"I… Given the circumstances we are in, I am pretty happy right now. Do you know why?"
"I'm all ears."
Then Olivia rose to her elbows and leaned over Elliot. Tears glimmered in her eyes when she pressed her lips to his and whispered:
"Because you're here with me."
The starry sky glittered above them as they closed their eyes and kissed each other.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Olivia woke up startled and opened her eyes. She felt an arm around her, and her heart rate rose momentarily before she realized that the arm belonged to Elliot, who had snuggled against her in his sleep. The warmth filled her heart, but then she listened attentively and tried to figure out what had made her awake. When she came up with no explanation, she sighed and closed her eyes again. But then her eyes opened again rapidly, because there was a muffled noise at the door of the cottage. She slowly sat up, careful that she wouldn't wake up Elliot, who growled in his sleep and tightened his grip on her waist. Olivia sat on the bed, holding her breath, and her heart was pounding so wildly that she thought its sound would wake everyone up. Then there was a muffled slam outside the door, and she flinched so violently that Elliot woke up.
"W-what's happening?" His sleepy head rose from the bed and Olivia grabbed his arm.
"There's someone outside the door," she hissed, and he rubbed his eyes.
"It was probably just a dream," he whispered, but then there was another slam on the door, and his body tensed immediately. "Can you see if everyone's inside?" He stared at the other sleepers. They could see that Fin was in a deep sleep in bed between the wall and Elliot. However, the fire had faded in the fireplace and there was almost dark in the cottage.
Olivia shook her head. "It's too dark in here." But then she felt her heart stop when she suddenly remembered the scene of the plane crash. "El, we didn't remember to tell the others that the scene of the crash had been rummaged upside down," she whispered hoarsely, and Elliot raised his hand to rub his forehead.
"Damn it, those wolves completely messed up my thoughts." They listened to the noises outside the door and then he continued: "Maybe someone had to go to toilet?"
"But why doesn't he come in?" Olivia whispered. They fell silent and stared at the door, behind which someone was still clearly moving. Then he lifted his legs over her legs and lowered them to the floor. She looked at him startled.
"What are you doing?"
"I'll go to see who dares to disturb my beauty sleep," he growled and stood up. Hearing this, she grabbed his arm with her both hands.
"Don't!" She hissed alarmed. "We don't know who or what is out there, and you have nothing to defend yourself with."
Elliot hesitated, but then there was another slam at the door again and he clenched his fists. "We have to check that," he stated and pulled his hand lightly out of Olivia's grip. Holding her breath and with her heart pounding, she watched as he walked slowly to the door and opened it. It was dark outside, and he had to focus his gaze for a moment before he noticed the character on the stairs of the cottage.
"Brown?"
He turned to look at Elliot, and for a moment they just stared at each other. Then Elliot's gaze moved to the box in Brown's hands. "What's that?"
Brown's voice was cold when he opened his mouth after a short hesitation: "What is this? Well, this is actually the reason we're here."
Elliot frowned, and his detective instincts immediately told him that something wasn't right. Something was terribly wrong. "In that case, I'd love to hear what's inside of it."
Brown turned his gaze to the box on his lap and a strange smile appeared on his face. However, he did not answer, so Elliot took a couple of steps towards the box. That's when Brown quickly got up and pulled something from his waist. Even though it was dark outside, Elliot stopped immediately, because he would have recognized the object Brown was holding even in his sleep.
It was a gun.
He slowly raised his hands and stepped back. "Woah! What's going on?"
Brown's eyes glimmered dangerously as he told Elliot to back away, waving his gun upward. Elliot slowly set off to walk backwards towards the bed, with Brown pointing at him all the time with his gun. Then he heard Olivia's voice:
"El, what's going o…" However, the words got stuck in her throat, and at the same time Brown turned his gun to point at her. She raised her hands, and Elliot instinctively stepped in front of her.
"Sit down so no one gets hurt," he pointed his word at Elliot, who backed to Olivia, sat down on the bed a little in front of her, and took her hands between his own.
"Why is there so much noise?" There was Munch's sleepy voice. He and Cassidy slept side by side on the floor. Then he opened his eyes and faced Brown's gun, which pointed at him this time. "The hell are you…"
"Shut up!" Brown exclaimed and made Fin wake up startled.
"I'm trying to sleep," he muttered and closed his eyes again. Olivia poked him with her elbow.
"Don't sleep, the situation is on," he whizzed. Fin blinked in the darkness and then turned his gaze to Brown.
"Is that…" He asked with the voice hoarse from sleep, and made Brown turn his gun towards them again. The surprising move made Elliot hastily raise his hand in front of Olivia.
"Now that everyone is finally awake…" He glanced at Cassidy, who seemed terrified, "… I can finally open this situation up a bit." He pulled the stool in front of him and sat down on it, looking almost satisfied. Then he started:
"I can finally reveal to you that the purpose of this trip wasn't exactly a business trip to Canada. No, this was a carefully planned covert operation that took us across the border with a pile of fake IDs, memory cards containing children's information and a few pounds of drugs. The destination of the flight was not Ottawa, but a small private airport north of Ottawa."
"But how?" Munch asked in disbelief. "How…"
"Because the pilots were involved in the plan."
