Disclaimers: All characters from CSI: Miami are property of CBS. I own nothing connected with CBS or with CSI: Miami, I don't know anyone connected with CBS or with the show. I gain nothing from posting these stories save self satisfaction.
Title: Mutual Valor
Pairing: Horatio Caine/OC
Rating: NC 17 I know, 'M' is an accepted rating, but this is just in case you don't know, this is what 'M' means. This is not only for sexual content, but also for violence and references to sexual child abuse well.
Spoilers: There are references to previous episodes through fourth season.
Challenge: For you true experts on all CSI: Miami, the J's I use for story breaks, and the Sorority House, are references to one episode in particular. It will be up to you to figure out which episode and why I used the lines of J's.
Comments: Both negative and positive comments are always appreciated. I learn from the negative and enjoy the positive.
Thank you: Many thanks to my betas, Elena and Tonie. If not for you, this would have been a mess! I am truly grateful for your efforts.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
Summary: Story: Sometimes the rescuer becomes the rescued.
Chapter 21: The rescue.
Chapter 21:
Since Horatio had already called to put them on alert, when he and Ryan returned to the lab in the mid-afternoon, everyone was ready to start on the case. Though organizing, arranging, and preparing evidence for analysis, as a rule, took several hours, in this instance, working together, the team set a new record of just under two hours. By five that evening, who would be doing what had been decided, and each took up a set of evidence bags and got to it. At seven, when word flashed around that Chinese had been ordered in, everyone made as little fuss as possible making calls, canceling plans for the evening. The weekend night crew would just have to work around them.
While the team prepared the evidence, Horatio marched quickly to the A/V lab. "Give me some information, Dan."
"Right now, I got nothin'. These guys acted like they knew there was a camera on them."
"Or maybe they were just paranoid to begin with. Usually, Dan, when someone thinks there's a camera on him, he can't resist looking at it. If you will notice, please, these guys have their hoods up, but aren't looking around. They're afraid that just the act of looking at anything will bring attention their way. That is classic paranoia of extreme, prolonged drug use. Meanwhile, they are concentrated on Manuela and the door. See how they're poised? All they can concentrate on is how they're going to get inside, cap M'Fuan and Verron, and solve their witness problem, and then, probably, take care of Manuela, too. Single-line thinking because they probably don't have enough brain cells to be able to do anything else."
"So, they're counting on the hoods to hide their faces from everyone, not cameras."
"Exactly. I was hoping there might be a reflective surface someplace, but there isn't, is there?"
"I'm still going to examine every pixel, Horatio. I can enhance it more, but it will take time. There might be some point where one of the hoods slips enough to show something. If there is, I'll find it."
"Good man. I know if it's there, Mr. Cooper, you'll get it. Thank you."
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Ordinarily, Alexx only came in on Sundays when there were a slew of dead bodies to be posted, but about ten that morning, she had come in to pick up something from her locker. Planning on just passing through she hurried past a room full of what looked like dead people. (Later she was told they had all gone home for about three hours of sleep before returning.) Still, room full of dead people or no, she wasn't going to let anything concern her and was about to continue down the hall, past the door, when two words got her attention, bringing her to a halt.
"I hear my language being spoken so I just have to be nosy," she called, hanging onto the doorway, figuring that by doing so she might avoid being sucked into joining whatever was going on. "What were you saying about bacteria and mold?'
The group, lounging in chairs loosely arranged around their boss, greeted her and invited her in.
"Oh, no! Not me. I just came in to get my shoes to go for an after-church walk with my children and my husband. We get little enough time as it is and I am not going to give it up."
Horatio, looking the worse for the worry and the loss of sleep, yet still handsome in the blue lab coat, was leaning with his back against the lighted display table, one arm at his waist, his other arm propped at the elbow, his hand playing with his lip. "But you might be just the person we need, Alexx." The flatness to his usually espresso-coffee rich voice showed how tired he was.
Hearing his voice stopped her protests. "Why? What's going on? Wait, not more to that child sex ring!"
"Manuela was kidnapped late yesterday morning, Alexx." Horatio's quiet reply shouted his personal involvement.
All business, she stepped into the room. "How can I help?"
"We have several samples of trace from where the two abductors leaned and where they stood, that show heavy concentrations of a mix of both mold and some sort of bacteria. If we can figure out where this might have come from, we'll have a place to start looking."
