47 Echo Read Online Free Page A

policemen were frightfully thin and their shoes had worn down to almost nothing. He guessed they’d come most of the way from home on foot, on very little food and no water.
    “Six-eighteen, 1412, you’re carrying Captain Sayed back to the vans. The rest of you, double-time. Just because we haven’t seen any Chinese forces yet doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Let’s move.”
    As the unit started to jog back to the vans a mile and a half away, Christopher sped up to run beside Nick.
    “Man. You just like hitting people, don’t you, kid?”
    Nick tried to shrug, but it wasn’t easy with his hands tied behind his back. It took the unit just under eight minutes to make it back to the vans and less than two minutes to load up. Christopher was driving the second van—Neal made sure to keep Nick in the first, away from Sayed should the Captain wake up and want to shoot him.
    Nick was sitting next to the Mongolian cops in the van’s third row. The two cops were still smiling widely and talking excitedly to each other in quick whispers. Nick tried to pick up what they were saying but found it tough, as he didn’t speak Mongolian at all.
    Gabriel Martinez was in the seat in front of Nick and turned around to face him, grinning. “And to think I was pissed at you for getting me thrown in with you fucking Mechoes. You’re about to have it much worse than I did, pal. Sucker punching didn’t work out for ya this time, did it?” His voice had a definite edge to it, an animal growl that made his smile look feral and filled his words with bile.
    Nick smiled. “Ah, to be young. Remember, kiddo. Sucker ain’t the one doing the punching.”
    ***
    Neal immediately turned Nick over to a pair of uniformed Military Police as soon as they reached Staging Area November. He assured Nick this was for his own protection because Captain Sayed was in Echo for shooting a junior officer who’d disagreed with him in the real Marines. The MPs took Nick to a holding cell in what had once been the bottom level of a parking garage. The cage had been set up in a corner of the garage, bracing two floor-to-ceiling iron grates against the concrete walls. Two armed guards stood in front of Nick’s cage, waiting for Nick to try something, anything.
    Nick, however, didn’t plan on attempting escape. He decided instead to sit on the small folding chair in the cell and say nothing. He guessed there wasn’t a whole lot more they could do to him—he was already in a suicide squad, and Nick had figured out relatively quickly that the powers-that-be didn’t want to waste able-bodied soldiers.
    The combined Echo unit had returned from Port Baikal just after one in the afternoon—it was well past nightfall when someone finally appeared to deal with Nick. A tall, thin man in regular Marine fatigues walked out of the relative darkness of the parking garage to the dim circle of light thrown by the glowsticks attached to the cell grates. One of the guards grabbed a folding chair propped up against the concrete wall just outside the cell and set it up across from Nick’s chair.
    As the Marine sat down on the other side of the grate, Nick caught a glimpse of oak clusters on his shoulder. Either a Major or a Lieutenant Colonel. The ranks were starting to come back to him now.
    “Four-seven Echo 1153. I’m Lieutenant Colonel David Markham. The convict units are under my direct supervision.”
    Nick had no idea what to say, so he just nodded.
    Markham consulted a small screen in his hand. “Looks like you’re in here for striking a senior officer. I’ve already talked to your CO and men from both the 4-7 and the 1-8, so I really don’t need your input…but I am curious. Why did you hit Captain Sayed?”
    “To be honest, sir, he was making a reckless decision and, just for the hell of it, was going to kill the two men we brought back.”
    “I realize you’re new here. The penalty for striking a senior officer is usually a transfer to the next unit