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"Chaplain," he called out. He couldn't remember the lad's name. The priest hurried to him. "Shoot her," Alex said, looking at a rifle on the ground.

The priest's clear blue eyes grew round. "I can't."

"Shoot her, or we will die," he whispered. The woman was just meters away. A suicide bomber for the Taliban.

He shook his head. "I'm a non-combatant."

"We will die," Alex repeated.

"Then it is God's will."

"Fuck God. Pick up the bloody rifle and shoot," Alex said franticly. "That is an order from your colonel. We have a mission to finish and we can't do it fucking dead."

The priest picked up the rifle, his hands shaking. The woman was just outside the shell of the wreckage.

"Fire," Alex said. "Now."

He brought the weapon into position and aimed it at the woman. "I'll go to Hell for this."

"We all are going to Hell. Fire."

He pulled the trigger.

The mission had been wiped clean from any records as if the crash never happened. Families of the deceased were only told their loved ones were lost in combat. Only two people knew what happened that day, and Alex was looking into the soft blue eyes of the only other person.