A/N: Glad to see those that haven't read this story are enjoying it. There are 23 chapters to this story besides the sequel. Hopefully, I'll have another chapter of that one up in a few days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bar was located on the left hand side of the stage. Matt waited while the bartenders created his and Jackson's drinks. His location allowed him a clear view of the lounge as a whole. He could see Jackson clearly, watching the two on the beach again. Then he noticed a group of people behind their table on the other side of the trellis, and for the activities that night in the lounge they appeared suspicious. They were a little too quiet. At first glance they looked like a group of any vacationers but then familiarity set in. He thought he knew them. That's it.… they're friends of Sara's from Vegas. He identified them one by one in his mind as he recalled the pictures he and Jackson researched back at headquarters. Damn, that means they came for the conference and Sara doesn't know. Matt also realized that from the looks on their faces, they had heard every word that had been exchanged by them. He watched them wave a waitress off as she approached to take another order from them.
He waited for Jackson to look toward him so he could get his attention. When Jackson did, Matt signaled to him that they had been uncovered. Jackson did some quick surveillance and saw the group behind him. He nodded toward Matt that he understood with a concerned look on his face. Matt indicated to Jackson his intentions. Jackson took his lead and picked up the portfolio that remained on the table, stood up, and walked around the far side of the trellis. He pulled up a chair to sit between Nick and Grissom who were the closest to the trellis. Matt came up behind Catherine and Warrick and took the seat between them. Divide and conquer.
As they positioned themselves in amongst the group, Matt and Jackson both looked around at the now uncomfortable faces that stared back at them. Both spoke at the same time. "Hello."
No response.
Jackson looked over at Matt, and then decided to lead the conversation. "So, pretty much everything was heard, probably not completely believed, and you would like to actually see the evidence to prove Sara's innocence." At that, he tossed the portfolio out in the middle of the table.
Nick was the first to move and grabbed up the portfolio. He and Warrick read over it quickly. Nick looked over at Grissom and passed it down to him. Grissom, with Catherine looking over, read the portfolio silently.
The documents stated that a surveillance tape had captured someone wearing a baseball cap, blue jeans and a sports jacket coaching the officer who had identified Sara as the woman he spoke with and had seen enter the crime scene. The tape had been enhanced at the Agency's headquarters; then a lip reader was able to transcribe what the officer said. The tape and transcript were confirmed by a second source.
In regards to Sara's statement, she had said she hadn't been sleeping well so she'd taken some pills. The blood test had come back negative but even though the blood analyzed was her blood type, the DNA didn't match. Her sample seemed to have mysteriously gotten lost. It was concluded that a person working at the lab had set her up.
Grissom looked toward Jackson and found his voice first. "If she's innocent, why did she run? We could eventually have found this out."
Jackson, in response to Grissom, asked the group as a whole, "Did any of you suspect that she was being set up? Would you have checked the DNA knowing that Catherine had taken the sample from her and would you have even noticed the surveillance tape?"
Warrick shook his head and looked at Grissom. "We wouldn't have, at least not the surveillance tape. We might have on the blood evidence."
"I should add that if Sara would actually have tampered with the evidence, no one would ever have known." Matt said this with conviction. He knew Sara's talents.
Catherine blinked at his statement. Not giving it much importance she asked, "Who do you think did it?" Knowing full well that they had already discussed this.
"We don't know but based on this evidence we think it may be someone that Sara knew from her days," Matt hesitated. "At the Centre."
"I take it this is a public conversation now." The voice came from behind Nick and Warrick. They turned to see Jarod. He nonchalantly leaned against the trellis and didn't look all too pleased.
"We spotted them listening to our conversation." Jackson looked back at Grissom for confirmation as he said, "They heard it all."
Jarod reached across the table with his hand extended to Grissom. "Dr. Grissom, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you in the last few months."
Grissom shook his hand and but then said dryly, "Sorry, I can't say the same, but you know that already."
Jarod turned around, snagged a chair from a nearby table and positioned himself behind Nick and Warrick. "What you've heard tonight should not have been discussed by us out here." He looked pointedly at Matt and Jackson. "But we are human and make mistakes. Please keep in mind though that what you heard us talking about is considered classified by the CIA."
"Jarod,
did Sara turn in?" Matt asked while his
eyes combed the beach.
Jarod chuckled, "Do you really need to ask that?"
"No, guess not… she went down to the gym didn't she?" Matt already knew the answer.
"Yep."
"We should probably go down there and tell her you guys are here before she ends up running into you tomorrow." Jackson said as he stood up.
"We should but I'll take care of that tomorrow when she goes for her morning ride. If she's working out, I don't want to interrupt her training cycle." Jarod chuckled again with a bit of chagrin as Jackson sat back down. "Besides, when she hears about the conversation being overheard, knowing how much she doesn't like to discuss the Centre or her past, she's not going to be pleased. I don't want to end up being the one she takes it out on." He looked over at Matt and Jackson as he said, "By the way, you two might want to lay low tomorrow for awhile after I talk to her; I don't want to have to fish you out of the Pacific."
Chuckles were shared around the table. Everyone knew how Sara would react to the revelation that the group from Vegas was in Acapulco.
Silence ensued.
Catherine decided to try her luck again at getting some answers. "So, exactly how do you two," she pointed at Matt and Jackson, "fit into all of this?"
Jarod explained. "Well, to begin with, I had spent four years being chased by the people heading up the Centre."
"What is the Centre?" Nick broke in and asked.
