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Collings hurried into Team 7´s suite of offices. “I just heard about Roswell,” he said to Chris. “You´re still going to meet him?”Chris glanced around them at the other men. “My office,” he growled at Collings.
Once inside with the door closed, he whirled to face the other man. “What the Hell are you doing here, Collings?”
“What?” was all the other man could say, his face a mask of confusion.
“You know damned well what I´m talking about,” Chris snapped. “Buck told me everything. Imagine my surprise to hear that you sacrificed your career for mine.”
Collings took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Chris,” he began, shaking his head. “That was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
“Damned right they´re different,” Larabee grated, his voice dangerously low. “We´re not partners anymore. I´ve got my job and you´ve got yours and the minute this case is over, I want you to stay the Hell away from me and my team, got it?”
Collings held the angry gaze for a moment, then nodded. “I was hoping we could put the past behind us, but if that´s what you want, I understand.”
It wasn´t the reaction Chris had expected, but that did nothing to ease his anger. “Now, Mr. FBI profiler, I am going to meet with Roswell and in the meantime, you can use your goddamned talents to figure out where they took Vin.”
“Tanner?” Collings asked in confusion.
“Yes, Tanner,” Chris spat. “They grabbed him from his hotel room last night. What´s the matter? You didn´t figure that into your little plan?”
“That doesn´t make any sense,” Collings was saying as he shook his head. “That isn´t Bertolli´s style.”
“I don´t care about his fucking style,” the team leader seethed. “All I care is that we get Tanner back here in one piece, understand?”
“Of course,” Bertolli nodded. “We´ll get him, Chris.”
Larabee studied the other man for a moment. Vin had been right. He´d been seeing what he wanted to see in Collings. When it all came down to it, he did feel guilty about the shooting. True, Collings had no business breaking cover, but he did do it thinking Chris was in danger. The fact that Chris had had the situation under control wasn´t really the issue. Collings had been trying to save his life and had nearly ended his career in the process. He hadn´t realized it until now, but he´d been letting Collings run the show because he felt he owed him.
But knowing he´d been taken advantage of went a long way toward erasing any residual guilt he might have felt. The man before him had been a good cop, was probably an even better profiler. Hopefully, those qualities would aid them in finding their missing agent and he´d be able to be grateful for that, at least. If he could put his talents to work and find Vin alive and well, he truly would owe him and he´d be the first one to admit it.
“I have to go,” he finally said. “Roswell.”
“Ok,” Collings nodded, having regained his professional composure. “Good luck.”
Chris nodded once and was about to leave the office when a hand on his arm caused him to turn and look at the other man once again. “We´ll find him, Chris.”
Larabee swallowed hard and nodded again, unable to speak around the sudden lump in his throat. The words only reinforced the fact that Vin needed to be found, reminded him that he was out there, alone, maybe hurt. Here, in the office, Vin had said he was just another agent, but in Chris´ heart he was his soul-mate, his lover, his reason for living. Struggling to rein in his errant emotions, he managed a raspy, “Yeah,” before leaving the office.
+ + + + + + +
Montgomery´s was a small, dimly lit bar just South of Purgatorio. Chris had been waiting nearly ten minutes when a young man slid nervously onto the stool beside him.
“Agent Larabee?” he whispered.
Chris nodded, turning to look at the obviously scared man. “Yeah. I´m glad you came.”
“I don´t have much time,” Roswell began, glancing over his shoulder toward the door. “They´ll probably be here any minute.”
“No need to be scared, son,” Chris assured him. “I´m here to help you. I´m not going to let anything happen. But you need to tell me who you´re running from, Chuck.”
“Guy named Bertolli,” Roswell answered nervously. “Owns a club over on Seventh.”
Chris nodded. He knew The Silver Pagoda all too well by now.
“I was in there one night and he starts talking to me. Seemed like a real friendly guy. After a while, he said he was looking to hire some extra men, and I thought he meant for the club, so I said sure, I´d be interested, as long as I could work nights and weekends. I was in school during the day.”
“Go on,” Chris urged as the young man paused in his rambling.
“So, he took my name and set up a meeting for the next day. When I got there, he explained the job involved making deliveries. I didn´t see a problem with that, and I did the first few, even though they seemed a little strange.”
“How so?” Chris asked.
“Had me delivering cases of hamburger buns to a restaurant over on Twelfth. First, it seemed like a lot of buns for such a small, out of the way place and then it occurred to me that the boxes were pretty heavy for buns. And there were never any receipts or invoices. Nobody ever had to sign anything, but I was only supposed to deliver the boxes to one certain person, a gun named Rico.”
