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glass and used the tool to cut the glass where it met the window frame. The grating sound made Jan’s teeth ache. But it didn’t last long. Seconds later, Chandu pulled at the suction cup and removed the window easily. He stepped to one side and pointed at the opening with a smile.
    Jan climbed through headfirst. Once inside, he opened up the basement door, which only had a latch locking it from the inside. Chandu followed him. They crept silently along the hallway, reaching the stairwell. The streetlights’ glow through the windows lit their way up.
    Jan closed his eyes and listened. It was calm in the stairway. He went up to the fourth floor. With every step, his anxiety grew. Yesterday he had been on the homicide squad, and now here he was breaking into his girlfriend’s building because she was the only person who could save him from a murder charge.
    Chandu set a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll work out,” the big guy said, his voice low. “Just find out what happened yesterday, and the worst shit’s over. I’ll wait here.”
    Jan nodded, leaving Chandu behind and continuing into the fourth-floor hallway. His hands were slick with sweat. Doubt plagued him. Should he have called beforehand? He paused, uncertain.
    “Jan.” His friend’s voice snapped him out of it. Chandu was pointing to his nose. Jan smelled it too.
    Gas. It was coming from the hallway, in front of him. Jan wanted to keep going, but the door to Betty’s apartment exploded with a loud boom. The pressure threw Jan to the floor. He landed hard, and the impact sucked all the air from his lungs.
    The hallway spun around him. Chandu was shouting something at him, but then the whistling in his ears smothered all sound. Jan wanted to stand up, but his limbs felt too heavy to move. Then all went black.

Chapter 3
    Jan came to in a small storage room. He barely had the strength to open his eyes. It was tough to breathe. A taste of vomit stuck in his mouth. His throbbing head tormented him.
    A streetlight filtering through the room’s one dirty window revealed some of the surroundings. Old chairs and tables stood stacked in one corner. A tabletop grill leaned against a wall. The smell of smoke and scorched plastic was everywhere.
    He lay on an old couch about as comfortable as a torture chair. He sat up, groaning.
    “Welcome back.” He heard Chandu’s deep bass voice. Jan’s friend was standing at the door, watching the hallway through the crack. Loud shouts from outside filtered into the room. Noise from the stairway was deafening now, as if a whole class of schoolkids were running up and down.
    “How you doing?” Chandu asked him.
    “Had better days,” Jan said. He held his forehead and winced, feeling a wound over an eye.
    “Can you remember anything?”
    “Just the explosion that took me off my feet.”
    The racket got louder. A man shouted orders and a siren sounded.
    “What in the fuck is going on here?”
    Chandu shut the door. He sighed. “As you noticed, there was an explosion. Probably a gas leak. You were lucky. Two steps more and the debris would’ve put holes through you.”
    “Were there injured, dead?”
    Chandu bit his lower lip. “Betty’s apartment exploded.”
    “What?” Jan howled. “We got to get up there right away.” He stood but had trouble keeping his balance. His legs gave way and stars danced before his eyes.
    Chandu caught him and laid him back down.
    “Just lie here,” he insisted. “You took a real good one. That wound on your forehead, it wouldn’t stop bleeding. A miracle you don’t have any burns. That leather jacket of yours got the worst of it.”
    “What about Betty?” Jan demanded.
    “I don’t know. Right after it blew up, I got you down here to the basement. Then all hell broke loose. Lights went on all over, people screaming. Your cop friends stormed the place just as we got to the basement. They almost had us. I laid you here and went upstairs, saw all the mayhem. Betty’s apartment