p/p
Monday – Day 2, 12:03She hoisted her pack on her shoulders for the fifth time in 20 minutes and looked up at the treetops surrounding them. She turned her attention back down towards Greg as he dropped his pack and edged towards the bank of the small river they had come across.
"I guess we don't have to worry about water anymore," he said, looking back at her.
"You know, I didn't even think of that last night – how much have we got back at camp?"
"Enough for a couple of days, if we're careful – but I think they were betting on us finding this. I don't think having six people from Vegas dying of thirst during the first instalment of the 'CSI's Outward Bound Competition' would be great PR for them somehow," he bent down over his pack and rummaged around until he produced one of their maps.
"Well, we've definitely narrowed it down," Sara said, coming to stand next to him.
She'd been paired with Greg earlier in the day. Their mission; find out where the hell they were. When they worked that out, they would be able to safely navigate through the forest to find the other groups. But until they worked out where they were stationed, any mindless wandering would just get them lost. Back at base camp, Grissom, Warrick and Catherine were supposed to be devising strategies and plans to invade the enemy camps once they found them, while Nick sat on sentry duty up in the tree.
It felt refreshing to get out for a good hike and Sara was enjoying herself. Greg was good company to be with and he was excellent for the job they were doing. Every slight incline or decline they hiked over, he made note of. He constantly checked the compass and the map and he'd been extremely excited when they found the river.
"Absolutely," he agreed with Sara and pointed to a place on the map, "I think we're in this square here."
"Really? Wow, that's good Greg – this is great," she smiled warmly at him and caught the slight blush that rose to his cheeks. She patted him on the shoulder and walked down to the water's edge. Looking up and down the bank of the river, Sara realised that if this was supposed to be their main water source, then it was probably the same for the other groups. Either they were somewhere along this river, or they would be stationed close to the other rivers that ran through the area. If she was right, it would narrow down their search for the other groups considerably.
"Think you can navigate us back to camp Greggo?" she asked over her shoulder.
"No problem," Greg answered confidently and bent down to grab his pack and swing it on his back.
"Good – because we've just solved 25% of the problem," she grinned at him.
"Let's hope our geniuses back at camp have done as well as us in their planning."
**
"I don't know if Sara would go for that," Catherine said to Warrick and then frowned, "You know, I don't know if I would go for that either come to think of it."
"Oh, come on Cat – war is war. I can guarantee that each and every one of us is going to have to do something they don't like in order to help us win this game," Warrick tried to reason with her.
Grissom sat across from them on the other side of the unlit fire, "If you're not comfortable with it, we'll think of something else," he said. "Besides – it might not even work."
Catherine raised her eyebrows at him, "And why wouldn't it work?"
Grissom sighed and Warrick smiled. Even when Grissom was trying to be a gentleman he screwed it up.
"I just mean that we're completely guessing that there will be a team out here completely comprised of men – what if there's an all-female team?" Grissom tried to explain.
"Well then you and Warrick and Nicky and Greg will be very happy then won't you?" Catherine replied coyly. "And anyway, chances are there are women on each team – we'll have to get some of you boys to try it out too."
Warrick nodded, "That's true. Hey, I'll volunteer," he grinned.
Catherine shook her head at him and smiled, "Sure you will – but you're only supposed to pretend that you're interested in them to lure them away, not actually be interested."
Warrick feigned innocence, "Hey! I'm offended by that!"
Grissom looked at his watch, "I'd better go relieve Nick," he said and stood up.
Catherine gave him a dirty look, "You just don't want to be here when we tell Sara," she accused.
Grissom smiled, "Do you blame me?"
***
Sara and Greg arrived back at camp a couple of hours later, their backs sore from carrying their packs on their hike but still quite energised due to figuring out exactly where they were on their maps.
"Great work guys!" Nick said enthusiastically as they sat down and joined the others in a late lunch.
Greg and Sara grinned back at him. "So how have you guy's been going here?"
"Well," Catherine began, "We've come up with one idea – but until we actually suss out all the camps we won't really know how we're going to invade them. We'll have to see them first before we can make a decision on what to do."
Sara nodded, "Yeah I was thinking the same thing – but you've still got ideas don't you?"
