Page 50 of The Soldier

Then I remember a scent I’d caught the day before and wonder. I thought it was something cheap and nasty, so I kept my thoughts to myself. But now... Jesus. Was it whisky?

“Do we have any update?” I asked, pulling my sniper rifle out and starting to assemble it.

A slight slip wasn’t enough proof to start asking if I could sniff Miller’s water, nor was I the commanding officer on this mission. But his behavior has been weird from the start.

I thought it was me—and maybe it is—but now we were down to a handful of men, leaving the others to the humanitarian tasks, I was getting concerned. Especially as he was responsible for communicating back with command.

“Yeah, the drones are above us.” He points to the sky. Pulling out his water bottle, he gives it a shake and glances around. “I’m going for a piss.”

Rodrique snaps his eyes back up.

“Fuck me,” he mutters when Miller disappears behind us.

I give him a knowing look and then focus on the site of my weapon, getting my target in scope.

What the fuckistaking so long?

Unless something is going pear shaped elsewhere, we should have been given the green light to take out these targets hours ago.

I lean on my shoulder, glance at the comms unit and then back at the compound. Fuck this. Something is not right. I lay down my sniper riffle, scuffle over and reach for the head piece. I press it against my ear and listen.

Nothing.

Silence.

Frowning, I start playing with the buttons. I’m highly familiar and experienced with the equipment.

That’s when I hear, “Echo zero five, please confirm your position.”

Jesus fucking Christ!

“This is echo zero five. Confirming we are in position and awaiting authorization,” I say, and the entire team swivels their heads at me.

I return their bewildered stares, shaking my head. Rodrique curses, points to one of this team, Taylor, to take over from me.

I hand over the headphones.

Miller comes back around the corner and skids again on the rocks.

“The fuck, Miller.” I hiss, grabbing his vest and steadying him. I press him against a boulder and he wobbles.

“Hey!” he says too loud.

I smack my palm across his mouth, but it doesn’t make a difference. I can smell the alcohol.

I grab his water bottle, twist the top and take a sniff, then toss it over to Rodriques.

“Jesus Christ.” I hear him say as I shove Miller to the ground. “He’s drunk.”

“Sit the fuck down and shut up.” I growl.

At this point in time, I don’t give a flying fuck about rank. He’s putting all our lives at risk, including mine.

“Do as he says.” Rodriques growls.

He doesn’t stay silent though. Unsurprisingly.

Miller starts mouthing off. “You going to let this civilian tell you what to do? He’s been out of action for months.”

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