Part 4
The two of them stared at each other, Chris' words still ringing in the room.
"Hello to you, too," Buck said finally, his face pale as milk. Dark shadows smudged under his eyes. He looked at the pile of folders in Chris' arms. "What's all that?" Not taking his eyes from his old friend, he closed the manila folder in front of him and tried to slide it into the accordion file.
Chris ignored his question. "Who set the bomb?"
Buck stared at him, then looked away. "I told you, I don't know-"
"Stop lying to me, damn it!" Chris hissed. He slammed the folders down on the foot of the bed; two or three fell to the ground but he ignored them. "Cap'n Nate came to see me today," he said sarcastically. "He brought the information you requested." He slapped the folders, causing a couple more to slide to the floor. "All the information he could find about Bolo Orlowski."
Buck's face, if possible, went even paler. "Why'd he bring it to you?" he questioned quietly.
"I suppose because it never dawned on him you'd be keeping an investigation into your own attempted murder a secret!" Chris seethed. He couldn't stay still; he stalked over to the window and stared out at the darkening hospital grounds. "Damn it, Buck. You lied in an official investigation." He spun around, his green eyes blazing fire. "You lied to me! Hell, all of a sudden you're lying to me about everything!"
"I didn't lie to you," Buck protested, an edge of irritation in his voice. "I said I didn't know. And I don't know-"
"Obviously, you do know!" Chris picked up one of the files and flung it at the wall next to the bed. Papers fluttered out, some landing on the bed and some on the floor. "You spelled out Bolo Orlowski's name. Then you lied and said you didn't even remember doing it. Then you contact your old boss on the Bomb Squad and ask him for all the information he can get on Orlowski, but you don't bother to tell me or any of your teammates?" Chris' anger blazed again, white hot and explosive. "Damn it, Buck! You know Orlowski always finishes his jobs...you're in danger here and hell! We don't even have a guard on your door!"
Silence, brittle as shards of glass, encased the room.
Chris let out his breath in a deep sigh. He felt old suddenly, and so tired. "Just tell me why you lied to me," he pleaded.
Buck looked away. He shook his head. "I can't," he whispered almost soundlessly.
"Why?" Chris exploded. "Damn it Buck, what is wrong with you?"
"It's my life," Buck said, still not meeting Chris' eyes.
If Buck had tried to think of something that would piss Chris off he couldn't have succeeded as well as he did. "Your life?" Chris hissed. "You selfish bastard, how dare you say it's just your life? If Bolo comes after you he comes after all of us, damn it!" His head pounded. 'Damn, doesn't he realize what his death would do to-' Chris cut the thought off. He wouldn't even think about Buck's death. He couldn't.
Fury raced through his veins, the same rage that had gripped him in those dark days after Sarah's death.
Buck swallowed hard and Chris suddenly noticed that thin white scar on his neck. That vision-of his own hands pressing the blade into Buck's neck-rose up before his eyes and he spit his next words out without thinking, "I don't want to lose anyone else because of-"
Too late, he saw the blood drain from Buck's face; saw him recoil against the pillows as if he'd been slapped. Chris stopped, his thought incomplete, too late realizing how Buck would take it.
"Get out," Buck whispered.
"Buck." Chilled by the look on his friend's face, stricken with remorse for his own angry words, Chris took a step toward the bed.
"Get OUT!" Buck yelled hoarsely, snatching the water pitcher off the bedside table and heaving it at Chris. Larabee ducked; the plastic pitcher hit the wall behind him and water and ice splattered on the floor. Buck's face crumpled in agony and he collapsed, curling around his injured side.
"Buck," Chris said again, pleadingly. He heard a sound behind him and reacted instinctively to the danger threatening his friend; he whirled around, hand automatically going to his gun.
Vin Tanner and JD Dunne stood in the doorway.
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For what seemed like an eternity everyone remained frozen where they stood. Then, JD's eyes darkened with anger and he opened his mouth.
