Cooper's cell phone was in his hand in an instant. "Sara? What are you
doing? You know where he is, don't you? Sara! You can't go after him
without backup. Damn it!" He yelled the last in frustration as she hung up
on him. He swore at the phone at some length as he strode back to the agent
in the communications center. "Do it," he told him, "and let me know when
you have a location." His glare took in another agent. "Is the team ready?"
"Five minutes." Cooper nodded, heading back to the CSIs staring at him. "We'll have a location on her shortly." He shrugged. "I thought she might try something, so I slipped a tracer on her." He caught Catherine's impressed, and approving, expression, and he grinned in response. "I have been working with her for nine months," he said by way of explanation. "She's a handful, sometimes, especially now that she's field-rated."
"Agent Cooper, we got her. She's... stopped outside your hotel."
Puzzlement crossed his face. "She's gone back to the hotel? Is she going in?"
The agent shook his head. "She's stationary."
"Ok, send the team and ops van to our location when it's ready." He turned to the CSIs watching him closely. "I guess there's no way you would stay here while we go secure the area?" he asked half-heartedly, and his mouth quirked at Catherine's expression. "Guess not."
------------
Agent Cooper's car and the CSI SUV pulled up behind Sara's rental in a back alley a block from the hotel, Sara's figure clearly outlined in the headlights of their vehicles. She stood, propped against the car, her arms folded firmly across her chest as she watched everyone pile out of their vehicles. They approached cautiously. "So where is it, Coop?" He pretended he didn't understand her question, and her eyes narrowed angrily. "It isn't in the car, I know that." She paused, expectantly, but he still didn't answer. "Where is it?"
"Were you leading us on a wild goose chase to determine the existence of a trace?" This time, it was her turn to be silent, her position against the car unchanged and unyielding. Commanding. It was not a side of her that she had always shown or used, particularly in her time in Vegas, but her persistence and stubbornness had already become legendary in the Bureau. Leaving Vegas had rid her of the need to seek approval as vigorously as before and given her sense of determination a boost, and now she wielded it relentlessly.
Cooper knew that look, and he relented with one last concerned glance into her eyes, motioning for her to give him the sidearm. She passed it to him, butt-end first, and watched as he pulled the clip and peeled off rounds until he held up one that wasn't like the others. She nodded appreciatively. "Tricky. Any others?" Her tone was warning, and he shook his head and sighed.
"Are you going to run off again?"
"No need. He's in the hotel."
"Educated guess?"
She shook her head in a firm negative. "Personality quirk. He's staying in one of the rooms on either side of our suite, probably the one on the right if he could get it." She noticed the questions in everyone's eyes, and her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "He liked... to stay close. He always sat by me in both classes we took together." Nick looked sick at the matter-of- fact way she said that, and she could tell he was worried about her. He wasn't wrong to be scared, she thought, as she took a deep breath and told her partner, "I'm going in." Cooper immediately opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "I waited for back-up. But I'm going in."
"Sara, you can't...."
"We don't know what he has in that hotel room and we don't know if there's a third victim. For all we know, he's got someone else or he's booby- trapped the room in case we go in. And he knows our ops manual." She took another deep breath. "But he'll come out for me. He'll come after me."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"It's the best way."
Nick couldn't stand it anymore. "You going in there like Rambo is the best way? Are you kidding me?" He shouted at Sara before rounding on Cooper. "This cannot be how you run operations in the Bureau, using your agents as bait."
Cooper faced off with the younger man while catching the even more deadly look on Grissom's face over Nick's shoulder. "No, it isn't, but this is an FBI op and we'll decide how to run it," he told him coldly.
"You... you're considering her insane suggestion." Nick's Texas drawl got more pronounced as he yelled at Cooper. "Aren't you?"
Cooper met Grissom's eye over Nick's shoulder before staring down the Texan. "Agent Sidle is not a member of your team anymore, but an agent, fully field-rated. We'll decide her role in this operation." He turned and stalked to the side of his car, motioning to Sara with a curt wave of his hand. Sara's expression as she looked at Nick was sad, but determined, and her eyes pleaded with him to not make it harder for her to do her job. She could not meet Grissom's eyes as she slid off the car and followed Cooper.
The argument lasted for some time, long enough for the communications van to pull up and get situated, and consisted of yelling on Cooper's part and calm, measured responses from Sara. Regardless of what he had told Nick, Cooper looked like he had no intention of letting her risk herself. But finally, he nodded, the very picture of reluctance as Sara was the very picture of firm resolve.
