Igi | 2

Inside, the prison smelled of rust, sweat, and burnt coffee. He moved through the corridors like a ghost, pausing at every corner to peek with his tiny fiber-optic camera. Two guards at the end of the hall, one smoking, one complaining about the cold. Jones pulled a flashbang from his vest.

“Change of plans,” he said, pointing to a fuel truck parked near the south wall. “We’re leaving loud.”

Jones’s blood turned cold. Compromised.

Behind them, the Krasny Prison Facility burned—a single, silent monument to a mission that had gone sideways, but not under. Inside, the prison smelled of rust, sweat, and burnt coffee

“I can run.”

Nightshade looked at him. “You lost the stealth bonus.”

The rain over Siberia was a liar. It fell soft as a whisper, promising peace, while below, the Krasny Prison Facility hummed with enough firepower to level a small army. David Jones adjusted the strap of his suppressed MP5 and pressed closer to the icy rock. Jones pulled a flashbang from his vest

“Damn,” Jones muttered, dragging the body into the shadow of a decommissioned radar dish. One stray body. That was all it took for a mission to spiral. He checked his wrist-comp. Nightshade’s signal was flickering from the east wing, second floor.

“The scenic route,” Jones replied, handing her a pistol. “Can you walk?”

Nightshade’s cell was a reinforced door with a keypad. Jones didn’t have the code. He had something better—a portable bypass tool he’d “acquired” from a disgraced MI6 quartermaster. He pressed it to the panel, and the lock clicked open in twelve seconds. Compromised

He’d already disabled two patrols with a tranquilizer dart to the neck and a chokehold that left no marks. The third guard, however, was different. He’d turned a second too early, his flashlight beam slicing through the mist like a scalpel. Jones didn’t think. His hand moved—a clean, suppressed burst. Three rounds. The guard crumpled into the mud without a sound.

His mission was simple on paper: infiltrate, extract the defector codenamed "Nightshade," and leave no trace of IGI involvement. Simple. But in Jones’s line of work, simple was just another word for everyone’s waiting for you to fail .

Here’s a short story inspired by IGI 2: Covert Strike .