Away From the Sun - Part 9

Justin opened the door as soon as the car came to a complete stop and got out.  Briefly glancing up and down the street, he followed Anton and two more bodyguards inside the busy restaurant.  He barely noticed the people surrounding them, functioning almost on autopilot.  He still couldn’t believe he was doing this, wishing it were all just one big nightmare.  But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t wake up from it.

The four men came to a stop when they reached the back door.  Anton knocked.  Seconds later two large men opened the door. 

“We have meeting with Mr. Darmstadt?” Anton told them.

The men looked him over carefully before one of them spoke in a heavy German accent.  “Which one is Justin Taylor?”

“That would be me,” Justin breathed out, stepping forward. 

“Follow me,” the same man instructed.  “Just him,” he added, when Anton started to move inside. 

Justin exchanged a look with Anton before doing as told.  Leaving his three bodyguards behind, he followed Darmstadt’s men into a secluded room.

Few moments later, he saw him – half-sitting, half-lying on a large, overstuffed sofa.  The small table in front of him overflowed with different dishes. 

The man met Justin’s eyes. 

“Well, well, well,” he said smiling as he propped himself up into a sitting position.  “I never thought I would see the day.”  He stood up and extended his hand to Justin.

Checking to see where the jumbo-twins were, Justin reluctantly shook the man’s hand.

“I have to say,” Darmstadt said, sitting back down.  “When I spoke with your father and he told me that you would be coming to see me, I couldn’t believe it.  He must be very happy to finally have you by his side.”

Justin didn’t feel comfortable about this situation in the least.  Cautiously, he eyed both guards, who were now standing on both sides of the couch. 

“Please, sit, sit,” Darmstadt said.

Justin did just that, taking a seat in the chair across from the other man. 

“You hungry?  Hope your flight was good.”

The blond swallowed hard.  “It was fine.”  He cleared his throat.  “Thank you,” he added.

Darmstadt smiled.  “Well, tell me, how did Craig manage to change your mind?”

“He didn’t,” Justin snapped.  “It was simply a business deal,” he said, his voice steel-hard. 

The other man nodded, obviously more curious than he let on.  “Whatever it was, I’m glad to have finally met you.”

Justin couldn’t force himself to utter the same pleasantries, so, instead, he decided to cut to the chase.  “You have been developing something new in the last few months.  My father is interested in being your first customer.”

Darmstadt smiled.  “Straight to the business at hand.  I like that.”

Justin’s only response was a cold hard stare.

“Alright,” the other man’s facial expression turned serious.  “What do I get out of it?”

“Name your price.”

“This isn’t just about the money,” Darmstadt responded.

“I’m sure whatever it is, my father will be happy to oblige.”

Darmstadt studied Justin’s face for a few seconds before turning to one of his guards and motioning for him to bring something.  Less than a minute later, Justin was handed a thin folder.

“Give this to Craig.  If the terms are acceptable to him, he knows how to contact me.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

The voice in his head was telling him to open his eyes – to at least see who was coming, but Brian fought against the sound of the nearing footsteps.  The last thing he wanted right now was to wake up.  His eyes remained closed, his head, heavy with the hangover from the night before, buried deeper in the pillow.  At the moment he didn’t care if whoever had broken into his loft had come there to kill him.

The footsteps paused at the foot of the bed and Brian held his breath waiting to see what would happen next. 

“Brian, get up.”

It took him a couple of seconds to register that the voice belonged to Ben, which meant that he wasn’t going to die – at least not at this point it time.  He rolled onto his back, groaning immediately at the blinding pain that blanketed his head.  It made him wish that there actually was a man with a gun planning on killing him this morning. 

Ben, however, had other plans for him – torture, to be more precise.  He walked over to the side of the bed Brian was lying on and pushed the duvet off Brian.  In spite of himself, Brian opened his eyes, closing them immediately from the pain of the bright light flooding the bedroom. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled, his left hand absently searching for the warm covers. 

“Trying to clean up your mess,” Ben replied. 

“Fuck off,” Brian rumbled, pulling the corner of the duvet over his head.  He paused midpoint when he heard another voice coming from the other side of the bed.  His eyes flew open instantly and Brian sat up quickly, regretting the decision immediately when his head felt like it was about to split open. 

Holding back the groan, he looked over his shoulder at the stranger in his bed. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Ben asked before Brian could open his mouth.

“Who do you think?” the trick responded.  “What are you?  His boyfriend?”

Brian snickered and immediately groaned at the pain in his head.  The images from the previous night were fading in and out of his brain, but he vaguely remembered picking up a trick at Babylon and bringing him here. 

“I thought I told you to leave,” Brian said.

The stranger chuckled.  “Yeah, right before you stuck your dick in my mouth.”

“Jesus, Brian!” Ben turned away, shaking his head. 