Sara walked over to where Nick was standing, his face stormy as he glared at Cooper. "Nick." He refused to look at her as she caught his hand and gripped it tightly. "Nick, you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. This is my job." She knew Grissom was listening to every word, and she made sure her words projected to everyone, including Brass who didn't look any less stormy. "I'm not risking myself unnecessarily. Ok?" Nick's gaze was fixated on the ground, but he nodded his head slowly, still not meeting her eyes. She gave his hand another squeeze before heading to the communications van. From their vantage point, she seemed to be giving orders to the rest of the team while adding an extra holster, a telescoping baton, and handcuffs to her belt. Cooper came up behind her and hung her badge around her neck and said something that made her laugh. He punched her shoulder playfully, before his face turned serious and seemed to be lecturing her, if her eye roll was any indication.
As Sara headed to the van with the SWAT team, she paused behind Brass. "Hey. Wanna go for a ride?" She indicated the van with her head, her fierce grin meeting his as he caught her meaning. She shrugged. "You can be the PD observer. But, you wear a vest, stay in the back, and don't make a move until Agent Washington tells you to. Understand?" He muttered his assent, happy to be back in his self-assigned role as her protector.
Cooper motioned the rest of the team over to the communications van, meeting the anger in their eyes calmly. "I don't like it any more than you do. But she's right, it's the best way," he explained. "She can use his personal stake in her against him."
"And risk getting herself killed in the process?" Catherine retorted. "Sounds like a good trade off to me."
"It's a risk we face every day." He turned back to the van, and indicated the speaker. "Want to listen in?"
--------------
Sara stood alone in the hallway of the hotel, her steps muffled by the thick carpeting. The floor had been cleared except for the room they suspected the perp was in, and she stood just to the right of the door, flattened against the wall. The SWAT team was waiting in the stairwell for her signal, so there was no one to see her close her eyes and take a deep breath before opening her cell phone.
The phone inside the suite rang once, twice, and for a second, she thought maybe he wasn't in the room. "Hello?" She couldn't tell by the voice on the phone; his voice had been disguised during their earlier conversations, and she let him repeat himself before speaking.
"Guess who."
"What? Who is this?" There was a note of suspicion and confusion, but it didn't mask the alarm and fear underneath.
"It's Beth." She relished saying the name, hoping to make him feel the panic, the trapped feeling, for once. "I told you I would find you."
"Beth? I don't know any Beth. I think you have the wrong room." The confused words were in direct contradiction to the angry tone in his voice, and her mouth twisted into a triumphant grin.
"Sounds like you aren't ready to renew our acquaintance." Her tone was mock- hurt. "What, you didn't think I would figure it out this fast? By the way," she continued conversationally, "I'm right outside your door." She rapped on the door three times with her knuckles, making sure the phone picked up the sound.
He dropped the charade and snarled, "Cooper figured it out, not you, bitch. If you really are out there, you should just come right in. You and the team."
Her laughter was mocking. "I figured out where you were an hour after you tipped your hand. Of course, I was always smarter than you. In physics, forensics...."
"You think everybody didn't know you were sleeping with your professors to get your grades? All those men in your bed, Fletcher, Grissom, Cooper," he spat out the names, "and you pretend it's because you are smarter?"
"Oh, I am smarter. And better. It must have been hard for you. Nine months at the Bureau and I have a solve rate as a rookie that experienced agents would kill to have. At least you would." Her tone was deliberately blasé as she taunted him, trying to hit upon the right jibe to provoke him to come out after her.
"Cooper's solve rate, not yours."
She chuckled. "After all you did to try to take me down, and I show up at your job and I'm on the fast track. Good thing you went all mass murderer or I would have been your boss soon."
His snarl was one of inarticulate rage, and she braced for action, but he got himself under control. "I fixed you. You stopped your disgusting affair with Grissom. Left Harvard."
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, as images of that last semester at Harvard washed over her, the happiness in finding a vocation and mentor, which turned to such pain and frustration. "You did nothing. I had already transferred to a forensics program in California. I was tired of physics. After all, once you've reached the top of your field, where's the challenge?" Her voice was mocking, "But then, you wouldn't know what that's like, now would you?"
Snap. The sound of the deadbolt being drawn back in the door beside her caught her off-guard and she slid a few feet back from the door, her eyes and gun trained chest-high. "If you are outside, you know I just unlocked and cracked the door. Why don't you come in and we'll have a much more civilized conversation."
"Civilized?" she sneered. "That's good. I should have known you wouldn't come out and face me. Rape is a coward's crime, after all."
"I just wanted what you were giving to every one else," he retorted.
"I'm actually beginning to doubt it was you. You're such a pussy, I really doubt you even have balls," she baited, feeling like she was rapidly running out of material.
"Come in and see for yourself."
She sighed audibly, knowing he and everyone else could hear it. "Ok, have it your way. I'm hanging up and coming in." She snapped the phone shut, glad she didn't have an ear receiver to hear Cooper yelling as she inched down the hallway.
