Part 15

Chris dropped the phone. Turning on his heel, he strode to the door and flung it open. The chair outside the door was empty, but looking down the hall he saw two uniformed policemen standing by the nurses' station. They were talking with two other men whom Chris recognized. The older one, wearing a well-tailored suit and leaning on a cane, was David Montgomery. Montgomery had been a decorated ATF field agent until a fall while chasing a suspect had left him with a permanent back injury. He was now AD Travis's assistant. The much younger man with him was a new agent, Bobby Fewell. He was temporarily assigned to Team Three and was a friend of JD's.

All four men looked up as Chris charged down the hall. Montgomery stepped forward, leaning on his cane, to intercept him. "Chris," he started, then stopped at the look on Chris' face. "You know, don't you?"

Chris nodded. He couldn't seem to think. "Vin called me." He didn't even recognize the voice that came from his mouth as his own. "I've got to get...get over there." He looked at the two policemen. "You're on guard duty here?"

"Chris." Montgomery said soothingly. "I'll stay here with Agent Standish. AD Travis has requested extra men from the Denver PD to augment security here, and Agent Fewell will drive you to University Medical Center."

Chris nodded. He kept hearing Vin's voice in his head, telling him to hurry. Then another thought interceded and he fixed a steely glare on Montgomery. "If Ezra wakes...you don't tell him anything, understand? Nothing about Buck being...hurt." The words stuck in his throat.

Montgomery looked nonplussed. "Surely," he started.

Chris cut him off. "Nothing, damn it! I'll tell him or Vin will tell him. You don't tell him anything."

"He's going to notice you're gone," Montgomery pointed out reasonably.

"Then you tell him I got called into the office, that I went to get something to eat...lie like a rug if you have to but you don't tell him a damn thing about Buck. And don't leave him alone!" Without waiting for a response, Chris turned on his heel and strode down the corridor to the elevators. He could hear the soft pad of athletic shoes as Fewell followed him.

It wasn't until they were in an Agency car-Fewell had a motorcycle, Chris vaguely remembered-that he asked, icily, "What the hell happened?"

Fewell gulped. "I really don't know. My team is over there-at JD's-at the site, working with the Denver PD bomb squad. Team Four went to Agent Standish's home to check for more bombs."

"I don't give a fuck what Team Three or Team Four are doing," Chris forced the words through clenched teeth. "What the hell happened to Buck?"

"I don't know," the kid said miserably. "I was in Agent Montgomery's office when he got the call. I didn't hear details."

Chris leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "Why University?" he asked. "It's clear on the other side of town!"

Bobby Fewell took a deep breath. "It's the best trauma facility in the whole state," he said simply. He paused, his eyes on the traffic around him. "Agent Larabee...do you want me to call JD?"

'JD. Shit. JD! How do I tell the kid his big brother is-

'He's not. He'll be fine. Buck has to be fine.'

"No," Chris said finally. He reached for his cellular phone, punching in the automatic dial buttons first for Josiah Sanchez, then Nathan Jackson. Neither man answered. Chris didn't leave a voice mail message. Then he held the phone in his hand for several minutes, hesitating. He closed it without calling Dunne. "I'll call him when I know...something more," he said quietly.

Neither man spoke for the rest of the drive.

7777777

Fewell dropped Chris off at the Emergency entrance to the bustling University Medical Center. Chris came through the automatic doors and went straight to the central reception desk. "Buck Wilmington," he snapped. "Where is he?"

The receptionist didn't even look at her computer screen. "Are you Agent Larabee?"

Chris nodded tersely.

"Trauma Unit." She pointed. "Down that hall, make a left, go through the double doors." Chris was moving before the last words had left her mouth.

"Chris!"

Larabee heard the familiar voice the instant he crashed through the double doors. There was a large waiting area on the right. Vin was sitting there on a shapeless orange loveseat, but he stood up rather dizzily as Chris approached. The sharpshooter had a wide bandage across his forehead. His long hair was crusted with dried blood. Instead of the shirt he'd been wearing earlier, he was wearing a blue surgical-scrub top, with more bandages peeking out from underneath the short sleeves. He was still wearing his jeans though. The denim was covered with irregular brownish-red splotches.

"Are you all right?" Chris demanded.

Vin nodded, in spite of the obvious visual evidence that he wasn't. His face was sheet-white, and bruise-like smudges were visible underneath his eyes. "Chris-"

"Where's Buck?" Chris demanded. "How is he?"

"He's still back there." Vin waved toward another reception desk and behind it, another set of double doors with an imposing "No Admittance Beyond This Point" sign. "Nobody's said nothing to me yet. Chris-" his voice shook. "Chris...he wasn't breathin' when we got here. He stopped breathing in the ambulance and...and they bagged him all the way in."

