The mercenary and the detective

Maxwell Williams, Major. 2020

The Sacrifice

Chaos dominated the scene. My platoon stood tall amidst the ravages of war. We are on a mission, kill all our Russian enemies.

The deafening noise and gunfire echoed everywhere. Under my command, we faced the Russians, every step calculated towards victory.

“Let's move forward carefully,” I told them as they followed me in line. We continued downhill toward the Russians. As we advanced, I noticed something strange. Our enemies had disappeared. They were no longer near their base. Which confused me even more. I knew there was another team out there, the question was, where were they?

I quickly ordered them to hide, keeping everyone on their toes.

“Get down, let's hide for now,” I tell them all, then crouch down and reload my gun. I say this to Thaddeus, one of the soldiers.

“Stand guard, me and the others will take a look.” Thaddeus nodded and adjusted his weapon, turning around, looking for any movement from our enemy, and protecting the rear. If I heard anything, Thaddeus would alert me to any threat.

That strange absence of enemies awakened my instinct to investigate. So I moved forward with the other soldiers.

“Let's go that way, and carefully. Stay alert,” I said to everyone.

We kept looking sideways, wielding our weapons. Watching for any movement. But it was very quiet, and I didn't understand what was going on.

I tried to use my skills to listen carefully to see if there was anything out of the ordinary.

When I focused on the sounds of the place. I could hear the breathing of all my friends. Every beat of their hearts revealed determination and courage. As I concentrated more, I heard a high-pitched shout.

“Sir, take cover, there's a bomb coming.” I looked at Thaddeus, and he pointed ahead of us. A bomb on a collision course with us.

My eyes widened, and I tried to stay calm.

There was no time to run. We had to try to hide.