She promised full cooperation with Federal investigators, intensive internal reviews, and full restitution to Nick Aster. The building containing the ghastly illegal cells in the photos would be permanently closed and demolished.
Nick allowed himself a good, solid gloat. One down. LeBlanc had been one of the top “let’s arrest Nick again” cheerleaders. Now LeBlanc was effectively fired.
Dan Fisher and AUSA Elsbeth Werner had been developing the case against the guards who had abused Nick, fighting an obstructive police department every step of the way. Now, the NYPD would throw Nick’s attackers under the bus at them like human sacrifices.
It was a good morning. He got up, and walked to the window, realizing that walking no longer took agonizing effort with every step. He was weak, and sore, but he was getting better. The sky was clear, and the sun was out.
JOHN
John stared at the television in a dive bar they were waiting to meet a shady art runner in.
“What is it, boss?” asked Kelly, who’d just come in.
“Nick,” said John, still staring at the screen. In the space of a five minute newscast, he’d gone from pure rage at whoever released those photos to sneaking suspicion to the stunned knowledge that Nick was behind it all.
“What’s Nick doing?” asked Kelly.
“Playing with tigers.”
“Uh ....”
John pried himself away from the TV.
“Unbelievable. The guy can barely walk. It’s all he can do to sit down without screaming. He’s been back two days, and he just got the head of NYPD public relations fired.”
NICK
Guilt and shame. Agent Dan Fisher oozed it when Nick entered his office. He couldn’t bear to look at Nick.
Nick cut straight to the point. “The guy your whistleblower in Rikers thinks might exist does. His name is Assistant Chief Chad Starr, and he’s been using the jail as a mechanism for coercing plea bargains for nearly two decades.”
Fisher stared at him, his confusion transparent. How had Nick known there was even a whistleblower, let alone his theory, or a name?
Nick continued. “I don’t have proof. You’ll have to get that. But a careful look at Starr’s record should get the ball rolling.”
“I -- what --”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” said Nick, turning and walking away. He paused with his hand on Fisher’s office door and looked back.
“I’m not writing a book,” he said in the gentle voice he’d learned from John. “If you have photos from the Pakistan mess, get them to me. You might find that people care more than you think. I have two stacks of letters six inches high on my desk from NYPD officers. Every last one of them is an apology.”
CHAD STARR
Assistant Chief Chad Starr was across town staring at his television in rage.
He hadn’t wanted the lawyers to sign the agreement with that slick little pet felon the FBI had slinking around like a neutered snake.
Not just because he couldn’t stand the smirking self-righteous little twat and his lectures about the oh-so-importance of art. Not just because his FBI accomplice John Langley was one of the most entitled, arrogant suits in the city.
No, he, Chad Starr, had known better. He’d known there was a double-cross somewhere when Nick Aster, a man who deserved a sound beating if there ever was one, had cheerfully signed away his chance at a million-dollar payday.
Well, Starr knew how to double-cross too. Charges didn’t have to stick in order to give a piece of shit a very bad day. That agreement the idiot lawyers had signed meant successful prosecution was out the window, but there was no reason he couldn’t issue an arrest warrant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
NICK
Nick ventured out of the FBI building for the first time that afternoon, in search of fresh air and a freshly baked snickerdoodle. He found both, and relished the feeling of the sun on his skin. He read for a few minutes on his phone until the battery died. There was a warm breeze, and he closed his eyes and enjoyed it.
Opened them, and happened to see the green light blink out to black on his ankle. He froze, heart pounding.
The FBI building was two blocks away. If he moved fast, he could make it there before cops swarmed his location. He jogged for the building, out of breath when he went through security.
Jogging had been an awful idea for his stomach wounds. He was just vanishing down a hallway when one of the security officers called out in a stern voice.
“Aster!”
Aster ran. He ran for Art Crimes, remembered his team were all in DC, and changed course to Cybercrime and Neil Kasdan.
NEIL
Ten minutes previous, Kasdan had gotten a call from the FBI’s inter-agency liaison. The liaison, among other things, monitored BOLOs and arrest warrants. He’d been instructed by John Langley to sound an alarm immediately if a warrant were issued for Nick Aster.
Kasdan, a little sick when he remembered Nick was out of the office, checked his anklet and tried to call him. The call went to voice mail.
Neil’s next call was to John, who told him to call Gary Wills immediately. They were to find Nick before the NYPD at all costs.
“Then what?” asked Kasdan.
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line, and Langley’s voice was strained when he replied. “Take him to Sing Sing.”
Kasdan whistled. “Ouch.”
“That or Wills can put ‘im in protective custody, but it sounded like he might be better off where people know him.”
“Isn’t that place pretty awful?” asked Kasdan.