---------------
In the communications van, Cooper and Gil had listened grimly while Nick paced behind Catherine and Warrick. The exchange had been disturbing for all of them to listen to, but when Sara announced she was going into the room, everyone froze. There was a loud bang of a door slamming back on its hinges, shots fired, and the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground.
"Five minutes." Cooper nodded, heading back to the CSIs staring at him. "We'll have a location on her shortly." He shrugged. "I thought she might try something, so I slipped a tracer on her." He caught Catherine's impressed, and approving, expression, and he grinned in response. "I have been working with her for nine months," he said by way of explanation. "She's a handful, sometimes, especially now that she's field-rated."
"Agent Cooper, we got her. She's... stopped outside your hotel."
Puzzlement crossed his face. "She's gone back to the hotel? Is she going in?"
The agent shook his head. "She's stationary."
"Ok, send the team and ops van to our location when it's ready." He turned to the CSIs watching him closely. "I guess there's no way you would stay here while we go secure the area?" he asked half-heartedly, and his mouth quirked at Catherine's expression. "Guess not."
------------
Agent Cooper's car and the CSI SUV pulled up behind Sara's rental in a back alley a block from the hotel, Sara's figure clearly outlined in the headlights of their vehicles. She stood, propped against the car, her arms folded firmly across her chest as she watched everyone pile out of their vehicles. They approached cautiously. "So where is it, Coop?" He pretended he didn't understand her question, and her eyes narrowed angrily. "It isn't in the car, I know that." She paused, expectantly, but he still didn't answer. "Where is it?"
"Were you leading us on a wild goose chase to determine the existence of a trace?" This time, it was her turn to be silent, her position against the car unchanged and unyielding. Commanding. It was not a side of her that she had always shown or used, particularly in her time in Vegas, but her persistence and stubbornness had already become legendary in the Bureau. Leaving Vegas had rid her of the need to seek approval as vigorously as before and given her sense of determination a boost, and now she wielded it relentlessly.
Cooper knew that look, and he relented with one last concerned glance into her eyes, motioning for her to give him the sidearm. She passed it to him, butt-end first, and watched as he pulled the clip and peeled off rounds until he held up one that wasn't like the others. She nodded appreciatively. "Tricky. Any others?" Her tone was warning, and he shook his head and sighed.
"Are you going to run off again?"
"No need. He's in the hotel."
"Educated guess?"
She shook her head in a firm negative. "Personality quirk. He's staying in one of the rooms on either side of our suite, probably the one on the right if he could get it." She noticed the questions in everyone's eyes, and her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "He liked... to stay close. He always sat by me in both classes we took together." Nick looked sick at the matter-of- fact way she said that, and she could tell he was worried about her. He wasn't wrong to be scared, she thought, as she took a deep breath and told her partner, "I'm going in." Cooper immediately opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "I waited for back-up. But I'm going in."
"Sara, you can't...."
"We don't know what he has in that hotel room and we don't know if there's a third victim. For all we know, he's got someone else or he's booby- trapped the room in case we go in. And he knows our ops manual." She took another deep breath. "But he'll come out for me. He'll come after me."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"It's the best way."
Nick couldn't stand it anymore. "You going in there like Rambo is the best way? Are you kidding me?" He shouted at Sara before rounding on Cooper. "This cannot be how you run operations in the Bureau, using your agents as bait."
Cooper faced off with the younger man while catching the even more deadly look on Grissom's face over Nick's shoulder. "No, it isn't, but this is an FBI op and we'll decide how to run it," he told him coldly.
"You... you're considering her insane suggestion." Nick's Texas drawl got more pronounced as he yelled at Cooper. "Aren't you?"
Cooper met Grissom's eye over Nick's shoulder before staring down the Texan. "Agent Sidle is not a member of your team anymore, but an agent, fully field-rated. We'll decide her role in this operation." He turned and stalked to the side of his car, motioning to Sara with a curt wave of his hand. Sara's expression as she looked at Nick was sad, but determined, and her eyes pleaded with him to not make it harder for her to do her job. She could not meet Grissom's eyes as she slid off the car and followed Cooper.
The argument lasted for some time, long enough for the communications van to pull up and get situated, and consisted of yelling on Cooper's part and calm, measured responses from Sara. Regardless of what he had told Nick, Cooper looked like he had no intention of letting her risk herself. But finally, he nodded, the very picture of reluctance as Sara was the very picture of firm resolve.
Sara walked over to where Nick was standing, his face stormy as he glared at Cooper. "Nick." He refused to look at her as she caught his hand and gripped it tightly. "Nick, you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. This is my job." She knew Grissom was listening to every word, and she made sure her words projected to everyone, including Brass who didn't look any less stormy. "I'm not risking myself unnecessarily. Ok?" Nick's gaze was fixated on the ground, but he nodded his head slowly, still not meeting her eyes. She gave his hand another squeeze before heading to the communications van. From their vantage point, she seemed to be giving orders to the rest of the team while adding an extra holster, a telescoping baton, and handcuffs to her belt. Cooper came up behind her and hung her badge around her neck and said something that made her laugh. He punched her shoulder playfully, before his face turned serious and seemed to be lecturing her, if her eye roll was any indication.
