Part 8. Loyalties Aligned

Chris was silent a long, long time as he took in the sight of Vin Tanner's face. The Texan hadn't been in the best of shape the last time he'd seen him, but he hadn't looked like death itself, as he did now. Neither he, nor Will Benning said a word for a moment, as they saw for themselves the reason why Tanner had been taken to the hospital and not directly to the jail.

Chris finally moved forward toward the bed, studying the Texan's relaxed face.

"Well, whoever it was, they did a good job." He shook his head slightly, eyes hard. He spoke his thoughts aloud. "It doesn't make sense, Will... the Jokers say it wasn't them, that the cops did this when they went into the room and arrested him, yet no-one saw them do it. Why wouldn't they speak out if they saw something - and they must have seen or heard something... And why would the arresting officers think they could get away with this? They'd have to know he would at least get his friends in the club to come down on them all if he wasn't prepared to take legal action against them."

"Maybe they had him alone and there really were no witnesses... I hate to think along these lines, but if the cops did do this, then what they did to him would be enough reason for a man to stay quiet, in fear they'd get to him again." He dropped his voice lower. "They had no way of knowing he was undercover."

Chris shook his head. "A normal citizen perhaps would stay quiet, but not a Joker. This is paramount to declaring war on the club. They should be screaming about this... so why aren't they?" He moved toward the door, an air of tension surrounding him. He wanted answers. "And what the hell was he doing in there with that girl in the first place?"

Will kept his voice calm, Larabee looked ready to beat the answers out of someone. He nodded toward the bed. "He's the only one who'll be able to tell us that for sure. The boys they arrested last night sure as shit aren't saying anything."

Chris too, looked again at the silent bed before relaxing his stance. He sighed and shook his head, putting his hands into the pockets of his coat as if to contain their need for action. "He was nowhere near this bad, Will. They may not be rushing to his defence, but the bikers they rounded up all said the same thing, that he was resting up in that room and that he'd been out of it the entire time." He shook his head again and waved a hand toward the bed. "There's something way off base about this. It just doesn't add up. Who tipped the cops off in the first place?"

"Anonymous call."

"To who?"

"Chief's department."

The door opened at that moment and they both turned to see a doctor walk in. He looked at the two men, his face serious, but they noticed the nervousness in his stance.

"Is one of you Will Benning?"

"That would be me, and this is Captain Larabee," Benning said, introducing Chris who shook hands with the doctor in turn.

"I'm Doctor Leach," he looked back toward the door. "You certainly have the room secure."

Getting no response from the men, who were fully aware just how many officers were posted throughout the hospital, he continued, clearing his throat as he spoke.

"I saw to the patient when he was admitted through the ER." He nodded toward Vin.

Neither Chris nor Benning spoke, both waiting for the doctor to shed some light on the situation. Leach gave another nervous swallow into the silence, causing Chris's eyes to narrow at him in suspicion. He looked to the badge that he wore and committed his name to memory: Doctor David Leach.

"Right, well, to cut to the chase, the bruising on his arms indicates that he was most likely held while he was beaten, to the point of unconsciousness. What you can see there on his face is pretty much an indication of the rest of his upper body. Having said that, despite all the bruising the x-rays showed he's got only one broken rib, or a re-broken rib I should say, it wasn't healed from a previous injury. There are two others that have recently healed, he was lucky they weren't damaged. The bruising is both new and old, so what I'm saying is, this isn't the first time he's been worked over recently. Given the location of his injuries, he was lucky not to damage any organs, but as it stands, the bruising and muscle damage alone will take a long while to heal. There's not a lot we can do but prescribe painkillers and tell him not to get beaten up a third time, because he might not be so lucky..."

His voice drifted off into an uncomfortable moment of silence where he was fully aware that his attempt at humour had fallen flat in the face of the two men's stoic expressions. He was hedging around the real topic and could sense their impatience.

Chris's voice was low as he looked at Vin's throat. "And the bruising around his neck..?"

