third Echelon. Of course, not much was known except that the organization had an operative known only as Panther. Brent Lassiter, the mole, was a senior NSA official on Megiddo's payroll.

It looks like he managed to uncover some personal information about Panther. Not the man's name but the file was mostly blackened out except for a few things. The wife died of Cancer and there was a daughter early 20s named Sarah Burns. Looking further in the file. He spotted an operation titled Firecracker. It listed a plan to eliminate Panther from the board before he became an issue. Kill the daughter with a proxy force either in the States or abroad. A bold plan of course. Only to be used if the NSA became a problem.

Miles looked at the time and noticed that he was going to be late for the party. He had been invited to a Conservative Think Tank by his friend Senator Michael Lomax. The drive would take about 30 minutes. Smiling as he left his office, plans were continuing and making headway.

Main Directorate of Intelligence building, Novigrad, Chernarus, January 11th, 2024

Lieutenant General Vadym Holovko, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Chernarus, looked concerned at the report he had just read. After the defection of NAPASOF personnel, he placed intelligence agents in key military and government circles. The last thing the country needed was another civil war or a military coup. The report came from one of his agents within General Kovalov's command center. The commander had received unknown funds and was placing ammo caches in strategic areas around the capital and other surrounding areas. He had also used his position to put certain SSO teams in areas near Shadow Company bases.

The other report on his desk was the intelligence he had received from SSO Team Eagle during a joint operation with Shadow Company. They found another Inner Circle cell deep within Chernarus. Team Eagle was currently conducting an operation to take down the Cell.

He was about to call his secretary when he heard suppressed gunshots from 5.45×39mm rounds. It had to be Kovalov's men but he wasn't sure. He grabbed his 9mm Glock from out of his desk drawer. As he was grabbing it he saw a white fog appear from under the door. His eyes and throat started to burn. Tear gas he thought to himself. The door to his office was kicked in and men in unmarked uniforms with gas masks entered and raised their rifles towards him. He raised his handgun but his aim was horrible with the burning and coughing. He felt the thwack as bullets hit him and he fell back in his chair. Blood stained his uniform and desk. The men grabbed the papers before moving to the roof for extraction.

Main Directorate of Intelligence building, Novigrad, Chernarus, January 11th, 2024

Five minutes before

The lobby of the building was busy. Armed guards patrolled while agents and analysts went about their work. To them, it was just another day at the office. They heard a helicopter overhead, but that was normal. The CDF was on high alert after an attempted bombing by an Ultranationalist cell in the capital.

The men in the chopper knew what they were about to do. But orders were orders and they came directly from General Kovalov himself. Colonel Josyp looked at his soldiers, the elite of the Chernarussian Special Operations Forces, or SSO for short. Orders were to eliminate the treacherous Main Directorate of Intelligence unit. According to intelligence by the General, they were planning a coup. This was to be a preemptive strike before that could happen. He looked at his men in their unmarked uniforms and gas masks. They all packed extra CS Tear Gas Grenades. His unit's job was to kill Lieutenant General Vadym Holovko and steal all important documents in the office.

As they were above the building, he saw the military convoy approach the ground level of the building. He and his men fast roped down to the roof and took down the guards with shots from their suppressed AK-105 assault rifles. One of the men brought a CS gas launcher and proceeded to shoot them down into the ventilation shafts.

"All units execute. I repeat execute Operation Trojan Horse."

"Ground floor unit copies. Beginning assault."

He and his men approached the stairwell and fired at two analysts who snuck away to probably have sex. The troops with him shot them again to make sure they stayed down. Moving toward the floor of their target room. They saw the man's secretary run toward an alarm. But she wasn't fast enough and took three rounds to the back. Security officers started to cough as the CS gas did its thing, they stumbled and got hit by multiple rounds of 5.45mm bullets. Seeing the target location, they kicked in the door and entered. Firing rounds into Lieutenant General Vadym Holovko. The elite operatives proceeded to ransack the office and grabbed the thumb drive and paperwork. He got on his radio and confirmed the mission's success.

"Sir. All objectives accomplished."

"Good work Colonel. Proceed to eliminate all resistance and get out of the area."

"Understood Sir.

Alright, thanks for reading my first Runestone Thriller. Multiple other Runestone thrillers are on the way. One set in Africa with Ghost Recon, another set in Takistan, and one planned in the Pacific. Hoping to make this a continuous story from a great Arma campaign. Check out Project Phoenix on Instagram for what these stories are based on.