Breakfall (33 page)

“Just answer the questions I give you. Nice and short, like we practiced. Just the facts, no confusing details. Okay?”

Sean nodded and sat back down. Minutes dragged by like centuries. Women in suits and heels clicked past him, men dressed for business with briefcases, people dressed like he was, or just in their Sunday suit. The hallway grew crowded, but a permanent hush remained over the ever-changing crowd.

The courtroom door opened, and a man in uniform stepped out. “Sean Gallaway!”

Mark nudged him. “Go get ’em, tiger!”

Sean gave him a weak smile as he stood up and followed the bailiff inside. He looked around. It was just like on an old TV show, old wood everywhere and a judge on a large podium, presiding over it all. He was directed toward a witness box right next to the judge. He faced the men and women that sat around a long conference table. A few spectators sat up in the gallery, but the pacing of the proceedings gave him almost no time to look around. When he took his oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, it felt like an out-of-body experience.

The DA asked his questions, and they were short and concise, just like they’d rehearsed. Sean gave his answers, but whenever he tried to elaborate the slightest bit, the DA cut him off at the pass, firing another question right at him. His story was important, Sean thought. Could it really be reduced to five simple, declarative sentences? Before he knew it, the judge was thanking him for his appearance and the bailiff ushered him back out the door.

It was over.

A
SBJORN
’
S
FINALS
were over, and he had only one term paper to hand in.

Sean was studying optics for a particularly difficult class, feeling behind and distracted. His mind kept returning to his visit to the Pile, where he had to virtually burglarize his own room to retrieve anything he might need over the break. He had returned once more to pick up what he left behind, and Mark had been there to supervise and reseal the room.

“If we keep the police tape up, it will be obvious to the perp you’re no longer here.” Mark yawned, not bothering to hide his wide mouth behind his hand.

“Tired?” Sean asked.

“Bushed. That other case is coming to a close. I’ll be so happy when it’s over.”

“What is it?”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“Sean!” Asbjorn kicked him under the table. “You need coffee?”

“Uh… no. Why?”

“You’re spacing out again. If I make coffee for myself, will you have some?”

“Yeah… thanks.” Sean stood to stretch out, but sitting back down seemed unappealing. He began pacing the small dining room area.

“I’m just worried, Bjorn. I’m worried that Mark’ll be busy with his big case and the perp will finally decide to meet me and Mark won’t be there for it. Or maybe the perp will leave town and not come back, which would be the smart thing to do in his case, but then he’ll come back to get even when I least expect it. I just… I hate leaving with this business still hanging over my head, y’know?”

Asbjorn trapped him from behind, stilling his incessant movement. “Hey… none of that. No worries. It’ll all work out.”

“I just hate the way the guy circumvented my perimeter defenses.”

“What, the way he spray-painted over your cameras and detectors?”

“Yeah.”

“If you had to get past those defenses, you’d have thought of that eventually.”

“That asshole ruined a lot of good equipment.”

His arms tightened around Sean as Asbjorn nuzzled his graceful neck through the halo of wispy hair.

“Bjornnnn…,” Sean whined, trying to wiggle out of his grasp.

“I haven’t had dessert yet. And since you can’t study to save your life, I may as well enjoy… mmmm… the way you smell… mmmm… and the way you taste….”

Sean threw his head back, panting. “We really can’t. Bjorn, I can’t bomb on this final. Ahh… be sensible. Asbjorn! Please.”

The viselike grip of the strong arms loosened. “You go study, then, and I’ll put on some coffee.”

O
N
THE
last day of the term, the labs were handed in and Sean’s clothes were laid out on the bed. They’d need to do laundry while they were abroad, because they were trying to pack light.

Asbjorn surveyed the piles. “You need warmer socks than just the cotton ones. Here, have some of my woolen ones.” He tossed two pairs of gray, orange-trimmed hunting socks to Sean.

“Thanks.” Sean was just about to reach for Asbjorn’s spare rucksack—they’d decided to use backpacking luggage instead of suitcases, along with their regular book bags—when his phone rang. The number was long-distance and not familiar. “Yes?”

“Sean. Where have you been, Sean?” The voice on the other side spoke with slow, cool deliberation.