"Mold and bacteria together, huh? Okay, let's see the bacteria."
Horatio moved to one side to reveal several transparencies spread out on the table. The exotic forms in the pictures looked more like some sort of a textile print from an advanced art student rather than enlarged views of microscopic animal life.
Alexx hardly glanced at more than two. "Huh! Too easy! Now give me a hard one."
"What is it, Alexx?"
"That bacteria is Staphylococcus aureus, nothing more than a really common staph but pesky as the devil. Stuff's learned to become resistant to almost anything we can throw at it, from antibiotics to antibacterial cleaning products. It spreads itself in a thin film on any surface, from the chairs in the waiting room to medical instruments, and sticks like glue. Takes constant cleaning just to keep it in check. Found wherever there are sick people in large numbers!"
"And where," chimed in Horatio's pleased murmur, "do we find sick people in large numbers?"
Alexx countered, "In hospitals and clinics, sugar. It's why you are more likely to get sick in a hospital than get better. Only, the one you want is abandoned."
"And you figure it's an abandoned place because of the mold, correct?"
"Three-quarters of any housecleaning in Miami is mold cleanup. If you found enough to be tracked or rubbed off on clothing as well as shoes and transferred to walls in that concentration, it came from someplace that hasn't been cleaned for at least three months. Same goes for the amount of bacteria that you found. That stuff grows fast."
"Alexx, whatever you get paid, it isn't enough. Thank you."
"You got that right, but today is free of charge. Now, I'm done and out of here." She reached out and laid a tender hand on his arm. "Horatio, I pray you don't need my services when you find her."
"So do I, Alexx, so do I," came the quietly wishful reply.
She turned to the faces that now carried a little more hope than when she'd entered. "Good luck my dears, I'll see you tomorrow." She took the thanks-yous from Eric, Ryan, Calleigh, Valera, Cooper, and Delmontes and fled.
"Dan, would you please pull me up a city map of the section of Old Miami that is currently scheduled for renovation. There should be a block of buildings that is no longer occupied and there should be a clinic or hospital listed. When you locate it, you'll then need to pull up a floor plan. I believe you can get what we need from the City Planner's Office site." As Cooper was headed out the door, he was followed by Horatio's next words. "I need it yesterday!"
Turning, he found himself facing five pairs of red-rimmed eyes. "On your way to the A/V lab, pick up some coffee for Cooper as well as for yourselves." He lifted his exhaustion-heavy arms in a shepherding manner and tried shoo them on their way.
Taking his time as he walked down the hallway to get his own cup of coffee, he dug out his cell. "Frank? We have a lead on where they might have Manuela. Bring the SWAT leader with you please, and meet me in the A/V lab."
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Though the front entry to the old Mercy Hospital remained staunchly chained, as did the ER entry, they found three other, smaller doors that vandals had breached. A final, quick conference, referring to the floor plan, had brought an agreement to evenly divide the SWAT and uniformed officers and start a search. Each team would start though a door, quietly, ready to bring deadly force if necessary. Horatio led one team, Frank, with Wolfe, another and the SWAT leader took Delko.
Accompanied by three SWAT team personnel, two uniforms and Calleigh, Horatio, carefully led the way into the dim interior. Built in the days when windows were thought to be unnecessary in a public institution, most of the illumination came from the few skylights added later, leaving many rooms dark, many corners shadowy. Progress was also impeded as eyes tried to distinguish the differences between broken, abandoned office furniture and foe. Because of broken tile debris on the floor, piles of vagrants' trash and filth, as well as the slime of mold, each step had to be carefully placed.
They moved slowly through hallways towards the center of the ground floor, where the plan was to meet up with the two other teams. Horatio, Calleigh, and the two uniforms, arms outstretched, constantly sighting down the barrels of their pistols, were leapfrogged by the SWAT team, armed with laser-sighted rifles. One group moved and held ground while the other moved past to the next position, thus, penetrating slowly into the building, as safely as possible.
They were the second to arrive at the central area, and were not surprised to see the third team enter, as wary and empty-handed as they. Silently they signaled to each other, 'first floor clear, now up the stairs,' and regrouping, divided into two teams, each heading off for the stairwells on either side of the building.
Hearing boyish giggles before he mounted the last stair to the second floor, Horatio peered cautiously around the mold spotted wall. Quickly, pulling back, he signaled to the eleven people on the lower stairs that there were four individuals, about twenty feet away, all lying down on the floor, and indicated the positions in relation to each other. When motioned a question about weapons, he shook his head, but then poked a finger at his belt showing the possibility they might be carrying.
