The following morning, much to Buck's chagrin, Larabee started right in on him. "Buck, if you need to talk..."
"Damn it, Chris! I'm just tryin' to do my effin' job so back...off!" The ladies' man pulled his ball cap down over his eyes and stalked out of the Quonset hut into the bright morning sun. He 'd picked up the loaded fuel truck earlier that morning at the fuel depot and wanted nothing more than for the op to be over. The sooner it was done the sooner Carrie would be on her way back to Miami and his world just might just stop reeling.
Ezra watched the ladies' man storm out of the building and returned to checking his gun. "What's bothering Mr. Wilmington do you suppose?" he wondered aloud as he holstered his Remington 1911 R1 and made sure he had more than enough clips to take out a small army.
"I don't have a clue," Chris said truly perplexed, "But I do know it has everything to do with Carrie Sims."
Catching her name as she walked through the back door of the small Quonset hut, the DEA agent walked over to the others. "A problem, Chris?" She was dressed like the others in jeans and a baggy shirt covering her vest. Her long hair was braided and tucked up under a ball cap, one with a Florida Gator on the brim, and she peered at Team Seven's leader over her sunglasses.
"Nothing really," he told her noncommittally, "Just one of my boys off his feed."
J.D., with his back against the hard metal wall of the Quonset, checked and rechecked his Glock 17 semi-automatic. Hearing Chris' comment he felt her shoud speak up. "Any other time, a woman as pretty as you would be beating Buck off with a stick and we'd be havin' to run interference for you."
"Agent Wilmington's a real ladies' man, huh?" Carrie asked with a wry smile as she looked down at J.D..
"An understatement if I've ever head one. Brother Buck is THE ladies' man," Josiah said from the small desk as he went over his flight checklist, an almost impossible task with the final destination still a mystery.
Nathan was at the window keeping an eye out for the Lear and the continuing subdued demeanor of the normally loquacious Wilmington worried him, too, but he didn't say anything.
"Where is Agent Wilmington?" Carrie wanted to know.
Vin had just come in from outside and spoke up, "He's checkin' out the fuel truck."
"He good to go? He'll have initial contact and we don't want to spook either of 'em."
Chris shoved a clip in his Colt 1991 Series Government 1911 pistol, chambered a 45 ACP round and slipped the safety on. "He'll be fine...just hasn't been himself lately."
"He seems pretty competent to me."
Carrie was fishing again for information on Buck and Chris wanted to know why. His patience was quickly coming to an end. "That's just it," he huffed in disgust, "If you knew him, you'd know he never comes off as competent. Nobody takes him seriously until it's too late. It's his gift. That's why I hired him." Chris' words came out sharper than he intended but he wasn't angry, just frustrated as hell.
"I do know him," And with her quite admission Chris and the others stopped what they were doing. "Or at least I knew him - a long time ago."
Vin gently set his CheyTac Intervention M310 Single Shot rifle case down on the floor of the Quonset hut and spoke to no one in particular. "I'm gonna go check out the coffee in this fine establishment," he said and headed toward the two small offices at the back of the building, kicking J.D. in the sole of his sneaker as he passed him by, "You comin', kid?"
"Yeah, yeah sure," the young agent said then hustled to his feet.
Josiah and Nathan joined the exodus and Ezra, taking his cue from the others, followed suit leaving the two senior agents alone. One, the man who had known Buck Wilmington for over twelve years and thought he was privy to everything there was to know about the man, and the other, the woman who was privy to that part of Buck's life that he had kept hidden away from everyone else.
"I'm telling you about him..." she began, "about the two of us, so you know that, despite the way things look right now, Buck Wilmington is the same man you've always known. The same man with all the same qualities that made you choose him for your team in the first place. The same qualities that make him the loyal friend you all so obviously cherish."
Chris smiled at her. Was it that apparent?
"And they're the same wonderful qualities that made me fall so hopelessly in love with him when we were just freshmen in college. A talented athlete and a regular cut-up, he gravitated toward the jocks, or should I say they gravitated toward him, and subsequently to the cheerleaders. We started dating our freshman year and we were still together when we graduated."
As she spoke they moved to the back of the room where she sat down at one of the desks and continued.
"Being the only child of a Miami beat cop, I chose to go to the police academy. Buck, pretty much of a rolling stone, went along for the ride but he found he had a real penchant for law enforcement and graduated at the top of our class. We were married shortly thereafter with all the pomp and circumstance of a police wedding; uniforms, crossed swords, the whole shebang. I didn't know two people could be happier until we got pregnant and our daughter was born."
The stunned look that had first crossed Chris' face was quickly replaced by one of puzzlement. A thousand questions churned in his mind but he remained silent leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching as Carrie's faced softened with each sweet memory.
"Hanna was daddy's girl from the get go and Buck couldn't have been any more in love with her. He was the perfect husband, the perfect daddy and way ahead of his time, the original Mr. Mom. We both went to work for Miami PD full time, me on nights, Buck on swing. I can't tell you how many mornings I'd come home to find them asleep on the couch, Hanna on Buck's chest. It got to the point where she couldn't go to sleep without the sound of his heartbeat but how she slept through his snoring I'll never know."
Carrie removed her ball cap and ran her hand over the top of her head smoothing her hair and steeling herself for what was to come.
"Buck took Hanna everywhere with him. Even when he ran he stuck her in a backpack and they were out the door. He told me he liked taking her with him because she was a chick magnet. She was a magnet all right, a daddy magnet. You'd think I would have been jealous but he had enough love for both of the women in his life."
This time Carrie stopped just long enough to take a deep breath.
