Author's Note: Once again, I would just like to convey my thanks for all the great feedback. It's much appreciated.

Allegiance

Chapter Three: An Investigation Of Merit

The Horner Building. Friday, April 24

Elliot Stabler stifled a yawn as he watched the monitor. He and Olivia were in the main security center of the Horner building, the office complex from whose roof the sniper had fired from. He felt very irritable; thanks to a night of fitful sleep. His subconscious kept reliving the assassination attempt over and over again in his dreams. He woke up every twenty minutes or so with a start, half expecting to see the bedroom window blown out from a sniper's bullets. Once he reached out for Kathy, his wife, only to discover that she was not there. Waking up in a fearful mood from a bad dream was not the best time for Elliot to be reminded that his wife had left him several months before.

He rubbed his face with his hands in an effort to keep his bleary eyes open.

Olivia leaned in close to him and said, "We keeping you up?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "Actually, you are."

Ignoring his little joke, Olivia gazed at him with concern. "You ok, Elliot?"

"Rough night," Elliot said. "Didn't get much sleep…whoa!" Elliot jabbed a finger at the monitor. "What's that? What was that guy carrying?"

The security guard seated at the console rewound the videotape. They were watching security video of the building's freight-receiving department in an effort to find a suspicious person who entered the building with a case large enough to conceal an AR-15. So far, the only people in and out were various deliverymen. Normally, they would have checked the video for the main lobby, but the security checkpoints there were so thorough—building security normally checked every large package via X-ray—that the sniper wouldn't have bothered to go through there in the first place. And the video surveillance system leading to, and on, the rooftop were out of commission, a flaw that the building management swore they would fix right away, but that was too late to help them now.

The security guard, a young African-American woman named Alicia, found the spot that Elliot had indicated. Elliot and Olivia leaned in close over Alicia's shoulders as they peered at the monitor. They watched a man in a tan leather coat wander in from the street onto the loading dock carrying a large package under his arm.

"That package looks pretty snug to hide the gun he was using," Olivia commented.

"You can break down an AR-15 to fit that size package," Elliot said. He should know, since he had spent the better part of his time in the Marines stripping down and then reassembling his M-16 over and over again. When the man walked out of camera range, he added, "Where's he going?"

"He's in the east quadrant of the loading dock," Alicia replied, as she punched up the tape from that camera. They watched as the man brought the package over to the main counter of the loading dock. He spoke to the clerk, and then opened the package, revealing several pieces of severely damaged camera equipment.

"Damn it," Olivia said in frustration. "It's just a guy bringing back damaged merchandise."

"We'll keep looking," Elliot said grimly.

"At what?" Olivia asked. She gestured at the monitor. "Look at the time on the tape. It's 5:20 pm on the day of the shooting. The sniper would already have been setting up on the roof by now."

"You're right," Elliot said with a heavy sigh. They had already looked at the security tapes for the employee entrance without any success, as well as the tapes for the freight-receiving department going back a week, and it had all turned out to be a dead end. How the hell did a sniper sneak an AR-15 into a downtown Manhattan office building that was loaded to the gills with post-9/11 security?

He glanced up at the top monitor on the shelf, which showed a live feed from the loading dock. As he watched a UPS truck back in, Elliot sardonically thought, 'Son of a bitch must have mailed himself into the place, right along with his piece.'

"Oh jeez," he softly muttered, as the idea struck him.

"What is it?" Olivia asked.

Elliot gazed at Alicia, who was so young she looked like she should have been at home studying for a high school exam, rather than running a multi-million dollar security console. "You said before that every package in the main lobby was x-rayed before it could be brought into the building, right?"

"Yes," Alicia confirmed.

Elliot pointed at the UPS truck on the monitor. "What about the freight-receiving department? Do you x-ray those packages?"

"No, of course not," Alicia said, as if that was the most absurd thing she had ever heard. "We never x-ray the packages that come in from the freight companies. There's just too much there to handle."

Elliot slowly turned and gave his partner a knowing look.

Olivia stared back at him, her face slack with amazement. "He actually had the frigging gun sent to himself here, didn't he?" she whispered. "That's how he got it past all the security."

"Let's go find out," Elliot said.

They went downstairs to the freight-receiving department and got a list of every package that arrived at the building for the last week, before the sniper fired on Casey's office. The problem was that there were more than a thousand packages total on the list.

"We're gonna have to call Munch and Fin for help," Elliot said dourly, as he looked over the list. "Because this is a lot of crap to track down."

