Chapter Ten
Chris Larabee knew he wasn't dead. It didn't hurt this much when you died, it couldn't. Slowly opening his eyes he found himself looking at tree limbs, lots of tree limbs and an air bag, that's what that big white thing was, an air bag, a deflated air bag. The big SUV he was driving had taken a nose dive into a deep ravine. Chris didn't have the time or inclination to belt himself in when the ride started so he was thrown forward during the freefall from the roadway. Now he was thanking Detroit for the air bag that had softened his landing. But he didn't escape without injury. He was having trouble drawing breath, indicative of cracked or broken ribs. He had somehow busted his lip, probably on the steering wheel after the air bag deflated, but at least his teeth were intact. Add to that he was still bleeding from the gunshot wound he'd received back at the roadside park and that would pretty well sum it up.
Chris began extricating himself from the wreckage of the once pristine vehicle. He finally managed to get out and looked at what was left, sighing, he wondered how much this was going to cost him. Then he laughed, to himself, and anyone or anything that happened to be within earshot. What was he worried about, after all, he had two million dollars, right? So why should he be concerned about a measly little fifty thousand dollar SUV? The laugh only succeeded in causing his mid section to hurt from the injury to his ribs. He stood looking up towards the road and then surveyed the terrain around him. In his condition he would never make it up the ravine to the road, his only hope was to try to follow it out through the back. The area was strewn with boulders and heavy undergrowth, it would be slow going, but it was his only choice. Climbing back to the SUV he searched for anything that he could use on his trek. There wasn't much there, only his jacket, an apple and the remains of a bottle of water. Taking off his shirt he laid it aside while he pulled his black tee shirt over his head. He used it to fashion a bandage for the gunshot wound. Satisfied that he'd done all he could do for the time being he searched for a path that would lead him out of the ravine.
After what seemed like hours, but in truth was only about forty five minutes, he found himself weakened to the point that he had to stop and rest. He was still not sure what exactly had happened, but he knew that Chandler Moss was dead. He didn't know who had killed Moss although he could guess why. Chris still couldn't decide whether Moss was telling him the truth when he said he knew who had killed Sara and Adam. Larabee rested for about twenty minutes and then started on his trek again. He was pretty sure that he wasn't too far from a hunting cabin that he and Buck had used several times. The land belonged to an old friend from the Denver Police Department and they were given free use of it anytime they wanted. He knew that the property backed up to the highway, he just wasn't sure how far it was to the cabin. He and Buck had always hunted on the front end, preferring to stay as far away from people as possible when shooting.
If he could get to the cabin he could find a way to contact Buck, because right now Chris Larabee really needed a friend and he knew the big hearted ladies man would come, and in tow would be Vin Tanner. It was getting a little harder to breathe and he was slowing down even more, but Chris didn't notice that, he was too focused on finding the cabin and doing it before it got dark and cold. Right now the temperature was fairly comfortable, but once the sun went down it was going to get cold, fast. While that would help keep the bleeding to a minimum, it certainly wasn't going to help anything else. If he just had a bottle of Tylenol, maybe two bottles. Always in the back of his mind, no matter how much the pain, always was the thought, did Chandler Moss really know? It ate at him, almost consumed him, and it gave him the will to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If Chandler Moss knew who killed Sara and Adam, then Chris would bet his life that so did Moss' partner Brock Fulton, and if he did, then Chris would find out It was just that simple.
Elizabeth Everly was startled by the knock on the door, but more so by Ezra Standish bursting through it after the knock had sounded. Looking up she started, "I thought you'd left with the others?"
"I've found it! I've found the connection! And now you've got to help me! Look I know you think Chris was guilty, but I know him, I know he wasn't and you've got to help me prove it. I can't do it without you."
"What are you talking about? And Agent Larabee is dead, the investigation is over." Elizabeth asked.
"No, Chris might be dead, but it's not over. It won't be over until we've cleared Chris' name. I can't bury him with his reputation sullied! Why he'd come back from the dead and haunt me, you, all of us."
Looking at the man before her, Elizabeth sensed a desperation in him. A man on the edge, and she wasn't going to push him over. What would it hurt her to go along with him for a while, after all, she wasn't so sure... oh well, it didn't matter anymore. But to appease the man before her she settled back into her seat, "Tell me about it Agent Standish."
Forty minutes later she was still sitting at the desk looking at Ezra Standish, but this time instead of disbelief, it was shock. There in front of her were laid out files, that at first didn't show links to each other, until you threw in the final pieces of the puzzle, Millsaps and Jerrolds.
David Millsaps had his own ax to grind with Chris Larabee. Larabee and he came on together and both were expected to climb the ladder quickly. Larabee went to the FBI academy, taking Millsaps slot when Millsaps had badly bungled an investigation causing several agents to be seriously injured. After that Millsaps always found a way to blame Larabee for anything that went wrong in his career. When Larabee was promoted and given the SAC slot for Team 7 it was the last in what Millsaps believed to be a long line of injustices heaped on him because of the blonde team leader. Millsaps asked for and was given a transfer to DC and placed in the Internal Affairs office.
