Here it is peoples, part two, read and review please, and feel free to add any suggestions to your reviews, i love em!
Same disclaimers, violence, swearing, the humanity oh the humanity!Ahem, thanks for all previous reviews, they're a big ol'help like ya dont even know!
I dont own any of the gang (yet, damn it, yet) and i've already got the next chapter boiling over in the old brain box so i'll have it up asap!
They stopped. And stared. Lab techs, CSI's, uniforms, detectives, everyone who worked in or around the MDPD had been affected in some way when Speedle had 'died'. The news that he was back had only just started to spread around the lab and station houses and as Speedle walked through the corridors, those who hadn't already been told, found out first hand.
For the first time, the lab was totally silent of human voices, the only sounds being the noises of the machines running through their normal routines. Speedle kept his head down, walking between Calleigh and Horatio, his blank expression making it seem as if he was totally nonplussed by having the combined focus of at least a hundred people directed solely at him.
They walked through the lab, heading for Horatio's office when two voices sounded, talking casually about a football game that had taken place the night before. Horatio cursed audibly as the trio reached the end of the T shaped corridor they had been travelling down at the same time that the newest CSI, Ryan Wolfe, and Speedle's old friend and sometime partner Eric Delko did. Wolfe, having only seen Speedle in photographs in which Speedle looked very different, simply frowned at Speedle, then at the surrounding, silent lab, realising something was up but not understanding what it was. Eric laid eyes on Speedle and frowned ever so slightly, needing a split second to recognise the almost shrunken Speedle. He visibly paled, half opening his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, taking a small step backwards, shooting questioning looks to Calleigh and Horatio.
"Eric…" Horatio started, hoping he could defuse the situation before it even began "Eric not a word, follow us to my office and do it now my friend, now. You too Ryan" Horatio told him, his voice steely.
He walked past the shocked CSI's , placing one hand on Speedle's arm to pull him gently along. Speedle followed, asd id Calleigh and Ryan. After a second Eric joined them. The team reached the office that over looked the main area of the lab and as they filed in, Horatio stood atop the stairs, hands on hips, his gaze directed at an empty spot on the floor "Back to work people, we have evidence to process and criminals to imprison, lets get to it please" he called out.
The people in the lab came back to them selves and got back to work, silently at first, but within seconds whispers where hissing back and forth like snakes under water and the noise level steadily grew.
Horatio grinned tightly down at his lab then turned on his heel and stalked into his office, shutting the door behind him. Calleigh had helped Speedle to lower himself onto one of the chairs in front of Horatio's desk and was crouching at his side, asking him if he was okay.
"What's wrong?" Horatio asked, immediately concerned.
"Nothing, just took my breath away, the stairs and all, I'm still not feeling so hot" Speedle admitted, shaking off their concern "I'm alright, just gimme a sec" he told them.
Calleigh took the seat beside him, still watching him and Horatio looked over at Delko and Wolfe who still stood silent on the other side of the office. Wolfe looked at Speedle, then at Delko's shocked, confused expression. "Um?" He said by way of asking a question.
"Ryan Wolfe, meet your predecessor, this is Tim Speedle" Horatio said matter of factly.
Wolfe raised his eyebrows in shock but seemed to take the news in his stride "Nice to meet you man…um, I heard you, you know, died?" he asked bluntly.
"Nice to meet you too. I didn't" Speedle said simply.
"What. The Fuck?" Delko said, his voice betraying the anger he was managing to reign in physically.
"Speed do you want to?" Horatio looked over at the CSI who he realised looked paler than he had only minutes ago when they had arrived at the lab.
Speedle was taking short, pained breaths, holding himself oddly in the chair as if trying to keep as much of his battered body as possible from touching the seat. "I went kind of nuts a little over a decade ago, before I came to Miami. My friend had died, I dropped out of college and I kind of, I just travelled around, for a year…I was a missing person actually, cos I uh, my parents called the cops and all…um, in that year, I was like a fuckin gypsy or a nomad or something, I just moved around all the time, never settled anywhere, I couldn't settle, I was screwed up for a while…I met some people, kinda, anarchists but like, college anarchists ya know? They where into petty vandalism, protesting every damn thing they could think of, stupid college shit you do trying to be individual even though you're doing the same thing a zillion other jack asses before you have done. Any way, they where into making statements, the kind with people getting hurt, fire, the usual. And it got pretty hairy so I moved on. Ten years later I'm here in Miami and I get approached by this fed name of Mcarthy, as I get home he's waiting for me outside my place. He tells me this story- to shorten it, the college anarchists now have degrees and doctorates in all kinds of shit, the group combined is like the Manhattan Project only still with those same college beliefs and attitudes. They're all apparently holding these huge grudges against certain people and it was suspected they where planning something big, something showy. As it turns out, they remembered me but had no idea I was a cop, see I told them I had a different last name, which on most of my ID's I did, cos they where fake, me and this dude at college put em together. Mcarthy asked me to go back to em, get in with them and …see what I could find, what they're planning, where, when, all of that. And it was working. The feds gave me updated fake ID with the new name on it, organised the shooting…the kidnapping was real, the shooting was orchestrated, I was feeding information to the feds about a when and a where they could set something up. If the kidnapping hadn't happened, the feds would have just set something else up, a different shooting or a crash…hell they even considered an accident in the lab at one point, I would have been rushed to the hospital and announced DOA and it would all have been total bull. But the group, they let me back in…we moved around the state, sometimes hiding out, working on things for the Project, and we only came back to Miami a few days ago. I think what they're planning, its gonna be here" Speedle, straight to business, looked over at Horatio.
