Chapter 3: Marcus's Ambush and Istanbul Exile

Marcus Hale crouched in the Iraqi dust, the night air thick with the stench of diesel and cordite. Rain-slicked gravel crunched under his boots as his team waited, shadows among the date palms lining the convoy route south of Mosul. Khorsandi's proxies were due any minute, trucks heavy with arms bound for militias in Baghdad. Marcus cracked his knuckles, the scar on his jaw pulling tight. He spat tobacco juice into the mud. "Hold fire till my word," he growled into the radio. His lieutenant, Rizzo, nodded from the ridge, rifle steady.

Headlights pierced the dark first, then the rumble of engines. Three trucks, then four, Iranian plates muddied but clear enough. Marcus raised a fist. The convoy slowed at the fake checkpoint his men had rigged—barrels and flares. "Now," he barked. Grenades arced from the palms, blooming orange fire under the lead truck. Screams cut the night as the second vehicle swerved, its machine gun chattering wild.

Rizzo led the charge down the slope, boots pounding. Marcus fired from the hip, dropping the driver of the trailing truck. Bullets whined off rocks, one grazing his shoulder. He ignored the burn, vaulted into the chaos. A proxy fighter lunged from the cab, knife flashing. Marcus drove his elbow into the man's throat, felt bone give. "For the family," he muttered, snapping the neck.