It sucks, not having the lights and siren at his disposal. Not that this impedes him; he drives like a maniac the whole way anyway. As he hustles his way through a yellow light, he smirks to himself: nobody is chasing him.
Then he wipes the smirk right off his face, as if God himself is watching and judging. No, he thinks with panic. Give me tickets! Fine me! Don't use my luck up on this, on me!
It's not what it looked like, he keeps thinking. It's become a mantra, of sorts. She's fine. She's probably at home sleeping.
Of course she's not. Cragen would never have looked so worried. And she never turns her phone off.
Which he's tried calling about ten times since he's gotten into the car.
He crosses the Verrazano Bridge into Staten Island. This is the borough with which he's least familiar, but he has a general idea where he's going; the reporter indicated the neighborhood and the rest he's picked up on his police scanner, which he kept, probably illegally, after he left the force.
The scene is easy to find: there are two TV vans with giant, Hollywood-style spotlights dotting the landscape. Several yards away on a tiny, perpendicular street across from the park, is one squad car and three unmarked vans, all of which he assumes house the NYPD. It's otherwise a quiet, unassuming residential street, flanked on one side by a park and austere-looking playground and the other by several single-family dwellings and a sprawling, three-story red brick building that might be a school, or might be something else. It's this building that is most likely the subject of the hoopla, and where his partner is probably trapped.
He spots Cragen leaning against one of the vans. He jumps out of the car, leaving it taking up two spots in the school lot. He knows he's not going anywhere for a while. Let them tow it.
An intrepid young uni approaches him, clearly intent on shooing him away. "Sir, I'm sorry, you can't be here –"
Elliot growls at the poor kid. "I'm a detective with Manhattan SVU. Shield number 56824. Off duty, so I don't have the badge on me."
Cragen spins around, overhearing. "Elliot?"
"Captain! Please tell me she's – "
Cragen is stressed out, and lets it show. "Elliot, what the hell are you thinking? You can't be here. You're a civilian!"
Elliot stares incredulously at his old boss. "She's my partner."
Cragen sighs, looking Elliot up and down. He lobs an arm around his forlorn, hapless detective, pulling him aside into a huddle. He shuttles him into the unmarked van that's parked by the curb. "We want to show as little police presence as possible," he says grimly.
"Well don't they know we're out here?"
"It's more about what kind of cops they think are out here. They hate the Feds."
Elliot's eyebrows rise. "The Feds? What've they got to do with this?"
"Sir!" exclaims a young man, who's huddled over a laptop alongside Morales, "we think we got a shot at getting a visual!"
Elliot squints, recognizing the tall, lanky man from his appearance by Cragen's side at the news conference. Elliot doesn't need to see the guy's badge to know he's a detective.
Cragen clears his throat. "Elliot, this is Detective Nick Amaro, Olivia's new partner. Amaro, this is Elliot Stabler."
Amaro, for his part, does not try to engage with any sort of pleasantry beyond, "Nice to meet you." He knows this is not the time.
Elliot, in spite of himself, appreciates the gesture. The guy has the good sense not to say something sarcastic like, So this is the famous Stabler. He looks Amaro up and down, not making any attempt to suppress the glare that spontaneously erupts across his face. He begrudgingly takes the hand offered to him. "Hi," he says coolly.
The introductions over, Elliot gets down to business. He turns back to Cragen. "So tell me what's going on."
Cragen talks rapidly, his voice husky. "She's been in there since three in the afternoon. We don't know what exactly triggered the standoff. From what we can tell everything was going fine till about four o'clock."
Elliot explodes. "Four o'clock! It's two-forty-five in the fucking morn-"
"Will you please calm down?"
"Don't tell me to fucking calm down! How could you not call me? Do me that courtesy? I mean, I know it's not procedure and all that bullshit, but come on –"
"Elliot." Cragen's eyes burn into him. "Shut up for a moment. This isn't about you." Cragen's gaze shifts; back up, towards the third floor. His brow crinkles.
Elliot follows his gaze, reads the expression like a book. "All right, all right, I'm sorry. Will you just… please, I'm going nuts here. Just tell me what's going on."
Cragen sighs, assessing Elliot. "Look. If you're going to be here, you keep it together, you got that? The last thing I need is Tucker harassing me again after everything that happened last spring. I'll let you stay as a courtesy, got it?"
It takes all that he has to push the anger down. He's not angry at Cragen anyway; he's angry at the situation. At the fact that Olivia still does this kind of thing, still has this dangerous job, still puts herself at risk, but without him by her side to protect her. At himself. For leaving her. For enabling her. "Okay, I'm sorry. So you said things were, quote, going fine. So this was planned? Was she undercover?"
"Yeah, she was."
"Do they know she's a cop then?"
"We don't think so."
"You don't think?" he snorts.
Cragen sighs. "To be honest, we don't know what the hell they know. There's been no communication. We think they might have Internet. Not sure about TV."
"So who, exactly, is 'they'?" He looks up at the three-story crumbling façade, silent against the bit of fog that swirls in the cool air. It's like a haunted mansion straight out of a fairytale. "What is this place?"