Chris waited for the story to continue. He didn´t have to wait long.
“So, I guess it was about the fourth or fifth delivery, I opened one of the boxes. The first two layers were buns, all right, but under that, there were guns. I didn´t know what to do.”
“What did you do?” Chris asked.
“I made the delivery,” Roswell replied. “Then told Mr. Bertolli I couldn´t work for him anymore. Told him it just took too much time away from studying and stuff.”
“I take it Mr. Bertolli wasn´t exactly thrilled to hear that,” Chris intoned wryly.
Chuck shook his head. “He said he needed me. That no one would suspect me of anything. When I said I wouldn´t do it, he said he´d kill my parents, my girlfriend. He had their addresses and everything. Knowing he had all those guns, I thought he could probably do it, too. I was just so scared, I didn´t know what to do.”
“I understand,” Chris assured him. And he did. What was a scared kid going to do when the lives of his family hung in the balance?
“He said it was only temporary, and that if I told anyone, he´d kill my family. I was afraid to go home after that. I didn´t want him to think I was telling anybody anything.” He paused for a moment. “I knew they were looking for me,” he finally stated sadly. “I was just too afraid to contact them. Especially after that cop set me up.”
“What cop?” Chris asked, frowning.
Chuck took a deep breath. “After making one of my deliveries, I was stopped by this guy who said he was a detective. Said he knew all about Bertolli and what he was doing. He told me to take the next delivery to a warehouse on Superior Street, regardless of where Bertolli said it was supposed to go. He said that there would be cops there and that they´d be able to help me once they had the evidence.”
Chris´ frown deepened. DPD hadn´t mentioned setting up any such sting. And he knew damned well they wouldn´t use a kid like this to pull it off. “So, did you do it?” he asked.
Chuck nodded, scrubbing a nervous hand over his face. “I took one of the guns from the next delivery and then took the box to the warehouse. I went through the side door just like he´d told me, but there weren´t any cops there. There wasn´t anybody there that I could see. I put the box down and started to leave, but then someone was shooting at me.” He took a shaky breath. “I didn´t know what else to do, so I just ran.”
“Could it have been Bertolli´s men?” Chris asked of the shooters.
“I don´t know,” Roswell admitted. “I didn´t think he knew what I was going to do or where I was going, but I just don´t know. I was afraid to go back to Bertolli´s but I didn´t want to go home because he´d find me. I´ve pretty much been hiding out since then, but there´s this big guy that seems to be following me, just watching. I don´t know if he´s waiting for a chance to take another shot at me or what. I thought maybe they knew I´d stolen the gun. I wasn´t going to use it, honest. I was just so scared. When I found out the guy was following me, I sold it the first chance I got.”
Chris thought about all he´d heard. “Chuck, would you be willing to come in to the office and give a statement? With what you´ve told me, we could put Bertolli away once and for all.”
“Police station?” he asked, obviously wary.
“ATF office,” Chris corrected. “Until we know who this detective was, I don´t want to take any chances.”
Roswell thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “OK,” he agreed. “Will I be able to call my parents?”
Chris smiled at that. “Yeah, you can call your parents,” he promised. “The FBI has been keeping in touch with them while they were looking for you. They´re fine.”
Chuck closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“Come on,” Chris said, gesturing toward the door. “My truck´s just across the street.”
Chris hit the button on his key ring to unlock the doors and turn off the security system as they made their way toward the truck. He nodded at the young man to go around to the passenger side while he opened his own driver´s side door. At that moment, the windshield exploded and Chris dove for cover. “Chuck!” he yelled, hoping the younger man had made it to safety. Three more shots and then there was silence.
His own weapon drawn, Chris scoured the area as he made his way around to the passenger side of the truck. Seeing nothing of the shooter, his frantic gaze then settled on where Roswell was slumped against the side of the truck. Cursing, he knelt beside the boy and applied pressure to the wound in his upper chest. “Call 911!” he shouted to a store owner who´d come out to investigate the commotion.
“What…?” Chuck rasped, his eyes wide.
“Shhh,” Chris soothed. “Don´t try to talk. Ambulance is on the way.”
The store owner reappeared. “They´re coming,” he said breathlessly.
“Do you have something I can put over his wound?” Chris asked. “A clean towel, cloth, anything?”
