He could feel the stares rather than see them. He only had partial vision, but even if he could see everything he wouldn’t dare make eye contact. To the newer analysts, Doyle was someone they may have heard about but never seen. To people who had worked with him before, he was a familiar face, whether welcome or not, returning from a battle that even his tact team couldn’t fight for him.

“Agent Doyle,” came a cold greeting from a voice he recognized all too well. “It’s good to have you back.”

If he squinted, he could barely make out her expression. Her emotionless features and tone of voice contradicted her words. “Nadia,” he gave a brief nod.

He looked worse than ever. While his eyes had lost the initial dull cloudiness brought on by damaged tissue from the explosion, the scars around them only added to the blatant sense of bitterness that surrounded him. “I’ll meet you in the Situation Room for briefing in five minutes.”

Doyle consented wordlessly. Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm and instinctively jerked away, but it was only Morris.

“Are you here for good?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Doyle simply nodded.

“Glad you’re back,” Morris commented before returning to his computer.

A few minutes later, Nadia and Chloe entered the Situation Room to find Doyle already there, staring blankly at the wall as he tended to do.

Nadia didn’t waste any time in getting straight to business. “Currently we’re working on uncovering some data on a group of terrorists that may have been affiliated with Cheng.”

“It’s Chloe. I –”

“I know,” Doyle spat. “I can see you.”

“Oh. Sorry. We’ve done some background checks and found a few Chinese government agents who were suspected of terrorism but never proven guilty. One has supposedly been dead for five years, but there are some discrepancies in the records. Another turned up at a hotel here in LA two day ago. Most of the others have gone dark, so that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

Nadia continued, “While Cheng only had possession of the component from the nuclear bomb for a few hours, we caught some chatter about a copy of it. Whether this is the same component or not we don’t know yet. We’ve set up a perimeter around the hotel and Field Opps is ready to leave if anything suspicious happens.”

“So what do I do?”

“So far we don’t have any worthwhile leads. We’ll need a statement from you on the corrupted component, and Field Opps could use some help updating protocols. After that, I’d suggest you get in some practice. You’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

The phone rang and a voice said, “Miss Yassir, the new Internet Protocol Manager is here.”

“Put him in my office. I’ll brief him from there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Any other questions?” Nadia asked, eager to get out when he shook his head.

Chloe followed Nadia out but stopped just before she left. “Mr. Doyle? Just so you know, I’m really sorry about what happened.” After an edgy pause she began again, “I mean, losing your sight, missing a month of work, having to start everything over again –”

“Chloe!” he snapped. He heard a frustrated sigh and was left sitting in the empty room. He knew she was only trying to help, but as usual it made things worse. He’d had his fair share of pity. Even though he couldn’t see clearly, he could hear it in people’s voices – the doctors when they told him how little progress he’d made, the nurses as they tidied up the room, even Morris. Pity was something everyone seemed to have plenty of, and it was the one thing he didn’t want from them.

By the time he realized Nadia hadn’t told him where to give his statement, he’d already been sulking for ten minutes. Getting up, he managed to find the door and wandered blindly (no pun intended), trying to find Nadia. His search was halted when a young woman approached him. All he could see was her flaming red hair.

“Are you Agent Doyle?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he responded.

“I’ve been asked to oversee your statement.”

Sometimes when there was a shortage of time or personnel, people were asked to type their statements themselves (usually only people from CTU who were more likely to be trusted). “Don’t expect me to –”

His contemptuous remark seemed to have no effect on her. “I know. Nadia already warned me about that. She asked for a recording, and I can do the transcript later if it’s necessary. If you’ll come with me we can get started.”

He followed obediently into a vacant office.

“OK, so... I guess we’ll start from the beginning. What happened after you got to the exchange site?”

Doyle sighed. He’d already explained this to at least twelve people. “Nothing at first. Eventually I got a call from Phillip Bauer – something about bringing Josh to shore. You can check the records if you want the full conversation.”

“And you did as you were asked?”

“Yeah. I made him stay down until I got the component. They threw it on the sand, so I picked it up.”

“It exploded?”

“When I took it out. C4 in the lid.”

“Is that everything?” At his agreement she clicked off the recorder.

“Why are we doing this now?” he asked. “I could have done this a month ago.” Being blind certainly didn’t mean he couldn’t talk, only that he didn’t want to.

The woman shrugged. “Nadia said something about not pushing you too hard.”

Figures.