Sara had no sooner hung up her phone – the line had gone dead - than she was troubled by a disturbing sound. She looked around hurriedly for the source, but could not see one.

Just then, she heard it again. There was someone else in the house with her. Unconsciously, her hand flew to her hip where her gun was normally kept, but the attacker had been sensible enough to remove it.

She heard the voice groan out again. It seemed to be saying something...

"Sara..."

---

"I think I've found it," Brass muttered into his walkie-talkie. He was standing between a pair of tall, gnarly trees, his eyes trained intently on the far-off, depressing excuse for a cottage ahead of him.

Grissom's voice crackled through. "You have? Which one?"

"The one deepest in," reported Brass, consulting the map he had brought with him.

"Figures," growled Warrick's irritated voice.

"Any resistance yet?" asked Grissom.

"Nothing," replied Brass. "Keep your weapons out, anyway. Try and get here as quick as possible."

"We'll be there in a minute, Jim," said Catherine.

"Great."

A few minutes later, Brass heard a crashing sound in the bushes ahead. He raised his weapon, prepared for an attack. But it was not a murderous lunatic, but Warrick who came running out from between the trees. He was out of breath and clutching a stitch in his side.

"Got here as fast as I could," he said breathlessly. "The others here yet?"

Brass shook his head. "Not yet. How far behind you were they?"

"Not too far," he said. "I just figured they might have found a shortcut or something."

It took only a few more minutes for Catherine, followed closely by Grissom, to arrive. They too looked like they had run for several miles without stopping.

"Any sign of him?" asked Catherine.

"Not yet," said Warrick.

"Well, let's get moving," said Grissom.

---

"Who's there?" Sara called out. She cautiously got off the couch, raising her fists into a defensive position.

"Sara..." called the voice again, this time stronger. It seemed to be coming from the room on her right. Slowly but surely, Sara stepped across the wooden floor. It creaked with every step.

She was very close to the door now.

"Sara, please..." came the voice.

She could reach out and touch the doorknob.

Her fingers closed over it, and she flung it open. The room that she came into was not really a room at all. It was more like the shortest corridor she'd ever seen, a staircase leading down directly after the door.

Sara took a deep breath, grasped the dusty banister, and started to walk down the stairs.

---

"Spread out," said Brass. "Catherine, you approach the house from the left side there. Rick, you take the right. I'll come in from the back, and Gil, you've got the front."

They all nodded their agreement. Each and every one of them cocked their weapon, though they were already loaded, just to make sure. Then they all went their separate ways (except Catherine and Brass, who went the same way to get to their destinations).

Brass, of course, was more used to this sort of thing than the others. However, this fact did not make him any less tense. Truthfully, it unsettled him even more. He was concerned about all of them.

If all of them were concerned about one thing, it was what they would find once they got inside the house...

---

Sara's foot touched hard concrete. She had reached the bottom of the stairs. The air here was cold and clammy, and oddly stagnant. It felt like someone had died there and taken the life of the place with them.

Two steps in front of her was another door.

"Sara!"

The voice was definitely coming from behind it.

---

The three CSIs and the detective were in position around the house. They were each a good twenty yards from the fence, but they were still going very slowly. They couldn't afford any slip-ups. The attacker could be hiding around any tree, under any bush, prepared to spring like a tiger.

Warrick flinched as he heard a rustling to his left and pointed his gun, but then relaxed (somewhat) as a squirrel bolted from the brush. This was one of the most nerve-wracking things he had ever done, topped only by trying to find Nick in that box...

After a while, Brass' voice came through the radio. "I'm at the fence," he reported.

Soon, they all were, and had all informed the others so.

"Seen anything?" asked Catherine.

"Nothing," growled Warrick.

"Yet," said Grissom unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Gris," said Warrick.

"Okay, let's go," said Brass. The four of them (though they could not see each other through the darkness) carefully raised their guns and climbed over the rotting fence. Grissom felt his sag and heard it crack unpleasantly as he shifted himself over it.

Suddenly, there was a crash. It sounded like wood breaking. The four of them pointed their weapons in the direction the sound had come from, but could not see anything.

"What was that?" said Catherine.

"I dunno," said Brass. "I'll check it out, I'm pretty close to it."

"Be careful," warned Grissom.

"Alright, let's check out this house," suggested Warrick.

"I'll go in," volunteered Grissom. "Catherine, Warrick, you guys circle the building. See if you can find anyone."

"Are you sure?" asked Catherine warily. "He could be inside."

"That's a risk we've got to take."

Although hesitant to let their esteemed leader in by himself, Warrick and Catherine agreed.

"Let us check the door, first," said Catherine.

---

Sara placed her hand on the rusty handle on the door and turned it. As soon as she did so, there was a chink of metal and the knob broke off. "Shit!" she hissed. It opened away from her; now she had no way of getting in.

