12 Minutes (#2 in Military series)

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Michael Truro was sleep deprived and running on caffeine when there was a knock at his office door.

"What?" He groaned, a hand half covering his face from where he had been trying to catch a few minutes sleep. Resolved that he wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon Truro let his hand slide down and sat up straight in his chair as the door opened a young hipster-looking tech analyst, wearing jeans, blue shirt and a tie, stepped in looking worried. His dreadlocked hair was tied back in a ponytail.

"A, um-" The boy coughed, "A situation has occurred, sir."

Truro rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes as he thought about his lovely double bed at home waiting for him, alas empty, but still waiting for him. His thoughts turned to Samantha and how she had looked sprawled across the bare sheets in her strappy black lingerie.

"-Sir?"

"Huh?" Truro snapped his head up and stared at the young boy in front of him who could be no more than twenty five and yet he could probably hack the entire british mainframe if he so decided to. He was glad the intelligence service got him on their side first.

"The situation, yes," Truro coughed, trying to cover his earlier lapse. There was no way Samantha would ever find herself in his bed again, not after what he had done, "What is it? Have the sweep teams found anything?"

"Not yet no Sir but they're almost halfway through their priority searches. No, the situation is with General Ridgeway and his team, sir."

Truro became instantly alert as if he had just downed half a dozen espresso shots, "Show me."

The hipster tech led the way out of his office, around a small corridor and into the control room where the large screen sat to his left. Looking out over the rows of computers that spanned outwards from the screen like a university auditorium, Truro's eyes became glued to the screen as he saw footage from the drone feeding live.

"We sent the drone back over to check on the team's progress and, well-" The techie stopped as Truro walked passed him and stared at the screen. The drone was circling high above the compound offering them a wide view of the immediate area which was currently occupied with nearly a dozen trucks that surrounded the building.

"Shit." Truro snapped under his breath as he reached the large floor space in front of the screen and looked up at the rotating image as the drone circled.

"That's mild," Strong's voice travelled across to him from the corner. Truro looked over and saw him slowly getting up from sitting on the edge of the table, "My men are in there and they must be running low on ammunition by now."

"Well, you shouldn't have sent them," Truro snapped, he was not going to have the blame pushed onto his shoulders, "I told them to come back- I even told you to tell them to come back but you decided not to. This is not my fault."

"My team could have done this quietly but you had to send in Ridgeway with his ridiculous private toy soldiers and-"

"-do I seriously need to remind you that it was your hot shot G.I Jane that set off a bomb in the first place!?" Truro shouted as he arched his eyebrows at Strong. He waited for a response but Strong suddenly seemed very tight lipped so he turned back to the screen and watched as it turned to thermal imaging and picked out the many red dots littered about the screen. How the hell was he going to get them out of there? Truro thought as he ran a hand through his hair, half of those red dots are children and hopefully one is the Prime Minister's niece.