Page 32 of Flash and Bang
Thayne couldn’t help but grin like an idiot as he shook his head. “Knucklehead. Are you free to gothen?”
Jarrett nodded. “Yep. I am plum wore out to be honest. All I want is a shower and a bed, Thayne. Take me back to the hotel.”
Thayne cocked his head and looked at him before they started walking toward the door. “You know we checked out of there and we have to go back and get your Jeep. It’s still parked at the used car lot and you have the keys, Jarrett. I rode to the hospital with the FBI so we have no transportation or clean clothes.”
Jarrett frowned. “That’s fucked-up,” he said as they walked out into the early morning air.
“This hospital is a cancer center so my guess is their out-of-town patients stay in the hotel next door,” Thayne said. “I’ll bet they have a cab stand. Let’s walk over. If nothing else, the concierge can call one for us.”
“Sounds better than hitchhiking.”
Dawn was approaching and the sky had begun to lighten on the horizon. The summer morning was going to dawn cool but it felt really good on Thayne’s skin at the moment. They caught a cab back out to the staging area where the Jeep was parked. When they got there, several of the FBI guys who’d notbeen injured were standing around their black SUVs talking. They were just as dirty as he and Jarrett were and some appeared to have cuts and scrapes. They all looked as exhausted as they were. They got out and paid the cabbie, walking toward the practically new olive-green Jeep Wrangler. Jarrett clicked the door locks when they were about twenty-five feet away and the second they did, the entire truck blew up.
Thayne and Jarrett were tossed back on their asses as a wave of heat crossed over their bodies for the second time in only a matter of hours. Debris pelted them as Thayne instinctively covered his face and curled into as small a ball as he could. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Shouts and the pounding of feet came toward them from all directions as car alarms blared all around them. In seconds, men were lifting them off the ground and asking them if they were hurt, patting them down. Thayne’s tac pants were on fire and he hadn’t even realized it. Fortunately, a burly FBI guy was able to put it out quickly.
Thayne glanced over to Jarrett who was sitting where he’d been thrown back on his ass. Another Fed was squatting beside him with his hand on Jarrett’s back talking to him but the ringing in Thayne’s ears wouldn’t let him hear much ofanything they were saying. Jarrett looked over toward Thayne and the expression on his face looked frantic until he saw that Thayne seemed to be okay. He nodded at Thayne and then looked back to the FBI guy and began talking. Thayne saw the rapid movement of his very pissed-off partner’s lips. It was clear he was upset that his brand-new Jeep had been blown up and Thayne began to wonder who the hell wanted Jarrett or both of them dead. Was Mills Lang back?
Jarrett picked himself off the ground with the help of the FBI guy and walked over to Thayne. “Are you okay?”
Thayne’s ears buzzed and he leaned closer, nodding as he reached up to touch the side of his face and cover his right ear which was throbbing. When he brought his hand away, his palm was covered with blood.Motherfucker!He stared at Jarrett and realized that he was talking to him again. Unfortunately, his voice sounded like it was coming from a tin can.
“What?” He pointed to his ear. “I can barely hear you. Are you okay, Jarrett?” Thayne looked his partner up and down. He didn’t appear to be injured but the scrubs the nursing staff had given him to replace his shredded clothes from the barn were covered with dirt and scorch marks.
“I’m fine!” Jarrett said.
Thayne knew his partner was shouting at him but his fucking head hurt so bad, he wanted to scream.
“We’re gonna have to get you to a doctor,” Jarrett said.
A second later, an ambulance roared to a stop beside them and paramedics jumped out, going to the back to pull out a stretcher. One of the FBI guys must have called 911.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Thayne said, knowing that arguing with the first responders and his partner was going to end up being supremely futile.
Jarrett was shaking his head at him as he motioned for the paramedics to rush that gurney closer to them. The burley Fed who’d put out the fire in Thayne’s tac pants leaned down to speak in Thayne’s face. “We gotta get you to the hospital. It looks like you have a broken eardrum and that bitch is gonna hurt. On top of it, you have minor burns on your leg that you have to have attended to,” he said. At least that’s what Thaynethoughthe was saying. Everything echoed like he was sitting inside a fish bowl. He glanced over at his partner, noting the stubborn set of his handsome jaw and Thayne knewhe had no choice but to cooperate. It wasn’t like they had the Jeep to transport them back to LA now anyway. He nodded at the FBI guy and glanced sheepishly at Jarrett.
“Fine,” he said, climbing onto the stretcher and crossing his arms with a huff as the paramedics strapped him to it. Jarrett hovered over him like a mother hen while the paramedics worked. Not only was he stubborn but he looked genuinely scared for Thayne, kind of the way Thayne had been feeling only hours before when it had been Jarrett being driven away in an ambulance. He leaned back and closed his eyes, willing the day to be over. The sun was just rising as they pushed the rolling stretcher into the ambulance and shut Jarrett away from his view when the doors were closed. Could this day—night—whatever the fuck it was—get any worse? They were still alive so Thayne figured it probably could. That prospect was very upsetting.