"It was all fake" Eric said softly.
Speedle hung his head "You have to understand why I did this Delko, no body else could, these guys are paranoid any way, and they do a lot of drugs…they wouldn't have accepted some one they didn't know, and any Fed plant who even tried to pose as a contact or something they would have spotted a mile off" Speedle said quietly "You all know, I would have told you if I could…I didn't want to lie, I thought I could let you know some how, give you some hint but there was no way" Speedle admitted softly.
Eric shook his head and turned to face the lab, his shoulders hunched with the tension.
Horatio looked at them all "Look, I need to make some calls…Everybody who doesn't have something else to do, go to the break room for now, I'll come and find you when I have something we can use, all the evidence from the safe house is being processed and until its done there isn't a lot we can do….so everyone, relax for now" he told them.
They left, Calleigh helping Speedle as they walked into the break room. Ryan immediately put on a pot off coffee, then turned and looked at the gathered personnel.
"So…you're Tim Speedle?" he asked, smiling politely.
"Yeah, like I said" Speedle nodded as he lowered himself onto the couch.
"You know…I had to work pretty hard to fill your shoes" Ryan told him, "These guys…they really care about you" he shrugged "So you're Mr Trace?" he raised an eye brow.
"What the hell Speed?" Eric said, his voice quiet but harsh.
Speedle looked up at Eric, his eyes oddly blank "Don't do that Eric" he stated.
"Do what, be pissed off?" Eric snapped.
"Make what happened about you" Speedle said quietly "just don't" there was a tone in his voice, hinting at something more, more weight and meaning to his words than there seemed.
But Eric wasn't in the mood to let things lie. "No, no man, I'm not dropping this, do you have any idea what we've been through because we thought we lost you? How hard it was for us! We thought you died man, its not like you transferred out, we thought we buried you. I thought you where my friend and you fucking lied to me" Eric's voice was growing stronger as he spoke and Calleigh stepped forward, placing one hand in his arm.
"Eric-" she started to say.
"No Calleigh!" Eric shrugged her hand off aggressively "why couldn't you tell us? Just let us know, some how, that you where okay? We…" he trailed off, unable to complete the thought.
Speedle stared at him, his expression changing from one of guilt, to one of anger "I don't want this to turn into a fight Eric so I'm just going to say, if I thought, even for a second that I could have confided in you all, or contacted you without putting your lives at risk, I would have. I hate that I made you all suffer, but Jesus Christ, look at me. Do I really look as if I've been on some vacation or something, slacking off on some bullshit Fed assignment? I fucking hate the feds, I fucking hate that they could drag me in like they did. But I have not been slacking off, it's been hard Eric, I've had to…ignore a lot of things that I normally wouldn't even think of letting go. I've had to stand by and watch it all happen and its been shit. And now, my cover is blown, I got my ass kicked and stabbed, and oh yeah, people are dead because I got found out. You really think I'm gonna get into this with you?" his voice stayed calm all the way through the conversation.
Eric glared at him, his eyes wide and angry "you-" he started "you're really that badly hurt?" he was still angry, but he was first and foremost Speedle's friend, and he was concerned.
"I had to call Alexx to my apartment to stitch him up because he was bleeding out" Calleigh stated "And also, take a look at him!" she held out her hands, showing Eric how obviously hurt Speedle was.
Eric did so, taking in how bad Speedle really looked. His eyes widened slightly and he pressed his lips together angrily blinking as if in shock. "Who did it?" he asked quietly.
"No body you need to worry about" Speedle told him "At least not until the labs come back" he shrugged awkwardly.
Eric was staring down at his hands. "I'm sorry that it's been bad for you man. But it's been bad for us too" he said, his tone humble.
"And I'm sorry for that. Look we need to have a couple beers, work this out, but until everything here is dealt with…we cant do that. So call it a truce?" Speedle looked up at Eric, his curls falling across his eyes.
He flicked his head ever so slightly to move the hair, and it looked habitual, instinctive.
