CSI Fic - Mistaken Identity Chapter IV
Title: Mistaken Identity
Fandom: CSI - Crime Scene Investigation
Pairing: Sara/Sofia
Rating: M for extreme scenes of violence and some language.
Disclaimer and Spoiler Warnings: Not mine. See Prologue for full disclaimer and spoiler information.
Summary: Catherine and the Night Shift arrive at Ely.
Author's Note: No, I have not abandoned this story. Here is the next part. I would like to say that updates will soon even out and be more regular, but I don't know what my muses will be up to so I will remain silent. Special thanks to fabledtoast for the invaluable insight.
This is also my contribution to today's International Day of Femslash festivities. That being said I will be logged in over at Femslash Con as RebelByrdie all day along with my usual AIM and Yahoo presence...so drop me a line!
Chapter IV
Baghdad, Nevada
God, Catherine Willows decided, had blinked. He had blinked ,and in a hit and run moment when the almighty eye had been closed, Ely Nevada had taken a hard and fast nosedive into the depths of Hell.
It was an action movie nightmare of epic proportions. Violent orange and red flames, only now being controlled, licked at the picturesque blue sky, leaving behind acrid black smoke and dingy gray steam. Pieces of rubble, ranging from chunks of concrete the size of a small SUV to tangles of razor wire lay spread across the prison grounds. A tornado could have cut a path through the building and the damage would have been less. Then there was the human wreckage that she and her team would have to wade through. Though she was not even within the prison proper she could smell it. Death, ripe with the rank and stomach churning stench of blood, waste and putrefying flesh left in the sun, floated on the stingy breeze across the yards of yellow crime scene tape. Blue lights, dozens and dozens of them, flashed in morbid rhythm with the red and yellow of the various rescue and relief vehicles.
She was standing in the middle of purgatory. A hellish landscape that had sprung out of a seriously sick, monstrously violent and freakishly twisted sociopath terrorist-wanna-be's masturbatory fantasies.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Gil Grissom stood beside her and they looked across the parking lot and into the prison. He was as oddly poetic and dead-on as ever. All that stood between them and Hell on Earth were orange cones and fifty members of the Nevada National Guard.
“We're way outside of our jurisdiction, Griss.”
That was an understatement if she'd ever said one. It wasn't just the military or State Police presence she was referring to either. They had crossed over into White Pine County several miles ago. Distance was, of course, not the only factor here. They were staring at a raging war zone. If reports held true there were dozens dead and even more injured. There were, if memory served, roughly four-hundred employees at Ely. It had also been visiting day so there were also several dozen visitors and family members. Then there were the prisoners, all fifteen hundred or so. This wasn't going to be overtime. It wasn't even going to be golden time, this was platinum level work.
If they were ever allowed on scene, Catherine mused, they wouldn't be short of hands. She could count at least four different agencies within her sight and estimated that there were at least one hundred people standing around. White Pine County had help from their brothers and sisters in blue from as far as Carson City and of course Las Vegas. Cops, Detectives, CSIs, Coroners, and God only knew who else. There was also, Catherine knew, every bureaucrat in blue that had been in driving distance. It was going to be an ungodly mess.
“Do they know who is going to run this dog and pony show?” Greg Sanders spoke as he squinted in the bright desert sun, “I mean there are cops lined up like it's free doughnut day around here.”
Catherine almost smiled at his comment.
They were all disheveled, they had been called in on a Saturday afternoon after all, but Greg was by far the most unkempt looking. He was dressed in a plain white tee shirt and what appeared to be the single oldest pair of khaki cargo shorts that anyone in the time-zone owned. He had, at least, changed his flip-flops for work boots, but he wore them without socks. His hair was wilder then she'd seen it in at least a couple of years. She wasn't sure what he had been pulled away from, but would bet big money that it had been way more fun then where they were. He was cute enough to have walked out of a Pac-Sun advertisement, but she wouldn't tell him that.
“Doesn't matter who's in charge because we're all going to be up to our necks in work.”
Nicky, the last of them to arrive, was dressed casually in jeans and a short-sleeved blue shirt. A LVPD baseball cap covered his dark hair and tinted glasses covered his eyes, but Catherine was sure that he was tired.
She, herself, wished she had changed out of her good black jeans and red silk shirt, but hadn't thought about changing until she was halfway to Ely.
“It's going to be an enormous undertaking.”