Without replying, the man hurried back into the store, reappearing a moment later with two clean, thick towels. Chris nodded his thanks and placed them over the wound, then pulled the shopkeeper down to kneel beside him. Taking the shaken man´s hand, he applied pressure to the injury. “Hold it just like that,” Chris instructed. “Apply as much pressure as you can.”
The store owner nodded again and did as instructed. Chris grabbed his cell and called the office.
“Wilmington,” came the short answer.
“Buck,” Chris replied. “I need you to come down here to Montgomery´s. Somebody shot the windshield out of the truck.”
“You OK?” Buck asked in obvious concern.
“Yeah. Roswell´s hit though.” He glanced back at the injured man. “Don´t know how bad. He´s still conscious. Ambulance is on the way.”
“So am I,” Buck assured him. “Hang tight, ol´ pard.”
Chris hung up and went to relieve the store owner. Chuck opened pain-filled eyes and looked at Chris. Mustering a small smile, all traces of the earlier nervousness gone, he whispered, “Shoulda … met at Barney´s,” referring to a bar two blocks over.
Chris offered a reassuring smile. “Next time,” he said.
Chuck nodded, then closed his eyes again as the sound of sirens drew closer.
Buck arrived minutes after the ambulance. As soon as Chuck was ready to transport, Chris took the injured man´s hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “We´ll call your parents. They´ll meet you at the hospital.”
“Thanks,” Chuck murmured, his senses dulled by pain.
Buck had taken the liberty of calling a garage and they waited until the Ram was towed away and Chris had told the responding police what had happened before getting into Buck´s truck.
“Anything on Vin?” Chris asked.
“Not yet,” Buck replied reluctantly, “but Collings is pulling out all the stops, Chris. He and Ez are out tracking down some of the guys who used to work for Bertolli. They might feel a bit more inclined to talk with an accessory to murder charge hanging over their heads.”
“Let´s hope so,” Chris sighed wearily.
“What did you get from Roswell?” Buck asked.
Larabee filled him in on all the kid had told him.
“That doesn´t make any sense,” Buck frowned. “Who would want to intercept Bertolli´s deliveries then try to kill the kid?”
“No idea, Buck,” Chris admitted. “Maybe somebody´s trying to weed out the competition.”
That thought had merit. There seemed to be no shortage of people wanting a piece of the illegal weapons trade. And if someone was trying to put Bertolli out of business, they wouldn´t want to leave a potential witness like Roswell behind.
“And if Baxter and Stewart were working for him, too, could be they just got hired on at a bad time,” Buck speculated.
Chris just hoped Vin´s name wouldn´t be added to that list.
+ + + + + + +
He couldn´t move.
He knew he was no longer bound to the chair, could feel the cold cement floor of the warehouse beneath his cheek, but still, he couldn´t move. Even breathing took considerable effort and wracked him with unrelenting pain.
God, he hurt.
And Tony wasn´t even finished yet.
A sharp kick to his side had him curling into a ball. Guess he could move after all. What was it they said? ‘Neccessity is the mother of invention´? No, that didn´t really apply here, did it? Maybe ‘Survival is the mother of movement´. Yeah, that would work. Even in his mind, he knew he was rambling, but if it kept his mind off the pain, even for a few seconds, he´d ramble on.
“Surely, Mr. Tanner, you must be willing to talk by now,” Bertolli taunted him.
“Go…” Vin rasped through bloodied lips. “Go.. ta Hell.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tony´s foot draw back to deliver another kick and he braced himself. Instead of feeling the new wave of pain, he heard a voice.
“Hold it.”
Relief washed through him immediately. He knew it wasn´t Chris, he´d know his voice anywhere. But whoever the voice did belong to, they´d stopped the beating and he was grateful for that.
“Get away from him.”
Ok, this was even better. Through the slit of one swollen, blackened eye, he saw Tony´s feet retreating.
“What´s with the gun?” Bertolli demanded. What are you doing?”
Vin managed to roll onto his back, a low moan escaping him as various breaks and bruises made themselves painfully known. Through his limited field of vision, he saw a familiar figure.
“C.. Collings,” he breathed.
Steve Collings held a gun pointed at Tony and Bertolli. He ignored the latter´s questions and spoke directly to Vin. “Sorry I didn´t get here sooner,” he said. “Got tied up with a personal matter.”
“Chri… Chris?” Vin managed.
“Soon,” Collings promised.
The profiler turned his full attention to the other two. “As for you, Bertolli. I believe you´ve outlived your usefulness. I´ll take it from here.” Without another word, he fired two rounds, taking both men down with a single shot to each forehead.