"The Centre was a facility that exploited children with genius level intellect. They would train them to be whatever they wanted or needed them to be and they would also run simulations for the children to analyze and decipher. Children that grew up with the ability to adapt and become whatever was wanted from them were known as Pretenders. They delved into a lot of other areas that I am still not fully aware of. I am one of those Pretenders." Jarod finished and looked around to see if there were any more questions.
Catherine asked, "Where did the children come from?" She feared she already knew the answer to her own question.
"We were stolen from our parents. I know who my parents are but still have not found my mother. I have a picture of her but no way to trace her. My team here looks periodically into each of the children that were kept at the Centre. We haven't been very successful in finding the parents of most of them." They could see the sadness in Jarod's eyes as he spoke about the children.
Grissom tried to imagine what Sara went through but couldn't come up with an image. He didn't know enough, yet. "Sara made up a history for herself then, when she attended Harvard? Does she know her real name?"
Nick lost track of the conversation as he started staring off into space deep in thought. Jarod noticed Nick wasn't tuned into the conversation but put it down to thoughts about what they had heard that night.
"That's what we're trained to do, amongst other things. And no, I don't think Sara knows her real name but she has always been called Sara that I can remember. She's never mentioned anything about her family or even if she has tried to find them."
Nick heard that last part and turned his head swiftly to Jarod and a twitch started to throb in his right cheek.
Jarod continued, "I did manage to finally escape from the Centre and a few years later I was recaptured and escaped again. Finally deciding I had had enough, I approached the CIA anonymously in regard to the Centre and the African based organization behind the Centre called the Triumvirate. Of course, the CIA became very interested in it since the organization was being led by a foreign entity. They set up meetings to meet me. Discussions were held, decisions made and to make it short, I became a consultant. That's when I met Matt and Jackson. Shortly after we met, the decision came down to raid and close up shop at the Centre because the CIA had classified the Triumvirate as a terrorist organization due to the nature of their activities."
"We, Matt, Jackson and I, led the assault. At the time I was checking up on some leads near Harvard and that's when I found Sara. I hadn't known she had escaped. She looked so different. She'd disguised herself slightly with the hair color and had lost weight, quite a bit I might add. She was never a heavy or overweight woman before by any means, which would never have been allowed at the Centre especially concerning her, but she was just too thin. I couldn't believe she was out so I called Sydney who was my, shall we say, instructor at the Centre. We had been in touch quite a bit over the years since my escape. He confirmed that Sara did indeed escape. It was the same night that a couple of others and I had also escaped. I chose at that point to approach her. She recognized me immediately and although I expected her to bolt, she didn't but reacted ecstatically at seeing me. I guess it was because I had made it out. We filled each other in on the previous four years and then I told her what was going down with the Centre and the CIA. She didn't want any involvement in the raid, I think she had other plans that summer, but ended up deciding to help and cancelled her plans."
Grissom thought about what Jarod said. That might've been the summer she was supposed to join me in Vegas and intern at the lab. He immediately understood. That's why she couldn't come.
"She joined the group… we raided the Centre and were able to do some major damage to their front lines. It was pretty rough for a while there. Sara and I both had issues to resolve, some were taken care of and some weren't. After we were able to get the personnel we wanted locked up, we released the remaining children into the custody of a couple of agencies willing to take them and help reintegrate them into society. At that point, Sara decided to do a disappearing act. We never knew where she went after that day and we didn't try to find out. If Sara didn't want to be found she had her reasons. Mr. Quinn, the Director of the CIA at the time, was not happy with her leaving but we convinced him that it would be in his best interests to do so. Sara didn't trust him and wouldn't have appreciated him barging in on whatever life she had ended up carving for herself. Then, seven months ago, I got a phone call telling me Sara was in trouble at the Crime Lab in Vegas. She was going to need help. I sent Matt and Jackson immediately."
"So, Greg did make that phone call?" Warrick begged the question that everyone else wanted the answer to.
"Greg, he's well… He was one of my first cases that I helped out on as what you might call a free lance Pretender. When his brother died and it was ruled as a suicide I thought it was just too easy. I helped him find the person who murdered his brother. Greg had figured out that I wasn't actually what I pretended to be and he hinted to me about knowing it but held back from actually saying it and he didn't ask questions." He considered his next statement. "Pretenders have a tattoo on the back of their necks located right on the base of the hairline and most are hidden by the hair. Greg had noticed mine and then when he saw the tattoo on the back of Sara's neck, which matched mine, he put two and two together and came up with me. He kept it to himself, didn't even tell Sara. But when she got in trouble, he called me, knowing I would want to know and that I would help. After Sara joined us, I kept an eye on him to make sure there wouldn't be any repercussions but as you know there were. I told her what he knew and what he had done for her so we worked out a plan and got him out."
"Where is he now?" Grissom asked.
Matt looked over at him. "He's at the farm."
"You mean training, the CIA training farm, that farm?" Nick asked with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old boy who loved playing cops and robbers.
"Yep, he spent a couple of weeks with us and then he approached me and asked if there was any way he could go through the training. He wanted a more active role. He's doing quite well actually. I think he surpassed Matt's record in the gauntlet run." Jackson had this huge grin on his face as he rubbed in the little barb. "Isn't that what I heard Matt?"
"Yeah, well we'll see how he does in the psych evals." Matt deadpanned.
"That should be interesting." Jackson had to agree.
Jarod got up and started to leave. He turned back to the group. "I suggest we turn in and everyone can have a nice restless sleep tonight as we all consider what tomorrow will bring."
