Eden shuffled forward on his crutches. “My place, and Lincoln’s, is on active duty, sir. If you’ll take my statement, I have been cleared by my doctors to give it.”
“You should be resting, son. Dobbs almost cost you your life not so long ago. Now is not—”
“Lincoln didn’t almost cost me my life,” Eden said, his voice louder as red blotches mottled his skin. “He saved my life and everyone else’s too.”
“Phillips, there is a civilian—”
This time, I interrupted him. “I’m not going anywhere. My involvement with Lincoln is obviously clouding your vision right now, and I won’t have it. Being with him isn’t a crime, but what you’re doing to him might be.”
My father turned a very unhealthy shade of red but then drew in a deep breath. “I’m too old for this shit. Phillips, get the hell off your feet before your doctors come after me. Sofia, if you’re staying, none of what you’re about to hear leaves this room.”
“Of course, it won’t,” I bit out.
Eden seemed surprised by my father’s sudden change of mind but took the seat beside me and rested his crutches against the armrest. When he was seated, my father picked up a legal pad full of notes from his desk and nodded at him.
“If you take any strain while doing this, I’m taking you back to the hospital myself. I haven’t received notice that you’ve been discharged, nor have your doctors notified me that you’re cleared to make a statement.”
Eden lowered his chin in acknowledgment. “I understand, sir.”
“Do you also understand that I’ll need to get that clearance before anything you say here can be taken into serious consideration? You had a head injury, Phillips. It might have affected your memory.”
“It didn’t,” Eden said quietly. “When I first woke up, I was a little confused, but that’s no longer the case.”
“Even so, I’ll need to speak with your doctors. That’s why I haven’t come to take your statement yet. I was waiting on the all-clear from them.”
“I received it this morning, but I know you’ll need to follow up.”
“Very well.” My father nodded. “You also understand that what you say here can affect your future? You were on that mission, too, Mr. Phillips. While on suspension, no less. Given that the only marks on your otherwise clear record are when you were with Dobbs, I—”
“Exactly. I was with Dobbs, not under his influence but right there with him. My decisions have always been my own. When I have chosen to act in any manner contrary to orders or instructions, it has been my choice to do so.”
“Yes, but Dobbs—”
“No, there’s no but there, sir. You haven’t been out there with us. You have no idea what we’ve been through or what has led Lincoln to make the decisions he’s made. I’ve heard about what you were like before you became an instructor, and I respect you greatly, but I respect Lincoln more.”
Dad’s jaw slackened, but Eden kept going.
“Every so-called bad call Lincoln has made has saved lives. My own life has been one of those saved by him countless times.” He was panting now, but it didn’t look like exertion. To me, it looked like an impassioned belief.
Dad must have thought the same thing because he didn’t stop him.
“Whenever Lincoln has to make a decision he knows he’s going to get shit for, he makes it anyway because he doesn’t care about consequences to himself. All he cares about is doing his job to the best of his ability and getting everyone out alive.”
Dad watched him carefully, then swiped at his lip with his tongue as he made a note. “If that is true, how did the two of you end up on a mission while you had been taken off active duty?”
“Our lieutenant called us in, sir. It wasn’t our choice. We didn’t go rogue. We didn’t intercept information or bullshit our way onto that plane. We got called in and given the order to go.”
My eyes widened as I flicked a glance at my father. “How did you not know about that?”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer my question. “Go on, Phillips.”
“Lincoln asked if we had been cleared, but we were told we were needed and ordered to go. There was no time for questions or to run the order up the chain of command, not that it’s expected of us to do that anyway, but we were on the plane less than thirty minutes after arriving at the base.”
Dad frowned. “One of our planes?”
“Yes.” Eden swallowed. “Check the logs if you don’t believe me.”
“I’ll do that.” The sound of the pen scratching against paper filled the air as he nodded to Eden. “What happened next?”
“We were dropped into a firefight at that warehouse. I was blasted off my feet by debris not even five minutes later. Lincoln dragged me to safety before he ambushed the hostiles from behind. His sudden appearance distracted them enough that the team could regroup.”
Emotion choked him up, but he seemed determined to get through his statement. “Lincoln barked the order that he had been put in charge. We knew most of the guys on the team, and they didn’t question him.”
“Lincoln had been put in charge?” Dad’s eyebrows swept all the way up. “He took that order?”
Eden nodded once. “Without question or argument. He rounded the team up, and with his guidance, they secured the stolen cache of weapons and got out before anyone got hurt.”
“He left a trail of bodies in his wake,” Dad remarked. “None of them were ours, but it’s not standard operating procedure to practically blow up a warehouse in a populated area, shoot up a street, and just leave.”
“None of that was his doing. The fires were already burning when we arrived. We saw the smoke from the air. Why has no one else given you any of this?”
“We’ve been gathering information on the ground,” Dad said sharply. “I
