Holding Their Own VII: Phoenix Star by Joe Nobody Page B

standing. I want to check something out.”
    The contractor did as he was told. Again, the radio guided, “Four more steps to your 3 o’clock… Almost…. Just one more… Hold it!”
    Moses stood idle, waiting on the next instruction. Instead, Nick’s voice sounded puzzled. “Now that’s weird. I can only see your feet and legs, yet that’s exactly where Bishop was standing. That tree over by the creek is blocking my view of your upper body, yet it’s in the picture. How could that be?”
    “Huh? You mean the angle is lower on the picture?”
    Nick didn’t respond for a moment. Finally, “Stay right there for a minute. I see a ledge below me. I going to climb down and see if it fixes the problem.”
    “Okay by me,” Moses replied with a chuckle. “Hurry though; this is tough work down here.”
    “Fuck you,” sounded the tiny speaker, Nick’s laughter carrying across the airwaves.
    After a few minutes, the former Green Beret again transmitted. This time there wasn’t any humor at all. “You better come up here. I think I’ve solved the mystery… or maybe I’ve made it worse.”

     
    It took Moses a little longer to accomplish the climb. Bishop’s .308 round from months ago had eliminated a lot of muscle, along with some of his mobility. He’d been running every day for a month, trying to overcome the handicap. Climbing was a different story.
    Nick pretended not to notice the struggle, ignoring his partner’s slight limp as he cleared the last hold and stepped down on the ledge. Inhaling more from the pain than the exertion, Moses said, “Okay, Here I am. Now, just what’s going on?”
    “Look at this,” Nick instructed, pointing toward the ledge. “In the middle of this deserted territory, here’s a footprint on this ledge, and it wasn’t made by an Army boot.”
    “Huh? Let me see.”
    “Not only that, but I will bet my next meal that this is where most of those photographs were taken. Once I climbed down here, I could see you clearly. You were in the exact spot Bishop was when this shot was snapped. I don’t think a drone would orbit along these cliffs. There had to have been someone up here with a camera. From the looks of the tracks, maybe more than one person.”
    Moses nodded, pointing to indentations marring the thin layer of sand covering the flat rock. “Look at these prints – someone had a tripod… right here.”
    Nick nodded, a sick feeling forming in his gut. The two men continued searching the ledge until they had thoroughly scoured the small area.
    Nick leaned back against a rock, unhooking the canteen from his belt and pulling a swallow of water. “So someone was up here the night of the massacre, taking pictures with a tripod-mounted camera. But why have a man stationed up here in the first place?”
    Moses scratched his head, frowning in concentration. “It doesn’t make any sense. I could see an observation post… even sentries. Buy why the camera? And why didn’t they try to help their unit when the shooting started? I mean, it’s not like a massacre is a photo op or something.”
    Nick grunted, “I asked the good general why there was a drone overhead. He gave me some mumbo jumbo about standard operating procedure. So not only did they have a sophisticated observation unit overhead, the camp was being filmed… or photographed from up here. Was this some sort of fucking documentary for National Geographic or some shit?”
    “They knew Bishop was coming,” Moses declared. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. They set him up with that story of assassination teams and then waited, hoping he would attack.”
    “He said as much,” Nick noted. “But he swears he didn’t fire a shot. So, who did?”
    “You can lead a horse to water,” Moses mumbled, “but you can’t make him drink.”
    “So what? You drain the water and then claim the horse is to blame? So when Bishop didn’t take the bait, someone just shot up this unit only to incriminate him?”