Once there he made the acquaintance of two agents from Washington who were accused of accepting bribes from Steve Proctor a weapons dealer from Seattle. Proctor was under investigation for dealing arms to a Chinese firm headed by Chou Chang. Chang had ties to other areas, many in Southeast Asia and there was some talk about a Cuban connection. The ATF and FBI had Proctor and Chang under investigation for years and were about ready to bust the two men when they simply closed up shop and headed for parts unknown. The Internal Affairs case against the two agents went no where, but shortly after the investigation both were transferred one to Nevada and one to New Mexico.
Several months later Chou Chang resurfaced in Lake Tahoe while Proctor set up shop in Rio Rancho. It was about that time the David Millsaps bought a new cabin cruiser which he kept on a lake in Virginia and Mark Jerrolds brother's garage got crowded with a new Corvette and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Mark began to spend a lot of time with his brother.
When Millsaps was assigned to Denver he was always one step behind Larabee; always in his shadow. When Larabee's family had been killed Millsaps was saddened, but not because of Larabee's loss. He'd mourned for the beauty that was Sara Larabee, and the fantasy that he'd built around her. The first time he'd seen her he had fallen for her, she was beauty itself to him. Then Larabee had claimed her. Seeing her pregnant with Larabee's child had just about driven him insane. Watching her grow with Larabee's child had eaten away at him. He had watched Adam grow and fantasized about "his" family. He convinced himself that Chris didn't deserve her and that if he could just get Chris out of the picture that she'd see him and return his love. He needed a way to show her without Larabee around. When the assignment to pick up a prisoner in the Federal Penitentiary in Ft. Leavenworth came about, he convinced the SAC at the last minute to send Larabee and Wilmington instead of him and his partner. Never knowing that forces were at play and the object of his desire would suffer from his scheming. While Chris and Buck were gone a car bomb placed in Chris' truck had exploded killing Sara and Adam instantly. David Millsaps insane hatred of Chris Larabee locked into place. Millsaps and everyone else knew that the bomb was meant for Chris. No one knew why Sara took Chris' truck that day. That is until Chris found the money and the envelope in the safe. In the envelope was a sheet torn from a message pad at Sara's school. The writing on it simply saying the date and a time and words "Inspect stallion at Circle J Ranch 2:00 PM." Chris surmised from the note that Sara was going to the ranch to purchase the stud and surprise him with it when he returned home. Knowing Sara as he did, she would not have taken the trailer or the money until the next day, not wanting James Breton, the owner of Circle J, to know that she'd already made up her mind to buy the horse.
David Millsaps never forgave Chris Larabee for Sara's death, blaming him for it, and dedicating the rest of his life to finding a way get him back. Even when he saw Larabee turn into a walking dead man from the drinking and the grief, he still swore that this man who had caused him so much heartache and pain would one day suffer as he did. Never did it occur to him that his grief was unrealistic. Once he reached his assignment in DC, Millsaps found the way to pay Larabee back and help himself at the same time. Steve Proctor and Chou Chang also needed to get Chris Larabee and his team out of the way. Chris Larabee had started an investigation into their dealings along with those of Chandler Moss and Brock Fulton. At the time of the investigation Chris wasn't able to connect the two factions. Moss and Fulton were successful legitimate business men on the surface, but Larabee continually received information that the two were funding some major arms deals in the Denver to Los Angeles pipeline. Chang and Proctor had seemingly been removed from the equation so there was no way to connect the two. When Chang and Proctor surfaced in Nevada and New Mexico Chris began to track them again. Chang and Proctor needed to get Larabee off their tails and approached "their" ATF agents about the best way to achieve it. Chang wanted Larabee dead, but when the ATF agents talked with Millsaps about it, he decided that it would be better to bust the team up and get rid of all of them. The best way to do that, cut off it's head, Chris Larabee. So the scheme was hatched. Chang, Proctor, Moss and Fulton would each contribute five hundred thousand dollars to "Chris'" accounts. Millsaps would garner the assignment to do the IA and make sure that the money was traced back to a blind corporation that was owned by Cuban weapons dealers. Once the investigation was concluded he would recommend that the team be disbanded since, while, there was no evidence linking the others to the bribes, it was known how close they were and would be in the best interest of the agency for them to be absorbed into different teams. If everything went according to plan Millsaps would have his revenge on Chris Larabee, and make his business associates very happy and very rich.
The deaths of the banker and the stock broker were just collateral damage. They had to be killed or they would know that the man they knew as Adam Larabee, was not Chris Larabee. Then there would be the possibility that they'd be able to identify the "real" Adam Larabee, an actor named Stan McKay, hired not for his acting ability, but for his remarkable likeness to Chris Larabee. McKay's death was written in stone the day he signed on. Chandler Moss was the weak link. Millsaps still couldn't decide why Moss had set up the meeting with Larabee. Millsaps didn't think that Moss would give them up, he was too afraid of Chang and Proctor and too money hungry.