Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ELLIOT
That was eight hours ago.
Hudson remained by Elliot’s side.
“This is against protocol,” Okafor said. “But when word came about the Amman patrol, I thought you both deserved to know.” He gave them a quick, compassionate look, then returned his gaze to the screen.
“Who do you know in Amman?” Elliot asked.
“Colonel Ferris. He’s running the search.”
“Does Ferris owe you anything?”
Okafor considered it. “As a matter of fact...”
They got forty minutes on an open line to the search coordination team before someone further up the chain decided the frequency needed to be cleared.
Elliot spent those forty minutes with his eyes on the grid and his hand on the back of a chair, listening to voices he didn’t recognize call positions he couldn’t do anything about.
When the line went dead, Hudson exhaled. “Okay. Ferris knows what he’s doing. They have—”
“It’s not enough,” Elliot said.
“Let’s just—”
“It’s not enough. They have two teams covering the eastern sector and nothing on the northern approach.
If Reed’s patrol was compromised they wouldn’t have gone east, they’d have pulled north toward the ridge.
That’s basic—” He stopped. Pressed his hands flat on the table.
“We need more eyes on the northern approach.”
“Alright. Okafor can flag it to Ferris—” Hudson began.
“Ferris isn’t picking up.” Okafor set the phone down a few desks over. “He’s in the field.”
Elliot studied the grid. The northern approach, the ridge line. He ran the variables and none of them gave him any answers he could work with.
“I need to make a call,” he said.
Hudson shot him a look. “To who?”
Elliot didn’t answer. He crossed to the far side of the room, to the bank of landlines in the narrow partitioned cubicle that passed for privacy. He sat down, picked up the receiver and dialed.
Through the gap in the partition he could see Hudson across the room, leaning against the wall. He watched Elliot with a concerned expression on his face. Elliot’s eyes didn’t leave Hudson as the line rang.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The call declined.
Putain de merde!
Elliot exhaled and dialed again.
This time it declined even faster. The General must have seen the number and made a decision in under four seconds.
He set the receiver down with steady hands—absurd, considering what his pulse was doing.
Hudson was already crossing the room when he came out of the cubicle.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Hudson said.
“I know.”
“Elliot—”
“It didn’t work anyway.” He kept walking. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hudson caught his arm. “It does and you know it.” He held his gaze. “Come on. You need to sleep. Ferris will call when he has something.”
“We can’t. Reed is out there.” At least he hoped that was still the case. “He’s out there and we’re just…”
“Standing here,” Hudson finished. “Yeah, I know.”
They ended up staying for another three hours. Okafor cycled through what contacts he had. Carver ran fresh aerial imagery from the morning overflight and found nothing conclusive. Elliot drank two cups of terrible coffee and stared at the grid until the lines blurred and his eyes burned.
At 0400 Hudson put a hand on his shoulder. “Come.”
“Not yet.”
“Elliot.” His voice was quiet but certain. “There’s nothing more you can do tonight. You haven’t slept in twenty-two hours.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. None of us are.” Hudson put himself between Elliot and the screen. “Look at me.”
Elliot’s eyes found Hudson’s reluctantly.
“Let’s go,” Hudson said again. This time he wasn’t asking.
When Elliot stepped inside his quarters, it felt smaller than usual. Everything was exactly where they left it five hours ago, but it was like the room had lost a foot on each side.
He put a hand to his chest, rubbing at it in circles. He crossed the room in four steps. Then turned around. Crossed it again.
“Ferris has two teams on the eastern sector,” he said. “That’s wrong. If Reed pulled north toward the ridge—”
“Stop…”
“The northern approach is the logical fallback. Any soldier with Reed’s training defaults north under compromise. It’s basic doctrine, and if Ferris doesn't have eyes on that ridge by first light—”
“Ferris has this covered.”
“Then why hasn’t he called Okafor with an update?” Elliot turned on his heel. “We have aerial imagery from this morning, I need someone to cross-reference Reed’s last known position against the northern terrain features. There might be a pattern—”
“Elliot. It’s 0400.”
“I know what time it is.”
“There is no one to call at 0400.”
“There’s always someone to call.” Elliot moved toward the desk. “If I can get Okafor to push Ferris on the northern—”
“Hey.” Hudson stepped in front of him.
An exasperated sigh escaped Elliot. He moved to sidestep Hudson, but Hudson moved with him.
“Not now, Hudson.”
“Stop.” Hudson put both hands on his shoulders.
Elliot’s body resisted, still coiled toward the door, toward the operations room. He desperately needed to do something.
