CHAPTER SIX
When Ben packed to leave the next morning, he had the green light for his plan. It was insanely easy to get a place on the culling course. It wasn’t a popular job, specialist skills and mentality being required, and he fit all the criteria, or his fake profile did—ex-infantry Corporal Jamie Lancaster. Monday morning, he reported to the location of the training on a farm near the proposed cull site. He recognised all the others on the course in the way that all soldiers can spot another solider a mile away. He was confident, though, that he had never actually met any of them, his life in the SAS and then the department having taken him far from the routines of their lives. He was paired with an ex-Sergeant from a Scottish lowland regiment called Jock. If Ben had to choose between shooting a badger or Jock, he reckoned the badger would be safe to live another day. He guessed, like working in an abattoir, you didn’t meet the best of British on a training course to cull badgers. But he swallowed his dislike of the aggressive, bullying Scot and concentrated on the job he was really there to do.
Surprisingly, his opportunity to make contact with the protestors came on the very first day. Whilst being driven to the minister’s land to begin what was described as Module 1—identifying, referencing, and recording location of culling area and identifying and classification of setts, they discovered a makeshift barricade across the lane leading to Sir Monty Bancott’s tenant farmer’s land. A transit van was skewed across the road with a few people sitting on the ground in front of it, simple but effective. Ben recognised Julie and her girlfriend. He climbed out with the other course members and their trainer. The DEFRA official—Ben wasn’t sure whether this suited civil servant was representing the environment, the food, or the rural affairs part of the department’s mandate, but from the size of him and the strain on his waistband, Ben reckoned the food section—stayed in his car, making a frantic phone call. But the rep from the local farmers’ union, who had been following them to view the first day’s training, began to remonstrate with the protesters.
As the seated figures began to argue back, a battered old antique traveller appeared and began to manoeuvre alongside the van, clearly intending to block the gap between it and the high hedge to the right. Before he could intervene, Ben saw Jock approach the car and lean into the driver’s window. He appeared to be trying to take the keys from the woman who was driving. From the backseat, an aged springer spaniel raised itself from a tartan blanket and began to bark in a distressed and rheumy voice. Its elderly owner was clearly becoming equally distressed. Ben suddenly saw his opportunity. He stepped over Julie and went up to Jock, taking his arm. He leant down and spoke gently to the woman. “Best you get home today, ma’am.”
“I most certainly will not go home! I’m here to stop you thugs murdering our badgers!”
“It’s just a look around today, ma’am. Save your energy for when it starts.”
She mumbled something under her breath, but on taking a look once more at her dog, she began to back up the lane and away from the protest.
Ben steered Jock over to the side of the road out of anyone’s hearing and whispered something in his ear that told the man exactly what Ben would do to him if he saw him treating old ladies like that again. Then with a disarming smile, he returned to the picket line and gave Julie a wink as he stepped over her once more. She had watched the tiny incident with interest, and he knew she would recognise him another time.
Ben spent the rest of the day doing something he supposed he ought to enjoy, tramping around wet, muddy fields carrying a gun. He’d spent a large portion of his working life doing just that, after all. But the cold and the boredom of the whole thing got to him after a while. He found his thoughts drifting back to the very pleasant weekend he’d just spent enjoying a beautiful house and, yes, if vicious killer badgers dragged the admission from him, the beautiful man he’d been enjoying, too. Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen hadn’t managed to marry into the British Royal Family through unfettered ambition alone. He had a mesmeric northern beauty, his face chiselled from the harsh winds of his native land. More than once, Ben found himself picturing that face instead of concentrating on his lessons. It was just as well he could pass the course as easily as drink a glass of Nikolas’s whisky.
For many reasons, therefore, Ben was delighted later that night when he returned to his hotel to find the subject of his preoccupation sitting on the end of his bed, watching the local news on the television. “Hello, Benjamin.”
Ben grinned privately. He always loved the way Nikolas greeted him. It seemed to say more than it actually did. But then he had a tendency to always try and see more in Nikolas’s words and looks than, possibly, were actually there. Consequently, mindful of not appearing too keen, he replied noncommittally, “Sir.”
