Chapter 4 - The Discovery
An extreme close-up captured Donovan’s seasoned, hardened face turning completely pale. She let out a soft, breathless gasp, her eyes widening in pure, unadulterated shock.
She slowly stood up and turned around to face the firing line one hundred yards away.
Her eyes bypassed the confused infantrymen. They bypassed Emma. Donovan locked her intense, piercing gaze directly onto Colonel Mercer.
Nobody was laughing anymore. The silence was suffocating.
"What is it, Sergeant?" Mercer demanded, his voice laced with sudden, nervous irritation. "What are you looking at?"
Donovan looked back at the wall one more time, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe her own eyes.
"Check the back wall, Colonel," Donovan yelled across the range, her voice completely devoid of its usual calm authority. "Bring the binoculars."
Mercer’s confident expression violently disappeared. He snatched a pair of high-powered tactical binoculars from the range control desk and aggressively lifted them to his eyes.
The soldiers of Combat Group Charlie began murmuring nervously, exchanging terrified glances. They slowly started realizing that Emma’s five apparent misses might not have been misses at all.
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Mercer adjusted the focus wheel on the binoculars, zooming in directly on the exact spot Donovan was pointing to on the distant concrete backstop.
👉 Mercer looked through the lenses, and the horrifying realization of exactly who he had just humiliated hit him like a freight train.