Warrick figured getting it over and done with would be best. Rip the band-aid off quickly and the pain was barely noticeable. Right. "We think it'll be hard to invade their camp while they're still in there lying around or whatever. So we're going to have to lure some of them out to get their numbers down and reduce the chance of them seeing us."
"So how are we going to do that?" Greg asked.
"Well we have two very fine women here," Warrick grinned, "Chances are we've got some frustrated men who are looking for a good time…"
"You're not serious," Sara looked at Warrick and then turned towards Catherine, "Are you serious?"
Greg began to laugh, "This is great!"
"We don't have to do anything Sara, just 'accidentally' bump into them and make like we're interested. Organise to meet them somewhere and then raid their camp when they've left to come see us."
Sara studied Catherine and smiled, "Okay – sure, no problem."
Nick raised his eyebrows, "Really? We didn't think you'd go for it."
"Sure why not?"
"Excellent," Warrick said and clapped his hands together. "Well that's one idea, the other is a series of diversions that we can create to get them rushing out of their camp."
"We could pretend to make a partnership with one of the teams. Gain their trust and then feed them disinformation to get them out of their camp one night when they think they're going to raid another…" Greg thought out loud.
"That's good," Warrick said, impressed, "I like that – we'd have to be smart about it though."
Sara nodded, "I don't think we should ever leave the camp with less than two people here to stay on guard."
"Agreed," Catherine said and nodded.
They all grinned at each other. "This is fun."
***
Sara clambered up the sentry-tree and awkwardly pulled herself up to sit next to Grissom. "Hey," she breathed and smiled at him.
"Hi, how did it go?"
"Great, Greg is a master at cartography!"
Grissom smiled and nodded, "That doesn't surprise me much."
"I uh, I heard about the plan you guys decided on. The one where Catherine and I flaunt ourselves in the hope of luring the libidinous men away from their camp?"
Grissom looked at her and tried to work out whether she was pissed off at the idea or was just playing with him to get a reaction. "I – uh… You don't have to do anything you don't want to."
Sara raised a single eyebrow at him, "Do you think it will work?"
"You mean will the men go for it? Sure, I think so," Grissom said and nodded.
"Really?" He could feel her eyes' searching his face and wondered what she was thinking.
"Of course they would Sara, look at you," he grinned at her.
Sara puffed out a small laugh, "Oh yeah – old jeans, old t-shirt, no make-up, no shower… I've never been more beautiful!"
He studied her and couldn't help the smile that formed on his lips. She looked happy and relaxed in her old camping clothes and Nick's backwards hat – and he couldn't remember a time when he found her any more attractive than right then in that moment.
He shrugged and threw her a grin, "It'll work Sara. Trust me."
Sara grinned back – it was as near as Grissom was going to go to saying he thought she was beautiful for today and she was quite content with his implication.
"The other's are going to go and do a bit of hunting for the other camps and wanted to know if you're going," she told him.
"You're not going?"
"Well Greg and I said we'd watch over the camp since we got to go for a hike this morning," she explained.
Grissom nodded, "Okay, yeah I wouldn't mind getting out of here – sentry duty is probably the dullest experience I've ever encountered."
Sara nodded, "Yeah, tell me about it. Well, they're getting ready to go now… oh and I'd head to the river, east of here, and have a look up and down the banks of it to see if there's any sign of human activity. I've got a feeling they'll have dumped us all near a main water source."
Grissom nodded and began to climb down the tree.
"Oh, and try and get rid of your tracks down by the river if you do go down there. Chances are that someone else has thought the same thing," she called to him as he reached the bottom.
"Yes ma'am," he answered quietly before grinning up at her jokingly pouty face and hurrying off towards their camp.
Monday – Day 2, 16:24Grissom and the others had been gone about three hours before Sara saw any movement in the trees surrounding their camp. She had expected them to be gone longer than three hours and squinted carefully at the dark shapes moving towards her. It was hard to be sure, but it looked liked there was 5 people, maybe more. She hesitantly reached out for the rope to alert Greg who she'd left down in their camp, reading a book next to their unlit fire. When she heard a laugh she didn't recognise, she tugged hard on the rope and hoped to God that Greg hadn't fallen asleep.
