Chapter 27
Vin drove Josiah’s car through the streets of Billings. He knew what he had to do and he wanted to do it before the others found out and tried to stop him. He
blinked his eyes, not sure if the stinging was caused by the bright streetlights or the unshed tears he refused to give in to. He’d used his cell phone to call information
and found a listing for Gary Woodbury. It was a simple matter to call in a favor and get the man’s home and business address. He was headed for the business
address since his calls to the home number went unanswered.
He pulled up in front of a low level glass covered building in the business section. He got out of the car, leaving the door wide open in his haste to meet with the man
he’d once considered his best friend. He climbed the steps and slammed open the door, walking past the unmanned front desk to the brass colored door. He
slammed his right fist against the button, sending tremors of agony into his shoulder. The door opened and he stepped inside the air conditioned elevator, once again
slamming his fist into the button for the third floor. ‘So sorry, Chris,’ he thought as he pictured the injuries inflicted on his friend.
He opened the door to the third office, rage boiling over as he saw the gold colored lettering adorning the glass window. Gary Woodbury Enterprises was boldly
emblazoned in block lettering.
He stepped through the door and into a darkened office. He could just make out a small desk to the left of a large door. His eyes took in the empty space as he
slowly made his way to the inner door. The darkness of the room mirrored the darkness of his soul as he turned the gold colored handle.
Gary Woodbury looked up from the pictures he’d been studying, his eyes widening in shock and anger at the man standing in the doorway. “What the hell are you
doing here?” he asked.
“How could you?” Tanner asked as he advanced on the man behind the large mahogany desk, ignoring the raspy quality of the other man’s voice. “You sick son of a
bitch.”
“Stay away from me, Tanner, or I’ll call the police,” Gary told him.
“Go ahead maybe they’ll get here in time to pick up the pieces cause I’m gonna tear you limb from limb,” Tanner’s soft voice belied the rage that continued to build
inside him.
“That’s funny. You already tore me limb from limb,” Gary shouted as much as his ruined larynx would allow. Vin Tanner slowly moved towards him. “Hold it right
there,” Wilcox said as he took a small pistol from the top drawer and pointed it at the other man’s chest.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You broke your promise to me! You left me at the mercy of those animals in Beirut. They cut off my legs and they tortured me and burned me! Look at my face!
Look at what they did to me! The only limbs I have left are my arms and even they bare the scars of what happened to me because of your broken promise.”
Tanner’s face showed his anger as he listened to his one time friend’s tirade. “Then why didn’t you take your anger out on me? Chris didn’t deserve what that
bastard did to him!”
“Where is Whelan?”
“Dead. He died too damn easily,” Tanner snarled as he started towards the man again, staggering as the gun went off and the bullet burned a fiery trail across his left
thigh.
“Stay back, Tanner,” Gary warned. “Did he at least kill Larabee before you killed him?”
“Chris is on his way to the hospital. I can’t believe I thought of you as my best friend.”
“Me either but that’s what makes my revenge so sweet. I saw how much Larabee meant to you and I wanted to take that away from you. Whelan promised that he
would think you were the cause of all his pain. From the look on your face I can tell it worked,” Gary laughed.
“You sick, twisted, Bastard. Whatever they did to you won’t come close to what I’m going to do to you,” Tanner screamed as he threw himself over the desk,
grabbing the surprised man by the throat.
“Vin, where are you?”
Tanner recognized Buck Wilmington’s voice as his hands tightened around his old friend’s throat. He heard the sound of a gunshot at the same time he felt something
burn its way into his chest. Ignoring the searing agony he tightened his grip on the other man’s throat.
“Don’t do this, Vin,” Wilmington pleaded as he hurried towards the two struggling men. He reached out and tried to pry the younger man’s hands from the death grip
he had on the other man’s neck.
“He’s behind it all, Buck,” Tanner hissed.
Buck watched the man’s face slowly turn red, his eyes beginning to bulge as the air supply was cut off. The pistol was dropped to the desktop as soon as it’d gone
off. Wilcox’s own hands had reached up and tried to pull the tightening hands off his throat.
“Don’t do this, Brother,” Sanchez said as his hands joined Buck’s in an attempt to stop their friend from choking the life from the other man.
“If you do this, Vin, Gary wins cause you’ll go to jail. If that happens we might as well give up on Chris because you’re the only one who can get through to him,”
Jackson warned.
Nathan’s words got through the heavy layer of anger that had wrapped itself around Vin Tanner’s mind. Slowly he relaxed his grip and watched as the other man
breathed in great gulps of air.
