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Putrid Food

Chapter 14

G took his culinary skills to the next level and served his team the Italian dinner he had made. From the looks on their faces, he guessed it was a success.

"Well?" G asked. Not one comment so far and they were close to being finished with the meal.

Sam put down his fork. "It's better than the food we had this afternoon."

"And?" G came closer to him. "Still doubting my abilities?"

"My apologies—"

"Seriously, Sam, your apologies? I want a review of my culinary skills."

Deeks looked up from his empty plate. "All I can say is: When are you making the next batch?"

Kensi stopped before her plate was empty. "I'm stuffed. Can't eat another bite." She pushed her plate to the center of the makeshift table her team leader had set up earlier. "And I'll agree with Sam. Better than the food from what was once my favorite Italian restaurant. I want more."

"Now there's a review. Thank you Kens and Deeks."

"I said it was better than the restaurant's food," Sam said, eyeing his partner.

"Okay, I'll give you that."

Hetty emerged from her office and joined them. "Well, Mr. Callen, you've outdone yourself. Fabulous." She made a gesture with two fingers to her lips.

"Thank you." He bowed. "Okay, who's going to do the dishes?"

Sam scrambled to his feet and grabbed the plates, busing them to the kitchen.

Kensi and Deeks cleared and cleaned the table which was their desks, pushed together into one large surface.

G slumped onto the sofa and relaxed, allowing his team to clean up the mess.

Hetty sat next to her lead agent. "Well, that was a complete success. I'm looking for to your next culinary adventure."

"I'm wiped out after that."

Hetty lowered her voice, "You deserve a good nap after you tell me what you left out of your report."

G sat up straight. "What makes you think—"

"Something doesn't add up."

G sighed and laid against the cushions. "If you knew these men like I do—"

"No excuses, Mr. Callen, I know for a fact that you're holding something back."

"Okay, yes, I omitted some vital information which I feel wasn't needed in the report to Director Vance."

"Of all people, he's the first who should know—"

"He's the last I'll tell because it's personal." He folded his arms.

"This is about your time in captivity?"

He nodded.

"I learned a lot about them, more than when I infiltrated their group."

"I think you need to talk to someone besides your partner."

"I haven't talked to him." G sighed again. Hetty had gotten too close to the problem. She was like a tiger with prey in her mouth, unwilling to let it go until she had shaken it and it laid limp in her grip.

"You'll talk to Nate. I've called him already and he'll be here later tonight."

"But Hetty—"

"No buts, Mr. Callen, it's either that or your report on my desk in the morning." She stood and straightened her black pants suit and left.

G took off his shoes and lifted his legs onto the sofa without using his hands. A first. It had been too long since he possessed the physical strength to lift his legs without assistance.

Sam sat in the chair next to the sofa. "It take it that talk was more than just a chit chat about how much she liked your lasagna."

"What gave you the first idea?"

"She lowered her voice."

"You were close by?"

"Rearranging the desks into their respective places."

"And listening?"

"No, watching her interaction with you."

"It was the fifth degree."

"Thought so." Sam lifted his legs onto the leather hassock.

"You're not going to ask me?"

"Should I? I don't think you'd tell me anyhow."

If he hadn't done so by now, chances were he wasn't going to do it. At least that was his partner's logic. Sometimes he hated Sam's logic because it was right on the spot and this was one of those times.

"I'm taking a nap." G closed his eyes and positioned his arms over his chest.

"Sounds like a good idea."

"At least you get to go home."

"Nope, Hetty's restricted our team to headquarters."

G glanced at his partner. "Since when?"

"I just tried to leave and she told me to go take a nap with you," Sam said.

"How sweet." Maybe Hetty would allow them to venture out for the next meal's ingredients. In the next moment, G remembered the reason why and mused about what the team found at his house. Before an answer came, he was asleep.

#

A minute later, at least it seemed as if it were a minute later, Sam nudged him and said, "Hetty wants to see you."

G asked, "What time is it?"

"You slept for three hours."