“Joe Green?”

Asbjorn scrambled for Sean’s jacket and fished the recording device out of Sean’s pocket.

“Yeah, Joe Green. So where have you been hiding all this time?”

“Uh… we just had finals. I was holed up, studying almost all the time,” Sean said.

“You weren’t taking my calls.” The statement had an accusatory edge to it.

“I wasn’t taking anyone’s calls. It was the finals.”

“I don’t like when people don’t take my calls. I don’t like being ignored.”

“Neither do I.” Sean forced his voice to sound wistful.

“What, you think Imma ignoring ya?” Joe Green’s voice grew coarse with anger.

“I was sad.” At least that much was true—at some point or another.

“So you’re feeling good about us, then?” Joe Green piped right up, his voice colored with a pale shade of hope.

“No… I still feel really awful about what happened. The lunar calendar is getting into a favorable phase.”

“So… you won’t kill yourself, will ya?”

“I might do it over the break—the winter solstice would be good for it. I might let my best friend be my second. He’ll dispatch me nice and clean—he’s good with a knife. Then I’ll haunt you if I can, and I’ll make you relive everything—from my point of view. You’ll be wishing for hell when that happens. And guess what. Your wishes will be answered.”

“But… but if you forgive me, then you won’t have to do that, will you?”

“That’s right. And to forgive you, I’ll need to look in your eyes as you say you’re sorry so I know you really mean it.”

“No. You’ll call the cops, and you’ll go home and I’ll go to jail.”

Damn straight. That’s the general idea.

“I just wish we could meet and, you know, start again?” Sean’s voice dripped with innocent desire for better things in life.

“You testified against my friends last Friday, Sean.”

“I didn’t tell no lies—like I said before,” Sean said.

“But you didn’t mention me. How nice of you.” The disembodied voice on the other side sounded surprised. Pleased, even.

“How do you know that?”

“I was in the courtroom.”

Sean bit back a gasp. “So will you meet me?”

“I’ll think about it.”

The line went dead.

They kept packing. Sean decided he couldn’t live and die by whether Joe Green decided to meet him or not. Their flight would leave the Logan International Airport at 1800 hours Eastern Standard Time and would be arriving in Copenhagen, Denmark at 0800 hours Greenwich time. Sean had volunteered that his cell phone wouldn’t work tomorrow and mentioned he’d be leaving early—just to discourage Joe Green from pursuing him.

The thought of two weeks abroad, away from Boston and the prying eyes of his stalker, sounded like heaven on earth.

Sean looked at Asbjorn, who was straightening the apartment prior to their departure, and smiled. Asbjorn was a man who liked his routines. He’d done this so many times, leaving and returning again, that he had already developed a rhythm.

Pack up. Set out clothing for tomorrow. Put away clean laundry. Clean the kitchen. Throw away all perishables except for the next day’s food. Straighten and vacuum and water the two plants by the window.

“Can I do anything to help?” Sean asked, feeling useless in the onslaught of sudden activity.

“No… wait. Okay. Empty all waste baskets and get the garbage ready for tomorrow.”

“That’s it?”

Asbjorn’s blue eyes met his, a moment of hesitation passed, and Asbjorn grinned a wicked smile. “I always clean the bathroom before I leave. If you really want….”

“Uh-huh.”

Sean rolled his eyes, steeling himself for the unfamiliar task. It proved surprisingly easy to do, however, and he reflected that he didn’t really know who cleaned the bathrooms in his life. Was it Mom and then his sisters and then a various lineup of janitors?

Just when they zipped and buckled their backpacks shut, ready to go bed, Sean’s cell phone rang again.

M
ARK
TRIED
his best to stifle his third yawn.

“Here, I’ll put on some coffee,” Asbjorn offered, his hands moving through the familiar motion of the ritual. The beans came out of the freezer and the grinder whirled with a loud, high-pitched whine. The smell of Vienna Roast, still subdued, began to fill the air. Asbjorn filled the paper filter and swished it into the cone. He filled the water to the mark. The button he pushed glowed red in the dimmed lighting of the kitchen.

Through all this, Asbjorn focused on his breathing, not daring to allow his temper to flare, not letting his hands tremble with excess adrenaline.