“Hey,” Hudson tried again.
Slowly, Elliot raised his gaze to meet his.
“You can’t fix this tonight,” Hudson said. “There’s nothing left to do. Ferris has the grid, and the teams. He has everything he needs. Reed is—”
“Don’t.” Elliot pulled back. “Don’t tell me Reed is going to be fine because you don’t know that.”
“I know. You’re right, I don’t know that.” Hudson’s hands didn’t leave his shoulders. “But I do know that you standing here running solutions in the middle of the night isn’t going to bring him home any faster. You know that too.”
He knew and it didn't matter. He couldn't keep his brain from running variables and finding angles. That was what he did. What he was good at.
He tried to step around Hudson again.
Hudson backed him up against the wall, both hands on his chest, keeping him there. “Elliot. Will you stop?”
“Let me—”
“Please.” Hudson’s voice dropped. “Wait a second.”
He looked past Hudson, focusing on the familiar strip of light from the lamp-post. He couldn’t meet his eyes. If he did, he might break.
“You don’t have to save everyone,” Hudson said quietly. “That’s not your job. That has never been your job, no matter how long you’ve been telling yourself that.”
Pain moved through Elliot. He opened his mouth to argue, but no words came.
“Your mother. Reed. Me.” Hudson tried to lock eyes with him. “You can’t save everyone. And when you can’t, that’s not—”
“Stop.” The word sounded wrong. Small, broken. Elliot didn’t recognize his own voice.
Hudson waited.
It was all true. That was the problem. Elliot had spent his entire life believing that if he just worked hard enough, thought clear enough, moved fast enough, he could hold everything together.
And standing here now with Reed missing, his father having declined his calls in seconds, and his mother two years in the ground—he couldn’t. He had absolutely no control left.
“... that’s not your fault, Elliot.”
His knees gave way. Hudson caught him before he hit the floor, both arms coming around him hard, taking his weight without hesitation.
Elliot gripped Hudson’s shirt and held on tight.
He sobbed. Properly, without any of the quiet control he’d managed in every hard moment of his life. His shoulders shook. He couldn’t stop even if he tried.
One hand on the back of his head, one arm around his waist, Hudson held him, not saying anything, not moving. A fixed point.
Elliot pressed his face into his neck.
He didn’t know how long they stayed there, but after a while Hudson lowered them both to the floor, not loosening the embrace.
Elliot kept sobbing, his body trembling. Years of tears, finally let loose.
Against his neck, barely audible, Elliot said, “I love you.”
Hudson stilled; his breathing paused. “What?” He pulled back to look at him, cupping Elliot’s face in his hands. “What did you say?”
Elliot met his eyes. Tears still streamed down his cheeks. He didn’t care.
“I love you,” he said again. Clearer this time. Certain. “I’ve loved you for so long.”
Hudson’s fingers moved across Elliot’s cheekbone. “Yeah?” His voice sounded fragile.
“Yes.” Elliot held his gaze. “I’m done pretending otherwise.”
A ragged exhale escaped Hudson. He pulled Elliot back in, holding him so tight he could barely breathe.
“I love you too,” he said into his hair. “God, Elliot. I think I always have.”
Elliot closed his eyes.
They sat like that for a long time, trading the words back and forth between kisses until their legs numbed. Eventually Hudson moved them to the bed. He undressed them both slowly, shifted them horizontal, and pulled the sheet up. Elliot’s head found his shoulder, and Hudson’s arm came around him.
“Reed’s going to be okay,” Hudson said into the dark.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Elliot didn’t try to solve anything. He just closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Elliot woke to light.
Not the lamp-post stripe—full morning light, bright through the window. He reached for Hudson, but found nothing but cold sheets.
Sitting up, still half-asleep, he scanned the room. His eyes went to the nightstand, clocking a little folded piece of paper. Torn from the corner of a mission brief by the look of it.
Didn’t want to wake you. You needed the sleep. I’ll be in ops. I love you, H.
He stared at the note. At the last words in particular, in Hudson’s boyish, scrawled handwriting, all tilted and cramped. He read them again. And then again.
Then the Reed situation came back to him all at once and he was on his feet. Fully dressed in seconds, pulling on his boots while hopping on one foot. When he reached the door, he turned, went to the nightstand and picked up the note. He read the words one last time and put it in his chest pocket.
Hudson was in the middle of explaining something to Carver with the energy of someone who had been banned from doing anything useful for ten days and was now making up for lost time.
His hands moved as he talked, tracing something on the grid.
Carver was nodding with a slightly overwhelmed expression on his face, trying hard to keep up.