Love in the Line of Fire Page 3

  It had been a long day and Jonah wasn’t the only one exhausted, so Benji turned out the lights and went to bed.

  FIVE NIGHTS later, Benji heard another knock at his door. It was evening again, but much earlier than the last time he’d found Jonah standing outside his apartment. The man looked… defeated. That was the only word Benji could think of that came close to capturing Jonah’s body language and expression.

  “Hi,” Benji said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Jonah’s head snapped up, his gaze locked on Benji.

  “What? How did you know—”

  “So what can I do for you?” Benji asked. He knew full well why Jonah was there, but Benji’s stubborn macho streak wouldn’t let him just relent so easily.

  “I… last time… um, you said—”

  “You came to talk,” Benji said.

  Jonah nodded and looked blankly at him.

  “I don’t know how, but you seemed to understand what’s going on inside me throughout this. The grief counselors I’ve had to see at work try, and they mean well, but they don’t understand because they’ve never gone through what I’ve gone through. Coworkers try—they do understand, but they can’t communicate for shit. As guys we’re trained to never reveal weakness, and that applies doubly to Secret Service agents.”

  “I’m sure,” Benji said.

  “So,” Jonah said, “can we talk?”

  “Sure,” Benji said. “But only if you promise to behave yourself and not hit me again.”

  “Fine,” Jonah said.

  He tried to step forward, but Benji continued to block his way, cocking his head and lifting his eyebrow to indicate “Go on, say it.”

  “What? You want me to actually say that? You can’t trust me?” Jonah asked, his tone somewhat belligerent.

  “Yes, I want to hear the words. And you have to earn my trust,” Benji said.

  Jonah sighed and looked toward the ceiling, his hands hanging loosely by his sides. “Fine. You are a stubborn fucker that makes me slip over into something bordering on insanity… but somehow you understand, so I promise to behave myself.”

  “Okay,” Benji said, stepping out of the way to let Jonah enter before closing the apartment door behind him. He gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat. Would you like a beer?”

  As Pratt dropped back tiredly onto the sofa, he gave Benji the first somewhat friendly gesture by smiling at him, and said, “I would kill for a beer.”

  “No need for killing.” Benji returned a moment later and handed Jonah an opened bottle of beer, holding one in his own hand.

  The furnishings in his apartment were such that a person sat either on the sofa or at the dining table. Since the dining table was across the room, Benji took the other half of the sofa, crossed his legs, and sat facing Pratt. They clinked beer bottlenecks and each took a big swig of beer.

  “Oh my God, that is like the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” Jonah said. “Cold, crisp, bursting with flavor. Nice strong, hoppy taste, just as I like it. Beer and food should come with some authority.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Benji said. “I like this one too. A lot of what you find passed off as beer is weak, watery crap that tastes like half-assed dog piss. Real beer has a good head and a taste that can knock your socks off.”

  Pratt looked at him, eyeing him up and down.

  “You must have had quite a few beers already before I got here. You don’t have any socks on… or much else from what I can see.”

  “Nope. No socks. And no beer until now either. I don’t allow myself to have one until I finish my work. Otherwise my progress is slowed or worse, and I don’t remember half of what I read.”

  Pratt nodded, reclining in the corner of the sofa. Neither of them said a word.

  “So, the way I figure it, you’ve been kept busy dealing with the colleague that you lost during the incident. And you’ve probably got a gazillion independent thoughts all whizzing through your brain, and you’re feeling like you’re about to go out of your mind. But you can’t do that or let anyone you know see that you’re even close to feeling like that, so you came here to talk with me, a stranger who knows what you’re thinking and feeling.”

  Benji took a big sip of his beer. “Did I get it right?” he asked with a smile.

  Pratt started to sit up as if angry, but Benji waved him back and said, “Sit back, drink your beer, and talk to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Actually, before you do,” Benji said, “I’ve got one question for you.”

  “Only one?” Pratt said with a sad, tired smile. “I’m surprised, but you’ve earned it. Go ahead, ask away.”