Brian held up his right arm, as if trying to create some sort of a barrier between himself and the other man.  “Could you just stop…nagging?”  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and buried his head in his hands, trying to stop the room from spinning. 

“Alright, that’s it.”  Ben moved closer to him, seemingly talking to the trick.  “You, the fun’s over.  It’s time for you to go.” 

Brian felt the bed shift slightly and heard the shuffle at the other end of the room.

“And you – get your ass to the shower.  Now!”

Brian raised his eyes to meet Ben’s.  “Since when are you the bossing around type?”  Ben wasn’t amused in the least.  Without another word he pulled Brian to his feet and into the bathroom.

“You know, if you wanted us to give it another go, all you had to do was ask,” Brian quipped as Ben opened the door into the shower stall.

“Shut up and get in,” Ben said, pushing the slender man under the running water.

In spite of himself, Brian yelped as the ice-cold water hit his skin.  He worked quickly to turn on the warm water and soon was able to relax under the luke-warm shower.  “What the fuck did you do that for?” he inquired, turning to the other man who was leaning against the glass door. 

“You need to come to your senses, Brian,” Ben replied.  “Right now.  You can’t afford to lose it now.  Justin can’t afford you to lose it.”

Brian glared at him.  The last thing he needed was being told off by some self-righteous prick.  “What the fuck do you know?  Justin?  Justin doesn’t give a shit what happens here.  He made his choice.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”  Ben took a step closer, not caring that his shirt was being sprayed with water.  “Justin risked EVERYTHING for you!  And for what?  So that you could get trashed and fuck your brains out every night.  I don’t think so.  He needs you, Brian.  Now more than ever.  THAT is what I know!”

With that, Ben closed the door and left the bathroom. 

Brian wasn’t sure how long he just stood there under the heavy current.  Whether it was the ice-cold wake up call or Ben’s words, soon his head started to clear. 

He got out of the shower when the water began to turn cold.  Grabbing the towel, he headed into the bedroom.  Only when he heard the noise coming from the kitchen did Brian remember that he wasn’t alone in the loft.  Quickly wiping himself off and pulling on a pair of jeans, Brian joined the other man in the kitchen.

He slid onto one of the barstools and stared at Ben who was busy pouring coffee into a cup before placing it in front of Brian.

The anger that both men felt earlier seemed to have dissipated in the time Brian spent in the shower.  Brian waited patiently for Ben to tell him whatever it was he came here to say, since one didn’t have to be a genius to realize that there was more than just simple concern for Justin. 

“So, what’s going on?” Brian finally asked when he realized that Ben wouldn’t be the first one to speak up.

The other man looked up at him, hesitating for a moment.  “I think Lindsay knows.”

Brian put down the cup and stared back at Ben.  This is what he had been dreading ever since he came back from Odessa.  “What makes you think so?”

“She kept asking an awful lot of questions about Justin: when was the last time I saw him, what the plan was to get you out; things like that.  And she’s been looking for you for the past two days.”

Brian swore under his breath as he walked over to the coffee table where his cell phone lay.  He picked it up and stared at the screen.  Six missed calls.  He tossed the phone on the couch and ran his hand through his hair.

“What are you gonna do?” Ben asked, following him into the kitchen.

Brian exhaled sharply.  “I don’t know.  I don’t fucking know anymore.”  Feeling like he had been up for the past forty-eight hours, Brian collapsed down into the chair.

“Well, whatever it is, you better think of it fast.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

A couple of hours later Brian was walking toward Lindsay’s office.  Stopping in front of the closed door, he took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly.  There was no sense in trying to prolong it any further.  Raising his right hand, he knocked lightly on the door.

“Come in,” Lindsay’s voice called from inside the office.

Swinging the door open, Brian walked in.

“Brian?  Where have you been?”

“Just out and about,” he responded.

“Where?  Out of calling area?”

“You call almost as much as Mikey does,” Brian replied, sitting down in one of the chairs across from the blonde woman.  “You know that?”

Lindsay stared at him intently for a few seconds.  “Where have you been?”

“You said I could take as much time off as I wanted,” he reminded her.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she countered.

“I wasn’t aware I had to report to you what I do outside of work.”

“You do when it’s something that goes against the Agency’s policy.”

The two stared off for a few moments. 

Brian was the first to speak.  “I was with somebody.”

“Justin?” she asked, a little too quickly for Brian’s taste.

He hesitated.  “Among others.”

Lindsay nodded.  “How is Justin?”

“Fine.”  He sure hoped so.

“Things are good with you two?”

His head cocked slightly to the side, Brian studied his friend’s face for a while.  Ben was right.  She knew.  “Since when are you interested in my love life?”

“I’m just worried, that’s all.  With everything that’s happened…”

Brian sneered.  “You know, you never were a good liar, Linds.  Which is kinda ironic considering the line of work you’re in.  So, why don’t you cut the bullshit and tell me what you want to know?”