"Don't, JD," Buck said faintly. He was still curled awkwardly around his side in the bed, great drops of sweat standing out on his forehead, gasping for air.
"Buck-"
"Stay out of it!" The snap in Buck's voice cost him dearly; he followed it up with a choked gasp that drew the concerned attention of all three of his friends.
"Bucklin-" Vin started toward the bed.
"What is going on in here?" One of the nurses-Sandy, Chris thought-was standing behind JD in the doorway. She was tall—as tall as Chris-and she looked over JD's head toward her patient. Her face changed when she recognized his distressed condition. "OK, all of you, out. Now!" Her voice was crisp as she squeezed past JD and moved swiftly to the bed. She untangled the oxygen tubing from where it was wrapped around the controls and turned it on before sliding the greenish canula into Buck's nostrils. Looking up, she seemed surprised that none of them had moved. "Gentlemen, you need to leave. I'm going to get Mr. Wilmington something for pain and then I'm paging his doctor. You can wait down the hall-I trust you all remember where the waiting room is?"
JD's back stiffened. "I'm not leaving-"
Chris caught Vin's eye and signaled to the door. Vin hesitated, then took JD's arm and gently guided him out of the room. "Come on, Kid, let's give her some room."
As soon as the door whispered closed behind them, JD tore his arm free and whirled around to glare at Chris. "What the hell were you doing?"
If JD Dunne had a hero in this world, it was Chris Larabee. The young computer genius had idolized the darkly dressed ATF agent before he'd ever met him. Every night he thanked God that Larabee had allowed him into the coveted position in Denver Team Seven. He also prayed that Larabee should never have occasion to regret his choice. In the three years he'd been part of the team, he'd never once questioned his hero-well, at least not within his hearing.
But now the eyes that he fixed on the older man were dark with rage, disappointment, sorrow. He slid in front of Larabee as if he could use his body to protect Buck from the team leader.
Buck wasn't JD's hero. Buck was much more than that. Since the day they'd met, Buck had been big brother, best friend, and-at times-surrogate parent to a young man who'd had to grow up much too fast. Team Seven was a family, no one ever denied that, but Buck Wilmington was the stable foundation upon which JD Dunne's world was built.
And he'd be damned if anyone would hurt his brother and get away with it. Even Chris Larabee.
Chris rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes briefly against both the pounding headache and the sight of his friends. He couldn't deal with this now, couldn't deal with JD, couldn't deal with the memories, with his anger. With the sick churning guilt and fear in his gut. He couldn't even bring himself to look at Vin's face, afraid of what he'd see.
"I want 24-7 protection on Buck," he sighed wearily, opening his eyes.
JD's expression changed; he suddenly looked confused, unsure. "What..."
Chris ignored him. He finally made eye contact with Vin. "Call it in...an alert on a suspect named Bolo Orlowski. Wanted in the attempted murder of a federal agent." Then he turned and headed for the elevator.
He needed a drink.
Left behind, JD and Vin stared at each other. "What the heck was that all about?" JD asked.
Vin didn't have an answer.
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"Buck, what the heck is going on?" JD demanded an hour later.
Buck blinked at him tiredly. He'd obviously been sedated and he was back on oxygen. It didn't seem to help his color though, he was still almost as pale as the pillowcase his head rested upon.
Vin was gathering up all the loose papers on the floor. He stopped, still crouched down, and studied one of the typewritten pages, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Where's Chris?" Buck asked faintly.
"Who knows?" JD snapped. "He took off out of here like the demons of Hell were on his heels."
"You've been...listening' too much to Josiah, kid." Buck closed his eyes.
"He's runnin' from demons of some kind, I reckon," Vin said quietly.
JD sat down in the chair at the head of the bed. He was still pretty upset. "Chris shouldn't have-"
"Stay out of it, JD." Buck opened his eyes but didn't make eye contact with JD, instead staring up at the ceiling. His voice dragged with exhaustion and the effects of the meds. "Chris is your friend, hell, he's your boss. This is between him and me. I don't want you in the middle. Please!"