"Just before Hanna's second birthday, the two of them were coming back from visiting my parents. A cloudburst opened up, flooding the streets and a speeding car hydroplaned across the median in the downpour and hit them head on. Buck was seriously injured and Hanna..."
She had to stop again because, even after all the years, it was still so hard.
Chris squatted down beside her and took her hand in his. He was touched that she would share this with him and waited silently for her to continue.
"Hanna was thrown through the windshield but Buck managed to find her. He held her in his arms all the way to the hospital and later, when he was out of surgery, I had to tell him she was gone. The absolute worst moment of my life was not when they told my child was dead but when I had to tell her daddy the most precious thing in his life was gone."
Chris' own pain surfaced as he remembered the exact moment his world had come crashing down on him. His eyes sparkled briefly with unshed tears but Carrie didn't see them. She was lost in the past.
"I wish I could say that things got better with time but they only got worse. Buck was inconsolable, extremely angry and extremely volatile. He didn't go to the funeral. As far as I know he never went to the cemetery, never once visited her grave. People's opinions of him changed drastically after that. The cops we worked with couldn't forgive him for abandoning me, letting me handle it all alone but what was worse was that he couldn't forgive himself and closed himself off completely getting drunk for days on end."
"He quit the force and became a ghost in his own home spending most of his time in Hanna's room and ignoring me the rest. I thought I would go crazy so I started staying away more and more and, when I did come back, Buck would just stare at me. I tried to pick fights with him; anything would have been better than the silence but my husband had nothing left to give me, not even his anger, so I turned to my partner, the man who stood next to me at my daughter's funeral and later at her grave."
Carrie's fingers gripped Chris' tightly. Her face was pale but her cheeks were flushed with emotion and he wondered if she was going to continue. He wondered if he should even let her. The jet would be there within the hour and she'd be of no use to him if she were an emotional wreck. But she was almost finished.
"Then one day he was just gone. I walked around the house crying my fool head off, begging God to answer impossible questions. Why had he taken my baby? Why were Buck and I being punished? Why couldn't our love get us through Hanna's death? I still loved Buck with all my heart but it just wasn't enough and, on my slow trek around the silent house, one thing struck me like a physical blow. Buck had never cried...not once."
Tears finally slipped down her cheeks and Chris rose up and pulled her into his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder for a brief moment then pulled back, swiping angrily at the tears. "Hell of a way for a tough DEA bitch to act, huh?"
Chris was having none of it.
"It's okay to hurt, Carrie. God knows, Buck Wilmington taught me that when my wife and son were killed. If it hadn't been for him, I don't think I would have made it." Chris thought back and closed his eyes momentarily. "It must have been hell for him, too; he was so close to my wife and son."
Carrie looked absolutely stunned. She was thoroughly taken aback by Chris Larabee's revelation of the deaths of his family.
Pushing his own memories aside Chris sighed and continued, "I never knew any of this; he never mentioned one thing about it." Chris had thought the two of them were close and he was hurt and angry but didn't know if he could really blame Buck for never telling him about the past.
"I'm so sorry for your loss..." Carrie started hesitantly then finally asked, "When your son and wife died...did he cry?"
"Like a baby," he told her.
"Oh, thank God," she whispered.
Chris' emotions were now in turmoil as he turned to stare out the small window. For him the only small comfort that had come out of his horrific situation was the fact that Sarah had been with Adam when he had died, to show him the way and she would be there with him forever. Buck didn't even have that small comfort. His daughter had died alone.
Chris wondered if his friend ever wondered if she had been frightened, crying for her mommy, for her daddy and recalled a time, just hours after the funeral, when he had overheard Buck ask Josiah what he thought heaven was. Josiah had told him that heaven was simply whatever Buck wanted it to be and that he, himself, liked to think that those who had gone before would be waiting when we crossed over and that they would appear to us as we wanted to see them. In turn, we would appear to them the way they wanted to see us.
The former preacher gave Buck an example and said that when Chris finally crossed over he might see Sarah as the beautiful bride she had once been or the radiant mother of his newborn son. She could even appear as the graceful, gray haired matron she would have become if she had lived. Chris might also see Adam as the fine young man he would most assuredly have become or the impish little scamp he knew and loved so well. Heaven was what you wanted it to be but most of all; heaven was peace, happiness and family. After their conversation Buck seemed satisfied, a little more at peace.
Chris continued to look out the small window at the fuel truck and at his friend. Suddenly aware of the depth of Buck's friendship, he was even more worried about him than before. He figured Buck was using self-abuse as a coping mechanism. He wasn't self-destructing because of some bimbo - he was courting a death wish because of his daughter.
Chris Larabee felt like a class-A shit. He should have recognized Buck's M.O. as the same one he used when Sarah and Adam had died. He decided that Buck's suffering had gone on far too long and that his friend needed to face his past and lay down his guilt, a burden that was far too heavy and totally undeserved. Buck Wilmington needed to mourn his daughter properly, to cry for his beloved Hanna.
"Carrie," Chris said and she turned to look at him with clear eyes, "I strongly suggest that you let Buck go on to Florida with you and Josiah instead of Ezra. He's more than able to handle the job. Speaks fluent Spanish and can transact the sale and bust the dirt bags on the other end."
Carrie was suddenly apprehensive. She had every faith in Buck's ability to do the job but it would be more than uncomfortable to be alone with him in the small jet.
As if reading her mind Chris then suggested, "You can ride shotgun with Josiah and Buck can cool his jets in back."
Carrie smiled weakly and nodded her agreement to Chris' plans - the spoken one and the unspoken one, the one he hoped she would put into play once she and Buck were back in Miami.
Chris placed his hand gently on her shoulder, returned her smile and said, "Help him lay Hanna to rest."