  “What’s your name?”

  Pratt burst out laughing, somehow amused by that question.

  “Of all the questions you could have asked me, that was not remotely the one I was expecting. I’m Pratt. Special Agent Jonah Pratt.”

  “You headed up the detail?” Benji asked.

  Pratt looked sharply up at him. “Who told you that?”

  “You did,” Benji said simply.

  “Huh? I never told you anything like that. Hell, you didn’t even know my name until a minute ago.”

  “You didn’t have to say anything,” Benji confirmed. “But your behavior at the scene was that of a unit leader. Am I wrong?” he asked, taking a sip of his beer. Seeing that Pratt’s beer was gone already, Benji retrieved another from the refrigerator and handed it over to him.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk?” Pratt asked, taking the beer.

  “If two beers is all it takes to get you drunk, you’ve got bigger problems. You need to learn how to drink.”

  “I don’t let myself drink… usually. Never know when I might suddenly be called in, and I have to be ready to roll at a moment’s notice.”

  Benji nodded in acknowledgment.

  Pratt shook his head and closed his eyes. “Yes, I’m head of the detail guarding Dr. David Hammond.”

  “Nice job. But not an easy one either, I would imagine.”

  “It’s the best job I’ve ever had, man,” Pratt said wistfully, a half smile on his face as he laid his head back into his corner of the sofa.

  “Is the incident investigation all finished?”

  “I thought you were supposed to cheer me up,” Jonah said.

  “Is that one of my jobs in this conversation? Is that why you’re here?” Benji asked him.

  “Maybe,” Jonah said.

  “Oh, I see,” Benji said. “It’s a visit with multiple purposes. Okay. You’ve had a tough week. You’ve earned it. But isn’t your wife going to wonder where the hell you are?”

  “No wife,” Jonah answered simply. “But you already know that.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “No. No girlfriend. And you can stop the twenty questions. You know, don’t you?”

  “That you’re gay? Of course,” Benji said confidently.

  “How?” Jonah demanded. “What would make you say something like that?

  “Simple, I’m trained to observe people too.”

  “What did I do?” Jonah asked, sounding surprisingly meek and scared.

  “At the scene, in the midst of all the chaos going on, you and I were both kept waiting forever. We had to wait around until they were ready to talk to us. I know you were angry and grieving and a lot more, but you were also bored and were looking around, just like I was. I could see you from where I sat waiting so I watched you. While you waited, a really smoking hot cop walked close past you at one point, and I saw the way your gaze settled on him and stayed with him. You undressed him and practically licked him with your eyes. You’ve got good taste, by the way—he was hot.”

  Jonah stared at Benji quietly for a moment.

  “Yes, I’m gay. I need to know who the hell you are and what you’re doing in my head. For that matter, how the hell did you get so deeply into my head without me realizing you were doing it?”

  “Oh, easy questions,” Benji said with a chuckle. “Good, I hate the hard questions.”

  “I’m serious,” Jonah said, sitting up.

  “All right. Get comfortable, this could take a little while. Take your suit coat off, loosen or get rid of that damned tie, kick your shoes off if you want. Whatever it takes for you to get comfortable.”

  “Yeah, those things would help….”

  “I know. And get yourself another beer while you’re up,” Benji said.

  “Hey, I thought you were the host. Aren’t you supposed to get the beer for the guest?”

  “House rules. I get the first two and after that, the guest is on his own. You’re a smart man—you’ll find the refrigerator. Bottle opener is on the counter.”

  When Jonah returned to the sofa, new beer in hand, he said, “You don’t have anything in your refrigerator except for beer.”

  “Fewer of those now than I had before.”

  “Sorry,” Jonah said.

  “Don’t be. You need them. They’re there. Drink up and stop this ‘sorry’ shit. You’ve been to hell and back this week. You need it.”

