This story is based on characters created by Anthony E. Zuiker for the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Ghost (Part 24/26)
by Cheers
Monday Night 08:21 PM
Warrick shined his flashlight down into the shaft. This was the third of the abandoned perlite mineshafts the state had listed as possible hazards in the Goodsprings area. Since this community was very sparsely populated, it had not yet reached the top of the Abandoned Mine Land Hazard Abatement Program list. The danger signs that should have been posted to warn of this mineshaft's presence were nowhere to be found. What amazed Warrick was how hidden this shaft was. The opening was only a few hundred yards from the processing plant they had visited earlier that day, but it had taken nearly fifteen minutes of searching to find the opening in the dark from the details on the topographical map.
Warrick knelt down by the opening and looked over the edge. There was a significant amount of disturbed earth about eight feet below the collar of the shaft on what looked like the end of some kind of ledge. "I've got something," he shouted back over his shoulder.
"GRISSOM!" Warrick shouted down into the shaft. His voice echoed hollowly back up at him. He waited for a few seconds and tried again. "GRISSOM! ARE YOU THERE?"
Alan Rogers, a SAR officer was at his side almost instantly and was shining a search light down into the shaft. The scarred earth was more noticeable in the amplified light.
"See that?" Warrick asked Rogers.
"Yeah," Rogers replied. "Something's been down there recently."
Warrick grabbed the thermal-imaging night vision binoculars from his belt. He panned from the collar of the shaft down toward the end of the ledge eight feet below them. Something much farther down from the ledge was glowing.
"You're right. Something's down there," Warrick said and handed the binoculars to Rogers.
Rogers took a brief look through the binoculars and then reached for his radio. "Not something," Rogers said, getting up quickly and heading back to the rescue squad for his rappelling equipment, "someone!"
Warrick stared after the officer for a moment and then looked back down the mineshaft. "GRISSOM!!" he shouted again.
Rogers was already calling it in as he ran. "Dispatch, three eighty Bravo. We have a possible four eighteen, abandoned mineshaft approximately three miles northeast of railroad track marker six-nine-one outside Goodsprings. Request immediate backup and Air-Evac."
Monday Night 08:33 PM
The entire team had changed their listening frequency to Tac 2, waiting for the information they all wanted to hear. All the communication between Danny Ellis, Alan Rogers, and Warrick could be monitored by anyone with a police scanner tuned to the right frequency. There were a lot of eager ears in southern Nevada listening in.
"Let out the slack," Rogers was yelling. "I'm almost there."
Tac 2 squawked static for a few seconds before Rogers was heard again.
"Okay, I'm there! I've got him. Send down the med-pack."
"Do you need a board?" Ellis asked.
"Affirmative," Rogers replied. "Hold on."
There was several more seconds of static and then Rogers' voice could be heard shouting. "MR. GRISSOM! GRISSOM, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! GRISSOM!"
Somewhere in the air, Sara was holding her breath. Be breathing, she demanded.
Nick had his eyes shut tight. The sound of the SAR truck's engine roared as they raced toward Grissom's location. "Come on," he whispered. "Tell us something good."
Sheriff Mobley sat across the table from Jim Brass in the SAR command center. They looked at each other with the same mixture of hope and dread. This could go either way, and neither man was willing to give in to the hope before they knew for sure there was little else to dread.
"I want them to call me with a name as soon as possible," Catherine was nearly shouting into her cellular phone. "We're on our way back but we're at least an hour from there."
Krista took notes as fast as her hand could write. "I'll get on it immediately," she told Catherine.
"Call me back!" Catherine replied.
Mandy nearly ran over Greg as she rounded the corner and raced into the conference room. She held up her hand in a silent gesture of apology. The room was packed with wall to wall people. Except for the buzz and squawk of the police scanner, it was as silent as a church.
"Why don't they tell us?" Larry asked, annoyed.
He was immediately hushed by half a dozen individuals. Greg had to fight the nearly overwhelming desire to pummel him.
"Is he breathing?" Warrick's voice asked.
There was a click and then Rogers said, "I've got a thready pulse. He's breathing."
"Thank God," Warrick was heard to say.
"Amen," Jim Brass whispered.
"Oh thank God," Sara said, not bothering to worry about the tears of relief that rolled down her cheeks.
"YEAH!" Nick shouted, pumping his fist once and grinning at the two SAR officers with him. They both smiled back.
The conference room erupted into a cacophony of cheers. Greg didn't shout. Instead, he leaned back into the wall behind him and dropped his head. "Thank you, God," he said quietly. "I owe you one."
Mandy threw her arms around him and gave him a jubilant hug.
Conrad Eckley turned to look at the police scanner that sat on the shelf beneath his office fax machine as if it had offended him in some way. He hadn't really hoped that Grissom would be harmed - not really. But it sure the hell would have been nice if he didn't have to compete with Grissom anymore. Would it have been so bad for Grissom to be lost forever, alive and well, but lost?
Catherine turned her face to the window so the two SAR officers with her in the truck wouldn't see her tears. The pressure had been building for so long. Catherine hadn't realized how badly she needed to hear the report that Gil was alive. She didn't just want to hear it, she needed to hear it. Her heart was racing and her chest ached. She desperately wanted a moment to just cry, but like so many other things this past twenty-four hours, it would have to wait. Her cellphone rang almost immediately.
She wiped her face with one hand before answering.
"Willows."
Monday Night 08:46 PM
Warrick paced back and forth beside a state police cruiser. He wanted to be down in that pit with his boss. Grissom was unconscious but breathing. Alan Rogers had gone down into the mineshaft to help him and had been down there almost twenty minutes. He had been joined by two other members of the SAR team when they arrived by chopper. Warrick knew there were important safety procedures to follow to make sure that Grissom and his rescuers got out of the shaft alive. He just didn't like the feeling of helplessness the waiting caused.
Sara stood a few feet away watching the work that was going on at the shaft collar's edge. "He's going to be okay," she said firmly, trying to reassure herself as much as Warrick.
He didn't reply. They listened to the radio traffic coming out of the shaft. Grissom had been placed on a backboard and was being prepared for the trip up out of the shaft. They both heard Rogers say Grissom was in shock.
"Hang on, Gris," Warrick whispered.
Just when Warrick didn't think he could stand the wait another second, he heard the shout. He ran toward the group leaving the opening to the mineshaft. Sara was right behind him. He could just make Grissom out. His unconscious body was cocooned in a rescue litter and this was being loaded onto an air ambulance gurney. The medical flight team had surrounded him immediately.
Warrick and Sara stepped up to the unconscious form of their friend as the medics secured the litter to the gurney. Grissom had a cervical collar on, his left arm was in a splint, an IV was already started in his right arm, and they had placed him on oxygen. His face was covered with dried blood and dirt and he had several days' growth of beard. He was pale. The worst of it was how still he lay in the litter.
Sara reached out and brushed a few stray strands of hair away from his forehead. He felt hot.
"Gris?" Warrick called softly.
A flight nurse placed a hand on Warrick's shoulder. "We've got to get him out of here," he told both CSIs.
Warrick nodded and backed away, gently pulling Sara back with a hand on her arm. The medics wheeled the gurney away. Within a few short minutes the doors of the Air-Evac helicopter were closed and locked and the chopper lifted its wounded cargo into the night sky and sped away.