mander3_swish (mander3_swish) wrote in qaf_giftxchnge, @ 2012-12-31 15:19:00 |
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Exile
Chapter 1
Unwilling to face anyone at the moment, Justin walked out the back entrance into the alley, looking for a quiet place to smoke and regroup. The usually well-lit back alley was strangely dark – only one of the lights Brian had ordered to be installed there was working. Although surprising, this didn’t concern Justin at the moment; he decided the darkness would suit his purposes perfectly.
He took a few steps toward the recently emptied dumpster, broken glass crunching under his feet. He looked up and realized that the lamps looked like they’ve been busted. Must be something really recent or Brian would have had it fixed, he thought, especially before an event like the one tonight. He decided that rather than standing there brooding, he’d do something useful with his smoke break and look if there’s any other weird damage to Brian’s club. He started walking further into the alley, still looking up and playing with his zippo lighter. He really shouldn’t have been surprised when his foot caught something – a stone, a corner of the dumpster, empty air – and he went sprawling on the cold ground littered with tiny shards of glass. Cursing softly and laughing at himself, he got up and realized that the lighter that flew out of his hand mid-fall was nowhere to be found.
“Fuck!” Justin realized that the darkness in the alley was no longer useful and would make it that much more difficult for him to find it. The zippo, a nice, weighty pewter inscribed with his initials, wasn’t worth much monetarily, but was important to Justin as a memento of Vic Grassi and he treasured it greatly. Getting down on his hands and knees and not caring in the slightest at what this would do to his dress clothes, he started looking for it. He thoroughly checked the area where he fell, but found nothing. Lying down flat on the ground, he looked under the dumpster and saw a faint glint of something way behind by the wall. If that was his lighter, then it somehow bounced off the wall and fell into a little niche created in the corner by the dumpster, the wall and a chimney-like protrusion.
“Great! At least it didn’t fall into dumpster itself. Thank God for small graces.” Justin continued to grumble as he used all his strength to move the dumpster slightly in order to allow him to crawl into the niche and retrieve his possession. He shimmied into the tight space with difficulty and bent down as far as he could and tried to reach his lighter.
A minute later he heard the door open and a couple of people step out. He was about to call out and ask for help moving the heavy dumpster a bit further out, but something made him change his mind.
“Check the alley, see if anybody’s here. We don’t want some fag seeing us, now do we?”
“Why do you think I busted the damned flood lights, for fun?” Came a harsh response.
Justin heard the men moving around, one of them coming awfully close to the niche behind the dumpster where he was concealed. Thankfully, he moved on without detecting Justin’s presence.
“All clear. We are alone.”
“The camera?”
“Didn’t I fucking already tell you that I disabled it? Memory faulty, Pete? Want me to repeat it again, just for good measure?”
“Shut up. Did anybody see you?”
“Not really.”
“What the fuck does that mean, Stan, not really?”
“Some skinny blond fag asked me if I needed any help when he saw me fumbling around by the bar.”
“What?” Pete roared.
“Don’t worry, Petey, I told him one of the beer taps was busted, that I’d already fixed it. The kid smiled prettily and walked off. Didn’t suspect a thing, I promise.”
Fuck! Justin thought. He’s talking about me. What the fuck is going on?
“What did you mean by ‘fumbling around,’ Stan?” Pete asked in a tone that sent shivers down Justin’s spine.
“I said don’t worry. The bomb’s in place, safe and sound.” He cackled gleefully. “They, however, won’t be. In a few minutes this place is history and the fags will think twice before trying to raise money for their filth.”
“That kid…you sure…”
“Fuck, Pete, he’ll be dead with the rest of them as soon as you press the button. By the way, where were you while I was doing all the hard work?”
“Taking care of the guard stationed by this door and any passers-by who came by this way. What do you think?”
Justin broke out in cold sweat. He walked out that door just a few minutes ago. He had no idea how he had missed the killer, but he thanked God that he had.
“Now,” Stan said, “let’s get the hell out of here before we are seen or you accidentally blow up the both of us along with the rest of the faggots inside.”
“In a minute. We need to make the call first.”
“Make it quick!”
Justin heard a phone being dialed, very faint ringing, then Pete’s said in a surprisingly deferential manner, “Mr. Schneider? It’s done…No, I meant it’s planted…I’m sorry Mr. Schneider, I thought you wanted an update once we…of course…yes, Mr. Schneider…yes, I’ll call you back as soon as the place is rubble.” He clicked off and kicked the dumpster viciously.
Justin felt the vibration of the kick and was grateful that the dumpster was heavy enough not to have moved an inch and crushed him in the process.
“Fuck! I thought you told me he wanted progress reports at every step, Stan? He was fucking pissed I called him while the place is still standing. You better not have fucked up the set-up, Stan. Cause if you have…so help me, I’ll kill you myself.”
“I told you, I got it done. Don’t worry, we’ll level the place. Now, let’s get the fuck out of here. Where’d you park the car?”
“7-11 a mile west of here.”
“Perfect.”
Justin heard the two moving away. As quietly and as quickly as possible he shimmied out of his hiding place and crouching low to the ground, he glanced towards the mouth of the alley at the two retreating men. As they briefly stopped at the entrance of the alley, bathed in bright light coming from the street, Justin recognized the man at the bar who planted the bomb, as well as the other one, Pete, he saw him delivering beer to Babylon a few days before when he stopped by with freshly printed promotional posters for tonight’s benefit. He must have been scoping out the place, Justin thought.
As soon as the two killers were out of sight, Justin scrambled up and ran inside the building. Carl, I have to get to Carl. He’ll know what do to, were his only thoughts. He saw Carl across the room standing close to the stage where Cindi Lauper was performing “Shine” near his family and friends. He tried to get to him through the crowd of people as fast as possible, but the mass of dancing bodies was making it difficult. He didn’t want to scream that there was a bomb in the place and cause a panic, but he realized that if he didn’t get to Carl soon, he may have to come up with an alternate plan.