Lindsay seemed to think about it before nodding.  “Where is he?” she asked.

There was no point in lying anymore.  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.  He could tell her about Odessa, but there wouldn’t be any reason.  Justin and Craig Taylor were long gone by now.

“Why should I believe you?”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “That’s up to you.  You asked me a question.  I gave you the answer.  What you do with that information is completely up to you.”

After a few seconds of silence, Lindsay’s expression relaxed, finally showing concern and worry that she had been keeping back.  “What is he doing, Brian?”

“Whatever he has to.”  While he didn’t agree with Justin’s actions, he knew that he was the only one who could defend them, who understood.  “He had to do whatever it took to get me out.  Unlike some people.”

Lindsay looked as though he had just slapped her and Brian got a weird sense of satisfaction from that. 

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“None of it is.  None of it is fair,” he snapped.  “But it’s the truth.”

“Brian, you know that if there was something I could do…”

 

“There was something you could do.  There were a lot of things you could have done.  But instead you chose to let Justin do all the dirty work and now you’re surprised that it’s exactly what he did?”  He had been holding on to the anger for days now and it felt good to finally have someone to lash out at.

Lindsay’s stone expression was now back as she glared at him.  Rising from her chair she walked around the desk and over to the other side of the office.  Picking up an envelope, she returned to where Brian sat.  She handed him the cardboard envelope.

Brian looked up at her, waiting for more, but she simply glanced at the object in his hand.  Taking it as his cue, Brian reached in and pulled out the paper inside.  It was a photograph.  His stomach dropped as his eyes focused on the image – Justin coming out of a restaurant, surrounded by three men.

“Do you know who they are?” she asked quietly. 

He nodded. 

Still, Lindsay felt the need to tell him.  “They’re Craig Taylor’s men.   And this restaurant belongs to Ludwig Darmstadt.”

Brian’s eyes shot up to her face, realizing what she was trying to tell him.  “I thought he was dead,” he finally managed to say, his eyes once again staring at the photograph of Justin.

“So did we.  Until we got intel that he wasn’t as dead as we thought.  We put surveillance in areas where he’s been known to show up.  I received this three days ago.”

Sighing loudly, Brian leaned back in his chair.  He tried to focus, tried to figure out what to do next, but all he could think of was the picture still held tightly in his hands. 

“Did he join his father?” Lindsay asked.

Brian swallowed hard.  “He made a deal,” he said quietly. 

“Him working for Craig Taylor in exchange for getting you out?”

Brian nodded. 

Lindsay sighed as she leaned against the edge of the desk, her hands crossed in front of her.  “This is not good, Brian.  When they see this at Langley…”

Brian’s head shot up.  “You can’t.  Lindsay, you can’t send this to Langley.” He stood up, the envelope falling to the floor.

“How do you expect me to hide something like this?”

“If they find out, they’ll put him on the most wanted list.  Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Of course I do.”

“You can’t let it happen,” he said, pleadingly.  He’d get down on his knees and beg if he thought it would do any good.  “You can’t.”

She seemed to think about it for a few seconds.  “Three days,” she finally said.  “You have three days to find him and bring him home.  After that, I can’t make any guarantees.”

He could only nod in response.  Placing the photograph on the desk, Brian quickly left Lindsay’s office.

He couldn’t lose another minute, another second.  He headed straight for Daphne’s desk. 

 

“Brian!” she exclaimed, surprised to see him behind her. 

“I need you to track all incoming calls to Jennifer Taylor’s house, cell phone, work - anything that can be tracked, track it.  Same with all his friends and family members.”

Her face mirrored his emotions.  “What’s going on?”

“We have to find him,” he simply said.  The less she knew right now, the better it was for her.  She’d find out soon enough. 

She nodded and immediately turned back to her computer. 

~~~***~~~***~~~

Twelve hours later they still hadn’t found anything tangible that could help them find where Justin was. 

“Dammit!” Brian tossed a stack of papers he was reviewing on the desk and got up. 

Daphne watched him for a few minutes.  “They know about him, don’t they?”

Brian stopped pacing and turned to her.  He simply nodded. 

“But even if we find him…how would you get him to come back?  He wasn’t exactly jumping in your arms waiting to be rescued in Odessa.”

Her question was valid and was one that Brian went over and over in his head.  “I wasn’t ready then.  Wasn’t prepared for him to say no.  This time, I’ll drag him home kicking and screaming if I have to.”

Daphne nodded.  “Great.  Now all we have to do is find him.”

“You can stop,” came the voice from behind.

Brian turned around only to come face-to-face with Lindsay.  “I still have forty-eight hours.”

“Not anymore,” the blonde responded.  “There was an explosion in Madrid.  An office building was completely destroyed.”

“What does that have to do with Justin?” Brian inquired, even though in the back of his mind he already knew.

Lindsay took in a sharp breath.  “He's the one responsible.”

Go to Part 10

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