Trev
"Bacillus Inermis," I said as she walked through the door, "Literally, 'Harmless Bacteria'. This stuff is found in the human gut, gets there by hitching a ride through the mother's breast milk, so just about everyone has this in their system already."
"Can it be weaponized?" Lyn asked.
"I thought that too," I said, "Since it's already found in the body, it wouldn't be detected as a foreign element. But I checked that, it's not even airborne, won't survive in water, the only way to 'infect' someone with it would be manual injections."
"Then why go through all the effort to smuggle it?"
"It's been modified," I said, "Take a look." I offered her the microscope.
"Okay, I may have helped Abby in the Forensics Lab from time to time, but what the hell am I looking at?"
"See the greenish tinge in the body?"
"No," she deadpanned. I adjusted the focus, "Yep."
"It shouldn't be there," I said, "This bacteria hasn't changed much for over four million years. It had no need to. It has a symbiotic relationship with it's host. And because we discovered this being smuggled to the same guys we are hunting..."
"I don't like where you're going with this."
"I need you to vomit."
"What?"
"Calm down," I insisted, "I just need you to spew into this Tupperware."
"This is the weirdest request any guy has given me."
"I'm flattered," I deadpanned, "Now get chunkin'."
"Stop saying that!" she demanded as she took the container. She eyed it nervously.
"Just take a finger and wobble your uvula," I suggested.
"My what?"
"That little thing that hangs in the back of your mouth like a speed punching bag."
She visibly steeled herself and, without giving it anymore thought, put her finger down her mouth. Her whole body seemed to convulse as she gaged and spat stomach juices into the plastic container. She glared as she handed it to me.
"Now that wasn't so hard was it?" I chided as I swabbed some of it onto a slide and put it under the microscope, "Yep, same bacteria. Same modifications. For some reason, they injected you with this stuff. It's getting dark. I'll head down to a library and see if I can learn more."
"How much sleep did you get in the last twenty-four hours?" she asked.
"About three," it's even more depressing how much sleep I got in the last forty-eight hours. Which is about four.
"Trev," she chided.
"I'll be fine," I insisted, "I run on little sleep all the time."
"I find that easy to believe," she scoffed.
"Look, I can eat. I can work. It's the sleeping part I have trouble with. I'll be fine," I assured, "I'll be back by 2100, which is usually the time they close," I kissed her on the cheek, "Bye," and that's when it hit me, "We forget this ever happened?"
"Agreed," she replied.
"Agreed," I confirmed, distinctly feeling the wet mark on my cheek where she had kissed me.
I chose the stairs. I didn't want some half-baked security guy watching the elevator cams while watching the news to get a good look at me.
I tried to focus on things not getting weird between me and Lyn. We're a team, not husband and wife.
I sighed as I finally reached the ground floor and stepped out into the lobby.
MOTHERFU-
"It continues, Frank," Horatio said as he surveyed the scene, "What do you have, Doctor?"
"Small caliber round to the forehead, execution style," Loman observed, "No exit wound. Powder burns along the entrance. Bruising along the base of the neck. He was slammed against the wall, then shot."
"Thank you," Horatio said, "Erick, what do you have?"
"I found some prints," Erick replied, "I finished dusting the doors leading into the place from the rear, got some partials. I'll finish with the doors in the front."
"Found some more bodies in the back, looks like his bodyguards," Frank informed him, "Looks like a ghost just decided to come in here and kill everyone. It's spooky."
"No such thing as ghosts, Frank," Horatio assured.
"This is weird," Calleigh said, looking at the one of the bodies of the guards stuffed into the lawn shed, "The round used to kill Córtez was killed was either a .22 or a .25. These are a 9mm or .38, something around that range."
"Two murder weapons," Erick clarified.
"Definitely," Calleigh said, "Close grouping, three rounds center mass. Sounds like us."
"Or any number of police or military in the world," Erick pointed out, "I'll fan out, see if I can find some brass."
After he left, Calleigh whispered, "I don't think you will find any."
FBI Building, Quantico, Virginia.
"Can someone please tell me why we are having such trouble finding this guy!" The Boss demanded, "Jesus Christ, this isn't even the guy we should be looking for! This is the guy we look for because he might have an idea about what continent our guy is on!"
The collection of the best and brightest of a plethora of government agencies, some law enforcement and some intelligence, even a few state agencies, frantically tried to find the answer. Honestly, some(CIA and FBI) where still smarting over the insult of having a guy from Navy Intelligence heading Tack Force BURROWER. Most were wondering what in the hell someone must have done(more importantly, known) to warrant a task force of over eighty agents working around the clock.
"Well, he's part of the Russian Mofia, and this is the US..." one very brave agent said.
"US? US?" He growled, "Half of you are fucking CIA! Are you telling me that we don't have assets in the former Soviet Union? Jesus Christ!" this particularly stung as The Boss had started out his career in the Navy in the US SEAL Teams assassinating Soviet advisors in hot places genrally just called hell.
"B-b, Boss?" one timid guy said.
"Out with it!" it's been a while since he had a drink and his patience was low.
"Um you said to, well ordered actually..." he gulped from a glare. For an old guy, he was decidedly very scary, "!"
"And?"
"I, um, I think I found one," the analyst said, all the while really wishing for the windowless little room that he had been found in at Ft Meade, "Miami PD just reported this," unbekownst to most, All police agencies, every police department, when filing their paperwork, had to send copies to the US Attorneys Office where it was then sent to the FBI, who then sent it to the NSA for analysis. Most of this was then filed in the "junk mail" folder and looked at, well, never. The NSA had more important things to do other than run a simple word search program with a couple hundred keywords. Really, Google used more advanced software.
However, with the creation of the Task Force, this system was being upgraded and revamped to where almost every crime in America, from Johnny Rotten TPing the high school gym to an Ocean-esque bank robbery in Baltimore, was searched and dissected, the analysts looking for certain markers.
"Kidnapping of a local smuggler in Miami, released, then killed less than twenty-four hours after leaving police custody," The Boss said, "You," he pointed at a random FBI Agent, "Link this to Robert Claypool. The sonofabitch may have wiped his memory with drugs, but he can't erase every link. I wanna know this guy's family, employment history, his life story from the time he was a gleam in his daddy's eye to the time a 22-hundredths-of-an-inch of copper and lead ended his life. Go, go!"
Finally, since Mike Pierce slipped by with literally half-an-hour to spare, they had a lead.
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