He stood and steadied himself with the walker. G decided to leave it by the sofa and opted to use the cane. He hobbled over to Hetty's desk. Before he reached her office area, she pointed toward the corridor.

G understood what her gesture meant; Nate was here. He trudged down the hallway toward the room the team psychologist used for an office. At the door to the book lined space, he observed Nate going over some type of report.

Without looking up, Nate said, "Come on in Callen. Sit anywhere you'd like."

G hesitated a moment, slipped inside the room, and closed the door. He scanned the seating arrangement, which had changed several times in the last couple of years, and chose the chair at the far end of the room.

The psychologist pushed his wire mesh office chair back from the dark-stained mahogany desk and rose. He grabbed the report off the desk in one hand and a glass of water in the other and picked the end of the sofa closest to his desk, giving his client plenty of personal space. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"I'm good."

"From what I read so far, you're teammates and Hetty are concerned about your odd behavior."

"What odd behavior?" He guessed his partner had raised the red flag and not Hetty.

"Well, let's see." Nate read through his notes. "An intense desire to eat and prepare certain foods."

"Is that what this is about? Seriously? Just because I wanted to learn how to cook lasagna?" G pulled himself off the low lying chair with his cane and the armrests. "Come on, this is—"

"Callen, please sit."

"I can't believe my partner would do this."

"It's wasn't only Sam. It was Hetty too."

"Great."

"They care about you."

"Wonderful."

"Please sit." Nate motioned to the chair.

G slumped down into the soft chair and sighed.

"They're worried because you've never displayed any desire to learn cooking."

"Seriously?" G kept his focus on desk, refusing to look at the man. For once, Nate was dressed casually instead of professionally. Gone was the tie he wore. Military fatigues replaced the dress slacks. It worked right now. The last thing G needed was a suit sitting to his right. "I've got this challenge going with my team. Every week we learn and demonstrate to a teammate something new to stretch our horizons and make us better agents and people."

"I know about your weekly excursions to the golf course," Nate said.

Excursions? Was Nate trying to sound sophisticated? He smiled to himself.

"Something you find amusing?"

"A private joke. I wanted to try cooking."

"Something doesn't add up, Callen. You don't even cook."

"You mean I scorched a pan trying to boil water? That's a thing of the past. I forgot about it. That's all."

"Why the sudden desire to learn to cook lasagna?"

Nate wasn't going to give up on his train of thought any time soon.

"My challenge."

"Callen, I'd buy that answer if you hadn't been through six months of captivity," Nate said. "Tell me about what happened."

"I'll write a report."

"Hetty told me you refused to do it."

Crap. G gripped the armrests with both hands, his knuckles whitening. "I can't go there, no, won't go there."

"Must've been difficult. Difficult enough that it changed your eating habits."

"Tell me about it."

"I hope you would tell me about it."

G released a pent up sigh and relaxed his hands. Nate's odd sense of humor had a way of getting under his skin and irritating him as if someone had deposited tiny bugs there. Talking would be the only way Nate stopped his pressure cooker stance. "They used every conceivable way to torture me."

"Food?"

"Yeah, food. A bland, putrid, oatmeal-like substance fed to me for every meal." After he spoke, G made a face while staring at the bookshelves to his left. He kept his focus on them and said, "I vowed to never eat another food like it again. If I refused to eat their food, they tied me to a chair and forced it down my throat." He shuddered, the memory of this form of torture too close for comfort. Yet he withstood it, keeping his ground and refusing to reveal the location of those devices. Countless times during torture sessions he wished for death, it would've been better than eating the disgusting crap those men pushed on him three times a day. They would never oblige him. He held a secret they needed to know.

"Callen?"

G glanced at Nate for a few seconds before turning his focus back to the bookshelves.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"No."

"I'm sorry you endured that kind of torture."

"I'm done." He started to rise off the chair.

"I'm not."

G sighed and fell back against the squashy chair. "I'm not ready to talk to you about this."

"Your partner?"

"Never."

"In that case, you've got me or Hetty."

"Thanks for the options, but no thanks."

"Callen, it's either us or the report."

"Hetty's request?"

Nate nodded.

Great.

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