She put her hands on the wood and pushed with all her might, trying to force it open. It would not budge.

"Sara, hurry!" groaned the voice. Now she was closer and could hear the voice more clearly, she recognized it and gasped.

"Greg!" she shouted through the door. "Greg, are you okay?"

"No," he replied. "Get me out of here!"

"I'm coming!" she was getting frantic now. She had to get in there somehow.

She took a step backwards, mustered up all her strength, and delivered a powerful kick to where the doorknob should have been. There was a crack as the locking mechanism started to break. She took aim once again and lashed out. This time there was a definitive crunch and the door wobbled open.

Sara burst into the room.

---

Catherine pressed her back against the wood of the cabin's left side and heard it creak. She tentatively edged her way towards the front side of the building. She leaned over just far enough that her eyes peeked round the corner. She couldn't see anyone outside the door.

"Clear," she whispered into her radio.

Moments later, she heard a faint rustling as Grissom carefully crept through the grass. Trusting that he would have enough sense to look through the windows before bursting in, Catherine retreated back to her side of the house.

The radio came to life once more. "I found what caused that crash. A section of the fence collapsed. I found a footprint in the mud near it."

Perfect! Just when it was time to check the back.

Just as carefully as before, she moved across the side, but this time in the other direction. Once again, she peered around to check there was no one there. There wasn't, so she moved around the corner.

There was a concrete porch on the back, shadowed by a shingled awning. The slanted overhang was held up by a set of wooden posts. Creeping plants skirted up the pillars and reached towards the light coming from the small window. The porch was cut off somewhere in the middle by a shed, but presumably continued on the other side. Two old trash cans stood next to the shed.

Catherine walked tentatively up to these and quickly but quietly lifted the lids off, just in case. A pungent stench reached her nostrils, but there was no one in them. She returned their lids to the tops and relished the fresh night air around her.

Then Catherine's blood ran cold.

There was a clump from the other side of the shed. It was an unmistakable sound: the sound of a boot hitting concrete. She raised her pistol high up in front of her and pressed her side in on the shed. She took a few careful steps forward. Her heard pounding against her ribs, Catherine leapt out from behind the shed and aimed at –

"Warrick!" she gasped. "Jesus, you scared me."

"Sorry," he said, walking up to her. "Did you find anything?"

"No," she answered, catching her breath. "You?"

"Actually, yeah," said Warrick. "Come check this out."

---

"Oh my God," uttered Sara. "Greg!"

He was strapped to a pole. He looked like – there was no other word for it – death. It was worse than the pictures Grissom received on his phone. There was an angry slash and puncture in his chest. The blood-encrusted bandage that once was wrapped around his arm lay on the floor, revealing a yellowing wound near his shoulder. His nose was swollen and crimson. Dry blood blossomed from it and ran down into his mouth and over his chin.

"Get me off here!" he grunted. "I'm going out of my mind!"

She heard a pat as a drip of water hit his head. She looked up and saw a pipe directly above his head, a drop of water hovering at the lip. It was almost like Chinese water torture.

"Okay, I'll get you off there," Sara assured him, upon Greg snarling in frustration. "Hold on."

She cast around the basement frantically, for anything she could use to cut Greg loose. There was nothing. Not a single tool found its home in that dank room.

Then she heard a creak on the stairs behind her.

---

"What is it?" asked Catherine. She and Warrick were crouched down on the right side of the house, examining it closely.

"It's a tobacco plant," said Warrick. "Or rather, a lot of them."

It was a large tobacco bush stretching from one side of the house to the other. It was very thick, and thriving with leaves. The aroma was infectious.

"This is the same stuff as we found on Greg's body," said Catherine, picking off a leaf and examining it.

"I thought the stuff we found was really high-end," said Warrick, taking it. "How does he get it to this quality?"

"Beats me," said Catherine. "But this links the owner of this cabin to the crime scene. Now we've got – "

She stopped abruptly.

"What?" said Warrick.

"Shh!" she hissed at him. "Did you hear that?"

There it was again. It was the sound of someone coming through the grass.

"Oh, shit," whispered Warrick.

They both heard it, but couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"Where is – "

Warrick was cut off as a black-clad man with a large pistol leapt out from behind the building and pointed his weapon. Catherine threw herself to the ground, and she and Warrick both let off two rounds. The man leapt over to the side with incredible agility, rolled himself upright, pointed, and pulled the trigger.

Catherine's head snapped to the side at the sound of a sharp intake of breath from Warrick. He was lifted off his feet and into the air, blood flying from what was irrefutably a bullet wound in the middle of his ribcage. He flew backwards through the air in a graceful arc and plummeted into the tobacco bush, where he lay still.

