Author's Note: My thanks to all of you who took the time to review the first chapter. I really appreciate the feedback, please keep it coming.

Allegiance

Chapter Two: Convergence

Captain Donald Cragen, the commander of the Manhattan division of the Special Victim's Unit, strode onto the rooftop of the office building where the sniper shot at Casey's office. As he expected, the area was swarming with cops and Crime Scene Unit technicians. Cragen, a veteran police officer for more years than he cared to count, nodded his greetings at various friends and acquaintances as he walked past the collection of NYPD personnel who investigated the crime scene.

Captain Judith Siper of the Crime Scene Unit smiled wearily at him. She was a middle-aged woman with black hair, whowore a dark blue jacket with the letters CSU emblazoned on it. "Hey, Don."

"Judith. You get anything?"

"The sniper left the gun," Siper replied. "An AR-15. No prints, and the serial numbers have been filed off." She gave him an uneasy glance. "If you're looking for Detective Benson, she's over by the skylight. The Major Case Squad is here, and she had a run-in with their captain."

"I take it that the MCS detectives are the primaries?" Cragen asked.

Siper nodded, still looking uneasy. "Detective Benson wasn't trying to horn in or anything, and she was still respectful to his rank. But the MCS Captain still cut her down pretty harshly, right in front of everybody, I might add."

Cragen, who was already worked up over the shooting, now felt a renewed flash of anger surge from within. "Ok, thanks Judith. I'll talk to you later."

"I've got no other plans for today," she said with a sigh.

As Cragen walked over to Olivia, he realized that it was understandable for the MCS to take over the case. After all, a sniper attack on an assistant district attorney was not a sex crime; therefore, the SUV had no real jurisdiction here. Still, as the full time ADA for the SVU, Casey Novak was considered a member of the squad, and any attack on her was an attack on the SVU itself. And the SVU always took care of it's own.

Detective Olivia Benson stood pensively by the side of the skylight, with her hands on her hips. Clad in jeans with a slate gray top and a dark brown leather jacket with her badge clipped to the lapel, she was a lean, angular figure with a mane of chestnut colored hair that flowed down the nape of her neck. As he approached her, Cragen marveled at the change in Olivia over the past six years she worked with the SVU. When she first started, Olivia was such a green rookie detective that he was almost tempted to kick her off the squad. Since then, she had matured into one of his best detectives, with an impressive arrest record that most cops would trade their mothers for.

When she glanced up at him, Olivia looked both relieved and royally ticked off. Cragen understood how she felt.

"Munch and Fin are out working a homicide right now," he told her, "but I called Fin and let him know what's going on. I saw Casey right before the ambulance took her off to the hospital. Other than some scratches, she's all right, physically. But she's a wreck emotionally." Cragen let out a deep exhale as he recalled the shell-shocked look Casey had. The poor woman could barely speak. "Elliot went with her to the hospital. He said he'd call later."

"At least Elliot's getting more done than I am. The captain of the Major Case Squad has pretty much told me to butt out," she said heatedly. "He told me that my 'offer to help' was appreciated, but not needed at the present time."

"So I've heard. Where's the MCS captain now?"

"Over there," Olivia nodded at the group by the edge of the roof, "with Goren, his little savant golden boy."

"C'mon," Cragen said to Olivia. "Let's see if we can't iron this out."

Cragen identified the Major Case Squad commander even before he approached the group. He was a tall man in his fifties with a full head of graying hair. He stood near the sniper's weapon with another man who gestured wildly as he spoke—that was no doubt Goren. A female detective, who watched Cragen and Olivia as they strode up to them, leaned over to her captain and whispered a warning of their approach.

"Captain Donald Cragen," he introduced himself to the group. "Special Victim's Unit."

The MCS commander held out his hand. "Captain James Deakins, Major Case Squad." He gestured to the man and woman whom he stood next to. "These are my detectives, Robert Goren and Alex Eames."

Cragen nodded at them. "You already met my detective, Olivia Benson?"

Deakins' faint smile vanished as he shot Olivia a murderous look. "Yes," he said brusquely, "we've met."

'Apparently Olivia made quite an impression on you!' Cragen thought with amusement. "Captain, I've been told that the SVU hasn't been invited to this party. I'd like to know why."