Unfortunately, he had no time to do either, because a minute later the place was rent apart and his body was flung through the air and crashed against a wall. He was conscious for a few seconds hearing screaming and unbearable noise, seeing sparks shooting out of every corner and the beginning of a fire.
Too late, he thought. Then everything went to black.
Chapter 2
Brian’s limo was speeding along the streets towards Babylon. He kept urging the driver to go faster, even though he subconsciously knew that they’ve broken every speed limit already. The only reason they haven’t been pulled over, was probably because every cop in the Pitts was speeding towards Babylon, just like he was.He briefly left the hospital to check the loft, the diner and then Justin’s apartment in the bad part of town to see if he was there. He wasn’t. He called Daphne, who was at home recovering from mild smoke inhalation, but she hasn’t seen or heard from Justin either. Brian went back to the hospital and continued to prowl the visitor’s room in fear and agitation, waiting for some word on his blond.
24 hours after the explosion at Babylon, no one had heard from Justin or had seen him alive.
Chapter 3
Justin came to a few minutes after the explosion. Though he wasn’t sure how many – it could have been two or twenty. He ascertained that he was alive, that his body seemed to still be in one piece and that besides a throbbing head, ringing ears and a small cut on his brow he was basically unharmed. He got up and walked out the side entrance and straight into Carl, which was a blessing of enormous proportions. Carl wanted to take him to the hospital or at least get a paramedic to look at him, but Justin convinced him otherwise will a well-chosen sentence: “I saw the men who planted the bomb.”
“What? Bomb?” Carl exclaimed. “I thought it was a gas leak or something!”“It’s a temporary safe house. We don’t usually get ‘digs like this.’ The owner is related to a higher up in the Bureau and is allowing the use of the house for a few months, rent free.” The man at the door explained as he ushered them inside.
It was obvious to Justin that they’ve been watched and were overheard. For some reason, it made him feel safe. He extended his hand as his WASP upbringing dictated and introduced himself.
“Hello. I’m Justin Taylor. Nice to meet you.”
“Special Agent Adam Modig, FBI.” They shook hands.
To Justin, who has only seen FBI agents as they were portrayed on television, thought that this guy was tailor-made for an episode of Law & Order – tall, dark-haired, but slightly graying at the temples, very handsome, but in a rugged kind of way, with piercing gray eyes that seemed stuck in a don’t-fuck-with-me expression, and, of course, wearing a dark suit that fit him like a glove.
“Carl, thank for calling and for bringing him here,” Modig said.
“No problem.”
“Now, Justin. I’m afraid, I’ll need you to tell me everything again in as much detail as you possibly can.”
“Sure. I’ll draw you a picture too, if you want.” When the agent’s brow went up in a question mark, Justin explained. “I’m an artist. I mean that I can draw their faces. I wasn’t trying to be a dick.”
“Great. I’m sure it’ll help,” the agent answered, sounding rather skeptical.
Justin shrugged. He’d draw their faces as accurately as he possibly could and Special Agent Adam Modig would either be impressed or he wouldn’t. Justin didn’t really care; he just wanted to get this show on the road and stay safe in the process.
Agent Modig led them to a spacious kitchen, poured them all a cup of coffee and asked Justin to repeat his story once again. He listened in silence, without interruptions and almost motionless, except for his arm bringing a coffee cup to his lips every couple of minutes. When Justin requested pencils and paper, he found him some and then watched Justin sketch for about fifteen minutes. When Justin was done talking and drawing, Agent Modig took the sketch, looked at it for a full minute motionless, then got up and suddenly began to pace, raking his hand through his hair in a jerky, agitated manner.
“Schneider…I’ve been after this guy for a fucking decade! It’s him, Carl, it’s him and his little army of terrorists, and we finally have a witness again!” Modig said. Then he turned to Justin and explained that he was convinced that this bombing at Babylon was the work of the same organization and that the FBI had suspected Julian Schneider was its head and mastermind of various crimes, and they had been investigating him for years, but they never had any concrete evidence to connect him. Even worse, any time they got a member of the group in custody, they ended up dead one way or another before they could testify against anyone else in a court of law.
In the last decade there had been exactly two eyewitnesses to the crimes and both had ended up dead. A few months prior, an FBI agent who had managed to infiltrate the organization and finally found concrete evidence they could use to indict the man at the top and three of his top henchmen, died in a mysterious car accident on the way to deliver that evidence. A tanker carrying extremely flammable chemicals plowed into his car. The collision ignited the contents of the tanker, exploded and the fire destroyed any evidence the FBI agent had on him. Two years’ worth of undercover investigation resulted in nothing.
"So, what you are saying is that if I testify, I'm going to end up dead. Is that right?" Justin asked.
"Not if we play this right," the Agent responded.
"Play. Play? I barely survived an explosion, Agent Modig! This is the second time in my life I've almost died. If I testify, that'll be it - third time's the charm, right? I don't want to die."
"I will guarantee your safety."
"You people couldn't keep one of your own undercover agents alive! How the fuck can you guarantee anything? Do you have any idea how fast rumors travel on Liberty Avenue? If even one person sees me talking to the FBI, it'll be all over the community in an hour with half the people convinced I'm about to go to prison for something and the other half convinced I'm fucking half the agents in your field office. Meaning the guys that planted the bomb will know that I am alive and whoever is responsible for this bombing, this Julian Schneider, will know who I am before Liberty decides which half is right."
Agent Modig smiled in satisfaction. "Not if they think you are dead."