Chapter 4

They took the oilcloth to Angela’s office, a narrow room with a desk buried in paperwork and a unit coin on the windowsill. The storm had knocked out half the lights. Angela worked under a desk lamp, reading glasses perched on her nose, while Eli sat stiffly in a chair and Kyle stood by the door like he might bolt.

“The cipher is simple,” Angela said. “Letters shifted by three. But the water took some of it. I can read most.”

Kyle’s voice was raw. “Read it.”

Angela looked at Eli first. He nodded. He had waited twelve years. He could wait one more minute.

She began.

“Kyle. If you’re reading this, I didn’t make it. I’m sorry. I need you to know I chose the patrol. Doc tried to take my place. I told him no. I wanted to keep my guys together. I knew the risk.”

Kyle made a sound. Angela kept reading.

“Don’t blame Doc. He carried me. He stayed with me. He promised to bring this to you when you were old enough. I made him promise not to tell Mom. I knew she would try to protect you.”

Kyle turned his face to the wall. His shoulders shook.

“Don’t enlist because of me,” Angela read. “I know you want to. I know you think it will make you like me. It won’t. It will just make Mom scared every day. Find something that makes you happy. Tap three times when you’re ready to forgive me. I love you.”

The room went quiet. The storm had weakened. Dust settled on the desk like gray snow.

Kyle wiped his face with the back of his hand. “He didn’t want me to enlist.”

“No,” Eli said.

“And you knew.”

“Yes.”

“You let me hate you.”

“Your mother asked me to.”

Kyle turned. His eyes were red. “You should have told me.”

“I promised.”

“Stop saying that.” Kyle’s voice broke. “You promised a dead man. What about me?”

Eli had no answer. Angela folded the oilcloth carefully. “What do you want to do, Specialist?”

Kyle looked at the canteen on the desk. The inner lid was still scratched with his brother’s name. He reached out and touched it. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Before he could speak, the radio on Angela’s desk screamed. A fuel truck had jackknifed at Gate Nine. A Humvee was trapped. There were injuries.

They ran.

The dust storm had turned the motor pool into a brown fog. Red lights pulsed through the grit. A fuel truck lay across the access road, its cab crushed against a barrier. A Humvee had flipped onto its side in the ditch. Soldiers shouted. Someone was pinned underneath.

Kyle got there first. He dropped beside the Humvee, trying to find a handhold, and the vehicle shifted. Metal groaned. He screamed.

Eli was already moving. His back fired with every step, but his hands knew what to do. He knelt in the dirt, found Kyle’s leg trapped under the frame, and pressed two fingers to the boy’s neck. Pulse fast. Skin cold. Blood in the dust.

“Don’t move,” Eli said.

Kyle’s eyes rolled toward him. “You.”

“Me.” Eli stripped off his canvas jacket and wadded it against a bleeding gash in Kyle’s thigh. “Keep pressure. Talk to me.”

“I can’t feel my foot.”

“That’s the truck, not your spine. You’ll feel it later.” Eli shouted over his shoulder. “I need a jack and a medic!”

Angela was there, directing soldiers, calling for a litter. The fuel truck hissed. Someone said, “Don’t spark it.” Eli ignored them. He kept his hands on Kyle, counting breaths, watching pupils, doing the only thing he had ever been good at.

Kyle grabbed Eli’s wrist. “The message.”

“Later.”

“No.” Kyle’s grip was weak but urgent. “I need to say it.”

“Say what?”

“I’m sorry.”

Eli’s throat closed. “Tell me at the hospital.”

They got the Humvee up. They got Kyle out. Eli helped carry the litter, and his back gave out on the last ten feet. He went down in the dust beside the stretcher. Angela caught him before his head hit the concrete.

“You stupid, stubborn man,” she said.

Eli laughed, or tried to. It came out as a cough. “He’s alive.”

“He’s alive.”

At the hospital, Kyle lay in a bed with his leg bandaged and a morphine haze softening his edges. Deborah sat on one side. Eli sat on the other, back braced, hands folded. Angela stood by the door with the canteen and the oilcloth in a fresh evidence bag.

Kyle asked for the message. Angela read it again, slower this time. When she finished, Kyle closed his eyes.

“I falsely accused him,” Kyle said.

Deborah touched his arm. “Kyle.”

“No.” He opened his eyes. “I want it on record. I want the hearing.”

Angela nodded. “You’ll have one.”

Kyle looked at Eli. “Will you be there?”

Eli’s voice was rough. “I’ve been there for twelve years.”