"Well, as I explained to your Detective Benson, this incident obviously doesn't fall within your jurisdiction. Besides, my detectives were first on the scene, so that makes them the primaries in the investigation."

"You're forgetting, Captain, that Detective Benson was with Goren and Eames on the scene. And that another of my detectives, Elliot Stabler, was with ADA Casey when her office was fired on. Now, I realize that this is out of our jurisdiction, but we are already involved. Look, I'm not asking you to give us the case; you can still be the primaries. I'd simply like for my squad to be included in the investigation, that's all."

"Rest assured, Captain Cragen, we will interview Detective Stabler when the time is right, and I plan to keep you fully apprised of our investigation as it progresses," Deakins said with a polite smile.

'He's treating Elliot like a crime scene witness,' Cragen realized. 'And I've just been given the brush off.'

Standing just behind Deakins, Eames and Goren appeared very uncomfortable. Then Goren abruptly shook his head in distain and muttered, "We should all just be working together on this, Eames. This is just ridiculous…."

Eames held her hand up, as if to placate him, yet Goren—still irritated—turned his back on all of them and focused his attention on the weapon the sniper left behind. Deakins ignored Goren's outburst, and continued to stare coolly at Cragen; it was almost as if he were daring Cragen to put up a fight.

It took but a spilt second for Cragen to weigh his options, and he discovered that he had none—at least not officially. 'But if you can't go over a mountain,' he thought, 'you can always go around it.'

"Very well, Captain Deakins," he said with his best cheerful façade. "Thank you."

Deakins' small smile became a large grin. "Thank you for your understanding, Captain Cragen."

As they walked back by the skylight, Olivia had a disgusted look on her face. Cragen gently placed his hand on her shoulder and said, "Let's go see what we can find out about this sniper, shall we?"

Olivia gave him a puzzled look. "But I thought Captain Deakins said—"

"I know what Deakins said," Cragen calmly told her. "And to hell with him. Somebody opened fire on two of my kids today, Olivia. That really pisses me off. And when I get pissed off, I want to do something about it. So, let's start working the crime scene."

Olivia smiled as she pulled out her notepad. "With pleasure, Cap."

Jeanne Lu's Apartment. 233 Anders Street. Thursday, April 28

"Cragen did say Casey was ok?" Detective John Munch asked for the second time.

"As well as can be expected, considering she survived a sniper attack," his partner, Odafin "Fin" Tutuola replied. They stood in the foyer of an apartment that belonged to a young woman named Jeanne Lu who had been murdered within the last two days. The coroner and CSU techs were busy working the crime scene inside. Yet the body in the other room was the last thing on their minds at this moment.

"Yeah, but, Cragen said she was injured—"

"Cuts and abrasions from the flying glass," Fin assured him. "I mean, that ain't no picnic, but at least she wasn't shot by the sniper, right? Elliot saw the bastard just before he fired and got Casey under cover in time."

Munch shook his head in disbelief. A tall, lean man with graying hair, he favored dark suits with tinted glasses—this was a look that gave him the appearance of a mafia hit man, rather than the veteran detective that he actually was. He was also a major conspiracy buff who normally liked to ramble about his pet theories to anyone who would listen. But now all he was concerned about was Casey. "This is insane," Munch whispered.

"No argument here," Fin agreed.

"This is now the second time that somebody went gunning for one of our ADAs," Munch said with disgust. "I'd like to know since when was there an open season declared on ADAs attached to the SVU?"

"ADAs make enemies just like cops do, John," Fin said. "It's part of the risk of their job."

Medical Examiner Melinda Warner stuck her head into the hallway and eagerly said, "I got something, Detectives."

Although somewhat reluctant to do so, Fin pushed his concern for Casey to the back of his mind, as he and Munch entered the bedroom. He shook his head in sadness once again at the body of the young woman that was slumped up against the wall. Jeanne Lu couldn't have been anymore than early to mid twenties. She was nude, with a bullet hole in the back of her head. Pieces of duct tape still clung to her ankles and one of her wrists; they surmised that she had been bound hand and foot in the bedroom when she had somehow freed herself of her bonds. Jeanne tried to make a run for the door when the perp shot her dead.

Their initial theory was that Jeanne picked up the perp someplace and brought him home—never knowing until it was too late who and what he really was. He had stripped her of her clothing before he bound her with the tape. The fact that she was nude was what made the uniformed officers who first responded to the scene call in the SVU.