JD heard the plea in Buck's voice but he was still too angry to back down. "I'm not staying out of it, Buck! Chris had no right-!"
"Chris had every right," Buck sighed. He leaned back. "Hell, I'm damn lucky he didn't-do more than yell."
JD stopped, mouth open. "What?"
Vin stood up, the files stacked in his hands. "So it was Bolo Orlowski that set the bomb?"
"What?" JD asked again, puzzled.
Buck sighed again, then coughed, tightening his face against the pain. He was quiet for a few minutes, staring unseeingly out the darkened window.
"Buck?" Vin prompted gently.
"Bolo Orlowski is suspected in over a hundred murders. Demolitions-bombs. Big ones, little ones...but his specialty is a bomb that just destroys a portion of an area. Like a room in a house or a..." he stopped, seemed to change his mind about what he was saying. He met Vin's eyes. "We investigated...I don't know, maybe ten or twelve murders that we figured were his work. Never could get a good description of him. We'd interview witnesses and they'd say there'd been a repairman, or a pizza delivery guy, or something, around right about the time the bomb was probably planted. He just...blends in." He laughed humorlessly. "I 'member one woman...she actually described him as havin' 'hair colored hair and eye colored eyes.'" His voice was getting weaker and he paused, breathing heavily through the canula, before he went on:
"Cap'n Nate...he was head of the bomb squad here for years. He kind of made a hobby of studying Bolo-his patterns, his M.O. Most explosive experts have a signature, you know?" He looked at Vin, who nodded his head. "Bolo's signature was the fuse to the dentonator on his bombs. He used three strands of wire-red, black and yellow, always in that sequence-curled around each other and formed in a loop." He looked up at the ceiling. "Looks like a little hangman's noose," he finished quietly.
JD shook his head. "But...I checked the reports. There wasn't anything left of the detonator at our place-"
"I know," Buck said.
Silence.
"You saw it, didn't you?" It wasn't really a question.
Buck looked at Vin and nodded. "I went upstairs, and opened that door...and I saw it. I remember yellin' for you...and then, lights out. But I know what I saw. Bolo set that bomb."
JD's eyes widened. "Then you lied when you said you didn't know..." he blurted out accusingly.
Buck glanced at him, then looked away. "Yeah, kid. I lied."
The hurt and betrayal on JD's face would have been visible to a blind man. "Why?"
Buck folded his arms tightly across his chest and closed his eyes. "I can't tell you that, JD."
"Thanks a lot for your patience, Agent Standish."
Ezra managed to mutter something that must have sounded vaguely polite. He was feeling anything but courteous at this point. It was almost midnight and he'd been closeted with Assistant District Attorney Ira Berman since four in the afternoon. He was tired of the short, balding man and highly annoyed that what had been promised as a short meeting "Just to go over a few questions about your testimony on the Hoyt case" had stretched into an eight-hour marathon.
As if he'd read Ezra's mind, Berman hurried to say, "I am sorry this took so long, but at least you got dinner out of the deal."
Ezra's poker face didn't slip. "I do appreciate your generosity in paying for my evening repast, Mr. Berman." He mentally added, 'And the next time I'm in the mood for a dry, tasteless egg salad sandwich from a vending machine, I'll be sure to contact you.'
"Hoyt's the biggest case I've ever handled," Berman confessed as they stepped out of the elevator into the underground parking garage. "With that prelim coming up next week, I just wanted to make sure I knew your testimony."
'Dear God in Heaven. Why assign a case of this magnitude to an untried neophyte?' Ezra thought to himself. Not for the first time he wondered what jockeying behind the scenes had resulted in the federal authorities ceding jurisdiction to the local district attorney. The weapons charges against Marcus Hoyt alone should have been enough to warrant federal prosecution, not to mention attempted murder of not one, but two federal agents.
Not that it looked like Hoyt was ever going to stand trial on the latter charge.
