Chapter 11

Grissom rolled over on to his side and a pain shot through his leg. Just as he was about to be shot he had woken up. His sudden movement had caused his assailant to hesitate before shooting, giving Gil the chance to draw his legs to his waist protectively. It had been enough to throw the gunman's concentration off and it had resulted in him being shot in the thigh instead of the chest.

Blood flowed from the wound and Gil winced as he tried to inspect how badly he had been shot. He took off his belt and tied it around the wound to help stop the bleeding and lifted his leg into the air to stop the flow of blood. He was in agony and because of the blood loss he was feeling very dizzy but he was determined not to succumb to the reverie of unconsciousness. Not while Sara was in danger.

He knew he had to decide on a plan of action, although he knew he wouldn't get far with no car and a wound this severe. It was still worth trying, he wasn't going to give up on Sara no matter what he had to do to save her.

Just as he was about to try and get up to see if he could at least stand let alone walk, he heard footsteps behind him. Blind panic set in and a plethora of thoughts went through his mind at once.

"What if that is him back, what if he has come to finish me off? Does that mean he has killed Sara and returned to the scene to get rid of the evidence, that evidence being me?" Gil thought quickly and desperately.

He looked around the open road; there was literally nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. David had taken off in the Tahoe soon after shooting Gil. Sara had posed as a distraction which inevitably had stopped Gil being killed.

Now lying on the dusty Vegas ground, he wished that the Tahoe had been here for some level of protection. Maybe he might have been passed by unnoticed, maybe he could have crawled around to the other side undetected.

"Maybe I should think of an actual plan without thinking of what could have been", Gil thought.

He looked up to see two faces staring down at him.

"Well this is it", he thought sadly. "Might as well succumb to the inevitable."

He swam in and out of consciousness while awaiting his fate and then felt two hands under his armpits pulling him upwards.

"Where are you taking me?" Gil said groggily. "Please let it be to Sara, please God let her be safe".

"Did he say he hopes we are taking him to Sara?" Warrick asked Nick.

"That is what it sounded like, he must be really worried about her", Nick replied as he helped Warrick to put Grissom in the back of the Tahoe.

"How badly hurt is he?" Nick asked.

"Dunno man, it looks like a fairly deep gunshot wound to the thigh and he has been ruffed up a bit but outside of that, he looks ok. I don't think it is fatal", Warrick said, "but I don't know how much blood he has lost, he seems to be losing consciousness a lot which is never a good sign. We need to get him to a hospital."

"I don't think we have time, we need to make sure Sara is ok. If that guy is capable of doing this to Grissom, God knows what he will do to her. We might just have to patch him up and keep going", Nick explained.

"I have a better idea", Warrick said grabbing his cell from where he had left it on the car dashboard. He dialled 4 on the keypad. It took a while before anyone answered; it was still quite early in the morning.

After a few minutes a groggy and quite cranky voice grumbled "Brass, what do you want?"

"Brass, it's Warrick, we have a situation. Sara has been kidnapped and Grissom has been shot."

"Jesus Christ, is he bad?" Brass asked sounding more awake.

"Bad enough, he has lost a lot of blood and is unconscious but he is ok for the moment. I don't know how much longer he can bleed out for though without it getting serious."

"Have you called the others?"

"Nick is here with me, he alerted me to the situation a while back"

"A while back," Brass exclaimed, "and you are only calling in back up now because?"

"Because we needed to suss the situation out and know what we were dealing with", Warrick continued.

"You were dealing with a kidnapper and a gunman, that should have been enough for you to call for help", Brass said heatedly.

"We didn't know that at the time", Warrick continued the colour rising in his cheeks.

"Look", Brass said breathing more calmly, "that doesn't matter now, what matters is that we get Gil looked after and Sara back in one piece."

"Do you want me to ring Catherine?" Warrick said.

"I will let her know what is going on, but I don't think she needs to be involved in this. Where are you guys?"

"We are outside the Sunrise Vista Golf Club on East Cheyenne Avenue".

"Alright, stay where you are and I will send a team. Don't get any ideas to follow this guy, he is obviously dangerous and we don't know what he is capable of. Do we have any idea who he is or what he wants with Sara?" Brass asked.

"We didn't see his face, maybe he is the guy that we have been trying to put away for Meghan Richardson's murder, who knows?" Warrick said contemplatively.

"Don't worry we will catch the son of a bitch. Ring me if Gil gets any worse ok?"

"Sure thing, thanks man", Warrick said and hung up the phone.

"So what do we do now?" Nick asked rearing to go.

"And now, we wait", Warrick said raising his eyebrow in a "we've no other choice" kind of way.

Nick found a rag that he would use to clean the windshield and wrapped it around Grissom's leg.

"Don't you worry Gil, we will get Sara back safely", he said while he applied pressure to the wound. He just hoped to God for all their sakes that it wasn't already too late.