“How is it going?”
“It’s going to the pub in about ten minutes, so you’re out of luck.”
“Do not make assumptions, and do not be…” Suddenly Ben straddled Nikolas, then Nik could hardly deny what he’d been anticipating would happen between them. It was pretty evident in the fierce erection that Ben now sat on.
“Shouldn’t I be giving you a homily about mixing business with pleasure, sir? You’re corrupting one of your agents. You do know that.”
“Benjamin, your sexual flexibility is one of your chief assets. I am merely developing my subordinates.”
“Do you visit all your operatives in the field and fuck them?”
Nikolas almost looked serious. “No, and that is something I have been meaning to remedy.”
Ben gave a disbelieving laugh. “Over my dead body. You’re all mine.”
“Do not say that.” Nikolas pushed Ben off and stood up, pulling down his waistcoat and smoothing his hair. “Actually, I have to go. I am meeting the minister and the PM for a briefing.”
“What’s wrong? What did I say?”
“Nothing. I…” Nikolas went to the window, his back to Ben. For the first time, Ben heard him swear quietly to himself in English. It was odd and unsettling. “This has got out of hand. I do not want to think about you like this all the time. You are nothing to me, and I am nothing to you. That is how it has always been between us and how it must continue to be. If you have thought it could be more, then I am sorry.”
“You’re the one here tonight!”
After a long pause, Nikolas gave the tiniest of nods in acceptance of this truth. “Yes. Out of control, and that is intolerable.”
Ben came closer. “All right, whatever you say, boss. But now you are here…”
Nikolas smiled. Ben could see it in the reflection in the window. “You argue like the very devil himself.”
Ben slid his arms around Nikolas’s waist and propped his chin on the other man’s shoulder. “If I’m the devil, do you see yourself as Jesus tempted in the wilderness?”
“I believe he was offered power, not sex.”
“Who said anything about sex? I reckon Jesus would have capitulated for love.”
Nikolas tipped his head back, allowing Ben’s face to come alongside his and for Ben to plant a kiss on his smooth cheek. “You have the wrong person, Benjamin, if you are looking for love. I learnt my English the hard way, and I did not learn that word in any context you would want. I am sorry.”
“I’ve never needed words, you know that. I don’t remember you saying two words to me that first weekend, and before I knew it, I was being fucked on green baize.”
“That was not love.”
“I know that. But this could be.” He turned Nikolas in his arms and kissed him deeply, keeping eye contact. The other man’s lips were cold and unresponsive. Ben bit lightly on the bottom one, easing his tongue against Nikolas’s lower teeth. He swore into the pleasure of the warmth of Nikolas’s mouth. He slid his hands into the short hair at the back of Nikolas’s neck, hitching him closer, but Nikolas pulled away and held him off with one hand, the other brushing over his own lips as if astonished at the intensity of Ben’s kiss.
“If this is love for you, then you are in love with a ghost, with the illusion of a man. Is that enough for you?”
“Would you let me have that? If you do, then I will find the man. I’ll breathe life back into the ghost.” Ben heard a soft expletive in Nikolas’s native language, and then he was being kissed back hungrily. Nikolas proved he could kiss just as well as Ben, his tongue finding welcome in Ben’s mouth. He spoke against Ben’s lips, something sensual sounding that Ben didn’t need translated. But then a small bleep sounded from Nikolas’s tailored suit pocket.
Nikolas swore once more in English, and very effectively. “I have to go. I cannot be late for the PM.”
“Yeah.” Ben allowed Nikolas to pull away slightly. “And I’ve got a date with two lesbians.”
As he moved towards the door, Nikolas hesitated, his back to Ben. “Be careful, Benjamin. I would hate to have to work on a eulogy to read at your funeral.”
“Shit, just say I was a dumb bastard with weird taste in men and leave it at that.”
Nik nodded seriously. “That would work.”