As Sara headed to the van with the SWAT team, she paused behind Brass. "Hey. Wanna go for a ride?" She indicated the van with her head, her fierce grin meeting his as he caught her meaning. She shrugged. "You can be the PD observer. But, you wear a vest, stay in the back, and don't make a move until Agent Washington tells you to. Understand?" He muttered his assent, happy to be back in his self-assigned role as her protector.
Cooper motioned the rest of the team over to the communications van, meeting the anger in their eyes calmly. "I don't like it any more than you do. But she's right, it's the best way," he explained. "She can use his personal stake in her against him."
"And risk getting herself killed in the process?" Catherine retorted. "Sounds like a good trade off to me."
"It's a risk we face every day." He turned back to the van, and indicated the speaker. "Want to listen in?"
--------------
Sara stood alone in the hallway of the hotel, her steps muffled by the thick carpeting. The floor had been cleared except for the room they suspected the perp was in, and she stood just to the right of the door, flattened against the wall. The SWAT team was waiting in the stairwell for her signal, so there was no one to see her close her eyes and take a deep breath before opening her cell phone.
The phone inside the suite rang once, twice, and for a second, she thought maybe he wasn't in the room. "Hello?" She couldn't tell by the voice on the phone; his voice had been disguised during their earlier conversations, and she let him repeat himself before speaking.
"Guess who."
"What? Who is this?" There was a note of suspicion and confusion, but it didn't mask the alarm and fear underneath.
"It's Beth." She relished saying the name, hoping to make him feel the panic, the trapped feeling, for once. "I told you I would find you."
"Beth? I don't know any Beth. I think you have the wrong room." The confused words were in direct contradiction to the angry tone in his voice, and her mouth twisted into a triumphant grin.
"Sounds like you aren't ready to renew our acquaintance." Her tone was mock- hurt. "What, you didn't think I would figure it out this fast? By the way," she continued conversationally, "I'm right outside your door." She rapped on the door three times with her knuckles, making sure the phone picked up the sound.
He dropped the charade and snarled, "Cooper figured it out, not you, bitch. If you really are out there, you should just come right in. You and the team."
Her laughter was mocking. "I figured out where you were an hour after you tipped your hand. Of course, I was always smarter than you. In physics, forensics...."
"You think everybody didn't know you were sleeping with your professors to get your grades? All those men in your bed, Fletcher, Grissom, Cooper," he spat out the names, "and you pretend it's because you are smarter?"
"Oh, I am smarter. And better. It must have been hard for you. Nine months at the Bureau and I have a solve rate as a rookie that experienced agents would kill to have. At least you would." Her tone was deliberately blasé as she taunted him, trying to hit upon the right jibe to provoke him to come out after her.
"Cooper's solve rate, not yours."
She chuckled. "After all you did to try to take me down, and I show up at your job and I'm on the fast track. Good thing you went all mass murderer or I would have been your boss soon."
His snarl was one of inarticulate rage, and she braced for action, but he got himself under control. "I fixed you. You stopped your disgusting affair with Grissom. Left Harvard."
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, as images of that last semester at Harvard washed over her, the happiness in finding a vocation and mentor, which turned to such pain and frustration. "You did nothing. I had already transferred to a forensics program in California. I was tired of physics. After all, once you've reached the top of your field, where's the challenge?" Her voice was mocking, "But then, you wouldn't know what that's like, now would you?"
Snap. The sound of the deadbolt being drawn back in the door beside her caught her off-guard and she slid a few feet back from the door, her eyes and gun trained chest-high. "If you are outside, you know I just unlocked and cracked the door. Why don't you come in and we'll have a much more civilized conversation."
"Civilized?" she sneered. "That's good. I should have known you wouldn't come out and face me. Rape is a coward's crime, after all."
"I just wanted what you were giving to every one else," he retorted.
"I'm actually beginning to doubt it was you. You're such a pussy, I really doubt you even have balls," she baited, feeling like she was rapidly running out of material.
"Come in and see for yourself."
She sighed audibly, knowing he and everyone else could hear it. "Ok, have it your way. I'm hanging up and coming in." She snapped the phone shut, glad she didn't have an ear receiver to hear Cooper yelling as she inched down the hallway.
---------------
In the communications van, Cooper and Gil had listened grimly while Nick paced behind Catherine and Warrick. The exchange had been disturbing for all of them to listen to, but when Sara announced she was going into the room, everyone froze. There was a loud bang of a door slamming back on its hinges, shots fired, and the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground.