Author's note: told you i was almost done chapter 16. Now it's getting down to the nitty gritty. Enjoy.
Special Thanks to El Gringo Loco for helping to make this story believable.
Spoilers: I will generally tell what spoilers the chapters contain. In this Chapter: not a lot
Summary: When Ecklie chooses Grissom's team to head to a conference in London, the Las Vegas CSI nightshift couldn't be more excited. Then their plane crashes in the sea. Now Grissom, Catherine, Nick, Warrick, Sara, and Greg are stranded on a deserted island and their only way home is to survive.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.
Surviving the Storm
Chapter 16: Know Thine Enemy
"You know, I feel okay," Greg chirped, following Catherine out of the shelter.
"Greg, that's what you said before you scared us all half to death," she replied nonchalantly.
"But I really do," he insisted, "You said yourself that my fever was down. And I kept down my fish."
"I thought we agreed that you would take it easy for at least two weeks. It's only been a week and three days since you woke up," she reminded him.
"What's four days?" he asked. She turned to look at him.
"I thought you'd enjoy lounging around the beach," she said. He shrugged.
"I'm bored," he replied.
"Go bug Sara," Catherine replied irritably.
"She went for a walk," Greg whined, following Catherine to the water.
"Go for a swim," she suggested, washing the dirty dishes. Greg looked distastefully at the water.
"I already did," he replied. She sighed and counted to ten.
"Greg Sanders, you're a grown man. Find something to amuse yourself," she snapped, stomping back up the beach with the plastic dishes bouncing in her hands. Knowing better than to continue to pester an exceptionally annoyed Catherine, he contented himself with bending a pliable stick, while looking up and down the beach for something to do. And then, with the stick bent like a hoop, he saw the coconut lying on the sand. He looked between the branch and shell and you could almost see the gears turning in his head.
Some time later, when Sara returned from her walk, Greg was standing on top of anything he could to give himself a little extra height so he could attach his make-shift hoop to the tree trunk.
"What is he doing?" Sara asked Catherine, who had now retired to the cool pit in the shelter.
"Beats the heck outta me," she replied, "He's staying out of my hair. I'm not going to disrupt him."
"He's back to his old self, huh?" Sara asked, smirking.
"Oh yeah," Catherine emphasized.
"OUCH!"
"What did he do now?" Catherine groaned, as she and Sara went to check on their charge. They found him lying on the sand with a hoop-bent stick ringed around his neck and a mixture of the woodpile, the coconut shells, and the Survival Kit box lay scattered beside him.
"Nicely done, Greggo," Sara smirked, wishing she could have witnessed his latest mishap.
"Thanks," he mumbled, struggling to his feet, "That-"
Greg was cut off as Nick came up behind him and yanked the hoop around his neck, causing the twig to snap and Greg to fall to the sand.
"Have a good trip, Greg?" Nick teased. Sara noted the brilliant smile on the Texan's face, which was usually absent after their hunting trips.
"Absolutely," Greg mocked, "Want to join me?" with that Greg dived at Nick's knees, causing his friend to fall beside him.
"Not cool," Nick complained, rubbing his back. Catherine and Sara laughed.
"Then don't push me first," Greg retorted childishly.
"You didn't have to dive at me," Nick replied.
"Give it a rest," Grissom ordered, walking up with Warrick.
"How was the forest today?" Sara asked. In response, Nick got up and ran behind Grissom and Warrick and grabbed the two dead birds they had behind their backs.
"Ta-Da!" he said displaying them.
"Mm, nice," Sara said, just to satisfy him.
"A better day I see," Catherine quipped, smiling, but her comment was directed at Gil.
"We decided we couldn't come back to you empty-handed," Grissom said casually, moving to stand beside her.
"My, my, my, you three are such excellent providers," she commented, doing some serious ego stroking.
"I try," he said softly, smiling.
"Let's have a feast tonight!" Greg suggested.
"Celebrating what?" Sara asked. He looked stumped.
"Our one month anniversary?" Warrick suggested.
"Oh, I didn't know we were involved, War," Sara replied, feigning surprise. Everybody laughed.
"Don't even," he scoffed, "Once a married man, always a married man."
"He is right though," Nick added, "It has been a month since the crash. We survived all this time on pretty much nothing."
"That is something to celebrate," Grissom agreed.
"Absolutely," Catherine said, grinning, but that smile did not last long. As she said the word, she looked up at the sky and saw a tiny speck in the distance, making her blood run cold.
"So are we roasting or boiling dinner?" Greg asked excitedly.
"Roast," Nick elected.
"But the fish all tasted kind of blah roasted over the fire. I don't want to spoil the poultry," Greg pointed out.
"But-"
"Just stop!" Catherine cut across Nick's retort. They all looked at her strangely, as she stood staring wide-eyed passed their heads.
"Cath, are you okay?" Gil asked cautiously. She pointed to the sky and they all saw the tiny speck growing larger and larger as it came nearer.
"Oh, God, what do we do?" Sara asked, looking wildly around.
"Get off the beach and put out the fire!" Grissom bellowed. They scattered, running around the camp trying to make their camp seem as inconspicuous as possible. Greg, Nick and Warrick took turns throwing sand on the fire until it was smothered, while Sara and Catherine threw as many items in the shelter as possible. Grissom did his best to put shrubs and leaves around the shelter, and it was only when he received help from his team that it seemed camouflaged enough. Just as they entered the shelter, they could hear the faint sound of engines growing nearer.
"Sweet Jesus, don't let them see us," Catherine prayed, hugging her knees as she sat in a corner of their hut. Her eyes were closed and with each increasing in the noise, she shut them tighter.
"They're coming down," Warrick whispered as he watched the floatplane's progress through a crack in the wall. Sara whimpered from in between Nick and Greg, while Catherine clenched her knees tighter against her chest.
"They're coasting on the water," Greg murmured as he gazed through his own hole.
"Quiet," Grissom demanded, his voice shaking ever so slightly, as he stood beside Catherine.
"They passed. They're headed for Death Rock," Nick disobeyed his boss. After he said it, the six of them let out a breath that they didn't know they were holding.
"They just have to finish what they're doing and they'll be gone," Grissom stated, though they were sure that it was just as much meant to reassure himself as it was meant to reassure the rest of them.
"I wonder what they are doing," Greg said softly.
"No," Grissom said firmly, knowing what was going through the young man's head. Greg was always in search of an adventure, and that desire had increased ten-fold since he had been beached.
"It'd give us an edge. Maybe we can find out something about them. If we eavesdrop on them, we might find out what they're up to," Greg argued.
"You're crazy," Sara snapped, "You just want a chance to do something stupid!"
"I'm sick of living in fear. I want to figure out how to stay alive," Greg said simply.
"If they find us, they'll kill us," Nick stated.
"Would you rather be prepared for them or not?" Greg retorted.
"It's not about preparation, Greg; it's about staying alive!" Grissom asserted.
"What if they give us information to help us stay alive?" Greg shot back.
"What if they find us?" Warrick asked.
"They won't," Greg said surely, "I'll keep out of sight. I want to know what they're up to!"
"So do I," an unexpected voice chirped from the corner. Catherine was now on her feet and her eyes were set.
"Cath-"
"Gil, he makes some valid points. What if we can stay two steps ahead of them? Wouldn't our chances of survival be a whole lot better?" she asked, looking Gil straight in the eye. He knew that there would be no stopping her. He looked around the room and saw that his team was leaning towards Greg and Catherine's point of view.
"Quietly and just within hearing range," he complied. All six of them hurriedly walked in the direction of Death Rock in total silence. It wasn't long before they heard voices. Creeping closer, they listened.
"…I'll settle for fifteen hundred," a man with a thick Spanish accent finished.
"There's at least two g's worth of coke and opium in the crate, Tito," Gil shuddered as he heard the agonizingly familiar voice of the American known as 'Boss'.
"Nineteen," Tito grudgingly accepted after a moment of silence. The castaways heard a peculiar sound in the silence, almost a clinking sound.
"And then you'll pay my men for their hard labour. I could make you dig the box up yourself, Tito, but Johnny, Karl, Lee, Rizzo, and Raul here, were kind enough to help you out. They need a reward, don't you agree?" Boss asked snidely. Nick had the distinct feeling that the guy was a pro at milking something for all it was worth.
"How much, Boss?" Tito sighed. The clinking of shovels in the sand could be heard as Boss mulled it over.
"Two hundred each. Sound good, boys?" Boss called. There was a mixture of whoops and cheers of approval.
What Tito said could not be heard by any of the castaways, but from Boss's laugh, they were sure it was something that could get him in trouble. They were right.
"You won't last long in this business with a mouth like that, Tito," Boss laughed before a loud smack was heard and the laughter of the apparent other five members of the party.
"I apologize," Tito could just be heard. There was more silence until they heard a thud.
"Your crate," a high, cold voice said.
"Thank you, Mr. Johnny, sir," Tito sounded fearful.
"Don't worry, Teet. If we were going to to ice you, we wouldn't have dug this thing up," Johnny told him cruelly.
"We have better things to use our ammo on, don't we, John?" Boss asked his partner. There was a grunt of pain.
"Your debt to the Ring ain't paid off yet, you miserable slime," Johnny sneered.
"W-What?" Tito asked, sounding as though he was injured. There was another grunt.
"You'll be joining us on our next trip out here, Tito, and you won't be alone," Boss explained, "Two weeks from now, I want you and Fox to meet us at the airstrip. Then we'll fly out here and the traitor will end up like Pat and Ivan, here."