"Alright. For now. It is good to see you again man I have to admit" Eric confessed, breaking into a tiny smile.
Speedle gave him a diluted version of his usual cynical smirk as Ryan began to pour the coffee's. Alexx Woods strode into the lab, hesitating only briefly before walking over to Speedle.
"Lift your shirt baby, let me see that wound" she said.
"Hi Alexx" Speedle grinned at her.
"Uh yeah, hi Alexx" Calleigh half laughed.
"Nice to see you" Ryan gave her a goofy smile.
"Hi everybody, Timmy?" Alexx spared the rest of the group barely a glance then looked pointedly back at Speedle.
Speedle's smile vanished and he shifted, lifting the edge of the shirt, showing her the wound. Eric hissed through his teeth at the sight of the long wound, held closed by neat black stitching. Ryan whispered "Damn", setting the coffees down carefully as Alexx sat beside Speedle and pulled a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket, slipping them on with practiced ease and pressing her hands to Speedle's skin on either side of the wound. She applied some pressure and Speedle flinched "Hey!" he caught her wrist, trying to pull her hand away like a kid who didn't want his mother to poke at a scabbed knee.
"I'm sorry baby, just let me work" she said soothingly.
"It's a knife wound Alexx, it hurts" Speedle reminded her.
"Hush" Alexx shook her head, pressing the wound again. She checked the stitches where holding, made sure the wound was still clean, taking the opportunity to probe at some of the other bruises on his body, making sure there was no new or sudden pain. "All looks fine" She finally told him.
"That was unnecessary" Speedle stated.
"You'll thank me when you don't die" Alexx said.
"Any one else in the world, that would have sounded overdramatic. Not you though Alexx." Speedle told her.
Alexx gave him a 'you think I don't know?' look and took the coffee Ryan had poured for her "Thanks honey" she said to him.
Speedle jumped as a cell phone rang and everyone automatically raised their hands to reach for theirs then each paused as they realised that theirs wheren't the ringing phones.
"That's me" Speedle said, sounding as surprised as he ever had.
"What?" The group asked almost at once.
"Did I stutter?" Speedle raised his eye brows at the group as he shifted slightly awkwardly and reached into one jeans pocket to with draw his cell phone.
It was slim line, enough so that it could be easily concealed in the right clothes, which Speedle happened to be wearing.
Speedle gave them all a 'keep quiet' look, holding one finger against his lips, and pressed the speaker phone button on his cell, holding it out so everyone could hear the conversation. Simultaneously, Ryan with drew a digital tape recorder from his pocket and set it on the table, pressing the record button.
"Hey Barlow" a deep, almost lethargic sounding voice sounded through the speaker of the phone.
"Drake, whats goin on man?" Speedle asked, sounding equally as lethargic, which considering that it was Speedle, wasn't all that hard for him.
"I been hearing some stuff Barlow, some…fuck man, some weird stuff" the faceless voice told them "You a cop?" he, Drake, asked out right.
"What?" Speedle did a very good job of sounding casually amused, as if he'd heard the accusation before and was simply brushing it off "Please Drake, don't insult me with this shit, what do you want, I was gonna sleep before you called" he lied.
There was a rustling on the other end and a noise that sounded like skin striking skin. Speedle frowned, leaning forward ever so slightly. "Drake what's going on over there?" he worked a smile into his voice as if he was asking about a party.
"Tim?" a new voice came on the line, that of a girl or young woman.
She sounded angry and beneath the anger, afraid.
"Cassandra?" Speedle couldn't hide the alarm in his voice "What's going on?" he snapped.
"Tim, some guys are here…they said they killed two feds tonight, they said they stabbed you too because you're a cop" from her voice it seemed that the girl didn't believe what she was saying "Are you okay?"
Speedle lied again "What? They who? I'm just hangin out, sleepin, kiddo, why, what's happening?" Speedle looked at Calleigh and mouthed 'Cassandra knows' and pointed to himself then to the badge Calleigh had put back on her belt.
"Tim-" the girl started to say but she yelped suddenly as if she had been physically and violently jerked mid speech.
"Look Barlow, I know we're friends and all but uh...I've been hearing from sources I'm not inclined to dismiss that, you're a cop…where are you exactly, I'll come get you and we can prove these boys are lying mother fuckers?" Drake came back on the line.
"Nu uh, I'll come to you, I'm uh…I'm kind of with a, uh…a nice girl I met" Speedle was chewing the nail off his index finger as he spoke.
"Yeah? Put her on" Drake's tone seemed jokey, casual, but there was a hard edge to it too, turning requests to orders, like now.
Calleigh reached over and rubbed her hand over the micro phone of Speedle phone, so that it sounded as if the phone was being passed over to some one.
"Hey, this is Calleigh, to whom am I talking?" she made her voice sound slightly lower, throatier, as if she'd been roused from sleep, and laid her accent on even stronger than it was normally.
