Page 83 of S.O.S. Mizzay

Cobble glanced at the clock.Four AM. Did anything good ever happen at that time of the morning?

“H’llo?” Andy managed.

As Cobble watched, her eyes popped open wide; large, even when not behind her glasses.

Her voice became slightly shrill. “You’re shitting me. Is everyone alright?”

Now Cobble was on alert. What the fuck had happened?

There was a minutes-long diatribe on the other end of the line.

Cobble could hear the enraged tone, loud and clear, but not the words. It sucked having to wait, but…

“Okay. Okay.” Andy was calming down. “Are we still on for tomorrow to make our safehouse known, then?”

There was a pause.

“Yeah. You’re right. I think that’s for the best, too. Okay. I’ll see you then. Bye.” She hung up.

“What?” Cobble asked.

“Someone blew up Oliphant’s house tonight, uh, this morning.”

Cobble’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? I thought Baskins had a couple agents watching the place. Did they catch who did it?” he asked hopefully.

“No.” Andy didn’t look happy. “Whoever pulled it off, did it with a drone,” she told him. “Which was sort of a lucky thing. One agent was stationed inside the house, and one was in the yard. Luckily, the agent outside saw the thing coming. Because its payload was so big, she recognized it for what it was, and was able to alert the agent inside to get the hell out.”

“And…did he? Make it?” Cobble asked.

“By the skin of his teeth,” Andy gritted with a clenched jaw. “He has some minor burns from the flash, and both of them have some temporary hearing loss, but other than that they’ll be fine. Baskins is pissed. He figured with his agents in place, he’d have all this sorted; the bad faction jailed so you wouldn’t have to dangle yourself as bait.”

Cobble placed a hand on Andy’s blanket-covered knee. “It’s alright. I’m okay with the original plan,” he told her. “Really I am. Iwantto be part of ripping this thing wide open. It’s screwed with me almost my entire adult life, and I should see it finished.”

Andy dropped her head into her hands. “I’m worried,” she told him. “You know from everything that’s happened, whateveragent or agents are orchestrating things to fuck with us, they’re experts,” she lamented.

“Stop,” Cobble ordered. “You and Baskins are smarter than them, and you have the best team imaginable behind you with your SOS guys. I believe in them, and I believe in you. With the final moves of this case now being firmly in our laps, we’ll come out on top.”Or die together, trying, Cobble didn’t add.

Andy knew the risks as well as he did

Cobble continued. “Now we can only hope Chuck finds something on those hard-drives that will help us identify the enemy before we engage. But have you thought of this?”

Of course she probably had.

“Since Agent Englewood is still in the air—or in South Sudan—he couldn’t have been the one blowing up a house, which means he’s probably in the clear, and we’ve now narrowed the field down to two; Georgio and Fleischerman.”

“Baskins agrees, and so do I,” Andy told him. “Which is why it’s good they’re the ones making up part of your safety crew starting later today, so we can flush them out.”

Cobble wasn’t going to think about that possible shit-show, at least for now.

“Did Baskins say anything about El-Umar’s current status?” he asked instead.

“He did. The team he sent met the CIA agents at the airport and were able to take custody of the man. They’re just waiting to get on a plane home, now.”

“Which means they’ll be here…?”

“If the flight goes as scheduled, Baskins says it should be here around this time tomorrow morning.”

“So, is it possible we should postpone our next move? Wait until we have more good guys available to us and keep the bad faction guessing?” Cobble crossed his fingers beneath the blankets.

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