"It's a private school building. Totally off the radar. It's run by a guy named Nathan Gunther. There's at least one other male, a guy named Dwight; you know, these guys always have leaders-in-waiting. There are about half a dozen women, maybe more. We think they're all, quote, unquote, married to Gunther."
"A cult," Elliot states the obvious. He shifts from one foot to the other. They've dealt with these types of groups before.
Cragen nods. "Little nine year-old girl named Ruth just waltzes into the precinct one day, tells Olivia this vivid tale. Even Olivia's wondering if this kid's for real. Ruth claims she's living in some sort of communal center that dubs as a school, that her mom and five other women live there with their kids, that the women are all married to the same guy, Gunther. Says the guy's partner beats her mother and all the women every night, but that her mom thinks Gunther's God, and that she deserves to be punished. Classic battered wife, with a twist of Stockholm."
"How did Ruth make it from here to our precinct?"
"Apparently the little girl had the wherewithal to escape even though she's presumably as brainwashed as the other kids and has never been off the property. So she gets into a cab without a dime on her, asks the cabbie to bring her to a police station. Cabbie brings her to the three-five in Staten Island. Uni there offers to pay her fare, but cabbie declines."
"Nice guy."
"Yeah. Elderly Indian fellow who said he, quote, knew something was wrong. Thirty seconds of talking to the girl and they pack her up in the car and bring her to us."
"Not Staten Island SVU?"
Cragen's mouth curves upwards into a smile. "No."
"Why not?"
"Unclear. Olivia had a case with the three-five a few months ago and they loved her there. My theory is they're under the illusion they can poach her and so they want to stay in our good graces."
Elliot laughs. "Well she does have that effect on people. But Staten Island? Really?"
Cragen clears his throat. "Yeah."
"Are the kids being abused too?"
"Not according to Ruth, but obviously we had to investigate."
"So what's the status now?"
"We think there are about twenty-five kids, though bear in mind we're relying on the memory of a nine-year old. Twenty-five kids and six women, not counting Olivia. They think she's a social worker who came to check on the kids."
The blood drains from his face. "Twenty-five kids, oh God. She'll never… she won't come out till the last kid is safe."
Cragen nods morosely. "I know." He pauses pensively, places a hand on Elliot's shoulder. "That's how it should be."
Elliot swallows silently, the guilt over Jenna paralyzing him all over again. "So, uh, why was she posing as a social worker?" he manages finally.
"Well, the little girl wasn't alleging abuse of the kids. Technically, she'd just run away. We had to investigate, of course, but the case for removal of the children off the bat was shaky. We all knew what we were dealing with, but to get warrants, to prove it, in court…"
"So she was doing a bit of reconnaissance work."
"Exactly. It was the next best thing to posing as an actual recruit, which she wanted to do and I vetoed, by the way."
"Thank God," Elliot mutters under his breath.
Cragen hears. "Yeah, no kidding." He shakes his head, evidently replaying the fight he must have had with Olivia in his head.
Elliot chuckles at the sight.
Cragen continues. "The issue was, guys like this would've been too smart to let a cop in the door. A social worker was the next best thing. You know, authorized and required by law to investigate, but with not nearly the power or clout or resources of the NYPD."
"And female."
"Yeah."
Elliot shifts on his feet. "So what exactly went wrong?"
"We're not sure," Cragen admits. "She didn't check back in at the squad and I got worried."
"So maybe she's just –"
Cragen shakes his head firmly. "No. Something was wrong. Her cell was turned off. And her car's still parked about a block away. For what it's worth, we don't think this necessarily means her cover's been blown. It could just be that they got spooked for a different reason, put the place on lockdown."
"How did the press get wind of this?"
"We don't know. It might have been a leak at the three-five. Trust me, it's the first thing I'm going to look into when this is all over."
Elliot swallows. "Do we, uh, do we know how she's doing?"
Cragen shakes his head guiltily. "Not really. The little girl told us all the classrooms have cameras in them, which we figure are closed-circuit. We've got Morales and some tech guy from the FBI trying to hack in. Maybe we'll get lucky and be able to see for ourselves."
Elliot takes a deep breath, finally voices the question that's been plaguing him since he arrived. "Are they… are they rapists?"
Cragen looks him up and down, as if assessing Elliot's psychological preparedness for a candid answer. "Well, depends how you interpret the women's consent. Ruth didn't want to talk about it, but Olivia thought Gunther had probably raped all the women at one time or another. We don't know much about Dwight, the younger one."
Something occurs to him. "Captain, how come Staten Island isn't heading this up?"
Cragen nods, as if he's been waiting all along for Elliot to pose the obvious. A small smile forms on his otherwise anxious face. "It's their jurisdiction. But they dropped it after a week for lack of evidence. Olivia was infuriated."
Elliot understands. "So she insisted on continuing the investigation on her own."
Cragen nods grimly, the regret etched on his face. "With my blessing."
Elliot lets a beat pass, studies his former boss's face. "You're really worried, aren't you?"
The question isn't meant to challenge or accuse. Cragen looks him right in the eye. "Yeah, I am."
