Love in the Line of Fire Read online

  Oh no! Who’s going to tell Hank’s wife? Crap. He wanted to do that, not leave it for some nameless, faceless hack just reporting a fact. Fuck! But he couldn’t because he was stuck in the interrogation and had been for some time.

  Jonah had to wait. The only good thing was he was outdoors on a beautiful day—at least in terms of weather. Trying to calm himself, Jonah closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then slowly released it.

  The sun, what was left of it, felt good on his face. He loved being outside but hadn’t had the chance in longer than he could remember. So long, in fact, that his usually blond hair was darkening a bit, almost turning a dirty blond, something he didn’t like. If he ever got a vacation, he wanted to go somewhere with a beach where he could just lie out and bask, not to mention ogle lots and lots of scantily clad young men romping and frolicking on the beach.

  Jonah kept his sexuality and his desires carefully under wraps while at work. Sure, policies were changing left and right, and technically no one could terminate his employment or treat him in a substandard way if they found out. His superiors knew about his sexual orientation, but his colleagues did not—quite deliberately. Reality and theory didn’t always intersect, and policies on sexual orientation was one area where the old boys who ran things were still dragging their knuckles on the ground, reluctant to change, despite the fact that the men they were guarding were both openly gay.

  Jonah loved what he did. He had the dream job, what he had always aspired to—protecting those who attracted the attention of nutjobs like the one who had gotten so close today. Jonah was the youngest man to hold his position and it was for one simple reason—because he was damned good. But if he was so good, how had he let what happened today happen?

  He was pulled from his contemplations, finally, when the agency investigators from Internal Affairs were ready for him.

  No one knew them, at least none of the agents at his level, because they only came out for official investigations. It was an unspoken goal of everyone who worked the front lines to never be involved in an incident that required Internal Affairs.

  “Agent Pratt, please walk us through what happened. Where were you when you first became aware of the shooter?”

  So the questions began, and they went on… and on… and on. Jonah was tired, stressed, anxious, and felt under attack with all the questioning. He hadn’t been able to sit down while waiting, his anxiety not allowing him to sit or be still before the onslaught started.

  As good investigators, they asked questions and then asked them again in a slightly different way to get verification that his answer was the same. Sometimes they threw in an odd question, completely out of order of the events he was describing. But Jonah remained focused, answering everything. He kept his cool, and he was as professional as possible. He was an agent of the Secret Service, and no matter how uncomfortable or unhappy he was, he projected the same image he always put forth on the job.

  Jonah buried his grief and pain as deeply within as possible. He was pretty good at hiding central parts of himself, since his sexuality was deep in the closet, and to the best of his knowledge, no one on his team besides Hank knew his secret.

  “Now you say that an unknown person jumped the assailant and took him down?”

  “Yes. His name’s Benjamin Campbell.”

  “And where did this happen?”

  Jonah led the investigators—and there were several—to the spot where Benji was waiting for them with a DC uniformed cop standing beside him to ensure he remained.

  Without a word of identification or introduction, the lead investigator started to question Benji.

  “Mr. Campbell, please describe to me what you saw, how you first became aware that there was an issue, and why you decided to get involved. You reportedly tackled the assailant. Very few people would ever do something like that. I need to know why you did.”

  Benji sat in front of them on a low stone wall.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever gonna get over here and talk with me,” he said, projecting a casual, relaxed impression.

  Jonah looked at Benji, and he couldn’t help it—he growled. His shield, his outer shell, was fragile, and it started to slip. If he hadn’t been so stressed, he would have covered his feelings and not let a hint of what was going on inside him get loose. But he was tired, so he couldn’t stop his mouth. “Do you know how stupid it was to do what you did?”

  “Excuse me, Agent Pratt. I will ask the questions,” the lead investigator told Jonah firmly, further cutting him off with an authoritative look.

  Jonah shut his mouth. He bit his tongue, but kept quiet and listened as the investigators interviewed Benji.

  He heard words, he saw lips moving, but he stood frozen in place. He let life, such as it was, go on around him. When he heard the investigator thank Benji, he tuned back in. Apparently whatever words they’d exchanged had been sufficient for the investigators.

  The investigative team moved back toward the sidewalk where Hank had fallen in the line of duty. Jonah stayed right where he’d stood silently during the questioning.

  “Hey, you okay, man?” Benji asked softly. “You don’t look so good. I know what you’re going through—”

  And that was the trigger, the spark that lit Jonah’s fuse and started the explosion that consumed his entire being. He swung and caught Benji completely by surprise, slugging him so hard he fell back against the wall and toppled over it and onto the grass below.

  Shit! He shouldn’t have done that, but damn it felt good. Jonah pulled himself back together as fast as possible, hoping no one had seen how badly he’d just screwed up. Glancing around, it looked like he might be okay, so he hopped over the wall to check on Benji.

  “You all right?” he gruffly asked Benji, who lay on his back on the grass, rubbing his jaw. Reaching out a hand, Jonah pulled Benji back to his feet.

  “You only get to do that once,” Benji growled at him.

