by Don Bendell
The doctor and general also shook hands and introduced themselves to each other.
The general then leaned over Bo and kissed her on the forehead and handed her a dozen white roses. Bo smelled them and sighed.
She said, “Thank you, sir. They are beautiful.”
He said, “The doctors here said it was better to treat you here and not transfer you to a military hospital. How long will they be in the hospital, Doctor?”
Bo said, “Until today, sir. We are going home today.”
Bobby added, “I agree, sir.”
The doctor said, “Actually, General, they both will be in pain, but nowadays, we like for people that are healing to move around and exercise their bodies more. I would say they are both limited to whatever pain they can endure.”
The general raised his eyes, saying, “God help us.”
All in the room laughed.
Bobby said, “Sir, if we can just go home to rest today, we will be at work tomorrow.”
The chief of staff said, “Day after tomorrow, Major, and that is not up for debate.”
Bobby and Bo said, “Yes, sir.”
“Do you two have to always kill everybody you have a disagreement with?” Perry asked.
“No, sir,” Bobby countered quickly. “The man at my corner deli argued with me the other day about how thick to slice my lunch meat, and I never even pulled my Glock.”
They all laughed again.
Bobby got very serious. “General Perry, that was a lot of assassins and a planned ambush. We have no idea who was behind it.”
Perry said, “We cannot talk here, son. We’ll talk day after tomorrow.”
“Do you have any clues about it, sir?” Bo asked.
“Yes, but for now, you two rest for forty-eight hours,” the general replied. “Don’t say anything else here. Operational security.”
Bobby said, “Yes, sir.”
Two hours later, after a lengthy lecture from the doctor and from two nurses, Bobby and Bo were released. They were wheeled to the hospital exit in side-by-side wheelchairs and at the exit were greeted by four MPs.
The staff sergeant in charge of the detail told Bobby, “Major, we have been detailed to drive and protect both of you. Where to, sir?”
Bo said, “My place, Sergeant,” and she gave him the address.
The MPs drove them in a sedan with another following behind them. Bobby noticed a tail and told the sergeant in charge. The MP looked behind them and grinned.
“The FBI, sir,” he explained. “They are assigned to watch over both of you, too.”
Bobby said, “Sergeant, I appreciate you gentlemen doing this. I also need to ask you to detail someone to go to our armory in the basement of the Pentagon, and check out a pair of CAR-15s for Captain Devore and me, a good supply of magazines, and tell them we want them with flat receiver groups, tactical handles, lasers, and holographic sights.”
“Absolutely, sir,” the noncom replied. “I assume you want plenty of 5.56 ammo?”
Bobby said, “Yes, thanks. Captain, anything else you want?”
Bo said, “Yes, sir, flash-bangs and some smoke grenades.”
“Good idea,” Bobby said.
The sergeant responded, “I have a bunch of flash-bangs in the trunk of this vehicle, sir, and I’m signed out for them. I can give you plenty. We’ll have the smokes brought out from the Pentagon with the other ordinance.”
Everybody wondered about the blue teddy bear the captain was carrying, but nobody asked. The MPs stationed themselves outside the condominium complex where Bo lived after Bobby assured them he and Bo would clear the house for intruders. The FBI sedan pulled up down the street about a block away and Bo and Bobby gave the two agents within a slight wave, which was returned by small waves from them.
They both limped inside, laughing at themselves, as they both moaned in pain.
“Coffee?” Bo asked, as soon as they entered her kitchen.
“Please,” Bobby said.
Bobby went to the restroom while she made coffee for both of them, and they moved to the living room so they could sit or half lay on softer cushions. They both sat on her large overstuffed sectional sofa facing each other. Bo had finally put her bear down, setting it against the pillow on her bed earlier.
“Now, it is early afternoon,” she said. “We have the rest of the day to talk and all day tomorrow. Why don’t we have that discussion?”
Bobby said, “My thoughts exactly.”