Grissom was neither more or less casual then usual and had only spoken a handful of words since his arrival. He'd been quiet lately, even for him. Catherine didn't know if it was because he was having problems with his hearing again or other reasons. The other reasons were named Warrick Brown and Sara Sidle, the absent members of their team. The last month had been such a roller coaster ride, Catherine was having a hard time dealing with it. She didn't know how Grissom was dealing with it, but doubted that he had shrugged any of it off. He would talk to her if he wanted or needed her advice or opinion. It didn't happen often, but it wasn't unprecedented. When you spent worked beside a man for forty to sixty hours a week for a decade or so, words weren't always necessary.
Not that their group was, by any means, quiet. Ronnie Lake, a borrowed set of hands from mid-shift, had chattered non-stop since she and Grissom had arrived. For what she lacked in experience, she more then made up for in enthusiasm.
Catherine stood and looked at the other gathered cliques of cops and criminalists. She could already see the lines of a pissing contest being drawn. The White Pine Sheriff's Office wanted it and since it was their territory Catherine couldn't blame them. Forensically speaking, though, her team was the big fish. The Las Vegas lab was not only the best in the state, it was second only to the enormous complex of labs that made up Quantico. Their very presence spoke for itself, and Catherine could already hear the scuttlebutt. If looks could kill Lieutenant Christine Taylor, the head of the White Pine County Crime Scene Investigation Unit would have killed Catherine at least twice and Grissom three times. The animosity wasn't confined to their reputation alone, though. This wasn't the first time that Clark and White Pine Counties had collaborated on cases a handful of times and the smaller lab had been handed the short end of the stick each time. Taylor was just going to have to remove the stick from her ass. This breakout, the biggest in Nevada and possibly US history was bigger then any one of the departments and no matter how it turned out, every one of them were probably going to get royally screwed.
Yet another helicopter roared over head and Catherine threw her arm in front of her eyes when it's roaters kicked up dust as it hovered and then sank lower to land. She immediately recognized the seal on the side of the black 'copter. The silver mine, purple mountains and shining sun of the official seal of the state of Nevada meant one thing: a massive headache. She didn't have to see the doors open and the men run under the blades to know who, exactly, would be running the show. This was going strait to the top, Governor Jim Gibbons and Howard Skolnik, the Director of the Department of Corrections had arrived on the scene.
Catherine and Nick shared a look, they didn't have to vocalize their opinions of the situation and it would have been unprofessional to curse at the moment anyway. It had been four and a half hours since they'd got the call. As for as she knew the call had gone out almost immediately after the riot and escape had started. It was rare to get calls that stretched across jurisdictions, and even rarer to have a call go out with such urgency. Everyone had been waiting on pins and needles for word from the higher ups. The brass and the politicians had only been given a few hours to sort out the why and wherefores of who, where and how the investigation, and more importantly the publicity would be handled. Mobilizing paper pushers in less then five hours was as close to quick response as it got. The press had found out as quickly as the law enforcement community and were being held back by several uniformed officers at least a mile back. Not that the perimeter was stopping the news from getting out. Her Blackberry had already chimed eight times with different networks reporting on the escape. CNN, CNBC and Fox News were running live footage about every fifteen minutes. The local stations all had reporters present and foaming at the mouth, they had drove past the pulsing mass of cameras and microphones on the way.
The squeal of a bull horn caught her, and everyone else's, attention. It looked like the party was finally about to begin. The Governor, his suit pressed and impeccable, looked across the group of them. He stood on the open tailgate of one of the many SUVs. Catherine braced herself for a tsunami of bullshit.
“Seeing you all here, from different counties and departments, makes me very proud! Some of you came in on your days off, off shift, some of you might have been on vacation. You walked away from picnics with your children, dates with your boyfriends and girlfriends and doctor appointments to answer this horrified scream for help.”
Nick chuckled, “What doctor takes an appointment on a Saturday for a lowly civil servant?”
Catherine smirked and Greg rolled his eyes. Grissom said nothing, but Catherine knew that he was similarly unimpressed with the Governor's speech. Neither she nor Grissom had voted for the idiot. He was talking an awful good game for a man who had pushed for a bill that would carve a large chunk out of the law enforcement budget, twice.
