Page 3 of S.O.S. Mizzay

With one worried look at the formerly vibrant man who was lying so still, Missy drew in a deep breath, regrouped, at least on the outside, and began her rounds to make further assessments to see if anyone else was still breathing. Her squad did the same, and after a lot of despondent head-shakes, a consensus was finally reached.

Cobble was the only one who had survived.

It was a huge blow to have lost so many good men.

What the fuck had gone on here?

Why this office, and why now, when a new regime had just claimed power?

The job of all the people murdered here today had been to assure that the rebel factions were protected moving forward; the displaced given a voice in the new government. It made no sense that those people the UN forces were representing would bite the proverbial hand that fed them.

On the flip side, if it had been a government sanctioned hit, why would the new regime order it? Those gaining power were relying on the CST and the UN Peacekeepers to help smooth their precipitous transition.

Missy stood back and attempted to look at things with a keen eye; distancing herself for a few moments from the human wreckage. Although keeping her gaze off Cobble where Turner worked on him, was almost impossible.

Focus, Andy. Focus.

There had to be some kind of clue amongst all the open drawers and scattered paperwork that would help unravel this Charlie Foxtrot. It almost seemed as if someone had been purposely looking for something here. Had there been documents stored in this location that were considered classified? Missy didn’t have the clearance to know the answer. But screw that, because right here in front of her was one third of her platoon. Dead. Wiped out.

Missy made up her mind then and there. She was damned sure going to make it her business to find answers as to what had happened; classified or not.

“How’s he doing?” Missy finally gave in and strode back to Turner, squatting beside him as he tended to a comatose Cobble.

“Pulse thready and weak. Breathing sounds non-existent on the left side,” the medic stated grimly. “It looks like he sustained a bullet wound to the right thorax that penetrated his lung.”

“And the blood on his head?” she asked, trying not to reach out and touch the affected area; brush over what she knew would be a soft-as-silk buzz cut.

“Nothing dire,” Turner told her. “Just a graze. But it might be what saved his life. He would have gone down after being hit there, and whoever the shooters were, they probably thought because of all the blood, that he was dead.”

Missy nodded, her heart in her throat.

“I’ve got an IV started,” Turner continued, “but he’ll need immediate surgery.”

Missy stood up and addressed Grogan, trying to get the LT part of her head back to where it should be, instead of completely focused on Cobble. “Any ID on the insurgents our men took down.”

Amongst the dead were several of the bad guys. Winch and his team had managed to kill seven rebels, which considering the odds of how many must have stormed the office to take out her highly trained unit, was a damned fine take-down.

“No ID on any of them, LT,” Grogan said. “There’s no telling who they work for, or if they were just trouble-making outliers.”

Missy scowled. “We’ll let the powers that be see if they can determine anything significant from the bodies.”

She was pretty sure they’d find nothing conclusive, but to her discerning eye, this still seemed…planned. She wasn’t sure why. It was just a gut feeling. But already—at her young age—she’d learned not to ignore her instincts, even though some would doubt her credentials.

Had she spent most of her life in academia?Yes. Had she done it all as a child prodigy who’d graduated college at the age of nineteen? Another yes. But she’d also—once she’d joined the Army—gone through an intensive officer training course; having her eyes firmly on a commissioned officer rank. Not only had sheaced every course she’d taken, both physical and mental, she’d also achieved her first step by becoming a second lieutenant.

Subsequently, because of what her higher-ups had deemed a potent blend of skills and intuition, she’d been given charge of a platoon.Thisplatoon.Herplatoon.

Which was now minus five good men, and Cobble laying here, hurt. Missy couldn’t let her mind wander to any scenario where he wouldn’t recover. She wouldn’t. A world without Cobble would be…

She hissed in an angry breath.

This attack had become personal.

Missy cemented her resolve. While she was waiting for reinforcements and medical evac, she’d take pictures of everything she could get her hands on. Then she would accompany Cobble to the hospital.

As soon as he woke up from surgery…ifhe woke up from surgery, she’d find out what the hell had happened here.

CHAPTER TWO

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