"Hey sugar, my names Drake" Drakes voice replied "You treatin my boy Barlow right?" there was a smirk to his voice and Calleigh rolled her eyes but kept up the act as she replied.
"Course I am, my mama raised me right" Calleigh shrugged at Speedle as she answered.
"If you're as cute as your voice is I'd like to meet you as soon as I can, for sure. How about you come with him when he comes to meet me?" again, it wasn't quite a question.
Calleigh made the rustle on the mike again and Speedle spoke "You want me to bring the girl I just picked up?" he asked 'incredulously'.
"Sure" Drakes voice was pleasant "Definitely. Or I might start hurtin Cassandra here and I know you're nuts about the Little Bug" he told them.
Speedle, if possible, paled even further "Drake, that's not necessary" he said simply.
"Oh I think it is. Bring this Calleigh chick to the pier in an hour, just so's I know she's not some fugly cop you got helping you out, and I'll bring Cassie and we'll talk about these rumours" Drake ordered.
"Where the hell is this coming from!" Speedle snapped.
"We're near the end Barlow, we're almost there, I don't want to get this far and find out you been playin us" Drake's voice took on an odd tone as he spoke.
"Drake I don't appreciate this mistrust" Speedle snapped angrily again.
"Barlow, you know as well as I do what The Project will accomplish, what it will mean when we set it off…think of it…no fire, no explosions, no outward damage…just men, women and children dropping dead in the street…and no body but us knows how to stop it from spreading" Drake sounded like a truly devout preacher, his voice taking on the tone that only the dangerously faithful can achieve.
Speedle had bitten his nail bloody "I know Drake" he said, his tenor matching Drakes, but his eyes telling the real story "It's gonna be amazing" he falsely enthused "So why fuck it up now with this cop bull shit?"
"Precautions Barlow, just like when you're with a woman, you don't want to make one mistake that ruins everything just because you where lazy, do you?" Drake chuckled crudely.
"The next hour?" Speedle asked.
"Be there , or I'll fucking kill her…or maybe I'll just let Adam at her" Drake said ominously. There was a click and the electronic dial tone sounded.
Speedle clicked his phone closed and stood painfully. "We have to get you a new ID, a drivers license or something, now, we have to get H, we have to get to that pier" he said simply.
Ryan shut down the digital recorder as everyone stared at Speedle. "What?" Speedle asked.
"What was that?" Calleigh frowned.
"That was Drake, the girl was Cassandra, she found out about me by accident, don't start in on it, the Adam he mentioned is a guy with the hots for Cass and a limited understanding of the word 'no'" Speedle explained quickly "If Drake lets him near Cassandra…well she'll probably kill him eventually but it's the stuff that he'll do to her before she can fight him off that I'm concerned about" he told them.
Ryan stepped forward immediately "Calleigh gimme your drivers license, I'll go and see about getting a lab tech to alter your name, give you a new identity. Eric, would you please go tell Caine? And Alexx, could you see to his finger, he's bleeding" Ryan pointed the finger nail Speedle had been chewing on as Speedle stared at the shorter CSI.
Eric ran out of the room as Calleigh dug her drivers license out of her purse. As Ryan walked out Alexx caught a hold of Speedle's hand and pulled him over to the sink, forcing hs finger under a running tap. She fetched cream and band aids from the small first aid kit in a cupboard and wrapped up Speedle's finger as Eric, Horatio and Ryan walked back in.
"Your license should be done in a little while" Ryan told Calleigh.
"I filled H in" Eric told them all.
"Alright, so we have a date, it would seem" Horatio asked rhetorically. "This Drake guy, Eric said he mentioned he has sources…are we thinking inside job, a plant in the feds office?" Horatio asked.
"The operation was pretty high level…it would make sense that an agent with limited access to information wouldn't know about what we where doing until know because of…what ever has happened…only a handful including the director were involved…yeah it could be a plant" Speedle nodded.
"I want to ask why we cant trace the cell, but then I thought why would these guys have cell phones at all…are the rigged?" Ryan asked Speedle.
"Yeah, Drake has a lot of computer geek types workin for him, real geniuses though, he bought a shit load of these phones and got his geek squad to chip em, they cant be traced, triangulated, and your conversation cant be picked up by a…grade schooler with a buck fifty walkie talkie…or by actual surveillance experts with equipment designed specifically for that purpose" Speedle drove the point home "so no, good question though" Speedle gave Ryan a grim smile "Now can we please set something up so I can go get Cassandra, she's only twenty, she's a victim of circumstance" he looked at Horatio.
Horatio looked at Calleigh "You up for some amateur dramatics?" he asked of her.
Calleigh gave him a shrug and a smile "Always" she stated.
Speedle looked her up and down "Cal, you know I love you but you…you have to change your clothes"