Nice and easy. Nice and easy.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He reached for a mug and the sugar bowl, knowing Mark liked his coffee “black as the devil, sweet as a kiss.” His peripheral vision caught the large duffel bag on the dining room floor.

He tried not to see Mark pull out a Kevlar vest. He struggled to keep his eyes away from Sean—it was Mark’s place to make sure it fit just right.

The hiss and drip of the coffeemaker failed to block the ripping sound of Velcro fasteners as Mark adjusted the buckles for Sean’s size.

There had been a time when he dressed in battle armor and supervised his squad doing the same, but that was a long time ago. A few years. Memories flooded in and he felt his adrenaline spike, the way it always did right before a mission. He rolled his shoulders and inhaled the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, hoping the civilized scent would banish the memory of spent gunpowder mingling with the smell of machine oil and the briny sea spray.

“S
MART
OF
you to tell him you were in the shower—that gives us extra time. Where did you agree to meet him exactly, just so we’re clear?” Mark’s voice was a calm, confident hum.

“On the corner of Walnut and Bass,” Sean replied, hoping his voice was steady. “He said Bass Street has a bit of a hill and there is a tree. He wanted to meet in the shade. I refused. I said under the street lamp.”

Mark nodded to the plainclothes detective with him. Short, tattooed, and pierced with black punk-cut hair, she looked a lot younger than she actually was, dressed in clothing typical to area college students. She wrote the information down.

“Colleen will relay all that to the team. I’ll leave you here. It’s ten fifteen now. I want you to walk out the front door at ten fifty and make your way to that street corner. I want you to stay where we can see you. We’ll already be in place. Everybody’s hyped up, so don’t do anything sudden.” Mark looked at his watch. “All right, then. What’s the signal when you have positive ID on the guy?”

“I take off my baseball cap.”

“Good. Where will your right hand be?”

“In my pocket, holding the pepper spray.”

“What will you do?”

“Just show up and lure him out. Get a positive ID, if I can.”

Mark grabbed the jacket, which disguised Sean’s bulletproof vest. “That’s right, cowboy. That’s
all
you’ll do. No getting too close, no getting in the shade unless you absolutely need to for identifying him. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Sean felt his jaw tighten. The moment had come.

“Okay. I’ll go and get in position.”

“There are two teams assuming positions now, sir,” Colleen said, her phone still glued to her ear, pencil grasped in the other hand.

“Where did you get all these people so fast?” Sean asked to distract both himself and Asbjorn.

“We made our big bust just two hours ago. Everyone’s still riding down their adrenaline high.”

“What happened?” Asbjorn’s voice cut through the thick, tense air.

“Can’t tell. Watch the news tomorrow.”

Mark accepted a cup of coffee. He drank it fast and surveyed the room once more. “Okay. We have a plan. We’re sticking to it.”

Asbjorn stirred. “Are you sure you don’t want me there?”

“Positive. This is gonna be a clean bust. Nothing irregular. We’ll give him no slick legal ways to get out of this, and that includes you doing the hard thing and waiting until it’s over.”

Colleen stayed behind to launch Sean at the right time and also to make sure Asbjorn didn’t get any ideas about following him to the scene.

“Hey, Sean.” Asbjorn crooked his finger, beckoning Sean into the dimly lit kitchen and out of Colleen’s sight.

Sean sauntered over, exuding confidence that was skin-deep. “Yeah, Bjorn.”

He felt Asbjorn’s bear paw slide around his waist and pulled him into an embrace. “I’d go instead of you if I could.”

“I know.”

“I wish I could have your back, Sunshine.” He buried his nose in Sean’s hair and inhaled his scent.

“You still do.”

“I hate this.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m not alone.” Sean’s lie was paper-thin. Never had he felt more exposed.

“Five minutes, Sean.” Colleen’s voice carried to the kitchen.

“Gotta go.”

“Come back and tell me all about it, Sean.”

Sean put on his winter boots and adjusted the jacket. Its fabric stretched snugly over his body armor. He checked his pepper spray once again. His cell phone was in the other pocket. He pulled a baseball cap on his head. “Okay. Ready to go.”