She cursed to herself as she scrambled down the trunk of the tree and tore a gash in her hand. Ignoring it, she started to trek in a wide circle towards their camp, going as fast as she could and trying her hardest not to make any sound. It was possible that the group of people would walk straight past their camp without even realising it was there – from what she could tell they didn't appear to have a purposeful direction they were taking. They looked to her as if they were meandering around, not really expecting to find anything. Still, she had to get back to their camp before they could have a chance of stumbling into it.
She came bursting into the small clearing, startling Greg who was tearing down their tents and stuffing them into some packs. They had decided that once someone had rung the bell from the tree that the people down in the camp would pack up absolutely everything and stake the place out from a hidey-hole they'd found not too far past the first line of trees that surrounded them. That had seemed like a manageable task for five people to do quickly, but it had only been Greg who was there when Sara had rung the bell and he had to take the initiative to start packing everything up on his own.
After calming from his initial shock of Sara's arrival he finished pulling down the second tent and closed the pack he had stuffed it into.
"What is it?" he hissed at her as they both began to pick up the odds and ends that littered the area around their fire.
"Five or more, I didn't really get a good look at them," she panted back and tried desperately to scatter the remains of last night's fire around the place so it wouldn't be obvious that there had been a fire there. It was fairly useless – it was obvious to Sara there had been a fire there, she just hoped these people were severely dumb and un-knowledgeable about camping. She grabbed two packs and sprinted towards their hidey-hole, throwing them in before running back to Greg who was picking up the last of the annoying objects on the ground. She glanced around and, making sure they left nothing behind, grabbed one pack and Greg's arm and raced back to the hidey-hole.
They made it just in time. They sat there, breathing hard, watching the clearing as the group of six people swaggered into the open space. The people looked relieved when they entered the clearing and Sara wondered how long they'd been wandering around in the dense forest for. They looked around and stopped, dropping their packs from their backs. A couple of them sat down, the others began to wander around the clearing – vaguely inspecting each corner of it.
"What do you think Jim?" the one woman asked a man with a dark moustache.
Jim nodded, "Yeah, this is a good place – a hell of a lot better than where we stayed last night!"
"Here here!" one of the other men called from where he sat on his pack.
Jim smiled at him, "Alright, this'll do – set up your tents guys!"
Greg turned to Sara and gave her an incredulous look. Sara gave him an equally incredulous one back and tried not to burst out laughing. Screw going to search for the other groups; apparently they would just come to them.
"Gee, this looks like a great place for a fire," Greg mocked the intruders quietly before turning to Sara and asking, "What do we do?"
She frowned in thought, "I don't know," she admitted.
"Grissom and the others…"
Sara realised what Greg was implying. Soon, Grissom and the rest of their group were going to come waltzing back into the clearing, completely unaware that it was now over run by an enemy group.
"Ah shit," she whispered and grinned a little when Greg had to stifle a laugh. "Do you know which way they left?"
Greg nodded, "Yeah this way – they'd have come past this place, but they were going to split up – Grissom and Cat, Warrick and Nick."
Sara sighed, "Okay, we're going to have to do something – we can't just sit here and wait for them to walk into the camp. They'll ruin a potential invasion."
Greg nodded and looked around anxiously, "They shouldn't be too long… you want to chance a bit of a hike?"
Sara nodded and looked around them at their stash of badly packed packs, "We can't leave these here though, if they stumble over them then we're screwed. They'll have our treasures without even having to do anything except open these up."
"Put all the treasures in one pack," Greg said and began to quietly rummage through their packs. Sara nodded and looked back at their former camp. She didn't know what would happen if they suddenly had to make a run for it but she'd like to have some warning before Jim and his mates came wandering over.
"Okay," Greg whispered to her, "They're all in this one."
Sara nodded and reached over to pull the pack onto her back, "You stay in this area – walk around but stay close, keep an eye on these guys and look out for the others – I'll circle the camp. If you run into trouble, birdcall me and I'll be over as soon as I can. I'll make sure I come past you on each round," she got up slowly and backed away from the camp. Glancing one last time at the intruders and shooting a small reassuring grin to Greg, she set off on a wide arc to begin circling the clearing.
