The Severance Read Online Free Page B

away.
    Given what had gone down out there in Sabari, Jake was sure that the next few hours weren’t going to be pleasant. He had ordered the captured enemy equipment loaded into the truck and told Sergeant McBride to turn in all of the mission essential equipment and remaining ammunition. Without equipment or ammunition, there was no way the platoon could get assigned another mission and the guys could now impatiently wait for their flight back to the United States. A flight out of a hellhole.
    “Want me to go up there with you?” McBride asked.
    “Nah, wouldn’t change the outcome at all. Just take care of the boys, and I’ll let you know how it comes out,” Jake replied, as he hopped into the passenger seat of the vehicle.
    The ride to the TOC only took about 90 seconds. It was almost ridiculous to send a vehicle for him. However, Jake was in no mood for walking and made no complaints. In five minutes he would be chewed out by his superiors, anyway.
    Getting yelled at by a lieutenant colonel was a fairly regular occurrence. In fact, Jake had been admonished and reprimanded by much more senior officers. He had become so used to being censured that his heart rate didn’t spike unless his admonisher was a brigadier general or better.
    Jake was tired and bored, standing at attention, as he watched the three officers—his own commander, LTC Morris; CPT Slater’s commander, LTC Smith; and the commander of the aviation task force, LTC Miller. All three were glaring at him like predators. Still, his mind wandered as he asked himself whether he’d taken his daily multivitamin.
    “Captain Roberts, just what do you think you were doing out there?” LTC Smith, the incoming unit commander, led off.
    “Uh, I was killing the enemy, Sir,” Jake replied flatly.
    LTC Smith was the angriest of the three LTCs. Jake understood the man’s agitation—one of his company commanders had just been put out of the fight on his first mission. A lot of time, money, training, and mentoring went into the creation of a company commander. Company commanders were a reflection of their battalion commanders. Captain Slater got himself shot like an idiot, and that reflected badly on LTC Smith who, like most senior officers, was incapable of accepting blame, so his only logical course of action was to take out his anger and frustration on Jake.
    “Listen, smartass, I’m in no mood for your jokes. How could you let this happen?” LTC Smith asked, his face turning red. The question was rhetorical. Smith liked to hear his own voice at full volume. Jake knew this, but decided to push Smith’s buttons anyway.
    “Let ‘what’ happen, Sir?” Jake asked, slowly eking out the words.
    Beads of sweat began to form on Smith’s forehead. Encountering a junior officer who didn’t immediately shrink under this kind of scrutiny from a superior was a rarity. Sometimes they cried.
    “Captain Slater was shot!” he bellowed. “Don’t you feel responsible?”
    “Sir, the enemy shot Captain Slater and that is not my fault. We did kill the guy who shot Captain Slater, if that helps,” Jake replied.
    “You know, I’ve heard about you, Captain, and your little escapade in Iraq. It might be prudent to check the bullet pulled out of Doug Slater’s leg against the ones in your rifle,” Smith barked.
    “It’s a plausible explanation, Sir,” Jake said carefully. He knew full well that they’d all watched the firefight unfold live in thermal black-and-white from the circling Predator UAV. Smith was trying—and failing—to put Jake on the defensive.
    LTC Smith rose from his chair as if prepared to cross the small room and physically attack Jake. He stomped his foot and yelled a litany of profanities, until LTC Morris gently grasped his forearm. Smith looked at the other man’s hand as if it were a foreign object, but he cleared his throat loudly, wiped his forehead, and sank back into his chair. Morris must have senior-officer magical powers, Jake