He paused to gather his words, and went on, “Bo, you and I are partners and that is extremely important to me.”
“Me, too,” she interrupted.
“We have been through so much together, it has just been incredible,” he continued. “And there is no man or woman anywhere who I would rather have as my partner.”
Bobby paused, so Bo responded, “Bobby, I cannot even fathom thinking about anybody else being my partner.”
He went on, “Well, that is just so important to me, and I think to our mission. I think you and I make the very best team available since our mission has evolved more into a spec ops specialization.”
“So why are you telling me this?” she asked.
He said, “You gotta bear with me. This will take a while.”
“I’m right here, Major,” she said. “You want some more coffee?”
He stood and said, “Yes, but I’ll get it. You rest your leg.”
Bobby took her cup and his and went to the kitchen. He could not believe how hot her condo seemed. He was sweating. He poured two cups and returned and sat down again with a moan.
Bobby went on, “That day when I learned I had gotten drunk and fondled your breast in that restaurant and embarrassed and disrespected you so, that—”
Bo interrupted, “I forgave you for that.”
“Bo, I know,” he said. “But you have no clue what I had to go through emotionally to forgive myself. It was the second lowest point of my life. It was definitely my bottom.”
“I am sorry it ever happened,” she replied. “I am sorry you had to feel so badly, but I’m glad that you cared so much about what I thought.”
Bobby responded, “When I went to Palm Springs, I finally had to face some issues that I had avoided or had been in denial about for some time.”
He drank some coffee and continued, “I did a lot of soul-searching and worked a lot on taking my own personal inventory. Bo, I am a one-woman man, and I really loved Arianna. I was dedicated to her.”
Bo said, “I know. I have always been jealous to think a woman could be loved that much.”
He paused for a long time, then said, “Well, you shouldn’t be jealous. You see, I was being a one-woman man to someone who was gone, long gone. I have been faithful to Arianna for years, but she isn’t coming back. I never really buried her, emotionally, I mean.”
Bo felt her heart leap.
She said, “I am glad. I think it will be healthier for you.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s not all. I have been in denial for some time, now.”
Bo asked, “You mean about Arianna?”
“No, about you.”
“Me?” she replied. “What do you mean?”
Bobby thought for a minute and said, “Bo, you know some of the crazy things I have done, almost getting killed.”
“No, being very brave,” she corrected. “What about them?”
He said, “Do you know the main reason I ever do any of those things?”
She said, “To do what is right and brave and heroic?”
“No,” Bobby said and stared into her eyes. “To show off for you. Just about everything I do is to simply make you proud of me.”
Bo could not speak. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she just looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
Bobby said, “I am your boss. We are partners. I really loved my wife, and always will, but, Bo, I am so in love with you, I just cannot help myself.”
A sob escaped her lips, and she t
hrew herself forward and into his arms, saying, “Oh, Bobby.”
They kissed long and hard and then their faces parted slightly, and he smiled, staring into her eyes, and she his. Their lips came together softly now, and he lifted her right hand, kissed her palm slowly, and then the inside of her wrist.
She whispered with a husky voice, “Make love to me.”
Bobby smiled and said softly, “No.”
She was taken aback, but he quickly explained, “You have stitches in the back of your thigh and I have a few myself. Let’s go into the bedroom and take a long nap, if you don’t mind sleeping with your head on my chest and my arm around you.”
She moaned, standing, and said, “I have dreamed about it over and over.”
Surprised, Bobby replied, “You have?”
She said, “Yes, Bobby Samuels, I never believed I could love any man as much as I love you.”
He swept her into his arms, and they kissed long and hard again. Then he held her a long time, just stroking her hair, saying nothing.
Bo turned on the CD player with several albums of soft love songs. They each went to bathrooms and went into her bedroom and slowly removed each other’s clothes. They marveled at each other’s incredible bodies and lay down on the bed, doing nothing but looking at each other and occasionally touching each other, all over, a cheekbone, lips, hair, shoulder, a hip, everywhere.