“There has never been a riot and escape on this scale in this country. What just happened, what brought us here is in the past and out of my-our control. What happens next is far more important and it is completely within our control. You men and women are the best at what you do and you know it just as well as I do. Nevada has the tools, the know-how and the cajones to fix this. We will work together, as a team. There are no jurisdiction lines or department loyalties today. Today it is us against them and I don't just want to win, I want total victory. I want every slimy piece of criminal trash that walked out of this complex back locked up and prosecuted to the full extent of Nevada law.”
He paused to breathe, and Catherine scoffed, to soak up the limelight. She knew as well as every other person listening to him that the press was lapping this up. She couldn't work up half a damn about his re-election speech. All she wanted to know was what and how they were going to go about working the scene and ultimately the case.
“With that being said, we have allot of work to do.”
Greg ran his hand across his shaggy hair and mouthed the word 'We?' to both Nick and Catherine.
“This is a big job, bigger then any one department so I've been talking to my advisers and the heads of every organization here trying to form a cohesive team that will not only stand up to the task, but to defeat it.”
The tension of the group went up a few notches. No matter what the Governor said, there was going to be a pissing match and Catherine had a bad feeling that she was about to be splashed.
“I'm sure you all know Howard Skolnik, the Director of the NDOC. I will be working very closely with him during this time and he and the designated liaisons for this state-wide task force will be reporting directly to me.”
Catherine sighed, “Here it comes.”
Gibbons looked around, as if he actually knew who he was looking at.
“The Highway Patrol is already and will continue to run statewide sweeps, searches and roadblocks to stop these felons from getting to our cities, towns and citizens. Chief Tony Almarez will, of course, be handling his men and women.”
He cleared his throat, the next assignment wasn't going to be taken half-as-well. As for the tracking and capture of these hard-core, cold- killers. We will assemble a crack-team of SWAT officers who will work with the experienced men and women of the US Marshall Service and the FBI's own CATS team under the supervision of Supervisory Special Agent Noah Sherill.”
After all the Governor's grandstanding about the state and it's officers and it's law he was letting the FBI take charge of one of the most vital parts of the case.
“Control and rebuilding of Ely State is going to be handled by Captain Margaret Randall and her soldiers of the Nevada Chapter of the National Guard.”
That had been a given. What most of the officers were waiting on had yet to be announced. The investigation teams and who lead them was what the gathered officers, detectives, and CSIs were waiting on and salivating over. This was the sort of case that could make or break a career.
“The investigative portions of this case will be handled by a task force made up of detectives and officers from all over the state, chosen by their superiors to represent and work for their jurisdiction. The forensics of this case are of the up-most importance. The dissection of the physical evidence and deceased will lead us to finding out what happened. I have thought long and hard on this, and have decided that the Las Vegas Crime Lab, with it's record of speed, quality and high closure rate will take the lead. Conrad Ecklie has assured me that his top people, along with criminalists from all over the state will work day and night to process the evidence collected today.
Catherine could actually feel laser-like glares on her skin. She made a mental note to thank Ecklie for hanging a big bulls-eye on her and Grissom's backs.
“It is the belief of myself and my advisers that many of the offenders will head towards Las Vegas if they haven't arrived there already. That combined with the fact that the forensics team will be working out of Las Vegas has lead me to the decision that the LVPD headquarters will play host to the investigation task force. Detectives from all over the state, experts with valuable insights, will be working together under the supervision of one of this state's finest officers.
There was a pregnant pause, every Captain, Sergeant and Lieutenant salivated. This was the mother-load, the honeypot, the golden ticket. This was what a career investigator dreamed of every night and talked about in the locker rooms and over the water coolers.
“She has my up-most confidence, and she will be directly supervising the investigation and reporting to me. The task-force will be headed up by the LVPD's own Captain Elizabeth Curtis.”
Catherine ignored the ripple of discussion, both good and bad, and turned to the other LVPD Curtis.
Sofia's face was strait, hard as a stone and unreadable. The woman had arrived with Greg and was dressed casually in blue jeans that were faded almost white at the stress points and a bright blue tee-shirt. Her usually impeccably kept hair was tousled and wind-tossed and her eyes sparkled with whatever her opinion on the matter was. Her mouth, however, stayed shut in a stern line. Catherine didn't know what was going through the Detective's mind, but she was glad she wasn't in the other woman's shoes.
Three hours and what felt like thousands of photographs later, Catherine knew she had only just scraped the surface. Her team, Grissom, Nick and Greg, had been assigned to the group that was processing the exercise yard or what was left of it at least.