"The, ah… the ambulance attendant's report states that he was asphyxiated upon their arrival, which appears to have been caused by compression to his windpipe, perhaps a choke hold, which is indicated by the bruising you can see there. He was lucky they arrived when they did."

Chris latched onto that and leaned forward slightly. "And the paramedics found him like that? He wasn't being restrained when they got there?"

"You would have to ask them."

Chris didn't bother to look at Benning, he simply narrowed his eyes until the doctors forehead finally began to glisten.

"He, uh, sustained a blow to the back of the head, which also accounts for his initial prolonged lack of

consciousness. We're calling it a medium concussion and we'll be monitoring him closely until he can stay awake and alert."

The doctor charged on ahead, wanting to say his piece and get the hell out of the room. Why did this have to happen on his shift? Damn bikers didn't pay him enough for this shit.

"Look," he told them, for the first time his voice sounding weary, "my guess is that he was put on the floor, face down and handcuffed, his shoulder was dislocated and his wrists show abrasions conducive of being yanked by the wrists, not uncommon in prisoners I have treated that resist arrest."

Chris had to grind his jaw not to snap out a frustrated curse at that knowledge, but the doctor wasn't finished yet.

"There is also bruising on his back, where he was likely kicked or stomped with a heavy boot. Again he was lucky to avoid any serious injury, but he won't be back winning any fights for a while."

Chris's jaw rose and he did not need to say anything for the Doctor to realise his mistake.

Benning looked sharply at Chris before he, too, looked at the doctor.

David Leach took all of his years of study and intellectual growth and threw them out in one word, deciding to play dumb. "What..?"

Chris moved before another second had ticked by. He had the doctor's coat in a hard grip and the nervous man shoved against the wall with a loud thud. He growled right into his startled face. "And what sort of fights might they be? Tell me everything you know, right now,or I'll make sure the Jokers think you spoke to us regardless of whether you do or don't and whatever they're paying you won't be worth the shit I'll rain down on you."

The Doctor glanced to the other man in the room and saw no escape. Benning was slow to rise to anger but now he, too, was ready to hit something and Leach could see that clearly in his thunderous expression.

"Look, they didn't say much, Doc brought him in early this morning..."

"Doc?" Chris questioned, still holding the squirming man tight.

"Yeah, he's the uh, the Doctor for the club." He nodded toward Vin. "He brought him in and I treated a gunshot wound to his side. He slept through most of it. Doc said he looked like he was coming down with something and his temperature was climbing, so I gave him a shot for the pain while I stitched the wound and sent them on their way with some antibiotics."

"You didn't bother to find out what was really wrong with him if he was coming down with something?" Benning asked.

"They were in a hurry," the doctor defended.

Chris waited for all of a second and when no more information was forthcoming, gave the man another hard shake. "Then what happened?"

Leach looked from the blonde agent to the older man again, but still found no reprieve. Combined, the two of them were downright intimidating, but he knew it would be nothing compared to what would happen if the club heard him talking. Still, it wasn't the club coming down on him right then, it was these two - and they were making him damn nervous. He stole another quick glance at the door behind him before returning his eyes to the unwavering expressions before him, lowering his voice even further.

"And then the next time I saw him was when the cops brought him in, like he is now." He paused and, seeing that he was about to have his teeth rattled by the man holding him again, went on. "Look, all I'm saying is that this man was restrained and beaten into unconsciousness, nothing more, and it happened sometime after he left here this morning. I can't say what exactly happened during those hours... all's I can say is that in the condition he was in when he left, with the amount of painkillers I shot him up with..."

"...There was no way he could have raped that girl?" Chris prompted.

Leach shook his head. "Not unless he had some sort of body-regenerating sarcophagus," he tried to joke... and failed.

"A what?" Will looked to Chris, who in turn shook his head at the doctor.

"Did the bikers know what a nerd you were when they recruited you?"

Not happy with the length of time he'd already spent with the two agents, and not to mention offended at being called a nerd, Leach tried to take control of the situation. "He wouldn't have recovered from the shot I gave him, he was already dead on his feet by the time they left," he told them what they wanted to hear. "Look, I'll have a full report for you in a few hours but right now I have other patients to get to."