"But I was arranging the trip with you," Cassidy's voice was stifled. "Everything seemed fine…"
"Because me and my partner Johnson arranged that. You rented the private plane from one of our contacts, but we made it look like you were renting it via official routes. We agreed that the destination was Ottawa, but in reality, our contact knew our real destination. Likewise, the arrangements in Ottawa – all coulisses."
Cassidy's jaw dropped and he said nothing anymore. Brown continued:
"So you were told what you wanted to hear, but behind the scenes everything was arranged differently."
"But how Cragen… How didn't no one in the whole NYPD suspect anything?" Fin frowned. "We even had a video conference with the Canadians."
Brown grinned. "Yeah, except we hadn't. We talked all day with members of the organization."
"Excuse me?!"
"It was surprisingly easy to deceive you," he gave a dry laugh. "Me and Johnson told them everything we knew, and they acted the Canadian authorities. Surprisingly good acting gifts, don't you think?"
"So does this mean that…" Munch asked slowly as the situation began to clear to him.
"Yup, the whole Canadian request for help doesn't exist. Everything was just part of the plan. So, in practice, you imagined you were going on a business trip to Ottawa organized by the NYPD, but in reality, you were going on a smuggling trip organized by the criminal organization you had been investigating."
Olivia felt dizzy and she closed her eyes. How was it possible that no one had doubted anything?
"But... Then why are we here?" She asked quietly. Brown's eyes flashed strangely when he turned to look at her.
"Because someone got wind of our plan and decided to sabotage it. Poisoning the pilots was therefore never part of the plan. It's a miracle that we survived, and the box didn't burn. I tried to go look for it before, but you were looking for Elliot so frantically that I didn't have a chance."
"So it was you, who had rummaged the scene of the crash upside down," Elliot realized. The others turned to look at him questioningly, and he grimaced: "We forgot to tell you yesterday because the wolves took all our attention."
"Busted. I set the traps around the wreck, and at the same time as I was looking for the box I found someone's gun."
"But why do you need us?" Munch asked in wonder. "Why waste so much time and energy getting us involved when the stuff would have crossed the border more easily?"
"Because of the bluff. NYPD funded the plane, and so it was easier to get the box in the plane. Also, you guys have all kind of valuable information we could have used."
"And finally you would have shot us," Munch stated harshly and Brown gave a laugh.
"You would have known far too much after that. And you know already," he got serious and growled. Then he looked at them all in turn. "The owner of the plane knows we had an accident. They are coming in the morning to pick us up, because they have finally been able to locate the plane. The plane has an internal tracker that allows the owner to track its movements," he explained. "The weather conditions have also made it difficult to locate."
"But how do you know that?" Fin asked in wonder and Brown grinned.
"I have a radiophone."
"YOU WHAT?!"
"It miraculously remained intact in the collision."
"But how has no one else been able to come looking for us? Cragen knows for sure that everything is not right, because nothing has been heard of us," Elliot asked.
"Cragen has been told you died in a car accident in Ottawa."
"Wait, WHAT?!"
"Traditional story, our taxi fell from a bridge into a river and no bodies were ever found."
"No…" Olivia's eyes filled with tears as she thought of their boss broken by grief. Everything felt like a bad dream.
"No one has been looking for the plane because no one knows it's missing," Brown continued. "We have pretty talented hackers who sent inaccurate information about the landing to the destination to the air traffic control in charge." Then he stood up and pointed them with the gun. "Get ready for this to be your last night alive. In the morning we will be picked up to the base where you hand over the information, whether you wanted it or not, and after that you no longer have to worry about anything."
Then his gaze moved to Olivia and a dangerous grin rose on his face as he set out to walk towards her. Elliot tensed beside her and squinted his eyes threateningly. Brown stopped in front of her and wiped her hair off her face with a gun.
"Such a shame to shoot this pretty face," his voice was unctuous, and Olivia swallowed and squeezed Elliot's hand harder than she noticed. "Maybe I'll save you, and I'll take you to live with me in my hideaway in the middle of the wilderness." He held out his hand and touched her lips with his thumb. This made her turn her head and only the gun prevented Elliot from breaking Brown's neck.
"Don't touch her," he growled furiously, and Brown turned to look at him amused.
"How sweet. It's a shame your brave boyfriend won't have time to see what's under those clothes. Me, on the other hand…" There was a greedy look in his face as his eyes ran along her body.
"I'd rather die than become your home slave," Olivia hissed, and Brown pressed the gun to Elliot's temple.
"If I were you, I'd be careful with my words, or your precious Elliot won't see the coming morning."
Olivia fell silent and watched holding her breath as Brown and Elliot stared at each other. Brown still held the gun on Elliot's temple, but Elliot didn't look scared. Instead, his eyes sparkled with anger as he stared at Brown defiantly. After a time that felt like a small eternity, Brown snorted and moved back to his stool.
"And no one is allowed to sleep, so I can keep an eye on you better" he announced.
Olivia wrapped her arms around Elliot with tears in her eyes. "Don't provoke him," she begged in a whisper. "I won't let you die."
Elliot sighed and pulled her into his arms.
"I'm afraid I'm already a dead man anyway."
