I KILL RICH PEOPLE 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

glazed eyes stayed open.
    Miller’s cheeks puffed like a blowfish, and then he exhaled and took in a deep breath, blinking as he centered his focus.
    “What time is it?”
    “21:15. You slept through third mess.”
    “Doesn’t matter. Got Commissary food on dry ice if I want it.” He shook his face to wake up then held his balding skull in both hands. Shaking was bad.
    Spencer added, “Commissary food and $200 whisky.”
    “You don’t know anything,” Miller wheezed.
    “I know that drinking that way the body can’t regulate temperature,” Spencer warned. “You can go from sunstroke to hypothermia in the same day around here.”
    “Whisky won’t kill me.” Miller twisted his neck and worked on getting focus. “Out there’s an IED with my name on it. I’m going to get blown to shit. Those mangy fucking mongrels out there will licklittle bits of me off a metal carcass. All for some piece of shit war in this piece of shit place. Fuck.”
    Miller’s speech slowed, but beside that and the occasional misstep and quick recovery, Miller generally held his liquor. Not this time. He tipped back another gulp, blew the alcohol out over his tongue and lectured on how “the U.S. is going to leave here and the sand will wipe away our footprints just like that.”
    He snapped his fingers. “Another dirty forgotten little war… we shit ourselves until we die and then nobody knows or cares that any of this ever happened.”
    The translator, Afif, appeared behind Spencer and began to boil tea. Spencer smelled him before he turned around. Afif had the dank mushroom smell of decay.
    Spencer seldom liked the smell of people; gun oil and graphite, sawdust and nitroglycerine were his cologne. Miller’s scent was acrid, a vinegar-sour stench of lies.
    “Does he have to be here?” Spencer griped. Outside the wire, they went with the territory, but inside base, Spencer felt he had the right for some relief from these skulking types.
    “Don’t worry about this one,” Miller assured. “He does what I tell him. No more Pathans. Done with them. It’s always the same with Pathans… they’ll take the money, but they’re guilty about it. Always on slow boil. One day they blow up and cut your throat.”
    “Tell him to stay in front. I don’t want him behind me.”
    “I’ve tried Tajiks, Hazzari, too, Miller continued, ignoring Spencer’s comment. “Afif is Ismaili.”
    “Ismaili?” Spencer asked.
    “Shia, from Badakhshan Province way up inthe northeast. Best brand of go-fer. His kind has got no place to run. If he goes into China, the Han kill him, or if they don’t, the Uyghurs will. He can’t run over to Pakistan like any Pathan and hide with his cousins. The Pakis will cut his nuts off then listen to him howl for a couple days before they chop off his head.
    “I own his ass.”
    Miller pressed the heels of both his palms up to his temples. “Jesus. Let’s get through this. Right now if somebody cut off my head, it wouldn’t be so bad.
    “Report, Sergeant. Tell of your mighty accomplishments!”
    “Extraction better this time out?” Miller asked. All of Miller’s special assets were at the mercy of other units to get in and, especially, to get out again.
    “Yes sir.” Spencer paused. Miller wasn’t his superior officer; Miller wasn’t even military. The “sir” was automatic. But nothing in the job description said he had to babysit drunks, especially a chickenshit civilian pissing and moaning because the big world might not be so pretty. It wasn’t entirely clear that Miller was CIA, either. Miller and his Afghan interpreter showed up, Miller delivered target orders. Miller returned, Spencer debriefed, Miller hit the Scotch. 
    “Correct coordinates. GPS working for a change,” the sergeant continued.
    Spencer nodded and began. After nineteen years in, he was usually on autopilot at end-of-mission debriefs. “Successful drop at 03:00 hours, thank you 82nd Airborne.” He held up the swollen