On her third round, when she was on the opposite side of the clearing to Greg, she heard a birdcall; a high-pitched caw that made her heart skip a beat. She stopped immediately and looked around. All she could see were trees. She turned towards the clearing and began walking carefully towards it, unconsciously tightening her grip on the straps digging into her shoulders. When she was about 70 meters away she found a thick tree to hug and cautiously poked her head out from around it. She could just see the beginning of the clearing and the campsite that the intruders were just finishing to set up. A couple of people sat lazily around, pointing out things that needed to be done but not making any effort to help. Either they hadn't noticed the birdcall or Greg's impersonation was better than she thought. She quickly slipped back out of sight and hurried back to Greg. If he wasn't calling her because he was in trouble, maybe he'd found Grissom and the rest of the team.
Cautiously, she worked her way towards the hidey-hole she'd left Greg in. As she walked towards it she realised that Greg and the packs were no longer there. She stopped walking and looked nervously around. Could the people in the camp have caught Greg? She looked towards the clearing but saw the same lazy picture she'd seen from the opposite side. No, they definitely hadn't caught him. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as the fear of being alone in the middle of nowhere, without knowing where any of her friends were began to sink in.
She almost squealed when she felt someone come up from behind her and clasp his or her hand over her mouth. She began to struggle away from her captor but realised they were whispering something ferverently in her ear.
"Sara, calm down, it's just me – you're making too much noise, Sara! It's Grissom."
When the words sank through her panicked barrier she immediately stopped moving and cast and anxious look towards the clearing. How much noise had she made? She heard a wild, howling laugh coming from the camp and someone shouting, 'That's a classic Will!' and breathed a sigh of relief.
She felt Grissom release her and turned around to glare at him, "What did you do that for?" she whispered harshly at him, ignoring her immense relief that she was no longer alone.
He gave her a guilty look, "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't yell out if I startled you."
She looked at him as if he were crazy and he looked at the ground sheepishly.
"Sorry," he said again and looked around quickly, "The other's are back a bit – come on," he started to move away from her and she followed closely, glancing periodically over her shoulder at the clearing.
Soon Nick, Greg and Catherine came into view and Sara smiled at them warmly. For some reason she suddenly felt very glad that these were the people she was out here with and had an inexplicable urge to greet them in a clichéd, slow motion reunion hug. She swallowed the urge and looked around them nervously instead.
"Where's Warrick?" she asked.
"He's gone to get rid of the evidence we left in the sentry tree," Greg informed her.
Sara nodded; feeling bad that she hadn't thought to bring anything with her when she fled the tree but reminded herself that she was needed back at camp and it would have taken too long.
They all sat down carefully, waiting impatiently for Warrick to return.
"What's taking him so long?" Catherine asked, beginning to get worried.
"Relax Cat," Sara reassured her, "He's got to get rid of a lot of evidence, he shouldn't be too much longer."
They waited another five minutes and finally Warrick came walking cautiously towards them. He looked relieved when he saw them and Sara wondered whether he had also experienced the same urge to hug everyone as she had. She grinned at him and put her arm around his shoulders as he came and sat next to her on the fallen log.
"So what's the plan?" he asked them quietly.
Sara caught the odd look Grissom was sending her before he opened his mouth to speak, and she returned it with a confused one of her own. He turned away from her, "This is obviously the best opportunity we could have hoped for, but we have to be careful," he said. "I think we'll have to split up again in order to invade their camp – we can't all go traipsing in there and expect them not to notice their numbers have suddenly doubled. I think we should keep an eye on them – find out what their security is like, we can do it in shifts – watch them from the hidey-hole. We should wait until they've gone to sleep and then make our move – two at the most. And the others can be on watch for any signs of them waking up. One person should stay away from the camp – go down towards the river with our treasures to make sure they're safe."
"Will that be our rendezvous point? The river?" Greg asked and dipped into Sara's pack to pull out the two maps.
"I'm not sure if we should go right to the river, but somewhere near there…"
"How about just here?" Greg said and pointed to a spot on the map. They all peered at it and nodded.
"Sounds good to me," Nick said, "Can you navigate your way there without a map?"
"I'll draw a spare," Greg said and reached into another pack to pull out some paper and a pencil.
"Draw one for each of us if you can," Warrick said and Greg nodded.
"We should be watching them now," Catherine said and looked in the direction of the clearing.
Grissom nodded, "You and Nick want to go and keep watch for now? Take some of this paper and a pen and write down anything – or everything."
Catherine and Nick sped off, leaving Grissom, Sara, Warrick and Greg to make the rest of the plans.
TBC