Then, both moaning in pain and chuckling about it, they lay in each other’s arms, doing nothing but sometimes smiling. They finally drifted off to sleep and awakened three hours later to a knock on the door.
Bo jumped up and tossed on sweats, grabbing her Glock. She went to the door and looked out the peephole. She opened the door and the MP staff sergeant entered carrying a bag, followed by two other MPs carrying Bobby and Bo’s weapons.
“The major is in the latrine,” Bo explained, feeling her face flush.
Bobby already had his clothes on when she said this, and he snuck into the bathroom and then opened the door and flushed the toilet. He walked out into the room and greeted the MPs.
“Thank you very much, Sergeant,” he said, admiring the weapons.
He and Bo both sat down at the coffee table and started loading 5.56 rounds into the CAR-15 magazines. The CAR-15 was first developed during the Vietnam War and is simply an M16 or AR-15 rifle with a telescoping stock and much shorter barrel, as well as a different receiver and forward stock configurations.
Bo said, “Sergeant, it is painful for both of us to get up or down, but there is a full pot of coffee in the coffeemaker by my sink and there are mugs on the rack near it. You and your men pour yourselves some coffee and relax.”
The sergeant said, “Thank you, ma’am, but we have our orders.”
Bo smiled. “I know and your immediate orders are to relax and enjoy some coffee. Stakeouts and surveillance are a bitch.”
The men all laughed and headed for the kitchen, thanking them. One half hour later they left and Bobby and Bo headed back to bed, where they stayed simply talking half the night away.
Finally, at 3:30 in the morning, they went to sleep. Bobby awakened several times, and he just stroked Bo’s hair, looking at her. She smiled but breathed like she was asleep.
He felt so renewed and unburdened and so much in love, again.
Bo opened her eyes and saw that it was morning. She ached, probably worse than the day before. She looked under her satin sheets and saw she was naked, and stretched and yawned. She realized she and Bobby had not even made love yet.
She wondered where he was and got out of bed, tossing on a nightgown. She made her way to the kitchen smelling several enticing aromas.
He had the small kitchen table set by the kitchen window. There were some red roses in a bud vase in the center of the table, and on the table was service for two, a platter with golden French toast, and another with strips of crisp bacon. There were two bowls with pink grapefruit halves in each and cups of steaming hot coffee poured out already.
“Oh my God!” Bo exclaimed. “This is wonderful, darling!”
Bobby said, “Well, get used to it, girlie, because if you’re going to be my wife I plan on spoiling you the rest of our lives.”
“Your wife?” she said, smiling. “Are you proposing, Bobby Samuels?”
“No,” he responded quickly, “I am not. I will never try to control you except on this one thing. You and I are meant to spend our lives together, and I expect you to be my wife, soon, very soon. I am not asking. I am agreeing that it is something that must happen. It is God divined.”
Bo laughed, munched a strip of bacon, and said, “My, how romantic, Casanova!”
Bobby laughed at himself, his face turning red. He limped out of the room and returned holding the blue bear and walked over to her at the kitchen table.
Bobby dropped in front of her chair on both knees and said, “Blue here does not want you sleeping alone with him ever again. I don’t either, because I cannot imagine my life without you, Bo. I want to love you and make love to you. I want to be your best friend ever. I want to laugh with you, cry with you, argue sometimes, but enjoy making up. I want to make you proud of me. I want to hold you and write you love poems, and work with you, and play with you. I am a half a Bobby without you. You make me whole. Please, Bo, tell me you will marry me? Tell me you love me half as much as I love you. Tell me you will marry me soon?”
Bo laughed and grabbed his head in her hands.
“How could I ever say no? I love you, too, Bobby, and want to be your wife more than anything in the world,” she responded.
Bobby and she kissed again. He started to stand, but stopped.
He said, “You are not going to believe this, honey. This is an unforgettable proposal, because I cannot get up off my knees.”