Chris gave him a hard stare before pushing him away and stepping back. "You aren't going anywhere but with us."

The doctor nearly gasped in his shock. " What?! I told you what I know!" he whispered harshly before looking toward the door again.

Benning shook his head. "You told us you're affiliated with the Jokers, that they come to you for help."

"No... that's not what I said."

"But you know this Doc guy personally?" Benning pushed. "Where's the report from the gunshot wound, there would have to be one, right? If everything was above board that is..."

"Of course it is," Leach said too quickly.

Chris leant forward again. "What the fuck do you take us for, Leach? You either talk here, now, or you come with us and we do this somewhere a lot more public."

Again the Doctor looked from one man to the other, feeling like a fly pinned to the wall. Either he told them more or they were going to take him in - and if they did that, he was as good as dead.

"Look, I don't do much... every now and then they come in and I'll treat one of them... or if I'm not on shift they might call me out to fix one of them up."

"And in return they pay you for turning a blind eye?" Chris asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"Something like that."

"And what do you know about what happened with the girl?"

"Nothing! I swear, the cops brought him in and I haven't seen any of the club guys here since, which is actually a bit weird because usually they post a few men when one of them is down. Although..."

Chris raised a brow when the doctor stopped his ramble short, trying to reign in his already boiling anger.

Leach shook his head as if it were just a passing thought. "I was just thinking that this guy's from Texas, so maybe the local boys aren't too worried what happens to him."

Chris frowned and spoke to Benning. "What difference would that make, they're all brothers, right?"

"Supposedly," Benning said as they both looked back at the doctor to elaborate.

"Look, I don't know, it's just a thought but... these guys don't really care much for anyone outside the state. Not even their own."

Chris studied the doctor's face, trying to determine if there was truth in the man's words, then looked at Benning who nodded to him in silence. He stabbed the doctor with a hard glare of warning. "If you're lying or holding out on us, we'll be back, you can count on it."

The doctor looked between the two of them, his eyes screaming to be let go.

"And as soon as you hear what's going on, you're going to call me." Benning handed him a card, which Leach took and shoved straight in his pocket as if it had burnt his hand.

"Ok," he agreed, then saw the threat still glaring his way from the Chris's hostile green eyes. "Ok – yes! I'll call you if I hear anything at all!" He took a tentative step back and tried to straighten his rumpled shirt, not sure if they were going to let him go. He nearly sighed with relief when his hand reached the door handle and he opened the door, tasting his freedom. His chin jutted toward the bed and he put on an air of assertiveness for anyone who might be listening outside. "He'll have to stay in for a few days." Again he looked over his shoulder before looking back at them. "But we'll have to move him to another ward, so that the other patients are not disturbed if you insist on the number of men standing on duty."

Chris's lip curled as his eyes followed the doctor's hasty departure, but he said nothing. It was Benning that finally spoke as they turned back inside the room and Chris heard the laughter in his voice.

"I think you made him nervous."

He slanted his gaze at the older man. "If that prick knows more, I'm going to make him a hell of a lot more than nervous. We need to put a man on him."

Benning nodded and then a soft, short moan from the bed had him looking across the room. "This is going to be hard to keep out of the papers," he said thoughtfully.

Chris, too, was looking at the awakening man. They needed to find out what the girl had to say, but the media would not be held off forever. "Then we'd better tell them what they need to know, before they go ahead and make up their own versions."

"They'll do that anyway," Benning scoffed. He looked again at Chris, keeping his voice beyond the hearing of prying ears outside. "The fact that he was acting on his own back doesn't help matters."

Chris sighed and ran a hand through his hair, a habitual gesture. "No, it doesn't. I know this though, you were right."

Benning's eyebrows shot up and a grin tugged at his mouth. "Well, there's a first."

"He's years ahead of any of us on getting the jump on these guys. To take him out now would be a huge step back."

