The firefight had been quick and bloody. Doyle's aim had, as usual, been fast, clean and very accurate. Soon silence descended as those of the gang who were still left threw down their weapons and got tentatively to their feet, their hands raised in surrender. Doyle noticed his colleagues quickly coming forward out of their hidey-holes to round them up. But his attention was no longer on the living but the dead. He went slowly over to the sniper he'd felled, absently shouldering his gun. This had been his third kill in a month. It was, even by CI5's standards, a bloody month. Doyle wasn't proud of his 'score' as some of his colleagues were. Sometimes, even months together, his gun remained in its holster if, indeed, he carried it at all. Admittedly a lot of those times left him screaming with boredom – watching a house whose occupants seemed to have died of the same contagion, boredom itself – or trailing a suspect around the back streets for days. Then something like this would happen. Yes, exciting, but did it have to be fatal? Doyle knelt by the sniper, the gunman's weapon inches from his hand. He stared at it, his heart and mind racing. Is that where I get my kicks? he mentally asked the corpse, from taking lives? Is that what I've become – a dumb bodyguard as Laila had accurately described me? A moron with a weapon in his hand, blindly following orders? The fact that Bodie or Mason could have been killed if Doyle hadn't reacted as quickly as he had was, for the moment, lost in his dark mind. His hand inched further towards the gun. Why couldn't you have been as quick as me or as accurate and taken me out of this mess? At least it would have been a dignified end; perhaps with a bit of meaning. His hand inched further still, his fingertips caressing the warm barrel. He knew how it would feel in his hand; he knew its weight and its killing power. His logical mind was groping in the darkness for something to counter his suicidal mission. The hand seemed to have a life of its own. As Doyle mused further, oblivious to anything around him in the real world, a mental light fluttered. He tried to ignore it, but the light flickered on and off like a guttering candle. Finally the agent dragged his eyes from the corpse and looked up. He saw Bodie not far away looking down at him. He was very still. His face was a mask, but Doyle saw the fear in his friend's eyes and he felt embarrassed and ashamed. He returned his gaze to the sniper and gently shook his head. Bodie's eyes never left him. As if coming to a decision, Doyle slowly got to his feet – and Bodie let out the breath he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging with released tension.
Doyle looked around for his colleagues but they were away in the distance with their prisoners. Unknown to him, Bodie had shooed them away when he saw the direction of his mate's thoughts. Yes, Bodie knew his partner that well. Doyle stared at him but saw no censure there. But pity, perhaps.
"Have you ever stood on the edge of darkness, Bodie?" Doyle asked softly, wondering if his partner really did understand.
Bodie was, as ever, reluctant to give any piece of himself away but Doyle was one of the very few people he trusted enough with the truth – or some of it.
"Yeah," he admitted eventually, "In Africa and a little after. I didn't like myself very much. I was lucky that there was someone there to catch me."
Doyle didn't ask who that was, but knew that he was lucky to have Bodie to catch him if he were to stand at the edge of reason again. His pride wouldn't allow him to go to his partner like a child wanting a cuddle, so headed off alone to the car. Bodie understood that, too, and allowed his friend some space. Once in the car, Bodie punctured the mood as only he could.
"Come on, you miserable old sod, I'll buy you a lemonade."
"With gin?"
"Vodka if you ask nicely."
Doyle chuckled and Bodie's heart sang.