"Yes, sir."
"And if you tip him off, we'll find you and you'll join Pat and Ivan. Do I make myself clear?" Boss asked.
"Perfectly," Tito whimpered weakly, but there was another grunt of pain.
"Lee, Raul, load the crate onto the plane. Karl, Rizzo, fill the hole in. John, escort Tito back to the plane. We're leaving," Boss ordered.
Grissom was giving orders of his own as he gestured for them all to quietly make their way back to camp. With shaking knees, they went to the base of the rocky hill and sat under the trees, listening as the engine roared off into the distance. Greg was the first to speak.
"I hate to say I told you so, but…"
"Shut it," Warrick said irritably. After a moment, they all got up and hiked the rest of the way back to camp.
"Anyone hungry?" Greg asked as they stood in the trees covering their shelter. Everyone looked hesitant. How could they eat at a time like this?
Finally Grissom spoke, "We need energy and preparing a meal will help us get our minds off…this."
He was right. As they got to work, they didn't think about the murderers. Nick and Warrick focused on plucking the birds, while Sara and Greg built the fire up again. Gil helped Catherine sort through the supplies that had been tossed inside the shelter during their panic to hide earlier.
"What are we going to do?" Catherine asked, looked across the room at him.
"We'll figure something out," he replied, and upon seeing the fear in her eyes, he said, "We'll be prepared, Catherine. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." She didn't say a word. She crossed the shelter and hugged him tightly, drawing strength from him.
"At least we can prepare," she said softly as she let him go.
"Yeah, you and Greg were onto something," he agreed.
"So much for a celebration," she joked. He grinned.
"Happy one month anniversary, Catherine," he stated.
"Happy anniversary, Gil," she replied.
Dinner was a quiet affair as everyone ate in silence. No one seemed able to talk about what they heard while they ate. It was not a dinner conversation. Instead, they all knew enough to wait until after the dishes were washed and when the fire blazing in a warm and welcoming fashion. Then they discussed what they heard.
"How many crates of drugs do you reckon they have dug into the sand?" Greg asked.
"We could go check," Gil suggested, but no one took him up on this. None of them had the desire to go anywhere near Death Rock ever again.
"So we know that they deal drugs; they work for 'The Ring'; 'Boss' orders around five men, who do his bidding and torture their clients," Warrick listed off.
"They have drugs hidden in the sand," Greg continued, "They have an airstrip; they use the island for damage control and as a secret trading zone."
"Boss is a forceful personality, who likes to get his money's worth; he's killed two people, Pat and Ivan, possibly more, and they're plotting the murder of a guy named Fox," Nick finished, feeling as if he were back in the lab and they were simply reviewing the case to each other.
"And they will be back in two weeks time to kill 'Fox'," Sara added, discreetly moving closer to Nick for comfort.
"What are we going to do?" Catherine asked, repeating the question she had asked Gil earlier. Now, however, there was none of her previous fear and apprehension. She was the normal cool and collect Catherine Willows again.
"Well, we know that they don't know about us," Warrick said.
"And we've obviously proven that we can hide well," Nick added.
"But how long can we keep hiding?" Sara questioned.
"That's exactly what troubles me," Grissom injected, "Sooner or later, they will clue into our presence."
"And when they do, they won't be too pleased," Greg supplied, stating the obvious.
"As I said before, I'm not crazy about sharing this island with a bunch of criminals," Catherine asserted.
"And as I said before, we can't leave the island until we have no choice," Grissom repeated, looking across at her.
"Yeah, and when we have no choice, how long do you think it will take until they catch up with us?" Catherine asked. The other four looked back and forth as if they were watching a ping-pong match.
"When I said we'd prepare for them, I didn't just mean camouflage and hide, Cath," he told her, "I also meant that we should prepare to leave the island, if need be. If we're ever discovered, we need to make a quick get-away. We need to know this island inside out, and we need to have the raft prepared with as much food and water as possible, at all times."
"Yeah, that'd be great. We really wouldn't get noticed if there was a fully stocked raft sitting on our beachfront," Warrick said sarcastically.
"We wouldn't keep it on our beachfront. We'd find a well concealed spot to keep it, and in the event of an emergency, we would all meet there and take off only when we are all present," Grissom planned, and they admitted it was a good one. Nick had a suggestion.
"The water caves on the other side of the island would work," he suggested. Grissom nodded in approval.
"What water caves?" Sara asked.
"On the other side of the island, there's this rocky jutted out part that's almost like a cliff over the water. Under it are a series of small caves," Warrick explained, "We came across them the other day."
"Cool," Greg commented.
"It sounds perfect," Catherine agreed.
"We can stow the raft and our supplies there," Grissom said, looking at the each face illuminated by the fire, "These next two weeks are going to be all about preparation."
TBC