Chapter 10 – The Meeting...
Disclaimer – The odds of me owning CSI or any TV show of any kind are mathematically incalculable.
Notes – This chapter might contain spoilers from any episode in the history of CSI, right up to 'Big Middle'. You have been warned.
Greg strode down the crime lab corridor, files in hand and purpose in mind. It was time. It would be stupid to say that there was no turning back now, because he had passed the point of no return almost a week ago.
Greg knocked on the door of the office. As he did, it occurred to him that he himself was the very last person he would suspect of doing something like this. If he had known he was going to do something like this when he first came aboard CSI, would he still have done so?
As Ecklie opened the door with a smile that would have frozen magma, Greg decided that foreknowledge would only have strengthened his resolve. He entered the assistant director's office, and sat opposite the desk at Ecklie's invitation.
"So, Sanders. I'm glad at least one of the CSI's on night shift has shown some initiative."
"My middle name, Ecklie, but first I need some assurances."
Ecklie's eyes lit up "You've got it with you?"
"What did I just say?" Greg wasn't backing down.
"Fine. What assurances do you need?"
"You covered for Catherine when she lost the film on the Eiger case just like I asked you to. I want you to back off on Sara, as well. Stop trying to get her fired, and you can have the information."
Ecklie's reaction was instant. "Consider it done."
Greg's eyes widened slightly. "Just like that?"
"As long as it is him..."
Greg smiled coldly. "I guarantee; the info in this file," he hefted a brown envelope "is worth at least a ten, maybe a twelve year prison sentence."
A prison sentence! Though Ecklie gave no indication of it, he was gloating inside. Gil Grissom in the slammer! A dream come true! His career in ruins, his life effectively over, alone in a state prison. Beautiful!
"Very good, Sanders. Okay, I think we can safely say that Sara is invincible."
In reply, Greg tossed the envelope across the desk. Ecklie caught it, and smiling greedily, opened it up...
And found himself looking at a photo of himself.
Not a portrait shot either. The picture was a grainy, yet unmistakeable shot of Ecklie sitting in a diner with an elderly gentleman, whose own identity was obscured by a window frame.
Ecklie knew who it was though. Oh yes. With a sudden rush of belated understanding, he realised that he was looking at his supplier, the man who had been paying him to reveal crime scene information and tamper with evidence. The very man, in fact, who had allowed him to become assistant director of the Las Vegas crime lab in the first place!
And there was more. Much, much more. Brushing the photo aside, he found transcripts of telephone conversations between himself and the same gentleman, information on cases that had been kicked in court due to tampering or publicity leaks, files on items that had been re-examined for false trace evidence, and more and more and more!
With an expression of sheer, blind horror, Ecklie looked up at Greg, who was grinning contentedly. "Compliments of myself, a little initiative, a few judges and cops, and good old sheriff Rory Atwater, architect of this entire elaborate scheme."
Greg reached down and lifted up his shirt, exposing both a surprisingly well-developed chest, and a wire! "Like I said, a twelve year prison sentence. But not Grissom's."
The smile remained on his face, but his eyes became cold pits of savage triumph. "You must have thought that I was the last person in the crime lab, no, the world, to pull off something like this."
It was about halfway between the word 'off' and the word 'this', that Greg's stopped smiling, as he saw a look in Ecklie's eyes that turned his bowels to water. Greg knew that look. It was the expression a wild animal got when it was trapped without hope of escape.
Once, when Greg was young, his overbearing father had all but glued a Winchester rifle to his hands and dragged him out hunting. Greg had hated every second of it. The boredom as they waited for something to show up, the clumsy weight of the gun in his trembling grip, the frantic screams of his irate dad to 'pull the Goddamned TRIGGER!' But what Greg never forgot was when they had cornered the deer.
Sanders the Elder was practically drooling with the prospect of a kill, but Greg couldn't help but wonder if his father would be so eager if they had been hunting something that could hunt them. Then he saw the light in the deer's eyes. Greg never forgot that look. It was desperate and crazed and furious. Greg yelled a warning at the exact same time the buck charged, bowling his father over and darting into the woods before the old man could bring his gun to bear.
Of all that day, Greg remembered best the look in the buck's face when they cornered it. It was frighteningly similar to the gleam in Ecklie's eyes now. Was he going to lunge?
Too late, Greg remembered the letter opener Ecklie kept near his 'IN' pile on his desk, hidden behind a stack of papers from the eyes of anyone on Greg's side of the room. Greg had a gun, of course, but by the time he'd even thought of using it, Ecklie's hand was already moving.
To his own dull surprise, Greg's overriding emotion wasn't terror, or panic, or despair. It was self-reproach. How could he have been so stupid, he wondered, to think that someone like Conrad Ecklie would simply admit defeat? He should have known, better, should have been more ready...
But it was far too late. Greg Sanders waited for the end...