This story is based on characters created by Anthony E. Zuiker for the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Ghost (Part 23/26)
by Cheers
Monday Night 07:09 PM
They finished the second sweep of the Apex Mine, and Sara gave the pilot a thumbs down. Nothing. Next, they would move on to the Sloan Mine and then to the Weiser Quarry. Search and Rescue had set up a strategic search pattern. They were the experts, Sara knew that. What she wanted was an instant find. Her head told her that any moment they could find the man they were searching for. Her heart told her that every second that ticked by was one second too long. Her gut told her that the hourglass sand had nearly run out.
The SAR helicopter banked to the north and sped toward the next search zone. Sara kept her eyes glued to the night scope sensor's display. "Give me something two legged," she whispered. And still breathing, she added silently.
Monday Night 07:11 PM
The map light attached to his clipboard illuminated the precise areas of the desert surrounding the Las Vegas basin that were home to abandoned mining shafts. Some of these had undergone reclamation, but that notation had not been made to the map. Damn, Nick thought. His SAR team had just left such a location. With every fruitless stop they made, precious time was wasted.
The information that he had received from the State Mining Commission was the most accurate he could get, Nick knew that. Companies were continually working with the State Commission to complete reclamation of old mining sites. Not all the clean up and hazard removal work was immediately reported to the Commission. If there were many more sites like this one, Nick thought, we could lose whatever window of opportunity we might have had.
Hang on, Gris, Nick thought. We're coming.
The SAR truck sped away with bright search lights glaring into the desert dusk, headed for the next search target. The receding daylight gave the impression of receding success. Nick fought the urge to shout his frustration as he watched the desert terrain move by.
Monday Night 07:14 PM
Catherine listened to the continuous squawk and chatter of the SAR channel of the police band and watched the pavement rush past as she stared out of the window of her SAR team's truck. They were headed east out of Las Vegas along Highway 160 toward their search targets in Pahrump Valley. Mountain Springs pass was just a few miles ahead. Her ears popped as they rode quickly up the mountainside, lights and sirens pushing commuter traffic to the shoulders as they moved past.
You better still be alive when I find you, Catherine silently told Gil. Her throat felt tight. She clenched her teeth to hold back her rising anger. Whether she was angry at Grissom for letting himself get so caught up in this mess, with herself for not being able to figure out what was happening sooner, or at Stankowski for just being the bastard he was she didn't really know. She was angry, and by God if Gil wasn't alive when she found him, she'd kill him.
Monday Night 07:16 PM
"It's north of here," Warrick told Danny Ellis, the SAR officer driving their team's truck. "I make it about seven miles."
Ellis nodded but didn't take his eyes off the landscape visible through the windshield. The terrain was rugged but nothing the SAR truck couldn't handle. Driving into the setting sun made the going slow. As soon as the sun finished dipping over the horizon, the search lights would make things easier. For now they would have to keep it slow to avoid dumping the truck into an unexpected ravine. The access roads in this area of the desert weren't well maintained and were often washed out by flash flooding during heavy rains.
Warrick wanted to yell at Danny to go faster but knew they were making as much progress as they could while remaining safe. It wouldn't help Grissom at all if their team were close to him but too incapacitated by carelessness to help him. He settled for making sure they stayed on course. He also thought it might be a good idea to resist the urge to jump out of the moving vehicle and try to run ahead.
Monday Night 07:19 PM
He placed a red pin on the map at the coordinates he had received from Nick and another at the coordinates radioed in by Sara. Stepping back, Jim looked at the growing pattern of red pins – the misses. The SAR Commander was keeping track of the misses as well. For the Search and Rescue guys, a miss was another piece of the big puzzle, helping to narrow the focus of a large scale search like this one.
They had hundreds of square miles to search and very little time to do it in successfully. Of course, that was Jim's own definition of success. The search might very well find Grissom after he was dead. For the SAR guys that would be a success of sorts. No one likes to find the lost after their dead, but a recovery is a recovery.
As far as Jim was concerned, nothing short of finding Grissom alive and able to testify against that son of a bitch Stankowski would be good enough. It wouldn't hurt if Grissom were found alive and completely uninjured either.
Yeah, Jim thought darkly, and it wouldn't hurt one damn bit if Santa Claus walked up and gave me that Radio Flyer I asked him for in 1962.
Monday Night 07:25 PM
The lab felt like a tomb. Greg found that the most soothing place for him to be was in Grissom's office. He stood looking at the tarantula and wondering if spiders could recognize the differences in the people who cared for them. Maybe he was anthropomorphizing too much. Maybe he didn't give a damn if he was.
"Think good thoughts, buddy," Greg told the tarantula. "They're gonna find him real soon."
God, Greg prayed silently, let him be just fine when they do.
Monday Night 07:37 PM
The light had almost completely waned. Night was approaching again.
God, he was tired.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gil knew that the fatigue was overwhelming him. The ever-present thirst had finally faded, and his hands and feet felt numb. He knew that meant that he was in shock. The pain from his wrist and side seemed dull and far away but continued enough to be a constant reminder to his weary mind that this was all happening. His peril, closer now, was very real.
What was it the Buddha had said? "Even death is not to be feared by those who lived wisely." The question he had to ask himself was had he lived wisely? He honestly didn't know.
Dehydration was taking the last of his strength and would soon render him unconscious. The scientist in him wasn't upset by the knowledge. The insects he had learned to love and appreciate through study would return his body to the earth in due course. His mother would grieve. He regretted that. Sons should lose mothers, not the other way around.
What about his other family? Gil had never been prone to maudlin or morose circumspection. He did wonder, though, how his life might have impacted them. Well, he hoped. That was all any man could hope for. Someday they might figure out what had happened to him. Not that it mattered. They would move on. Life would demand that of them.
Horatio's line from Hamlet floated into his thoughts:
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual … something …
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
Something ... something ….
He couldn't remember the rest.
"How does a man choose death as his profession?" he was asked once. "It chose me," he had answered. And so it had.
His prison was completely dark again. God, he was so tired ….