"Munch and Fin are busy moving Casey to the safe house," Olivia said, with a glance at her watch. "Besides, we should be able to narrow down the search."

"How?"

"Well, think about it, El. If he mailed the package to himself here, then he would need an address, wouldn't he? If he's set all of this up just to get at Casey, then I'm betting that he's a new tenant to this office building. So all we have to do is find out who rented an office in the last few months, and see if they also got a package either yesterday, or within the past few days."

"Of course!" Elliot lightly slapped his forehead with the list. The lack of sleep had made him as dull as a butter knife today. "Liv, I could kiss you."

"Promises, promises," she jokingly said, when they entered the elevator. As they rode up to the building management offices, her cell phone rung. "Benson," she answered briskly. And then Olivia's stern professional cop demeanor abruptly melted as she smiled shyly. "Eric! Hi, how are you! Yeah, I got your message."

Elliot watched with bemusement the change in his partner once Olivia realized she was speaking with her boyfriend. He had not met Eric yet, but just from seeing the elated reaction Olivia had whenever she spoke with him, or about him, Elliot sensed that this one was special. For her sake, he sincerely hoped this guy didn't turn out to be an utter moron like the others.

"I gotta go," Olivia said, as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. "Yeah, I'll call you later. Ok." As she put her cell phone away, Olivia did a double take when she saw Elliot. "What?"

"New boyfriend?" he asked.

"No," she said quickly. "Eric's just a friend."

Elliot just grinned broadly as they stepped out of the elevator. "Uh-huh."

"What do you mean 'uh-huh'?" Olivia demanded.

"Nothing," Elliot replied, acting innocent. "I just said 'uh-huh', that's all."

"Then what's with the goofy grin?"

"What goofy grin?" Elliot said sweetly, as he continued to grin broadly at her.

"You know something?" Olivia said, growing aggravated. "I really hate it when you do this."

Elliot continued to tease her. "Do what? What am I doing?"

Olivia just shook her head as they strolled up to the main counter. "You're really lucky that I can't hurt you right now because there are too many people around."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," he commented. "It's all timing."

They asked for, and received, a list of the most recent residents of the office building within the last year. There were fifteen total. When they tried to match these up with the shipping list from the freight-receiving department, they discovered that five of the new tenants received packages over the last few days.

Unfortunately the list did not specify the size and weight of the packages that had been delivered, so Elliot and Olivia had to check out each and every company on the list. And after almost two hours of running down the five new companies, they came up with nothing.

"So much for my idea," Olivia said dolefully, as they walked towards the elevator. They had just come out of the fifth and last office with nothing to show for their efforts. None of the companies had received anything suspicious.

"It was still a good idea," Elliot told her, as he pushed the elevator button.

"Stop trying to cheer me up," she grumpily said.

"Oh yeah, I forgot," Elliot said with a grin, "That's lover boy's job, isn't it?"

"His name is Eric," Olivia told him with a heavy sigh, "and he's just a friend. And if I weren't so tired right now, I'd slap you silly all over this frigging hallway."

Normally Elliot would have had a comeback ready for her, but something caught his attention. There was an office across the hall from them that was empty and dark. As he suddenly walked over to it and peered inside, an idea crystallized within his mind.

Olivia walked up and stood beside him. "What is it?" she asked, all business.

"It just occurred to me that if the sniper has an office in this building, then he wouldn't be in today, would he? I mean after what happened yesterday, he certainly wouldn't be within a ten mile radius of this area, right?"

"I see what you're getting at," Olivia said with a frown. "But what do we do, check attendance in every single office in the building?"

Elliot pointed at the darkened office they both stood in front of. "Or just run down all the single-occupant offices for now. Specifically, the offices on the east side of this building…."

"Only check the single occupant offices that face the DA's office complex," Olivia said with a nod. "You think he was casing her all along, don't you?"

"Hey, it's just a hunch," Elliot said with a shrug.

"But a damn good one," Olivia replied with a smile. "Let's check it out with Alicia. All the offices in this building have glass doors. Maybe she can save us the legwork by using the surveillance cameras to see if there's anybody who's not in today."

The elevator doors opened and they caught it just in the nick of time. When they arrived back at the security center and told Alicia what they needed, she grew very thoughtful. "We don't have cameras in the offices themselves," she said. "But with the exception of the rooftop, we've got all the hallways on every floor covered."

"We just need to see the offices on the east side of the building," Olivia told her. "Can you do that?"