****
The doctors at Scripps were nearly done checking Thayne over when Jarrett poked his head inside the curtain in an eerily opposite version of where they’d been several hours before.
“You gonna live, Wolfe?” Jarrett was stressedas hell about several things, not to mention his partner—his lover—was sitting in a hospital bed with injuries because someone had tried to blow him up. He was pissed that it had taken over an hour and a lot of begging to finally find a sympathetic G-man to drive him to the hospital just to check up on his partner. Not only that, he’d had to figure out who was trying to kill him and why.
Though Jarrett had recognized the man in the barn as someone who’d been peripherally involved with a wet work assignment Jarrett had participated in, he didn’t know the man’s name. He remembered thinking the guy was CIA but for all Jarrett knew, he could have been a CIA asset. The man had looked to be American and not Middle Eastern. Jarrett hadn’t had any direct interaction with him in the Mideast, but he looked familiar enough that he could definitely place him at that mission and that’s why Jarrett had gone back in the barn. He’d been shocked as hell when the guy had turned and fired at him. Jarrett was in a really bad mood when he finally got to the hospital.
“I’m gonna live. The doctors say my right eardrum isn’t punctured, just bruised, and they gave me some pain medication for it. It’s not too bad right now. Just a dull throb but my hearing is slightly affected by it. The doc says it’ll be a couple weeksbefore it returns to 100 percent but at least he cleared me to go home. They gave me these and I wrangled an extra pair for you.” He pointed to the clean scrubs he was wearing and handed Jarrett a fresh pile to put on.
“Yeah, we need to rent a car and get back to LA but I talked to Stanger and told him the local PD down here wants to interview us about the Jeep first,” Jarrett growled. “Let me change and we’ll get out of here, go down to have a talk with Chief Willis, and then if it’s okay with you, we need to get a room because there’s no way I can drive without a few hours of sleep at least.” He stepped close to Thayne as his lover rose from the bed. Thayne looked as exhausted as he was. Jarrett reached out and wrapped his arms around Thayne, pulling him close. Just being able to stand there and hold him, breathing in the scent of him under all that smoke, calmed him immensely. “Christ, darlin’… was afraid I lost you,” he whispered.
Thayne hugged him back, laying his cheek on Jarrett’s shoulder. “Me too, Marine.” Thayne pulled back enough to look up into Jarrett’s eyes. His blue eyes were arresting, the most beautiful things Jarrett had ever seen. In a matter of seconds, Jarrett closed the distance between their lips and was kissing Thayne, a soft meeting of lips, completely unhurried,just two lovers making absolutely certain they were each okay. It was like a healing balm to Jarrett’s heart and somehow he just knew that with Thayne in his arms, everything was going to be all right. They kissed until Thayne finally pulled back again. “Go on. Go change and then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Jarrett smiled and let him go. “Gimmie just a minute.” He picked up the scrubs and walked out of the curtained area, finding a bathroom where he was able to change out of the ruined scrubs he’d put on only a few hours before. He felt naked without his Glock and realized that it, along with their duffels and ATF credentials, had been blown up along with the Jeep.Motherfucker! Who’s after me?Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him as he returned to Thayne.
****
It took them nearly two hours to give their report to the SDPD. Captain Willis personally took the report, wanting to go over the details of what had gone down with the FBI and others. Jarrett and Thayne had to walk a thin line between what they knew was going to be deemed classified and what wasn’t. They never mentioned the CIA’s involvement. Since it took place on US soil, it would no doubtmake things sticky if Langley was mentioned. The last thing they could do was risk putting all the details of a joint government operation into a police report so they continuously had to refer Willis back to the FBI for clarification if he felt it was necessary. They classified it as a covert op and Willis finally backed off, taking down the details of the Jeep’s explosion and leaving the written report void of any of the other things that had gone down at the Fernandez farm that night. After shaking the man’s hand, they finally left the station at 11:00 a.m. and headed to a nearby hotel to get some showers and some desperately needed rest.
Once in their room, they made calls to Suki Chang, apologizing to her for missing their morning appointment, and rescheduling it for the next day. Next on the list was a call to SAC Stanger. That call took a lot longer because they thought the man should know exactly what had gone down with the fireworks smugglers and the connection to the Freedom Brigade, the bomb builder hidden among them, and finally the blowing up of Jarrett’s Jeep. Stanger almost had a cow when he heard that someone had planted a bomb in the Jeep. He told them to stay in San Diego and get some sleep, grumbling something about having to “authorize more fucking overtime”, and told them to pick up arental car at the airport when they were ready to drive back since flying wasn’t an option with Thayne’s damaged eardrum. Stanger was not happy, but by the time Jarrett and Thayne finally disconnected the speakerphone, at least they knew they were going to be going home soon. First though, a shower and sleep were high on the to-do list.