"Oh, God-" Chris looked around, then dropped limply onto the orange couch. Vin sat next to him. He looked terrible. 'He's got to be in shock,' Chris thought numbly. But he couldn't say anything. His mind kept trying to wrap itself around the thought that Buck hadn't been breathing. That Buck could be...

As always, he couldn't deal with the emotions. He cut them off, forced them back, felt the anger coming out and welcomed it. Anger would give him strength. "What the hell happened?" he growled.

Vin rubbed his hand over his eyes; Chris noticed he was careful not to touch the white bandage. "We got there," he reported tiredly, staring unseeingly at the wall. "The cop on duty said everything had been quiet. I called you, and-Buck," there was just the faintest hesitation in his voice before the name, "Buck went upstairs to get some clothes and stuff." Vin was speaking by rote, his eyes never blinking. "He yelled my name-and then, the loft...there was this...God-awful noise and-"

The double doors slid open and a gray-haired man in scrubs and a pristine white lab coat stepped out. He stopped at the desk, and the elderly woman in a crisp pink smock pointed toward Vin and Chris. The man approached. "Are you two here for Buck Wilmington?"

Chris stood up. "I'm Chris Larabee." His throat was so very tight as he forced out the next words. "How is he?"

"Mr. Larabee, maybe you'd better sit down."

"I don't want to sit down! Tell me how he is!"

Vin reached up and put a hand on his arm. "Chris...go easy...he ain't the enemy here."

Chris clenched his fists, fought for control. 'God, this can't be happening.' He covered his eyes with one hand. "Just tell me how he is, please."

The man nodded. Sitting down on another shapeless seat across from the two ATF agents, he looked pointedly at Chris until he, too, sat. "I'm Dr. Culver."

The name was vaguely familiar to Chris but he couldn't remember why. He tensed, waiting for the next words to come from the doctor's mouth.

"Mr. Wilmington is in extremely critical condition. His blood pressure is very low; he's not breathing on his own. We have him on a respirator. I suspect massive internal hemorrhaging. We're taking him up to OR immediately."

Chris couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The words reverberated like an echo chamber. "Can I see him?" he managed to ask.

"There's no time, Mr. Larabee. Every second right now could make a difference."

Chris looked up. His eyes flared with anger. "Then what are you waiting for?"

"Mr. Larabee, we have him on a respirator," the doctor said gently. "We have to have consent from his next of kin before-"

"I'm his damn next of kin!" Chris voice was a ravaged whisper. "You can call the Legal Office at the ATF, or you can take my word for it...but I have his Power of Attorney for medical decisions. Just give me the damn papers to sign and go-" his throat closed up and he couldn't say anything else.

Culver nodded and stood. "I'll have the nurses keep you posted with what's going on. You can wait here, or in the surgical waiting room on the second floor."

"Doc-" Vin started. "Is he...gonna make it?"

Culver met Vin's eyes, then his own flickered toward Chris. "We'll do all we can," he said quietly. "But Mr. Wilmington has to do his part as well and...it wouldn't hurt to pray for a miracle."

They went to the second-floor waiting room-which looked exactly like the room they'd just left except it was done in mauve and gray rather than orange and beige. The furniture was still that squishy, shapeless stuff that made Vin's spine feel like it was going to snap in two.

Vin got them cups of hot black coffee from a machine tucked into a corner. On the way back, his attention was caught by a discreet sign: "Cellular phones prohibited in this facility with the exception of Main Floor Lobby and Waiting Areas."

He handed one cup to Chris and then pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He'd left the jacket in Chris' truck but for some reason he'd thought to grab it before he climbed in the ambulance with Buck. He had a slip of paper in his wallet where he'd written down the number for Ezra's room at Lakewood-St. David's. David Montgomery answered. He said Ezra hadn't woken up yet but he was restless and moving around a lot. Just before they hung up, he added that Team Four had found a bomb in Ezra's condo and had successfully disarmed it. Vin let the phone drop into his lap.

"What?" Chris asked. Vin started; he'd thought Chris' whole attention was on the double doors leading back to the operating rooms. "Ez okay?"

"He's still sleeping', but restless." 'Damn I need to get over there before he wakes up. He don't need to wake up with someone he barely knows sitting beside him. But I can't leave Chris alone like this either...' If his head would just stop pounding maybe he could figure something out...

"They found a bomb at Ez's place," he said out loud. "Got rid of it. Maybe it'll tell the investigators somethin'."

"Was anybody else hurt? At Buck's?" Chris added the last words with difficulty. His eyes strayed back to the double doors.

"No." Vin hesitated. "I'm no bomb expert, but it looked to me like it was just set to take out one person. Buck was gettin' clothes...I'm guessin' it was in his closet or maybe the chest of drawers." He paused. "I bet he saw it," he added quietly. "Just before the-before it happened-I heard him yell my name."