“Is this Gary Wilcox?” Standish asked.
“No,” Tanner said as he moved off the desk. “Gary Wilcox died in Beirut. This man just used his body.”
Gary reached his hand out towards the pistol on his desk, grasping it tightly in his hand.
“Look out, Vin!” Jackson shouted and leapt at the man in the wheelchair, sending them both careening to the floor, the pistol flying across the room.
“No,” Gary cried. “He has to die for what he did to me.”
“You did this to yourself,” Jackson said as he pushed the chair away from the man. “The police should be here shortly to arrest you.”
“I won’t go to jail. Don’t let them send me to jail, Vin. You broke your promise to me in Beirut but you can make up for it now. You can let me go. No one needs to
know what I did. You owe me, Vin.”
“I don’t owe you a fucking thing,” Tanner snapped as he lifted himself off the desk.
“Oh my God, Vin, you’re hurt,” Jackson gasped as he noticed the blossoming red stain on the man’s chest. “Call an ambulance, Buck. Lie down, Vin,” he ordered
as he pointed to a large sofa on the opposite wall.
“Is Chris alright, Nathan?” Tanner asked as he felt a coldness seeping into his body.
“He was on his way to Saint Vincent’s when we left. Ezra, get some pillows and elevate his legs. JD, find something I can use to stop the bleeding.”
Sanchez stood over Gary Wilcox, his eyes filled with anger as he listened to Nathan shouting orders to the other men. He felt no pity for the man, having seen the
damage he’d done to his two friends. “You’d better pray they both live,” he said softly, his eyes falling on a partially open door covered in pictures of Chris and Vin
from the Billings Gazette.
“Ambulance is on the way, Nathan. How bad is he?” Wilmington asked.
“Between the knife wound and now this bullet he’s lost a lot of blood, Buck. Looks like a bullet grazed his leg too,” Jackson observed as he checked the bloodied
area on Tanner’s thigh.
“I’m cold, Nathan,” Tanner mumbled.
“See if you can find something to cover him with, Ezra,” Jackson ordered as Dunne returned with an armload of folded towels. He quickly used a couple to try and
stem the flow of blood from the wounds.
Sanchez pulled Gary Wilcox from the floor and threw him into his chair. “I don’t think God would be to angry with me if I gave you a taste of your own medicine
right now. I’ve never hit a man in a wheelchair before but you move from there and I’ll make you regret you were ever born,” he promised.
Chapter 28
“P...please just l...leave me a...alone,” Larabee begged as he was lifted from the stretcher and placed on another bed. He felt so helpless as new hands probed his
body. Adding tubes and IV lines.
“Hello, Chris.”
He heard the all too familiar voice of Stacey Midland as she placed her hand on his forehead. “H...hurts so m...much, Doc,” he whispered weakly.
“I know it does, Chris. We’ll do something about that real soon, ok?”
“K,” he mumbled as his eyes closed.
“That’s it, Chris go to sleep.”
“C...can’t s...sleep he w...won’t let m...me.”
“Who won’t let you?” Midland asked as she watched the trauma team work on the injured man.
“W...Whelan and V...Vin. P...punish. H...have to b...be punished.”
Midland couldn’t understand his reference to Vin wanting him to be punished. She knew how close Chris Larabee and Vin Tanner were. “No one’s going to punish
you anymore, Chris. You’re allowed to sleep now,” she soothed as she watched two nurses remove the bandages from around the patient’s hands.
“So t...tired.”
“I know you are. If you can’t sleep just close your eyes and rest. No one’s going to hurt you anymore, I promise,” Midland explained, her anger rising as she saw the
damage to her patient’s hands and fingers. ‘What kind of animal would do this to another human being?’ she thought as she felt the man trembling beneath her
touch.
He cried out as they examined the swollen hands and fingers. “Y... you p...promised you w...wouldn’t hurt me a...anymore,” Larabee’s voice sounded weak and
forlorn and she knew they were in danger of losing him if they didn’t give him something to help him sleep soon.
Midland finished checking his head for signs of an injury and sighed thankfully as she found nothing. She checked his pupils and continued talking to him. “I’m going
to give you something for the pain in a minute. I just need you to answer a couple of quick questions for me. Can you tell me your name and where you are?”
“C...Chris Larabee. H...hospital,” he answered tiredly.
“That’s right. Jenny give him two milligrams morphine,” she ordered
“Yes, Doctor,” the petite nurse answered and did as the doctor instructed.