"Sure," Alicia said.

"Wait, let's narrow it down even further," Elliot said. "Only show us the hallways from the 25th floor on up. If the sniper did scope out Casey's office beforehand, he would need to be in an office with a clear view of hers."

Alicia worked her magic on the console, and brought up several hallways on the east side of the building on a row of the monitors. Olivia and Elliot peered closely at the monitors and shook their heads when they saw that all of the offices were occupied.

"Bring up the next floor," Elliot requested.

They began to lose hope after they saw that the next several floors were all presently occupied.

"The thirtieth and last floor is coming up," Alicia announced.

"BINGO!" Elliot said, as he pointed at a darkened office on that floor. He squinted his eyes in an effort to see into the office, but thanks to the sharp angle of the camera, as well as the darkness beyond the glass door, there wasn't much detail to be seen on the monitor. "Can't see anything other than the fact that it's closed."

"We'll go up and check it out," Olivia said. She turned to Alicia and added, "Can you get somebody to come with us and open the door?"

"Yeah, me!" Alicia said excitedly.

After calling a comrade to take over for her on the console, Alicia rode up with the detectives to the office on the thirtieth floor. All the while, the young security guard burbled on to Olivia about how she was interested in joining the police academy. Elliot thought she was a sweet kid who should stay right where she was in this nice cushy job of hers. It wasn't that he thought she couldn't hack it being a cop, but Alicia appeared to be somewhat starry-eyed about the job. Most civilians tended to romanticize about being a cop. And while the job certainly had its perks, it had its bad days, as well. Elliot knew from experience that you needed a thick skin and a strong stomach to make it in the NYPD.

When they arrived on the 30th floor, the darkened office turned out to be number 3015, a single-resident office. Olivia peered through the glass door and said, "Oh good Christ! Elliot, look at this!"

Elliot glanced through the glass, and what he saw made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

On the desk, just a few feet away from the door, was a large package that had been opened.

"That box looks big enough for an AR-15, even stripped down," Elliot said with a nod. "This is looking good so far, Liv."

"Go ahead and open it," Olivia told Alicia.

"This tenant has been a perfect gentleman," Alicia muttered, as she opened the door. "He's been here for eight years. We've never had any trouble with him whatsoever."

Alicia was about to walk inside with the detectives until they both gently placed their hands on her shoulders. "No," Olivia told her. "You stay out here until we've established that it's safe."

Once they were inside the office, the detectives pulled out their Glock handguns as Elliot officially called out their presence. When nobody answered, he and Olivia nodded at each other and then carefully checked out the entire office suite. When they were satisfied that there was nobody present, they put their guns away.

Elliot walked over to the window and peered outside. He saw the DA's office across the street. He had a perfect view of Casey's office window from here; Elliot could clearly see the CSU techs that were still bustling around Casey's office, collecting as many clues as they could find.

'How long has this bastard been staring at her?' Elliot wondered, as the rage slowly began to build within him. 'He's been a resident in this office for eight years…that's longer than Casey's been with the SVU.'

Olivia came up and also stared out the window. Then she turned to Elliot and asked, "Looks like Casey's got herself a stalker."

Elliot grimly nodded in agreement. "But her stalker is now being stalked…by us. C'mon, let's check out that box."

After they both put their crime scene gloves on, Elliot and Olivia went over to the cardboard box. The foam padding that was within the box was perfectly cut to fit a smaller box, which no doubt held the AR-15.Olivia carefully closed the box lid, then leaned over and read the address label.

She stared up at him with a stunned expression on her face. "Elliot, this was mailed from Jeanne Lu's apartment."

"We'd better get CSU down here," he said. "Along with everybody else."

As Olivia called in the crime scene, Elliot glared at the box, which once contained the very same gun that almost killed him and Casey. They were getting very close to the sniper, now; Elliot was looking forward to the moment when he finally met the bastard face to face. 'When that moment comes, I just hope I can control my anger,' Elliot thought, 'for the sniper's sake.'

Alicia stood anxiously by the doorway. "Is that what's you're looking for?"

"Yeah," Elliot said. "It is. It looks like we found the sniper. We'll need to see the tapes from the cameras in the hallway outside going back the last few days."

The young security guard appeared very disturbed at this turn of events. "I can't believe that the tenant of this office is the sniper," she said, shaking her head. "He's such a nice man!"

"Really?" Elliot said. "And what's this nice man's name? Because I'd sure like to meet him."

To Be Continued...