Chris nodded, saying nothing. After a few more minutes of silence, he pulled his own cell phone out. Never taking his eyes off the double doors, his fingers punched in an auto-dial sequence. "Nathan?" he said after a few seconds. "You need to come back. And bring JD with you. There's been..." he stopped, seemingly unable to say the word "bomb". Vin took the phone from him.

"Nate, it's me."

"What's going on, Vin?" Nathan's voice sounded worried even through the distorted connection. "Where are you, anyway? Wyoming?"

"No. We're in Denver. Ezra's in the hospital and Buck...Buck was caught in a bombing this afternoon." He could see Chris wince at the words. Nathan started to sputter questions but Vin just kept talking. "He's in surgery now. Get JD, Nathan. We need you two to come home."

Florida

Nathan parked the rental car in the hotel lot. His duffel and backpack were already in the trunk. He and Rain were due to meet JD and Casey for dinner. It was their first get-together since he and JD had arrived in the Sunshine State. Different life-styles, really: he and Rain had so little time together between his job, the extra courses he was taking at night, her med school classes and her work at the hospital, that they had just wanted this time alone. Long walks on the beach; intimate, romantic dinners in small restaurants off the tourist path; making long lingering love in the hotel room.

Casey and JD were younger, more caught up in the "party-time" atmosphere of Spring Break in Florida. Or at least Casey was. Nathan suspected JD would have had just as good a time-maybe a better time-if he hadn't been constantly surrounded by a pack of wild college kids determined to party down every minute.

He and Rain had talked, while he'd quickly packed. They'd decided it would be best if she came along with him. She could stay with Casey while he and JD headed to the airport. Maybe Casey would even want to come back to their hotel with Rain. Nathan would turn in Rain's rental at the airport-she could use the one JD had.

Rain tucked her hand in his pocket as they started for the imposing glass entrance. Nathan put his arm around her. Normally they weren't demonstrative in public but right now he needed her strength.

It had taken patient questioning-patience he really didn't feel, he'd wanted to yell through the phone at Vin until the sharpshooter gave him all the answers-but he'd managed to find out Buck and Ezra had suffered some kind of food-poisoning and had stayed in Denver when the rest of the team left. Nathan's conscience kicked him hard. 'I knew something was wrong with Buck at the airport. I knew Ezra didn't look good. I should have done something!'

Ezra was still in the hospital being treated for the food poisoning. Buck had somehow-Vin sounded in shock, he wasn't giving details-got to his own place.

And a bomb went off.

After Vin had hung up, while Nathan was throwing his things into his bags, Rain had called a friend who was a nurse at University Medical Center. The friend knew about Buck's admission-the bombing was big news in Denver -but all she could tell Rain was what Vin had already told Nathan.

Extremely critical condition. In surgery right now.

"Hey, Nathan!" JD called from across the lobby and waved enthusiastically, then headed toward them leading a giggling Casey by the hand. Casey's round faced was tanned and she had flowers in her hair. JD's fair skin was sunburned a painful-looking pink and he was wearing a shirt with bright orange parrots on a dark blue background. Except for the fact the shirt fit him, it looked like it could have been purloined from Buck's wardrobe-Nathan's unconscious smile faded.

JD was in front of them now. "Nathan! Rain! How's the vacation going? You guys look-"

And then he just stopped, his eyes glued to Nathan's face.

In the few seconds before Nathan could speak, JD changed before his eyes. Gone was the giddy kid on vacation. In his place was the stolid, no-nonsense, mature beyond-his-years agent that occasionally came out in times of stress. And seeing that JD always scared the crap out of Nathan, because it meant things were very bad indeed.

"JD-" he started.

"Who is it?" JD's voice was too calm, although his eyes were searing pools of agony. He dropped Casey's hand and stood in front of Nathan, his head tipped up a little so he could look him directly in the eyes. Rain moved away from Nathan and came up beside Casey, sliding one arm around her shoulders.

"Who?" JD insisted. "How bad?"

Nathan's mouth was dry. He had to swallow twice before he could speak. "We've got to go home, JD," he finally managed. "Someone planted a bomb in your apartment."

A look of shock crossed JD's expressive face. "A bomb? Who'd-" he shook his head. "Was there a lot of damage? Boy, Buck'll be pissed-"

And then he stopped. And he looked at Nathan. And Nathan saw it in his eyes as he realized what Nathan couldn't say."

JD started shaking his head in denial, even as the hard-as-nails agent disappeared to be replaced by a kid...a kid in fear for his big brother. "No. No. Not Buck...he couldn't...he wasn't there, Nathan! You know that! He went to Wyoming with Chris...and Vin...Nathan, he wasn't there!"

"I'm sorry, JD," Nathan said, his own heart breaking at the look on the kid's face. "We've got to go, kid. Buck needs you now."

Tbc…