[Write the Story] The Phone Rings at 3 A.M.

Prompt: The Phone Rings at 3 A.M.

Words: guerilla, emerald, careless, traffic, liberate, adolescence, punch, wave, environment, oval

Story

Robert Earl Keen has a song where the chorus line is The road goes on forever and the party never ends. That’s how I feel every day. Except it’s not a party. It’s my job.

Ring. I answer as I always do. “Emerald ocean sunset” is today’s code response. I don’t know who comes up with this stuff. “Go ahead, Agent Chase.”

“The guerillas are about to liberate the capital. They’re moving through town like a wave of drunken kids in adolescence.”

“You couldn’t have just said teenagers?” I said. “It’s 3 a.m. here. How bad is it?”

“It’s a punch-drunk environment.” Chase sounded a bit sloshed himself.

“Don’t’ get careless, Chase.” I was already out of bed and pulling up computers to get intel and satellite imagery.

“Crap. They’re almost to the traffic oval.” I could hear crowd and weapons noise behind him. The visuals I could pull up were…bleak. “I need an exit strategy now.”

My fingers flew over keys, but as I pushed the buttons and sent the codes, Chase’s messages grew more frantic and more garbled and then abruptly stopped. I stopped typing and listened to the chaos for a moment as I shut down my system.

I always told these guys, if you call me at 3 a.m., someone better be dead.

Word Count: 217

Written: 8/30/19

Tags: exercise, fiction, flash fiction, late night, mystery, Piccadilly, spies, Write the Story