With that in mind, on his nod, the twelve burst out of the stairway, shouting, running as quickly as they could, and surrounded the surprised quartet.
One of the young men, squatting on the floor, was so busy struggling to take a large gun out of a small pocket, he didn't notice, until too late, Horatio's gun leveled at his head between his eyebrows, while a gruff grumble told him to remove his hand from the gun and leave it in his pocket.
"Nah, man! You can't do this! I ain't gonna take this shit!" His loosely curled hair bobbed about his dark face as he kept struggling with the gun.
No sleep for about thirty hours, worry about Manuela, unsatisfied anger with Verron, adrenalin of the moment, all combined to inspire Horatio to his next move; he backhanded the youth on the side of his head, sending him sprawling onto his face. "I said, leave the gun alone!" Placing his knee on the youth's back, aiming his gun at the back of the head, he expertly removed the weapon from the jacket, and tossed it away.
Meanwhile, the second team, with Frank Tripp, Delko, and Wolfe, having heard the noise, had raced up the stairs and now joined them.
Quickly assessing the four young men who were now lined up, squatting on the floor with hands cuffed behind them, Horatio squatted down in front of one who looked slightly more clean-cut than the others did. "Where is Manuela? And don't you dare ask 'who.' Tell me where she is now!"
The four were obviously in a thick drug haze. The tiles were littered with crack pipes and tiny bits of smoked out marijuana joints. One, looking about with unfocused eyes, even asked what these people were doing in his house; another grumbled that his dad was going to kill him if he ever found out. The one Horatio had chosen to be a spokesman, bowed his head towards the floor, and giggled.
Horatio sighed and quickly pulled his pistol from its holster again. Following the kid's line of sight, he lowered it to in between the youth's legs and held the muzzle an inch from his crotch. "My finger is on the trigger. Where is Manuela?"
He heard Calleigh's quick intake of breath and knew the men on guard were flicking their eyes away.
The young man groaned in sudden penitence. "Oh, man! This is so fucked up!"
"I'll give you to the count of two. One!"
"Some closet!" His voice had a petulant tone, but he nodded towards a hallway. "Down that one I think." Obviously, he felt imposed upon.
Horatio leaned forward and whispered into the kid's ear, "If I don't come back with her I'm going to stick my gun up your ass! Now, do you have anything else to add?"
Head still down, the curls bounced as it shook briefly.
Horatio stood and nodded at one of the uniforms. "Watch him." He motioned at the SWAT team to accompany him.
The room the boys had been lolling in had once been a large waiting lobby with several south-facing windows, high, near the ceiling, so it was relatively bright. Opposite the windows was a reception area, and behind that, two darkly cavernous hallways receded. The light from the waiting room threw some illumination into them, but only for about ten feet before dimming to featureless shadow.
Flashing his light into the darkened corridor, Horatio realized the halls were paths to exam rooms where patients, who had already sat for hours, had to sit some more, anticipating their over-scheduled doctor. Most of the doors to the exam rooms were gone, a few hung askew, half off their hinges, but a few were closed. Stepping carefully to avoid a few piles of what smelled like human waste, Horatio proceeded with all due caution, peering into each room. He reached the first closed door and, taking a deep breath, threw it open; looking through the hinged side to the wall behind the door first, then sighting down his gun, he quickly entered. A white metal table dimly reflected the pale light, and Horatio swallowed dryly at the sight of the stirrups, which were pulled out at the table's end, as if ready for business, but the room was otherwise empty.
Four more rooms, all empty, boltholes in the littered flooring showing where tables once been. Another closed door. Open it! Check behind the door! Check inside! Only a broken chair in the musty dimness. Out, down the hall, into the gloom. Two more rooms with open doors. Then a closed door, at the furthest extent of the where the light from the waiting room reached, with a sign, hanging cockeyed, reading 'Janitor's Closet.' The kid had said 'closet!' Without hesitation, Horatio threw the door open.
"Oh, God! Manuela!" Finding her alive was a great relief; finding her naked, bruised, bound at the wrists and ankles with pieces of electrical wiring, hogtied so she could not remove the bit of clothing stuffed into her mouth as a gag, her own underwear, was horrific. She lay on her side, her face pale, one eye large with fear and unaccustomed to the light, the other closed by puffy, purpling skin.