"WARRICK!" Catherine screamed. Enraged, she seized his gun. The attacker shot at her again, but she rolled out of the way, dirt exploding where she was seconds earlier. She pointed both her guns and pulled the triggers over and over. He disappeared into the night shadows, not a single bullet hitting him.

Catherine swore explosively and dropped her guns. She hauled Warrick out of the bush and shook him.

"Warrick! Warrick! Wake up!" she cried hoarsely. She felt his throat. There was a pulse, but it was very slow and faint. "Oh no...oh God no!"

---

Sara whirled round, her fists raised, and shrieked fiercely. She threw herself at the man who had just come through the door and brought him down to the ground. Mingled hatred and adrenaline pulsing through her veins, she pummeled him, hard.

She got him once in the jaw, and once in the cheekbone before he grabbed her hands and pushed her off him.

"Sara!" he shouted. "It's me!"

As she jumped to her feet, she realized who the man was for the first time.

"Grissom!" she gasped. "I'm – I'm so – "

"It's alright," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. Is Greg okay?"

"What does it look like?" he moaned, struggling against the zap strap.

Grissom hurried into the room, pulling out his pocket-knife. He went to work cutting the plastic strap from behind Greg straight away. As soon as it snapped and fell to the ground, Greg jumped up off the floor and embraced Sara. She put her arms around him and patted him on the back, her eyes glistening with relief.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"You're safe, Greg," Sara replied. "We've got you."

But Grissom, rather than relieved, looked extremely alarmed. "Did anyone else just hear gunshots?"

---

Catherine put her hands on Warrick's chest and pumped frantically, trying to revive his heartbeat. It was not working. All she was doing was pushing the bullet further in.

"Please wake up!" she snarled frantically, tears of frustration and panic welling up in her eyes.

Just then, she heard the cock of a hammer and slowly turned her eyes up. The man was looming over her, his revolver pointed down. She could see straight up the barrel.

"It's too late," he said in a deep, gloating voice that made Catherine shudder with loathing. "He's gone. And so are you."

He started to squeeze gently down on the trigger, but before he managed to pull it completely, a furious voice interrupted him.

"Nice try, you son of a bitch!" roared Brass as he jumped into the light, pointing his gun. The attacker swung his up in response, but it was too late.

Without hesitation or a hint of mercy on his features, Brass fired. But he didn't do it just once. He pulled the trigger till the cows came home, releasing his entire clip in the direction of Catherine's assailant.

Before he'd even raised his gun all the way, a bullet aimed with the precision of a hardened city cop struck the bastard squarely in the chest, spattering blood everywhere. As he keeled over backwards, a second streaked through his collarbone, causing him to spin in the air. And then as he flew towards the ground, a third smashed, full-force, into the back of his neck, where his spine joined his skull. His head jerked backwards as the bone splintered, and then he landed face-first on the ground with a sickening crunch. He moved no more.

Brass tossed his empty gun away and rushed to Warrick's side.

"He needs an ambulance," he said. "I'll call for one."

Suddenly, there was the sound of a door opening and Grissom rocketed around the side of the house, his pistol held in front of him. A massive surge of relief swept through Catherine and Brass as they saw Sara following closely behind, supporting Greg.

"Sara! Greg!" Catherine ran over to them and put Greg's other arm around her shoulder, helping Sara. Greg grunted a feeble 'Thanks'.

"Is everyone alright?" asked Grissom hurriedly.

"Warrick's hurt badly," said Catherine. "But he's in better shape than our guy."

She bumped the man's oddly bent head with her foot, causing it to loll unpleasantly.

Grissom knelt down and stuck his gun back in his belt. He put two fingers on the man's throat, feeling for a pulse.

"Dead," he reported, but there was no need. "Stone dead."

"Paramedics are on their way," said Brass, hurrying over. "You alright, Gil?"

"I'm fine." He was now removing the mask from the corpse's face. "Who took care of Monsieur Moreau, here?"

For the man who lay upon the ground, blood staining his shirt and the grass around him, was indeed Gaston Moreau. His deceptively handsome face was twisted in an expression of stupefied pain.

"That would be me," said Brass, shaking his head slowly. "Gaston Moreau."

"He was working for someone," Greg managed to choke out. "Check his pockets."

Grissom was already doing it. He pulled out a wallet, a driver's license within which confirmed his identity. There were a few bills and some cards, but nothing more. He tried all of Gaston's pockets before finding a crumpled piece of paper, a bloodstain (not his own; his trousers were unbloodied) on the corner.

He unfurled it and held it in the light from the window. "'Thank you for avenging me,'" he read aloud. "'Call me when you've finished. 555-5496.'"

"Call it," said Catherine at once.

Grissom whipped out his cell phone and dialed the number. He heard four electronic rings before a cool female's voice came through on the answering machine.

"Hey, you've reached Liz Novia's place. I'm not around right now, but leave a message and I'll give you a call."