22 INFINITE LOOP

Alex had left the room as Ben told him, and it took Ben only a minute to confirm that he was alone. Everyone had bedtime rituals. Some needed a bath; others, a cup of tea. Some liked to read in bed; others, to listen to music. Ben preferred a room sweep with a Glock in a two-handed, chest-level grip.

He sat at the edge of the bed and thought about what to do. Damn it, what had he been thinking? He'd almost… Christ, he didn't know what he'd almost done.

It's the pressure, man. The shit outside the Four Seasons this morning… It was just a delayed combat hard-on, that's all. And two straight-up all-gin martinis.

Yeah, maybe. But that didn't change the fact that he'd been a nanosecond from kissing her. Kissing her. Hell, if he hadn't managed to walk away there was a better-than-even chance he'd be in her room right now and kissing would be the least of it.

He glanced over at the common door. She was right there, on the other side, probably looking at the door herself. If he knocked, she would answer. The way she'd been looking at him…

He scrubbed a hand across his face. He was being criminally stupid. He'd heard of guys getting caught in honey traps. He'd always thought of them as fools, and now he was on the verge of being one.

She'd gotten to him. Somehow she had. The shit she'd said about his family… half of him wanted to fuck her, the other half to smack her. What did she know? He didn't see his daughter-What are you, afraid to say her name? Ami. Your daughter's name is Ami-he didn't see Ami because what kind of father could he have been to her? The things he did could be lived with only in silence and solitude. What was he supposed to do, just wash the blood off his hands and then come home to Hi, honey, how was your day? Fine, sweetie, killed two terrorist moneymen in Algiers and got away clean. Lucky, too, because if I ever fuck up, the U.S. government will disavow all knowledge of my activities, and if I haven't managed to swallow a cyanide capsule, I'll certainly be imprisoned and tortured to death. What's for dinner?

Please. It was best for them. He was no kind of husband, and he wasn't going to be any kind of father, either. He couldn't have people depending on him. He just needed to be alone.

So why did it bother him so much that Sarah was afraid of him? He should welcome her fear; it was his best chance of keeping her in line, of keeping her mouth shut about what had happened at the Four Seasons that morning. Oderint dum metuant. And why had he been so moved by the way she had admitted her fear to him? He should have done something to reinforce it, and instead had wound up stammering out some horseshit about how it would be like none of this had ever happened. Comforting her. For Christ's sake, he had… he ‘d actually tried to comfort her. He must be out of his mind.

The bottom line was that he didn't know the first thing about her. Not really. Treating her with anything other than skepticism and suspicion was his dick talking and nothing more. What he needed to do was jerk off and go to sleep and forget what had almost happened tonight.

Almost. That was the key word. Okay, he'd been tempted, who wouldn't be? She was beautiful, there was no sense denying it. And there was something about her that… affected him-that, one minute, made him want to protect her; and the next, made him want to shove her up against the wall and put his hands on her and shut her up by covering her mouth with his own.

Put his hands on her. He hadn't meant anything by it when he'd patted her down in the bar-he'd been too focused on the possibility she might have a weapon. But as soon as he was satisfied she wasn't carrying, he'd relaxed, and it was as though some other guard had dropped, too, because the way she'd looked into his eyes while running her hands up his sides and down his legs…

He blew out a long, hot breath. But he hadn't acted on it. No harm, no foul.

On top of it all, he felt guilty. But why? It wasn't as though there was anything between Alex and Sarah, and even if there was, he didn't owe his brother anything.

So why had he told her about Alex? Maybe he'd been trying to distract her. Maybe he'd been trying to explain why even though he wanted to, he couldn't.

The room phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yeah,” thinking, Sarah?

“I was wondering if you were back yet.” Alex.

“Yeah. Just got here.”

“Did you see Sarah? She went out awhile ago.”

He hesitated. “Yeah, I saw her. She's in her room. Listen, I need to go out again. I'll come over there and brief you.”

He hung up, checked the corridor through the peephole, then walked across the hallway to the third room.

“How was Pearl 's?” Alex asked him.

For a second, Ben forgot he was supposed to have been there. “It was fine,” he said. “You get anything done?”

“Not really. We were experimenting with using Obsidian in different environments. No breakthroughs. And nothing in Hilzoy's notes to help us. At least not that we've been able to recognize and use. I'm going to play around a little more on my own.”

“All right. I need to go out, do a few things.”

Alex raised his eyebrows quizzically. “What?”

Ben shook his head. “Just this and that. Day job stuff.” He didn't distrust Alex, but Alex didn't need to know, either, and operational security was operational security.

“Whatever,” Alex said. “Anyway, there's something I was thinking about. When this is done, I was thinking maybe you and I… we could go to the cemetery.”

Ben frowned. “Why?”

“Just to pay our respects. You haven't been around in a while. When was the last time you visited Mom and Dad's graves? Or Katie's?”

“I never visited them.”

“That's kind of my point.”

Here we go again, Ben thought. Judging me. This time for not sharing his superstitions about genuflecting over a clod of dirt.

“I don't do graves,” Ben said, tamping down his temper. “But if you want to, that's fine. Knock yourself out.”

“You know, I don't think I'm asking too much-”

“Yes, you are. You're asking too much. Like always.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Ben felt his temper slipping away like a greasy cord. “It means I almost ate a bullet today that was intended for you, and I don't feel like a lecture now about how I'm a bad son and brother because I won't pop over to the place where my parents’ and sister's bodies currently serve as worm food.”

Alex's jaw tightened. “Don't talk like that.”

“Like what? They're dead, Alex. They're gone. They don't exist.”

“Yeah? What did you do when they did exist? You were too busy to be with Mom even when she was dying!”

Ben felt a sort of heavy, angry surprise, and shook his head as if to clear it. How could this be happening? All the years, all the distance, and here they were, trapped in some kind of infinite loop. “What did you say?”

Alex started to take a step backward, but then held his ground. “You heard me.”

Ben paused, forcing the anger back. “I was there for her,” he said after a moment. “And she knew it.”

“She didn't know it. All she knew was that you were too busy running around playing G.I. Joe to even be with her when she was sick.”

“I called her every goddamn day, Alex, and she understood why I couldn't come back. She told me not to come.”

“You can't recognize a politeness bluff? What did you want her to do, beg you to come? Fucking beg you? And you wouldn't have, even if she did!”

“Oh, and you took care of her? I didn't see you taking any time off from law school.”

“I didn't have to take time off! I was there almost every day!”

“Alex, you're so full of shit. You were there because you could be, because you could get all your studying done sitting with her in a hospital room. If you were with her it was only because it didn't interfere with your almighty fucking career plans. You didn't stay home to take care of her, you stayed home because you were afraid to do anything else.”