"Calleigh! Need some help here! Bring your jacket, please!" Shielding her body from the men behind him, Horatio struggled frantically to get out of his jacket. "Call downstairs, tell the paramedics to get up here now! Tell them to bring a blanket!"
Calleigh knew before she came to Horatio's side what to expect and had her dark CSI jacket out in front of her. Moving under his arms and hands, as he quickly worked at the bonds, she ducked in to cover what his jacket had not.
As soon as he pulled the cloth from her mouth, Manuela started whispering his name over and over, giving voice to a mantra, "Horatio. Horatio. Horatio."
Freeing her arms and legs, disregarding all safety precautions against moving a person who may have suffered injury, Horatio scooped Manuela into his arms and held her close to him. He felt her arms go up to his shoulders, but as if unable to hold on, they wandered up to the back of his neck, and then lowered to his arms, and back again, searching for a purchase they could not seem to find. Realizing she was still repeating his name, he laid her back, quickly readjusting the jackets, and looked into her face. She didn't quite return his gaze, her good eye kept darting from his cheeks to his mouth to his eyes to his hair, seeking something not yet found, as her arms still did.
"I'm here, Manuela, I'm here," he reassured her.
"She's in shock, Horatio." Calleigh, squeezed into the corner of the small space beside Manuela's legs, put her hand out to her boss's shoulder; not at all sure he wasn't in shock, also. All she could do was watch, unable to stop him, to help him as he kept making hushing noises and whispering small words of encouragement over the repetition of his name, as he desperately tried to address the woman's tormented pain.
Only years of training prevented Horatio from struggling against the rough, rude grasp of hands at his shoulders, as the Paramedic moved him out of the way so they could reach Manuela. He had to stop himself from protesting when he saw Calleigh being pulled out of the closet corner, causing her to stumble as she was pushed out of the way, knowing Paramedics had little sympathy for those who were well meaning, but uninjured and in the way of their ministrations.
With no heed to Calleigh or Horatio, one of the young men stepped over Manuela and, bracing his back against the back wall of the closet squatted opposite his co-worker. In mutual concert, they began their work, calmly moving her still waving arms out of their way, paying no more heed to them than flies at a picnic, while they took her vitals and checked her for major injuries.
He listened as they shouted, "Ma'am, are you injured? Do you hurt anywhere?" and heard his name in mumbled reply. He so very much wanted to respond to the calling, to hold her again and make her better, but watched in silence as they touched and prodded, moving part of a jacket away and pulling it back, moving another part, as they explored her from head to toe.
Finally, nodding to one another, the one at the door stood and turned to pull the gurney they had brought to the middle of the hallway, laying it out on the floor. Covering her with a blanket, with well-rehearsed form, the two men hoisted Manuela onto the stretcher, tucked the blanket around her, and then strapped her down.
Arms now trapped, she started tossing her head from side to side, constantly, and weakly mouthing, "Horatio."
Finally, one, efficiently holding her head still, the other strapped an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, but as soon as her head was released, it was moving again. The muffled sound of his name tore at his heart.
As the EMT's moved to pick up the stretcher, Horatio spoke to Calleigh. "I'm going with her."
"Of course, Horatio. We have everything under control, here." Having witnessed the bond between the two she would have insisted on it anyway.
"There's a table in the first room with a door. I thought I saw something on it. Be sure and get a swab."
Blue-green eyes turning steel hard, she glanced down the hallway. "I'll also be sure the boys are examined for trace by a doctor. I doubt they have any water here to clean up with, so if they've done anything, it'll still be with them." Her drawl was hardly noticeable when she was angry.
"Thank you, Calleigh." He moved to follow the stretcher.
"Oh, and Horatio?"
He paused, turning. "Yeah?"
"Keep us posted? About her condition, I mean. We want to know."
Smiling slightly and, nodding, he turned to catch up with the quickly moving Paramedics, to walk beside Manuela. Laying his fingers against her blanketed shoulder he quietly reassured, "You are going to be fine, sweetheart. Do you hear me? You are safe now, and you are going to be all right."
Tripp, Wolfe, and Delko, all noted the grim look on Horatio's face as he took a long and lingering glance at the four boys still sitting on the floor. They had seen it before and hoped, for the sake of the four very troubled youths, that Manuela would be okay.