“They’ve never handed him back to me beaten within an inch of his life and bleeding out in a dungeon,” said John bluntly. "If he's in a state prison, the city police won't be able to get near 'im. Only way I can think of to keep the guy safe."
That was the heart of the matter, and Kasdan grimaced and nodded. “I’ll call Wills.”
Gary Wills was on high alert for a call like this. They conferred on Aster’s location. Wills was twenty minutes away. It would take Kasdan at least ten to get out of the building and down to the cafe. If the NYPD tapped into the US Marshal’s electronic monitoring system, they could have an officer there before Kasdan.
“Hold on,” said Wills. He came back a minute later. “I just disabled Aster’s anklet. NYPD won’t be able to find him. Go to the cafe and get him, I’ll meet you in your office.”
JOHN
John squeezed his eyes shut, head down. Tears were seeping from them. He’d just sent Nick back to prison. From another state. When he was at his most vulnerable.
If his own trust was this shot, he couldn’t imagine Nick’s.
“Aster, I’m sorry,” he whispered. Maybe in some way, Nick would hear. “I’m so sorry.”
He bit his lip and braced himself to call Sing Sing.
Please don’t abandon me if they put me in a cage.
I love you, John. I don’t think you know that.
John drew in a deep, shuddery breath.
Watching Nick be thrown back into prison when Callie had been murdered, and not being able to go see him until he’d gathered the evidence to arrest Allieo for it, had wrenched John’s soul.
If there was any saving grace, it’d been that John had no part in it, and Nick knew that. It had been an injustice during a time of intense grief that Nick had endured with an almost superhuman lack of complaint.
This, too, was sending Nick back to prison when he was profoundly vulnerable. And this time, it was John giving the order.
NICK
Nick froze halfway to agent Kasdan’s office when he heard a conversation on the other side of a cubicle wall. “Yeah, they just issued a warrant for Aster’s arrest.”
“Huh?”
“The city and the feds are getting into a war over it, I guess. City’s charging Aster big time.”
Neil’s throat closed. His blood pounded in his ears. His hands
and feet went cold, and he was dizzy.
He was dead.
If they caught him, he was dead.
Nick ran. Voices behind him raised to a shout. He bolted into a stairwell.
Running upstairs burned his legs and tore at his stomach. A metal door slam below, and people called his name.
They were hounds, remorseless, relentless. One more beating like that would kill him. If not physically, then in spirit.
If there was even a chance these agents would send him back to Rikers when they caught him - his pain medication and antibiotics would be seized and denied, he’d be beaten, and John would be in another state while he died slowly and painfully.
He bolted through a door out of the stairwell and ended up in a file storage area. He gave the room a frantic scan. There was a metal ladder on the side of the wall about forty feet away, leading to some sort of access hatch, probably into an interstitial area between floors.
He ran for his life.
Kasdan caught up to him just as his fingers wrapped around the ladder.
“STOP!”
Nick spun to face him, every nerve and muscle in his body overwhelmed with adrenaline, his heart pounding and his lungs burning for air. There were more agents on his heels, coming through the door but not there yet.
Nick clenched his fingers up into a fist, positioned his right foot back so that he was standing sideways to Kasdan, then pivoted on his left foot to punch Kasdan in the nose with the full weight of his body behind the blow.
Nick might be injured, but he still knew how to use physics. He was also marginally larger and stronger than Kasdan.
Neil Kasdan dropped to the floor with a startled howl, and pain shot through Nick’s arm from his knuckles on up.
Nick’s gut twisted with cold, horrified guilt. He’d never hurt anyone in law enforcement, nor for that matter anyone who wasn’t directly threatening him. Neil Kasdan was a sweet person who absolutely didn’t deserve it.
It was one of the other agents who took him down, twisting his right arm behind his back and shoving while sweeping his leg out from under him.
Nick was thrown to the ground in an instant, and screamed in agony when he landed. His stomach wounds made what would have been a relatively benign throw blindingly painful.
“STOP!” yelled Kasdan. “He’s badly injured, DO NOT use force on him. STOP!”
He and Kasdan froze on the gray-carpeted floor in a suspended moment staring at each other in pain. Kasdan’s left eye was tightly shut, and his other eye was watering, his teeth gritted. His nose was bleeding like a leaky faucet. He looked betrayed and angry and worried. Nick was in the grip of freezing agony and terror that wouldn’t even let him breathe.
The other agents backed off. Neil fumbled for his handcuffs, crawled to Nick’s side, and pulled his hands behind his back. As soon as that registered, Nick screamed, not in pain but in pure terror. He tried to jerk loose, and to his shock, it worked. Kasdan simply let him go.
“Nick, I know this isn’t you, this is fear and trauma. I know you probably can’t control it. I’m going to cuff you, by force if need be. But I want you to keep telling yourself over and over that I’m not going to retaliate or hurt you or punish you. You’re not fighting for your life, you’re okay.”
