The Green Zone War: The Complete Series by Jake Elwood

Author:Jake Elwood [Elwood, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-02-28T22:00:00+00:00

An hour later all sense of relief was gone, replaced by a towering frustration. The platoon was doing a brilliant job of pretending to be buffoons and half-wits. They bumped into each other, dropped tools, tried to cut trees outside the marked area they were supposed to clear, and shaved away such fine tiny scraps of wood from the trunks of standing trees that it would take a week for a tree to actually fall. A round-cheeked, red-haired man had even managed to shove the blade of a shovel into a laser cutter. He stood with the remains of the shovel in his hands, staring at the destroyed blade as if he’d never seen something so astonishing in his life.

Ganbold stomped over to him, shoving gawking prisoners out of the way. The man stared at him, doing a poor job of hiding a smirk, and said, “Sorry, Boss. I don’t know what-”

Ganbold hit him. He nailed the man with a clean right cross that knocked him sprawling on the ground, the ruined shovel landing in the dirt beside him. A couple of guards hurried over, stopping out of arm’s reach of the knot of prisoners, rifles coming up.

The red-haired man glared up at Ganbold. His mask of bemused innocence was gone now, replaced by fury. He started to push himself up.

Then sank back, eyes wide, as Ganbold drew his pistol.

“I can see you are not much use to me as a worker.” Ganbold took careful aim at the man’s round, freckled face. “You can still be useful, though. As an example.” He raised his voice. “Watch carefully, all of you. This is what happens when you push me too far.” He took a deep breath, pushed down a despairing voice inside him, wailing that he was about to do something monstrous, and tightened his finger on the trigger.

Lieutenant Thrush stepped in front of the pistol, and Ganbold managed—barely—not to shoot him.

“Whoah. Hang on, Unit Leader. That’s not necessary.”

A wave of relief washed over Ganbold, replaced a moment later by frustration. I still have my duty. I need to regain control. I have to do this. There is no other way. “I can shoot this man,” he said. “Or I can shoot you first, and then shoot him. The choice is yours.”

Men moved in his peripheral vision, prisoners stepping closer, lifting tools. The soldiers brought rifles to their shoulders and took aim. Men froze.

“Now, you see, there’s a problem with that approach.” Thrush sounded … not relaxed exactly, but not terrified, either. Not like a man with a gun barrel a handspan from his face. “Some of these men served with me on my last command. We went through a lot together. We bonded.” His eyes didn’t leave Ganbold’s. “If you shoot me, well, they won’t stand for it.”

“I’ll kill them too!”

Thrush nodded. “I know. But that will get the rest of the platoon going. They might stand back and watch one man die, or two. But six or eight? They won’t just watch.

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