He opened his eyes.
Okafor was watching him from across the room. Carver was watching him. Half the room was watching him.
Elliot set the headset down carefully on the workstation.
Four minutes. Hale was on the ground in a damaged helicopter in a hostile area and extraction was four minutes out.
Elliot had done everything he could do and now there was nothing left to do but wait.
But he couldn't wait in this room.
"I need some air," he said to no one in particular.
He walked out of the container and made it approximately four steps before he bent over and threw up into the sand.
He stayed there for a minute or two, hands on his knees, the Syrian heat pressing down on the back of his neck.
Then he straightened, wiped his mouth, and went back inside.
“Give me a status.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HUDSON
The extraction teamfound them five minutes after touchdown.
Hudson leaned back against the hull of the downed helicopter, hands pressed flat against his thighs. His co-pilot Sergeant Martinez walked the four ground team members toward the waiting vehicle. One of them was limping. Another had his arm cradled to his chest. Martinez called over his shoulder, but Hudson couldn’t hear anything other than the ringing in his ears.
They were alive. All six of them.
He kept reminding himself of that.
A woman from the extraction team crouched in front of him. “Captain. You with us?”
“Yeah.” Hudson couldn’t lift his eyes to hers. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Medical is at base. We’re moving.”
Hudson let her guide him to the vehicle. Martinez sat beside him, a cut above his eyebrow still seeping, eyes too wide and hands not quite still. Neither of them said anything for the first few minutes.
“Nice landing, Cap,” Martinez said eventually.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.” He paused. “That was… something.”
The Syrian landscape moved past outside the window, flat and pale in the afternoon light. In the distance, his bird was being towed onto a military low-loader. His mind wandered to the tail rotor failing, the aircraft pulling hard right and the two minutes following which he would spend a significant amount of time trying to forget.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Joint task force base. Twenty minutes out. Better medical facility.” The sergeant in the passenger seat glanced back. “You’ll be debriefed there too. Your unit’s being folded into the JTF—they need more aviation support.”
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing—in… out. In… out.
That voice on the comms. He couldn't believe he hadn't recognized it before he heard it say his name.
Not Hale. Not Captain.Hudson.Like he had heard it on the last day of Selection, on the crowded dance floor back home, in Shaw’s bed. Said with so much emotion it ached. Carrying the same weight even through the static of a helicopter going down over hostile territory.