Nick managed a short nod. But he chose to repeat something else to himself.
Do not hit the nice FBI agent. Do not hit the nice FBI agent. Do not hit the nice FBI agent.
He managed that much, but when his arms were pulled back again, he screamed and wrenched his whole upper body away. He knew it was Kasdan, but his body remembered only agony and dragging and burning and terror.
He screamed again. “John! Help -- John --”
“Aster! Nick! Please, I’m trying not to hurt you, please just hold still. Nick! I’m hurting you and it feels awful, please don’t make me do this. Please.”
I’m trying, I hear you, I know it’s you, I’m trying, Nick wanted to say, but couldn’t. There was a heavy weight on his back, and a knee pressed down on the back of one of his bruised thighs, and he screamed again, using every ounce of will he had not to drive the elbow of one of his pinned-back arms into the face he knew instinctively was up there.
Someone else loomed over him and Kasdan yelled. “Get back! Get back!”
A handcuff closed around his right wrist, and within seconds Kasdan had the other wrist secure and rolled off him, gasping for breath.
“Go away, guys,” said Kasdan. “Back off. We’re okay.”
They did, and Neil and Nick recovered for a few moments, out of breath and hurting. Neil Kasdan buried his bleeding nose in the crook of his elbow and sniffed.
Nick’s sickening sense of guilt returned. How had he punched this guy? “I’m sorry, Neil. I’m -- I can’t believe I did that.”
Neil left his nose and face hidden in his left arm, but reached out to Nick with his right and patted a nearby elbow. After they lay there for a few minutes, Neil sat up. His eyes were watering and his nose was bleeding, but he was over the shock. He patted Nick’s arm.
“Roll tord me a bit, buddy. Wanna check dose cuffs and double-lock ‘em so dey can’ tigh’n.”
Nick had to smile at the forced, nasal accent the refined, cultured agent had suddenly acquired as his nose swelled. He obeyed, managing not to groan with every move.
Kasdan took his left wrist in a firm but gentle grip, and everything went to bits again, his vision went red, and he screamed.
He knew, absolutely knew, it was absurd. It was a correct and kind thing Agent Kasdan was doing, double-locking the cuffs so they couldn’t close any tighter around his wrists and hurt him or cut off circulation. This agent was such a nice person that he wasn’t even mad that Nick had nearly broken his nose. There was no need to be screaming his head off in panic, and he couldn’t stop.
“I’m done. I’m done. I’m done,” Kasdan’s gentle voice reassured him.
“I’m sorry,” Nick gasped. “Trauma -- not -- logical. You -- kay?”
“Yeah,” said Kasdan. “Really dot gnowing ‘ow you surbibed ‘at beating. Hurts. I’m okay, doah. It’s okay.”
There were more voices, and doors slamming, and footsteps. Someone approached, and Nick stomach started hurting even worse.
“Hey, Nick,” said a sympathetic voice as the someone knelt by his side. “It’s Gary Wills. How you doin’?”
Nick groaned. He wanted to think it was at least a welcoming groan, and struggled for something better. “Kay.”
“I take it you heard about the warrant?”
“Charges?” asked Nick, his voice faint.
“Aggravated assault, one count. Accessory to aggravated assault, ten counts. Possession of contraband in a correctional facility, two counts. Vandalism, one count. Theft, one count. Interfering with the duties of a correctional officer, one count.”
Nick exhaled audibly, his muscles shaking, tears glazing his eyes, unable to move. This was the sort of situation that led to innocent men being put on death row, or a stolen sandwich leading to 20 years in a rusted-out penitentiary. He should have run. There was a limit to what John could save him from.
Kasdan, his hand shaking, touched Nick between the shoulder-blades and made a brave attempt at a reassuring pat. It actually succeeded, simply because he was so incredibly gentle and sensitive about it.
“Charges won’ tick. You ‘ave immunity, remember? You won’t even be arraigned.”
“Call -- John?”
“Yeah.” Gary’s voice was kind. “We both think this is the best way to keep you safe, for now.”
Nick tensed as heat sliced up through his stomach and nearly choked him. He clenched his fists. “What?”
There was a palpable awkwardness in the silence. It was Gary Wills who broke it. “Nick -- we’re taking you back to prison.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Damage
NICK
Nick closed his eyes, heartsick and relieved at the same time. He could handle Sing
Sing. Place wasn’t fun, but compared with the threat of being hauled back into Riker’s, it was a cozy vacation retreat with spa treatments. He wasn’t there because of an escape, or through any fault of his own, so it wasn’t like they were going to throw him in solitary.
He went limp on his side on the hard commercial carpet of the floor of the FBI and let his heart break.
John sent me back to prison.
“Hey,” said a soft voice. Neil Kasdan lifted his head almost tenderly and slipped his rolled-up jacket under it.
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 21