Bobby moaned and lay facedown on the floor, laughing at himself and his pain. She pushed his chair to him, and he grabbed it, slowly rising up while moving hand over hand up the chair.
“What a romance, huh?” he said after he was seated at the table.
Bo said, “You know what? We have been wounded so many times, it’s probably very appropriate.”
“And I have another proposal,” he said.
“What?”
Bobby sighed and said, “I feel our relationship is so special and being married is so special and permanent, and I cannot believe I am saying this, but I think we should not make love until we get married.”
Bo smiled and said, “I cannot tell you how many times I have dreamed of lying in your arms, and how many times I have dreamed of you being inside me, but I think that is totally cool. We’re too beat up to do anything anyway.”
Bobby grinned, saying, “Anything? What did my parents call it, heavy petting?”
He lifted her good leg and softly kissed her foot, then kissed the inside of her ankle. He pulled a rose out of the vase and pulled the petals off and slowly dropped them on her leg going up under her robe. Then he kissed from rose petal to rose petal, softly and tenderly.
Bo moaned, but not from pain, and whispered, “I love you, Bobby.”
The next morning, Bobby and Bo arrived early at the office as usual and were immediately summoned to Gen. Jonathan Perry’s office. They sat in the outer office speaking to his aide-de-camp, recently promoted to full-bird colonel. Both limped into his office, dressed like two undercover cops, and snapped to attention, saluted, and spoke simultaneously, with Bobby saying, “Sir, Major Samuels reports!” and Bo saying, “Sir, Captain Devore reports!”
He returned their salutes and said, “Sit down, you two. Coffee? I’m having some.”
Bobby said, “Thank you, sir. One with cream and one black.”
The general was visibly upset, looking like he may have been crying previously, or had a head cold. He ordered the coffee and did not speak.
A minute later, a specialist in white mess duty uniform entered pushing a cart with cups, cream, sugar, and a large coffeepot. He poured coffee for all three and left.
> The general said, “There is never any easy way to say this. CSM Boom Kittenger is dead.”
Bo gave out a loud whimper and started crying. Bobby instinctively reached out and put his arm around her, and she leaned against his chest and sobbed.
It was all Bobby could do to keep from crying. His jaws tightened together so firmly, he was worried he would crack his teeth.
“What happened, sir?”
“He jumped into Laos with those new experimental stealth wings you two used in Texas and married up with a combined patrol of Laotian Hmong and Vietnamese Montagnards. They went to a large al Qaeda training camp north of there and Boom took some amazing video and did a complete reconnoiter of the facility,” the general said.
“We saw satellite images of it in our briefing, sir,” Bobby said. “Did he get caught?”
The general said, “That’s just it. They got away clean and did not leave sign, but they were totally surrounded by SRV troops the next morning at daybreak.”
“How was Boom killed, General?” Bo asked.
General Perry said, “He called on his sat phone immediately and gave a quick report as the troops closed in. He gave his laptop and other important materiel to the Montagnard leader of the patrol, a guy named Y-Ting, and said for him to get that patrol out of there and call us, while he covered for them. He would not let them argue.”
Bobby said, “He fought the SRV troops?”
Perry said, “Not just them. The al Qaeda from the camp joined in. He threw a bunch of smokes and the Yards and Hmong low crawled the hell out of there. They said he fought like a man possessed and was yelling, whooping, and taunting them like crazy.”
“Was he shot?” Bo asked.
“He was wounded, multiple times,” the general said sadly, “and had his sat phone dialed and at his side. Our analysts say the sounds sounded like they hacked him to death with machetes. Then . . .”
Then the chief of staff of the U.S. Army got choked up and stopped.
“Do you know what he did, Major?”
Bobby was afraid to ask, but he said, “What, sir?”
“They heard him screaming, as those little bastards chopped him up,” the general said. “Then he started singing “God Bless America.” Can you believe that?”