Work Text:
Mike hesitated as he hung up the phone. Nadia had sounded brusque, her voice strained and almost edged with panic. Taking on the acting director role had thrown her, he knew — it wasn’t coming naturally to her yet, and that burden clearly bothered her. That alone could have caused her terseness, particularly if she felt responsible for the delay in locating Cheng yet. The protocol would be to continue searching for leads while awaiting further information.
Still, Mike was good at reading people, and he knew Nadia well enough by now to read her in particular. He’d seen how she acted under general stress, and this felt like something more than that. Usually, she would have explained the problem with comm instead of just shutting him out.
Or would she? Was he just thinking she would because that was what he wanted her to do? Gripping the phone tightly in his hand, Mike glanced around at his team. This was why he didn’t like mixing feelings with work. Was he reading the situation clearly, or was his reluctant attraction to Nadia blinding him?
No, he thought. He couldn’t go down that rabbit hole. Over the years, he’d learnt to trust his instincts, and right now, they were screaming at him to go back to base and get this all straightened out.
Chloe and Morris should have been able to reposition the satellites three times over by now, and if for some reason they hadn’t, they should’ve been closing in quickly enough for Nadia to stay on the line. That wasn’t feelings talking; that was a fact.
For CTU to let the ball drop in such a colossal way… and for them to be uncontactable the first few times Mike had tried to call… and for Nadia to sound so abrupt when she finally did answer…
Yes, there was a world in which that could all be chalked up to a terrible coincidence, but this wasn’t one of them. Finding Cheng was their only priority at the moment. If comm really had gone down, then why hadn’t they called Mike the instant it came back up to check in on his progress?
‘Something’s wrong,’ Mike muttered. And even if his suspicions were wrong, there was no point staying here, anyway. His team wasn’t going to find anything, and by this point, Cheng would have too much of lead for Mike’s team to catch up. ‘Everyone, load up! We’re heading back to CTU.’