  “What the hell is going on over here?” one of Jonah’s colleagues demanded loudly, running toward them. Someone had seen Jonah slip.

  “Just a step in the grieving process,” Benji answered immediately. “Nothing to worry about. Losing a man under your command is never easy. I’m sure you guys can relate to that, can’t you?”

  “Agent Pratt, we need you to come back to the office with us.”

  Jonah stepped away without a glance back at Benji… almost. About twenty paces away, he looked over his shoulder, and Benji smiled. He nodded and raised a hand to wave good-bye.

  Chapter Three

  WHAT A day. Benji had thought the life of a student was going to be calm and quiet and civilized. He’d figured he left all the violence somewhere else, out there in the real world. But it had found him again when it invaded the peaceful, bucolic grassy lawn of the university. A lot of learning probably went on there, on that green that afternoon, but Benji knew the lessons were most definitely not any the students had ever anticipated receiving as part of their college education.

  When he’d finally finished on campus, he made his way to the bus stop and headed home, although his small apartment at the back of an old brownstone building was so new to him it still didn’t really feel like home.

  The adrenaline rush of his day left him worn out. And stinky. He had sweat like a work animal. Benji was a child of the city, and he didn’t know farm stuff, but he assumed everything sweat somehow. What mattered right then was that he needed to take a shower. His clothes needed to be washed.

  When he’d hunted for an apartment, one of his chief requirements had been that it absolutely had to have a washer and dryer in the unit. Benji had lived too goddamned long with dirty clothes that stank from the grime that came from wearing the same clothes day after day. He was done with that.

  And for all the drawbacks of the compact apartment, it had a washer and dryer tucked away in the short hallway that separated the living area from the bedroom and bathroom. When he’d firs
t seen it, Benji had been struck by how ingenious someone had been in their use of space and how well they’d kept things out of sight. When his eyes had landed on the washer-dryer combination, with the washer on the bottom and the dryer at eye level, Benji knew he was home.

  After stripping off his clothes in the hallway, he tossed them into the washer, added the detergent pod, closed the lid, and started the load. He never ceased to be delighted at how easy it was to wash clothes now. He smiled gleefully, knowing he probably looked like a complete idiot, but it really was almost magical to him.

  Benji rounded the corner into the small bathroom and started the water. He stepped into the shower after the water had warmed up.

  “Oooohhhh,” Benji moaned as he let the water work its magic on his tired, sore body. He’d thought he was past all that physical shit, but today proved that theory wrong.

  The hot water helped loosen his sore muscles and relieve some of the exhaustion. Benji went to the gym every day and kept his body toned and ready for life. And that day, he was grateful he had made himself work out every day.

  Before all the hot water was used up between the washer and his shower, Benji scrubbed, rinsed, and got out. Toweling dry, he debated getting dressed but decided against it, then settled for knotting the towel around his waist. Using his hands, he tried to get his hair somewhat decently behaved and then walked back into his living area.

  His kitchen was not a place where one could prepare a seventeen-course meal. But Benji didn’t cook much. He never had, so he’d never learned how to do more than the basics. He knew he’d have to learn more soon because he couldn’t survive on take-out food forever. He could learn. He wasn’t stupid by any means.

  There was a huge grocery store his bus passed each day as he rode to and from campus. He could stop there, and he figured he would find mountains of beautifully colored fresh produce and probably tons of stuff he wouldn’t even recognize. But he didn’t have the first clue about how to prepare it. If he could pick it up and eat it raw, Benji was in business, but a lot of life required a little softening and preparation before it could be eaten. The agent that afternoon was a prime example of how universal that little truth was.

  There was a great little Chinese hole-in-the-wall place he passed each day when he got off the bus to walk the final two blocks to his apartment. He was now all the way through their menu and had started back on his second round. It was cheap, it was fast, and it was good. He wasn’t going to worry about the likely fat and sodium content at the moment. When he learned to cook from this mythical teacher who was going to materialize magically, he’d think about that. But that was going to have to wait for another day.

  With a fork in hand, he moved to the small table in a corner of his living room slash dining room and ate directly out of the white Styrofoam container. Some of his hunger satisfied, he got up to find the remote control so he could check the news. With the simple push of a button, the sixty-five-inch flat-panel television he’d purchased—his one major expenditure since moving there—came to life with brilliant colors, amazing crispness, and nearly life-size images of people.

  Never would Benji have been prepared to turn on his big-screen TV and see himself.

  “Oh fuck,” he said. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. He hadn’t thought the whole thing through. Of course there had been television cameras on the scene after the shooting, not to mention the untold number of cell phone videos captured by people in the area. And somehow, the station he was on had found one such video and was playing it, so Benji got to see the whole thing happen all over again.

  “Oh fuck,” he repeated. He couldn’t think of anything more appropriate to the moment.

  In addition to the Secret Service crime scene team, he remembered numerous reporters, all asking questions, especially interested in him when they found out what he’d done. He’d been unprepared for reporters and had instinctively answered their questions, never thinking he’d later have to see his face and hear his voice on his television. And they were calling him a hero.