Kennan Munroe, a CSI out of Carson City and Greg were working in a forty-foot square grid with the cutting edge DeltaSphere 3000 scanner. Catherine wasn't a techno-whiz but she understood that the scanner was using incredibly fast lasers and high-definition digital cameras to create a three-dimensional computer representation of the entire scene. That, along with the photographs she was taking, the video that Maria Cardoza from Washo County Forensics was taking and the sketch Nicky was doing from the remaining guard tower would give them a clear and exact picture of the crime scene.
She looked back down at the hard-packed earth and lined up her next shot. It was yet another bullet casing. They had a few hours of natural light left and then they would have to bring in heavy duty lamps and spotlights to continue the investigation. She had no idea what was being uncovered inside. It couldn't be any worse then her little piece of Hell. There were fourteen bodies in the exercise yard alone. Ten of the bodies were prisoners who had been killed during the riot. Catherine couldn't work up sympathy for their passing. The other four bodies, though, tugged at her. There were two guards, their nameplates identified them as Clyde Samson and Mike Adams. Samson had taken a point-blank gunshot to the back of the head. From what little that was left of his face, Catherine winced, it had been a very large caliber bullet.
She paused over his body, “How did someone get something this high caliber into the prison?”
Grissom looked up from the dead prisoner he'd been photographing, “That is yet another question we're here to answer.”
His floppy straw hat shaded his eyes, but they were as sharp and full of questions as ever. If he had been distracted by his thoughts or recent personal problems it didn't show. Not that she had expected it to, nothing interfered with Grissom's work.
“This is going to be a very long night.”
Catherine chuckled, Gil Grissom, master of the understatement.
Catherine let her camera dangle on it's strap around her neck, “Well we can thank Ecklie and the Governor for putting us in this lovely position.” She bent down and picked up one of the luke-warm bottles of water that someone had brought them and drank deeply. “This could actually be the biggest single case in the history of forensics.” She drained the rest of the bottle and sighed, “And I gotta tell you I think we're being set up for a crucifixion.” Though Gil Grissom cared little to nothing about politics, she knew he was more aware of them then most people realized. He knew just as well as she did that their team was being railroaded. It was a coup for the department, of course, but putting the graveyard shift on point was a mistake. She wanted to work the case but knew that they were more likely to crash and burn then to succeed. She smelled a rat: a well connected rat with a grudge against the night shift.
“I've got someone over here! I NEED A MEDIC!”
Both Catherine and Grissom turned towards the pile of rubble that a team had been gingerly sifting through. It was difficult to see what exactly had happened, but it couldn't be good. No one could be buried under so much weight and be okay. Two men and a woman, all clad in green tee shirts that identified them as Nye County Rescue, were moving around the rubble with practiced ease. Their movements had caught everyone's eye. In a field full of death, every investigator looked up and hoped to see a sign of life and survival. The EMTs eased the injured man onto a back-board and secured him with straps and a neck brace.
A few yards away Ronnie Lake stood up from where she'd been working and moved as if to help. Sofia Curtis, who had been interviewing one of the 'scared strait' boys nearby, grabbed her shoulder and held her in place. Catherine winced at the Detective's coldness, but knew she would have done the same. CSIs could only speak for the dead, they could do precious little for the living. Ronnie, like everyone else, would have only been in the way.
The rescue workers rushed him across the yard towards the make-shift ER that had been set up in the prison's mess hall. Catherine's breath caught in her throat when she saw the bloody and broken khaki-clad man. He looked like he was barely twenty-five and his groans, that gurgled and bubbled with blood, were the only thing that told her that he wasn't already dead. The smell of burnt flesh, blood and excrement hit her nose when they passed her. Despite all her time as a CSI her stomach rolled and she gagged to the point of almost vomiting. Four hours north of home and it felt like she had fallen into a war zone.
“Welcome to Baghdad, Nevada.”
Her own words made Catherine gag again.
Author's Note Part II - I borrowed the names of the Governor, the Director of Corrections, and the Head of the Highway Patrol all of Nevada. I didn't ask permission and I'm reasonably sure they are unaware of the use of their names. I wanted to add a touch of realism to the story and I'm only using their names. All actions, behaviors, speeches and assorted whatnot having to do with these people is purely fiction of my own creation.