~ Author's Notes ~

At long last… This promised chapter. ;) You'll get a little info from this chapter on what Mac, Cath, and Ryan are dealing with now. And it's nothing short of what the evidence was telling them back at their labs!

~ CSI: NY/LV/MIA ~

Mac's blue glare lingered on one of the men after he'd pulled his arm free. Catherine and Ryan flanked him. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered heavily and an old radio was jamming "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" as the three investigators scanned their eyes over their captors.

One of the men stood, removing a live cigarette from his mouth as he examined the three CSIs before him. "Good, I see they left you alive," he muttered, eyeing them all still.

"I don't think you could've gotten our attention any better," Mac told him, returning the suspicious look over as Catherine folded her arms across her chest on his left. "What the hell do you want from us?"

"Your skills." That was a different voice, and it made the three investigators turn around. A man stepped out of the shadows, the spotty lighting in the room reflecting off of his heavily tinted sunglasses. "Your attention is what we needed to see your work. The three of you are the ones we need to finish up this little show."

"If you think we're going to help you kill innocent people then you need to think again, buddy," Ryan offered, eyes narrowed.

Mac licked at his dry lips and turned his gaze to Catherine as she chipped in her own thoughts, "You're very specific when you say, 'the three of us.'"

The man nodded, leaning against a chair that he walked over to, examining the trio as they stood there in the middle of his crew. "Detective Taylor… You've been awfully quiet since I walked out. Something on your mind as well?" he asked, a cruel, plot-filled smirk playing at his lips. "You do know you outrank these two, don't you?" he asked, jabbing his own cigarette in Catherine and Ryan's directions.

Mac's eyes narrowed to blue slits as he tried to calculate through this. "You're the head of this operation," he said finally. "The way everyone stopped when you walked into the room tells me you're at least of some high ranking here," he added. His eyes were no longer narrowed when he shifted his weight on his feet, but not in any kind of a nervous fashion, and then folded his arms across his chest. "What the hell do you need from us?"

The man laughed, and soon laughter surrounded the investigators, but Mac's gaze remained hard and unwavering as Ryan looked to Catherine. "What's so funny to them?"

Catherine sighed, shaking her head slightly. "They're taking it as a sign of cooperation," she muttered.

When the men stopped laughing, the leader looked back at Mac, pointing a finger at Catherine. "She has a very good point, Taylor," he said, grinning. "But what I'm amused at is your little set up. What you gonna do?" he asked, raising his hands slightly and smiling provocatively, "You got your 'kick ass' setup going on."

"You keep playing games with us and I'll find a way to do just that," Mac growled, "Why the hell did you kill those girls?"

"And what the hell do you want with us?" Catherine added, not waiting for an answer to Mac's question.

Ryan nodded, watching the men around them as Catherine and Mac took the lead on the questioning. "You know they won't stop now," he pointed out, looking back to the leader. "As far as our teams are concerned, you are all now on the top of their 'Most Wanted' lists."

The leader smiled and stepped past the chair, walking up to the three investigators and standing toe to toe with Ryan, Mac and Catherine both watching with muscles tensed, ready to break up a fight if that was what was going to start.

Instead, the man looked at all three of the investigators, putting his cigarette between his teeth as he looked over each of them one at a time, walking slowly in front of them as he did.

Mac grabbed his wrist forcefully when the man reached out at him and he glared at the man, who simply smiled. With a disgusted frown on his face, the detective pushed his hand away from him. "Are we playing games or are you talking?" he growled, his tone dangerously low.

~ CSI: Miami ~

"Where the hell are they?" Eric was almost yelling, hands planted firmly on the table and a vicious snarl on his face.

Caine stood behind him, fire burning ferociously in his eyes. "Answer the question!" His voice was low, and dangerously so. "I'm not letting him ask again."

Collins sat back with a sigh. "I tell you and I sign my death warrant. And your officers'," he said.

Eric seemed quickly subdued by this and Caine's gaze went from threatening to interested in the information. "What do you mean?"

"They'll know I told you, and they'll know it before you can get there," Collins said with a soft sigh as he ran a hand back through his hair. "All three of them will be dead when you get there. They've got eyes everywhere. Do you want all three of them to be dead?" he asked, leaning forward on to the table.

When both officers remained silent, he nodded. "All I can tell you is that they're north of here, along the state border. It's a large facility, abandoned. And if I tell you anything more, you're looking at four bodies – mine, and your friends."

Caine nodded both him and Eric remaining silent for several more moments. "What if we cut a deal, Collins?"

"Protection?" Collins scoffed. "You won't be able to protect me from them!"

"Would you rather us give you a death sentence for being involved in the first degree murder of three reputable officers? One of them the head of a lab? Another an assistant supervisor? The other that is a brother to me?" Eric was almost hissing at him with that last comment from him.

Collins held his hands up. "You're not listening to me, Delko!" he snapped, returning the glare he received when he addressed Eric by name. But then he sighed. "Alright…," he said after a moment, looking up at both of the officers that had been on him for what seemed like hours now. "I know where you can find them, alright? But they're not going to be there, your CSIs, when you show up. But there will be Max. He'll know where they're being held."

"Max?" Horatio asked, looking back over at the man.

Collins nodded once more. "He's the head of the group at the compound where they would've held them for 24 hours. After 24 hours, your guess is as good as mine, but I do know something else."

"Keep talking," Eric told him.

"This is a game in their eyes. They'll use them before they start thinking about how to kill them, although I assure you, they're already planning," Collins explained. "If there's one of them that's more fiery than the others, they will make the two of them that aren't fighting as hard watch. It's a lesson kind of theory. And I can tell you it'll be slow and as far from painless as possible. They'll use anything under the sun to keep those officers detained and to make them feel out of power."

"Where can we find your friend, Max?" Horatio asked.

"And how long are we looking at for our detectives to be there?" Eric added.

"They were taken two nights ago around 11 o' clock. I'm telling you that you won't make it in time to get your officers before the transfer goes down. Odds are that they chatted with them this morning, probably when you were walking in here and talking about when to get me in this room. They're probably handcuffed and sedated in the back of a truck, in the sleeper of an 18 wheeler or tied up damn good in the trunks of three separate vehicles. The boss is organized. He loves making you all run."

"Get to the damn point!" Eric snapped, "I'm losing my patience!"

Collins finally spit out an address as he sat back again, holding both officers in his gaze now. "Max will give you the specifics if you push like you did with me, but he'll be harder to crack. I'm a disposable end. And I'm holding you to it that you hold your end of the deal when you find them."

"Only if we find them all alive," Horatio said flatly before looking to an officer that stood by the door, "Get him out of here."

Eric stood, but both CSIs waited until Collins was out the door before they spoke again. "We need to get out there, Eric," Caine said, sliding on his sunglasses as he started for the door with Delko tailing him, "We're losing more time the longer we wait."