Which was pissing Ezra off, to put it bluntly. He knew enough about the law-he hadn't been sleeping through those classes at the University of Georgia or Harvard, even if he had opted for an MBA instead of a law degree-to realize the case regarding his own attempted murder was weak and mostly circumstantial. But Yvette Morales was willing to testify that Marcus Hoyt had ordered her to try to kill Buck in the hospital. She didn't have any reason to lie about it-Chris had caught her in the act red-handed, she was going to prison no matter what-but yet Berman, citing, "lack of corroboration" wanted to drop the attempted murder charges.
'I'm willing to wager Mr. Larabee doesn't know about this yet.' Ezra satisfied himself with the thought of what Berman would look like after he was caught in the path of the tornado known as The Wrath of Christopher Larabee.
"Agent Standish, there is one other thing I needed to discuss with you..."
Ezra stopped dead and turned to stare at the other man. "Excuse me? You've had me incarcerated in your cubicle of an office for eight hours, going over every report either I or Agent Wilmington wrote during the entire eleven weeks we were undercover in Hoyt's organization...what else can there possibly be to discuss?"
"Sarah Bryant."
Alarm bells shrieked in Ezra's mind. He lifted a cool eyebrow. "Mr. Hoyt's niece. What about her?"
"I understand she was around during the majority of the time you and Wilmington were undercover in the organization."
"She was here on a visit during part of the time," Ezra conceded.
Berman stopped, forcing Ezra to stop as well. "But you rarely mention her in your reports. And Mr. Wilmington never mentions her in his reports.
Ezra sighed, making a show of switching his briefcase to his other hand. "We were investigating Marcus Hoyt, not his niece. Actually, she's not even his niece."
"I know who she is." Berman's eyes narrowed. "She's his dead wife's niece. Hoyt's supported her most of her life."
"And this is significant because...?" Ezra asked coolly.
"I just wondered why there's no more mention of her than there is."
Ezra looked around, spotting his Jag in the distance where he'd left it tucked in a corner spot. "Because there wasn't anything to justify such discourse, Mr. Berman. She was only peripherally involved; there was no evidence to indicate she was even aware of her uncle's more nefarious undertakings. Now, if you'll excuse me, it is late and I am quite fatigued. No doubt my recent indisposition catching up to me." He started towards his car, reaching into his pocket for his keys.
"I want to talk with her. She might have something we can use."
Ezra stopped but didn't turn around. "Interviewing witnesses is entirely within your purview, Mr. Berman. You hardly need my permission."
"I need to know where she is."
Ezra did turn around this time. "I have no idea." His voice was smooth as silk.
Berman looked incredulous. "You expect me to believe that?"
"Believe what you will. I have no reason to tell you an untruth." Ezra turned his back on the irritating man.
"Well, then, I'll just have to head over to the hospital tomorrow. See if Wilmington is more forthcoming."
"Be my guest, Mr. Berman." Ezra shrugged. "If you doubt the veracity of my words, possibly Mr. Wilmington can convince you. However, if you want my advice, save yourself the trip. Mr. Wilmington doesn't know anything more than he put in his report...And our teammates-to say nothing of Agent Larabee-are likely to be very unhappy if you upset or otherwise agitate Mr. Wilmington in this point of his recuperation."
Ezra heard Berman swear behind him but he didn't turn around again. He'd wasted quite enough time with this man for one day. He picked up his pace as he headed toward his car. He'd skated a mighty fine line with the truth the last few minutes, but in one thing he'd been completely honest: he was exhausted.
Events happened too quickly.
He heard a screech of tires, loud and reverberating in the almost-empty garage. Berman yelled behind him, and he whirled...
A low, dark car, rushing directly toward him.
His legs frozen, glued to the ground.
His terrified mind coming on-line with a rush of adrenaline. MOVE!
A desperate leap-
The front of the car clipped him, spinning him sideways. Seeing the hard concrete floor rush up to meet him...
He blacked out before he felt the impact.
tbc...