"This is insane."

Beckett had spent the past few minutes watching Ryan pace back and forth in front of his desk, hands nervously raking through his wavy hair, eyes intently focused on the ground, chewing his lip as though it was going to make the least bit of a difference.

Unfortunately, at this point there wasn't a whole lot they could do until Vargas was done briefing the captain, the two leaders trying to come up with a strategic plan to solve the latest catastrophe.

The sheer scope of the issue sent shivers down her back; the human suffering, the carelessness with which Lafayette was abusing those who had put faith in him, and the audacity of him choosing Esposito of all people to experiment on was beginning to eat away at her professional façade.

It made her nerve endings burn, raising a primal anger that threatened to blind her logical thinking. And no matter how often she told herself to calm down, keep an open mind, it was Ryan's frantic moves that brought her straight back to the irrefutable reality that one of her team was missing and quite possibly in mortal peril.

Scarily enough, if Lafayette's nefarious plan would somehow work out, he could use Esposito as collateral, a human shield should the authorities get too close for comfort.

It was a sickening thought, and yet, she saw it spelled out on Gates' face when the captain joined them once again, Vargas in tow.

"Well, it seems that we have a bit of a situation on our hands here.", she said, before making eye contact with each member of the team, "And I want you to believe me when I say that I am as uncomfortable with those facts as you must be. But under the circumstances, I have no choice but to put out an APB on Detective Esposito. In the meantime, we should use all our resources to get some solid evidence on Lafayette, see what we can dig up to stop this guy in his tracks."

"Captain, with all due respect, I think you're making a mistake.", Beckett countered, having expected that move, "Once you put out that APB, every cop in this town will be looking for him. Do you really want to encourage a confrontation between a trigger-happy rookie just out of the academy and an ex-special forces guy? What are the odds of either one of them making it out alive? I think the best thing we can do right now is to let Espo think he hasn't been made. By the sounds of this, he may not be aware that he's been…brainwashed, for a lack of a better term, so by easing up on the pressure, he has no reason to worry. Once we get into contact with him, we can safely apprehend him and go after Lafayette. It also buys us valuable time…and resources…to follow Lafayette's trail."

Frowning but not discounting her idea entirely, Gates stepped closer.

"What trail are you talking about, detective?"

"We're going to check out the nightclub where Esposito was initially kidnapped. He was supposed to meet a Chantal there. Obviously, somebody got paid to drug him. If we find that somebody, we have a direct link to Lafayette."