  With his coat tossed aside and his tie on top of it, Jonah was already looking more relaxed. But when he kicked off his shoes, Benji heard him moan in relief. Jonah sat back down on the sofa. As he started to curl his legs up under his body, Benji reached out and stopped him, pulling Jonah’s feet up to rest on his lap.

  Benji took one foot in his hands and gently massaged the sole, eliciting sounds of bliss from Jonah.

  “Oh… my… God. That feels so fucking good.”

  “Good. That’s why I’m doing it.”

  Finishing with one foot, he moved on to the other, treating it to the same massage. Jonah leaned back against his end of the sofa, relaxing into Benji’s gentle ministrations. When Ben
ji finished, he held on to Jonah’s feet, letting them rest in his lap so Jonah wouldn’t have to move.

  “How did you know my feet were killing me?”

  “Simple. I watch and observe details,” Benji explained. “I heard you moan with relief when you took your shoes off. And, as I told you before, because I’ve been there. If you’re like me, you’re full of nervous energy and you haven’t been able to just sit—you’ve needed to be moving, be doing something. So I’m guessing you’ve been on your feet a lot. Granted, you’re used to that, but still, even an agent’s feet get tired.

  “And bigger picture, anytime you lose a member of your team, someone under your command, you go through hell. You run through every fucking scenario. What would have happened if only I’d done this? What about if so and so had done that instead? You see all of it. You drive yourself half insane reviewing everything you did that day. You even wonder if you’d shaken your dick four times instead of three when you peed before it happened, if that would have had some impact.”

  “Where…?”

  “I was in the Army. I did two tours in Iraq. There was talk of sending me and my guys to Afghanistan, but….”

  “Is that… Iraq… where…?”

  “Yes, that’s where it happened.”

  Confused, Jonah looked at Benji and said, “You lost a guy under your command?”

  “No.” Benji paused and took a breath. “I lost two of my guys that day.”

  “Oh crap,” Jonah said, sitting up straighter. “What happened?”

  “I’ve lived through that day ten thousand times over. The details of every second are burned indelibly into my memory, but it never gets any easier to tell. We were out on just another standard patrol. There was nothing special about it. There was sand every-fucking-where you looked, and it got into everything—the truck engines, our weapons, our clothes, our hair, up your nose, and in your eyes. I hated the sand in my damned eyes. And did I mention the sand? Sand, and wind spreading the goddamned sand everywhere. Hell, it was even in our butt cracks. It was everywhere. A guy couldn’t even jerk off because sand blew into whatever lube you were using to work yourself, and it started to scratch your dick. Life really sucks when you can’t even have man’s original relaxation technique. It was six months after I got out of there before I think I’d shaken the last of the sand from all its hiding places on my body.

  “I was doing what my country needed. I was trained, and I was a good leader. I knew it, and my guys all told me that. So when the roadside bomb detonated, it caught all of us by surprise, including me. But I should have seen it. I should have known it was there, and I should have kept my men safe. But I missed it. And because I fucked up, two of my guys died.” Benji sighed. “The only good thing was that instead of sending us to Afghanistan, they sent us home. And it was probably good, because we were all used up, worn down, and just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

  Jonah was silent, but he was paying attention to every word Benji said. His beer bottle was in his hand, but he wasn’t drinking.

  “We boarded our truck one morning and drove north along a route we’d covered a hundred times before. I should have noticed that something was disturbed, but I missed it. I was lulled into a false sense of security because I’d been over the same road so many times and because miles and miles of sand all looked the same.”

  “What happened?” Jonah gently pushed.

  “We took sniper fire. We didn’t expect that because it was the middle of the desert and there was no place for snipers to hide, but somehow they did, and they were bombarding us with gunfire. But it turned out the sniper fire wasn’t the real attack—it was a distraction to keep us moving where they wanted us and to keep us distracted. We were all focused on trying to find the snipers and return fire when the bomb went off. They’d buried it just beneath the road surface. The weight of the truck must have set it off.