  Benji hated that. He didn’t feel like a hero. He was just a guy trying to better himself. He didn’t want to be a hero or even be visible to people. For years as a soldier, he’d worked to keep as low a profile as possible, so that desire was ingrained into his soul. He hadn’t done anything other than what he’d been trained to do in Iraq. The only problem was he was still adapting to the realization he was no longer in Iraq.

  So much for keeping a low profile, not that it really mattered all that much, he thought. Other than the shooting shown from several videos and several different angles, Benji figured there wasn’t much of anything else of note happening in the world that day. When he started to see the same videos shown multiple times, Benji turned off the television and finished his dinner. The container in the trash, his fork washed and put away, what was left of his evening awaited him.

  Still only wearing his towel, Benji absentmindedly brought both of his hands to his flat stomach. While his mind reviewed what he had to do that night, his hands automatically lightly slapped his stomach in an offset rhythm, a habit he’d had for more years than he could count.

  Seeing no need to get dressed—the day had been so warm and beautiful—he opened the living room window and curled up on his sofa with his textbook and highlighter and started reading. Time had no meaning for him at that point because he simply had to get this reading done before class in the morning. He was usually really good about keeping up with the class preparation, but he’d had a paper due for another class and had let this slide until the night before the lecture on the material in question, so he was going to sit there and read for however long it took to get through it.

  A soft knock on his apartment door startled Benji. Who the hell can that be? A quick glance at his clock told him it was well past an acceptable time for anyone to stop by to sell him something or ask to borrow a cup of sugar. And to get into the building, outsiders were supposed to call from the intercom at the front door and be buzzed in. He knew that didn’t keep people out if someone held the door for a stranger who happened to be right behind them, but most of the time it sort of worked.

  Rising from the sofa, he remembered he wasn’t dressed—unless his bath towel counted. Fuck it. It was midnight. Whoever was on the other side of the door could take him as he was and deal with it. If they didn’t like it, fuck ’em.

  He grabbed hold of the handle and yanked open the door.

  Holy crap. Benji got the shock of his life.

  Of all the people who could be standing at his front door, this was most definitely not a person whose name had appeared on that list.

  Chapter Four

  “UM, HI,” Agent Pratt said somewhat hesitantly, almost shyly, as he made eye contact with Benji. Gone was the bluff and bluster Benji had witnessed earlier in the afternoon. “I hope it’s not… too late. I hope I’m not interrupting something important. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No,” Benji said slowly, crossing his arms over his chest, instinctively pushing himself as upright as possible and making himself appear bigger than he really was. “I was up.” With his shoulders squared and a tough expression on his face, he asked, “What can I do for you? Are you here to punch me again?”

  Pratt raised one of his hands to the back of his neck, glancing at the floor. But Benji had caught a glimpse of remorse on his face before he’d looked away.

  “Um, about that….”

  “Yes?” Benji said when the man did not continue his thought.

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” Jonah said, clearly embarrassed or upset about something, maybe from having hit Benji, maybe from having to apologize.

  Benji didn’t know. He stood silently, waiting for Pratt to say something more.

  “I… well, you see… I… was… I was in a bad place.”

  “I know,” Benji said softly.

  “That’s just it,” Pratt said, snapping his head up and staring at Benji. “I know that you
know. But how? How the hell did you know to say the things you did this afternoon? How?”

  Benji sighed and lowered his arms to his sides.

  “If you promise to behave yourself, you can come on in and I’ll tell you.”

  Expecting Jonah to step forward into the apartment, he was surprised when instead Jonah said, “I want to hear your answer to that question, but I actually can’t right now. I wanted… I… I wanted to apologize for my earlier conduct. It was not professional, and I am very sorry for letting it happen. I know you probably can’t forgive me, but I had to—”

  “I accept your apology. It takes a big man to say what you just did. Thank you. I know you were in hell about then. If I hadn’t known that, trust me, you would have been laid out flat on your back on the ground.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who do you think was gonna do that?” And the macho bluster was back.

  “Me, and don’t forget it,” Benji said with remarkable calm.

  “You and what army?” Jonah demanded. “I am trained in how to take down guys way bigger than you without breaking a sweat.”

  “Ditto,” Benji said right back to him.

  Jonah held up his hand in what almost appeared to be surrender. If the man hadn’t looked so exhausted, Benji wouldn’t have given him a pass, but Jonah seemed absolutely fried, so Benji let it drop.

  “Go get some rest,” Benji said.

  “That’s what I intend to do. Sorry to have dropped by so late, but thanks for listening to me.”

  “I understand. I’m willing to listen anytime. It takes someone who’s been through what you’re going through to understand. I have, and my door is open if you need someone to listen.”

  Jonah appeared confused for a couple of seconds before saying, “Thanks, I think.”

  “Good night,” Benji said, then closed the door.

  Benji knew this brief conversation had been difficult for Jonah. A lot of guys couldn’t have done what he’d done. He quietly admired the man’s fortitude.