He looked at Benning closely. They had known each other a long time, had both been serving their country a long time, and had seen things that average men had not seen on missions that had often lasted far too long. Sometimes, in order to do what was right, you had to do things that some might consider wrong. If they wanted to ensure Tanner's career with the NTF, ATF, or any other agency, they'd have to move fast to protect him. They both knew how the game was played.

"Did you call Lomely? Is he still ok with the transfer?"

"I spoke with him after I called you, but I didn't mention making Tanner's transfer a permanent one yet. The way I figure it, we'll have to get over this hurdle first before we can start making plans for his future. He really didn't sound all that surprised that Tanner got himself in this mess."

"But he'll support the backdating of the transfer?"

"Yes. He said Tanner would never have done anything to that girl and it was the least he could do for him... but he's not our only obstacle."

"Travis?"

Benning nodded. "He's waiting to meet with us. He called Lomely himself this morning to get his view on the

situation. Without him, this won't happen. We'll need him to sign off on it."

"And will he?"

"Orin's a good man," he said simply. Yes, he thought he would. If they could get him to agree to backdate Tanner's transfer by a week and state that he was already working with Larabee's team when the shootings went down, Tanner had a chance at keeping his job - and avoiding prosecution. For even if he was cleared of the charge of assault against him, he would still have to face questions about his activities at the club, acting on his own as he was. Travis would have to be convinced that it was the right thing to do.

Chris looked at Vin again. If the Texan wanted to stay on the right side of the law, he was going to have to accept their help. The choice was no longer his.

..

It was several hours later that Vin's mind was awash with flashes of random memory spinning out of control when a noise in the quiet room around him ended his restless dreaming. With the senses of a man long accustomed to waking quickly he slit his eyes open and took in his surroundings. It took a few seconds to make out that the shadow by his bedside was living.

"Can't seem to leave you in one piece now can I..? What is it about you that seems to piss people off so much?"

His stomach clenched at the sound of the all too familiar voice. It was a voice that summoned both relief and

apprehension. When Sugar Ray came all the way out from Texas to visit you, you could sure as hell bet it wasn't just to say howdy, he was more likely summoned to beat the crap out of you. He almost laughed at that, beginning to reason that what was one more beating anyway? Instead, he rested his head back into his pillow and with a slight sigh, listened as the voice spoke again.

"Didn't I teach ya to keep yer nose clean an' watch yer own back?"

Tanner's tired voice spoke softly into the silence. "Only so many angles ta watch from."

"That's what ya got brother's for." Sugar shook his shortly shaved head a little. "Ya never really did get that side of it." He was leaning over him, his massive arms supporting his weight by leaning into the side rail of the bed.

Vin said nothing. He could never trust any of these men to watch his back, so how could he call them his brothers?

"I told ya to stay in Texas now didn't I? This city can be one cold bitch, even to men like us."

'Men like us? I ain't like you...'

There was a stretched silence while Sugar took a long hard look at the man finally awake enough to hold his eyes open. He studied the blinking blue eyes and the cuts and bruises marring his skin for a long while, before stepping back to lean against the wall.

Vin wanted to go back to sleep, even his scattered dreams were better than this sudden reality. He hadn't checked in with most of his body yet, his head was still thankfully disconnected from his pain, but it was just around the corner, he knew that well enough. He pictured for a moment the long, cold streets he knew were outside, the rain that even now sprayed against the window of his seventh floor room. He knew how unforgiving the streets were down there. Sugar was here for some answers and he wanted to tell him to go to hell, wanted to tell the whole damn world to go to hell at that moment. Who was he kidding, trying to play these men? What if he never got satisfaction, never found the ending he had wanted for so long now? If this was the way his own supposed side worked here in Denver, then they were just as bad as the bikers. Perhaps he should have just taken a gun to his father years ago and been done with it...

Then amidst his dark thoughts he remembered a voice telling him to call him and piece of paper being shoved into his hand as he had watched a flash of concern cross through green, questioning eyes. Where that number was now, he could only guess. His clothes could be anywhere. Still, with that thought came the first touch of hope that he had felt since he had ridden into this town. Maybe there was someone in this city that he could trust after all.