  “I called for emergency air cover and evacuation. It came pretty quick, but it was too late for two of my guys. I went to work that morning with a band of my brothers ready to do a day’s work. We were out to do a job we knew and were good at. But a couple of hours later I flew back with a bunch of battered men and two body bags filled with what was left of two friends we had to mourn.”

  “Oh man, I’m so sorry,” Jonah said.

  “So that’s why I know what you’re going through. Only a person who has lost someone in a firefight, someone under his or her command, can really understand. And now, I’m sorry to say that you and I are members of a small but elite group of men who live with one foot perpetually in our own personal hells. The guy you lost… did you know him well?”

  “Yes. Hank… he and I started training at the same time. He was a good guy.”

  “Was he gay too?”

  “No. Hank was straight, married to a great woman. But it was never an issue for him. He told me he had a gay brother so he was past all that shit. And he was. I’m not out at work to my peers. My superiors know, but Hank was the only guy I worked with every day who knew. He had my back. I really liked him… a lot. He was a good guy.”

  “And you’re going to miss him too. And you feel you let him down by not having his back when he needed it.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Neither of them said a word for a minute. “From what I hear, Hammond isn’t taking it at all well either. I’m told he’s fighting with the agency head because he wants to go to the funeral.”

  “Bad idea,” Benji said.

  “I know. I think he won’t. But he’s a stubborn man. Who knows?”

  “From what I can see about his relationship with his husband, Alexander is a smart man, and I’m sure he’ll probably have some influence.”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said, smiling at Benji. “You should see the two of them together. They’re… they’re perfect for each other. They’re great. They laugh, they argue, they bicker, and they work together better than a lot of other couples I know.”

  “That was what I was guessing. I’m glad to hear I was right.”

  Benji stood quickly and moved into the kitchen. There wasn’t a lot of stuff there, so he found what he wanted easily. A moment later, he was back in the living room with a bottle covered with frost and two shot glasses. Benji filled both glasses, and he and Jonah each took one and stood facing each other. “To our fallen brothers in arms,” Benji said solemnly.

  Glasses clinked and they both downed the alcohol in one swallow.

  “Holy… fucking… hell,” Jonah sputtered, coughing, his face turning red. He coughed again, gasping for breath. He leaned forward and braced himself upright the best he could. When he could breathe again without it hurting, he asked, “What the fuck was that? Toxic nuclear wastewater?”

  “Not even close,” Benji said. “Expensive Swedish vodka. Got some serious firepower to it, doesn’t it? A bit of kick too.”

  Reaching for his beer bottle, Jonah agreed. “Wow. It hangs in there, doesn’t it?” Shaking his head like a big dog shaking water from its wet fur didn’t help Jonah. Beer didn’t totally chase the burn away either.

  They finished their beers, and Benji got two more for them and then filled the shot glasses for a second time.

  “I can’t,” Jonah said.

  “Yes, you need it. Trust me.”

  The second shot went down almost as roughly, but the third one had a hint of smoothness to it. But by then, Jonah wasn’t feeling much of anything one way or the other.

  “Remind me to not take up drinking,” Jonah struggled to say to Benji.

  “I’ll do that, but trust me, you’ll remember that fact all on your own.”

  “I think I do,” Jonah said softly without looking up at Benji for a moment. “Trust you. Thanks. You’ve been… awesome, man. I really appreciate your help. I should probably get out of your hair so you can get to bed or do something. I would usually have work, but not now.”

  When he tried to stand up, Jonah very nearly toppled over.

  “Hey!” Jonah complained. “What happened to my feet? I know I left them down there somewhere.”

  “Did you drive here?” Benji asked.

  “Yes, I did,” Jonah answered confidently and with a proud look on his face.

  “Keys,” Benji ordered.

  “Keys?” Jonah asked. “Yes, I have keys.”

  “Give them to me,” Benji ordered.

  Jonah fished them out of his pocket and held them up. “How did you know I had keys?” he asked Benji. His words came out a little thick, somewhat slurred.