Descent

Chapter Sixteen

"First Lieutenant Havoc, anything to report?" Colonel Riza Hawkeye said sharply.

"Nothing, sir!" First Lieutenant Havoc answered.

"Dammit, where the Hell are they?" Hawkeye muttered to herself, putting her head in her hand. She was leaning heavily on her desk in her comfortable chair. Since General Roy Mustang and First Lieutenant Edward Elric had disappeared over two weeks ago, without so much as a trace, she'd been working her ass off leading the investigation to find them. So far they'd turned up nothing except for a few alleged sightings at places like grocery stores and on one occasion, there was a report of a man matching Mustang's description sighted on the outside's of Central City, a few kilometers away from the forest. She had sent men to check out each reported sighting, but they'd found diddly squat. It was becoming frustrating, because Riza had absolutely no clue as to where to look for them. Edward wouldn't surprise her so much if it was just Edward that was missing, the youth had been known to disappear for weeks at a time without telling anybody, and then show up randomly a while later. But thee fact that he'd disappeared with Roy was what really worried her. She'd never known Roy to just up and leave without telling anyone, and she'd known him for the better part of her life. There were no secrets between them, she told him everything and he told her everything, that was just the way their relationship was, even if it wasn't a romantic relationship like she'd always wanted - the anti-frat laws forbade such an intimacy between colleges - they'd never hidden things from one another. She trusted him with her life, and she knew he trusted her with his. He had said so himself. She remembered now what he'd said to her when she'd first come under his command.

'I'm trusting you with my back, Lieutenant. And if I ever stray from this path, I'm trusting you to shoot me.'

Riza hoped that whatever Roy was doing now, she wouldn't have to keep that promise. Although, from the evidence they'd gathered, she knew it was more than likely that she would have to follow through.

She was getting a bad feeling about this. A really, really bad feeling.

She sighed. "Second Lieutenant Fuery?"

"Yes, sir?" Fuery's childlike voice rang out.

"Have there been any more reports, any more sightings?"

"Not yet sir, but I'm sure something will turn up." He said sadly.

"I certainly hope so. Major Breda, could you please try one more time to track down Mustang's car? We know it's gone from his home and it has to be somewhere. I know you've already tried but right now it's the strongest lead we have. Please Breda."

"No problem, Colonel." Breda said with forced enthusiasm, saluting and leaving the office.

"Havoc, could you please look over the case file, see if there's anything we missed." She asked tiredly, her head still in her hands.

"Sure thing, Hawkeye." Havoc said, falling into his chair and pulling the case file from his desk drawer, his eyes moving from left to right as he scanned the documents.

Another familiar wave of dread spread through the tired Colonel as she was once again lost as to what to do. They'd gone through every possible procedure to find them, sent squadrons of men across the country to search for the missing General and his Lieutenant, but nothing had turned up. When the decision had been made to do a thorough investigation of Mustang's house, they'd found some truly disturbing things. Well, not so much things as thing. When they'd swept the house, Riza herself had searched Mustang's room top to bottom, and found nothing that could hint to whereabouts of the man she loved with all her heart. Havoc had searched Edward's room, and he'd been in there for a full three seconds when he'd shouted for her at the top of his lungs. She'd almost vomited when she saw the ugly state Ed's room was in.