"Look at this," Warner said, as she used a pen to point out a mark on the woman's neck.

Both Fin and Munch leaned over the body to examine what appeared to be a puncture in the side of the deceased's neck.

Munch asked, "Is that from a needle?"

Warner nodded. "I'll know more once I get her back to the lab, but it looks like she was injected with something, probably some kind of a tranquilizer."

"The perp injected her with something that knocked her out," Munch said to Fin, as they stood up again. "Thus making it easier for him to strip her and tie her up."

"Leaving her completely defenseless for him to play his perverted little games," Fin said with revulsion. "But he didn't count on her freeing herself, and then he had no choice but to shoot her before she could run out the door. Sick bastard."

"One of many who are wandering the city streets today," Munch said, in reference to the attack on Casey.

"Is there any more news about Casey?" Warner asked, concerned.

"Nah, nothing since Cragen called," Fin replied.

Ron Sanchez, a CSU tech, came into the room. "Detectives? There's something here you should see."

He led them to a closet in the hallway, where he picked up a back metallic case and held it open. Inside was heavy foam lining, with a large empty space in the foam that made up the outline for parts of a gun. The foam in the opposite side of the case had openings for four ammo clips, with only two clips present and accounted for.

"It's a case for a gun," Sanchez said. "Specifically, for an AR-15."

"That's the civilian version of the M-16 assault rifle," Munch said.

"Pretty hard core piece," Fin muttered. To Sanchez he added, "Did you find the gun?"

"I haven't." Sanchez glanced at two of his colleagues who were presently turning the living room upside-down. "You guys find the gun, yet?"

The CSU techs, a man and a woman, both looked up from their search and gave Sanchez a response in the negative.

"Yo, Larry," Sanchez called down the hallway, "you find anything, yet?"

Larry stuck his bald head into the hallway and said, "Nada. No joy whatsoever."

"We'll keep looking," Sanchez told the detectives. "But if we haven't found a gun like this here by now, we probably never will."

"You could break a gun like that up for easy transport, then reassemble it for shooting," Fin said thoughtfully. "But why the hell would somebody like Jeanne have an AR-15 lying around her apartment? It had to have belonged to the perp."

Fin frowned when he saw Munch abruptly lean back up against the wall, as if for support. "You all right, John?"

"I just had a very scary thought," Munch said.

"That's nothing new for you," Fin replied.

"Just try this on for size," Munch said. "We find an empty gun case for an AR-15 here in this apartment, on the very same day that a certain ADA's office—which is just a few blocks away from here—gets hit by a sniper."

"Oh, whoa…" Fin muttered, as a chill ran up his spine. "You don't think…."

Sanchez held up the gun case and pointed to an empty slot in the foam. "See this? It's for a telescopic sight."

"Oh, man," Fin exclaimed, shaking his head.

Munch pulled out his cell phone. "Before we run any further with this little theory, I want to see if they know what type of gun was used."

Dr. Warner entered the hallway with a perplexed look on her face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Fin held up a hand and said, "We'll know for sure in a second, Doc."

"Liv?" Munch said into his cell. "Yeah, it's me. Listen, do you know what type of gun the sniper used?" Munch nodded. Then hestared right at Fin and said, "The sniper left the gun behind at the scene, and it is indeed an AR-15."

"Sweet Mary, mother of God!" Sanchez said excitedly. "We gotta get our hands on that baby! I'll run some firing tests with it and see if the bullets match those that were shot here and at the ADA's office! That's the only way we can be sure!"

"Liv, you know the murder that Fin and I are working?" Munch said into the phone. "Yeah, we definitely think it's connected to the sniper. Is Cragen with you?"

Fin felt a tap on his shoulder. When he turned, Dr. Warner glared at him, looking as if she was ready to burst. "Fin, for crying out loud, what is it?"

He pulled her into the living room, away from the keyed up chatter of Munch and the CSU techs, who were all having several different conversations about the same subject at the same time. "We just got a major break: apparently, it looks like the bastard who killed Jeanne Lu, and the sniper who fired on Casey's office, are one and the same person."

Warner's only response to that was a stunned expression on her face.

Fin could empathize, for he knew exactly how she felt.

To Be Continued...