“That should help, Chris,” Midland said as the nurse removed the syringe from the IV tubing.
“P...please, j...just make it s...stop,” he cried out as his body spasmed on the bed, jerking against the restraints holding him in place. “Oh, God,” he screamed through
clenched teeth., tears streaming from his eyes.
“Chris,” Midland spoke softly as she tried to get through to the man on the bed. She watched as his face contorted in pain, his forehead drenched in sweat, and his
body was wracked by spasms.
“Please,” he begged simply as the spasm finally stopped and he tried to catch his breath.
“It’s alright, Chris, we’re gonna take care of everything,” Midland explained. “Jenny, give him two more milligrams of morphine,” she ordered as she resumed her
examination.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Midland continued to watch her patient as she ordered a series of X-rays and blood work. She watched as the team expertly inserted a foley catheter and an NG
tube.
Chris felt some of the pain leave his body. He felt cold hands working on him and wondered what they were doing. He didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to
be reminded of where he was or why he was here. He knew he deserved everything Whelan did to him. He felt someone touching him and knew they were trying to
sooth him but he didn’t want to be soothed. He wanted to join his family but because of what he’d done he knew he’d never be with them. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m
so sorry. I love you both so much. Oh, God I miss you,’ he thought as a wall of despair and blackness descended over him. His last vision was of Vin Tanner
nodding his head and Whelan placing a gun to his head. ‘Vin says it time to die, Chris!’ Whelan’s voice echoed in his mind as he slipped into unconsciousness.
“That’s it, Chris, go to sleep and let us take care of everything,” Midland said, shaking her head at the cruelty inflicted on the man’s body. “Let me know as soon as
the test results are in,” she told the team before leaving the room. She hurried to the nurse’s desk and picked up the Doctor’s phone. The call was answered as the
second ring started.
“Parker,” a sleepy male voice answered.
“Tom, it’s Stacey Midland.”
“What can I do for you, Stacey.”
“Do you remember Chris Larabee?”
“Chris Larabee, I think so. Works for The Firm doesn’t he?”
“That’s right. I need your help with him. He was brought in about half an hour ago with multiple injuries.”
“How bad?” Parker asked, his voice serious and professional as he listened.
“Bad. He’s been tortured. His hands are a mess from nails embedded between his thumb and finger, also has a nail puncturing his right knee. We’re going to need to
remove them surgically. His fingernails are also a mess, looks like something was shoved underneath each one and I’m worried about infection. His right wrist is
broken, he’s got knife wounds to his left arm, right calf and right side. He’s got broken ribs. His neck, ankles, and wrists are torn and bruised from being restrained.
He’s also got multiple burns covering his body, I’m not sure what caused those yet but some of them are second degree.”
“Damn. I’ll be there as soon as I can, Stacey. Is he stable enough for surgery?”
“I don’t know, Tom. Right now I’d have to say no but we may not have a choice.”
“Alright, I’m on my way,” Parker assured her as he hung up the phone.
Midland replaced the phone and watched as a portable X-ray machine was pushed into Larabee’s room. She turned to the nurse manning the desk. “Where’s the
rest of Larabee’s team?” she asked.
“They haven’t arrived yet, Doctor.”
Midland’s eye’s opened wide in surprise. “They haven’t?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“No wonder they haven’t been pounding on the door to get in. Let me know as soon as they get here.”
“I will, Doctor,” the nurse answered.
Chapter 29
“Vin, the paramedics are here,” Jackson said as he moved away to give the men room to work.
“Mr. Tanner, can you hear me?” a dark haired man asked as he knelt beside the couch.
“Yeah,” Tanner grimaced.
“Just relax and let us take care of you.”
“K,” Tanner answered as he felt the two men work over the wounds on his body. Through a haze of pain he heard them asking Jackson questions and felt them start
an Iv in his right arm, before succumbing to the encroaching darkness.
“Let’s get him out of here,” the dark haired man said as the lifted Vin Tanner’s unconscious body onto the stretcher.
“You are taking him to Saint Vincents. Aren’t you?” Wilmington asked.
“Yes we are.”
“I’m going with you,” Jackson told them and without another word followed the men out the door.
“What do we do with this piece of trash?” Dunne asked as he watched the man in the wheelchair.
“I’d like to put my hands on a nail gun and show him just what it feels like to have one shoved up his a...”
“Buck, that’s enough,” Sanchez ordered. “We all feel the same way but now’s not the time.
“I know you’re right, Josiah, but I keep seeing Chris and the things that were done to him. Now I can’t get Vin outta my head either.”