12 Minutes (#2 in Military series)

Chapter 26

Placing his hands on his hips Truro had learnt when it was time to ask for help so he used the resources at his disposal and turned back to Strong, "How do you think we should proceed?" He may not have liked Strong's recent handling of the situation but he understood it and he knew that Strong had years of good tactical knowledge under his belt.

Strong seemed startled at first that Truro would ask for his help but he masked his surprise and parted his lips to speak when the shrill ring of a telephone broke through the silence that had descended over the control room. Turning in the direction that it came from Truro looked towards a desk at the far end where a blonde-haired woman answered the phone. Truro watched her perfectly arched eyebrows rise up a little as she stuttered nervously into the phone, "Y-Yes sir. Right away, sir,"

Pressing a button on the telephone but lowering the receiver she stood up and hurried across to Truro, the heels on her shoes forcing her to take small steps rather than the long, quick strides he was hoping for.

"Who is it?"

"The prime minister, sir," She swallowed.

Truro closed his eyes briefly as he remembered that he was still linked into the live feed from the drone. He was seeing exactly what they were seeing and probably wondering why no one had phoned to tell him. "Thank you," He muttered as he turned to the phone nearest to him which was located on a operative's desk in front of him.

"He's on line three, sir," The blonde girl with heels said before she turned and hurried back to her own desk.

"Prime Minister," Truro spoke immediately into the phone hoping to gain the upper hand, "May I just say-"

Strong watched Truro's expression falter as the prime minister obviously interrupted him and a moment later Strong thought he could hear the PM's voice shouting down the line. Apart from the soft buzzing from the machines nothing else in the room made a noise. Strong looked up at the screen as the thermal imaging was switched back to real time and the camera zoomed in on the first piece of movement, scouring for possible intelligence to feed back to them, which was a car door opening.

"Yes, sir, I am aware but-" Truro said before he was interrupted again but Strong kept watching the screen, his palms beginning to sweat as he waited for someone to emerge from the truck.

"Sir, it may be our only chance," Truro continued to speak, his being the only voice in the room at the moment as everyone's attention was drawn to the screen, "I cannot imagine us getting another chance to-"

Strong did not know what Truro was asking the PM permission for cause at that moment it suddenly felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. A turban-wearing figure had just stepped out from the car before dragging a small girl along with him but it wasn't the presence of the girl that made him feel like this although it did upset him. No, it was a moment later when the figure's attention must have been drawn to something in the sky and they tilted their heads back far enough for the drone to capture a facial image. The picture popped up in the top left hand side of the screen as the program flitted through thousands of photos looking for a match. Strong could see the photos being analysed and discarded beneath the picture of the figure in the screen but Strong did not need a program to tell him who this man was. This wasn't the first time he had seen this man's face but he had hoped it had been the last.

As predicted the program found a ninety-six percent match and it bleeped up in the middle of the screen in a bright red border showing the database image for Muhammad Abbas, a radical known terrorist. Truro turned around as he heard the alert and his eyebrows rose dramatically. Abbas had not been heard from in years, everyone had assumed he'd been killed in an air strike, but he was clearly alive and plotting a major terrorist attack. Truro's shock lasted a moment before it turned to determination.
"Sir," He spoke down the line when the PM fell silent as he saw the same as they did, "If Muhammad Abbas organised this terrorist threat then it is worse than we feared. He's methodical and has had years of people thinking he was dead to cover his tracks. He could have planned numerous attacks and we wouldn't know. Sir, I really must illiterate that this may be our only chance to positively remove him."