Lessons in Betrayal (prologue)

Prologue


Hack closed his eyes, and one by one shut out the sounds of his surroundings; the occasional car passing by, the constant drone of the air conditioner, and the slow rhythmic tick of the battery powered clock on his kitchen wall that his mother gave him when he moved into his first apartment. One by one he shut out the sounds; he started shutting out thoughts as well. Slowly the stress of the overwhelming afternoon started to ebb away. Only one thought kept cycling through his mind, refusing to be ignored, the one thought he needed to be free of the most, the memory of how he betrayed his closest and only true friend for another materialistic obsession. "Did I really betray him? If he had done his part, it wouldn't have come to this. Maybe he's blaming me for his faults," he pondered.
As Hack sat on the cushion of his pseudo-Persian carpet of his living room floor, he drew up his knees and folded his arms across them and rested his chin on his wrists. "How did it come to this?" he asked himself.
"How can I fix it?
What can I do to make Dave understand my position in this?"
After many failed attempts, Hack realized he had to try a different approach to push this train of thought off the tracks. He could not erase the picture of Chief Baker taking the ADA from his hands over and over again. This one small action is what caused all this turmoil. If only it could be undone!
Instead of seeing it going from my hands to the chief's, if I picture myself taking it from the chief, maybe I can relax.
I'll play the sequence in rewind mode," he thought to himself.
Hack leaned back against the couch with his eyes still closed and mentally pushed rewind. He almost instantly felt warm, almost stuffy, and a numbing sensation engulfed his whole body. Determined not to be interrupted by physical discomforts, he mentally replayed the scene backwards. He could see himself taking the small computer from the chief's hands. He could feel the air getting warmer and warmer as he replayed the scene backward over and over. The scene in his mind became clearer almost in sync with the temperature change. The numbing sensation increased to the point of an uncomfortable - but not unpleasant - tingling. He could see quite clearly, the chief laying the computer into his hands. He could hear the faint chorus of "Brown Eyed Girl." He could almost feel the weight and the smooth sides. It was almost as if he were there. In his mental scene he could see his hands on the ADA pulling it gently toward his body. He looked up into the chief's eyes, then down at his hands. He saw the left hand release, and watched in slow motion as the right one started to let go. It seemed like an eternity watching Baker slowly loosen his grip. As soon as the hand was clear of the ADA, a sudden cold washed over Hack. He felt as though he fell out of bed after a dream of falling over a cliff.
The sudden jerking sensation brought him to full attention from what? Sleep? "No, I was meditating," he told himself.
But he noticed the shadows were getting long through his living room window that overlooked the small yard and dirt road out front.
"How long have I been here?" he asked himself.
"I dropped the ADA off at the sheriff's office after work and got here around five o' clock." "It looks to be around seven thirty now." Opening his eyes and glancing toward the clock, he stopped in sudden horror when he noticed what he was holding.