Chapter Nine: Severe Surprises

Jordan woke up suddenly. The room was dark, and she couldn't remember where she was…if she was still on the mountain. Looking around the room, her brain told her that she was in her office. Her nerves told her otherwise. The only thing keeping her from panicking was Woody's strong arm around her waist.

But that wasn't enough…he would have been on the mountain too. Urgently, Jordan began to shake him. "Woody! Woody, wake up!"

"Hmmm?" He was groggy and not quite sure why whoever was shaking him was doing it.

"Woody! Please, just wake up!" Jordan's voice was more insistent now.

Coming to his senses, Woody sat up and wrapped Jordan in his arms. "What's wrong, Jo? Did you have a nightmare?"

Holding him tightly, Jordan nodded. "I just needed to hear your voice…to make sure we weren't still up there," she said meekly, almost embarrassed.

He held her tighter. "It's okay…we're safe. I'm here, and I'm not leaving." Woody said it all just as much for himself as he did for her.

After several minute of sitting in the still-dark silence, Jordan stood up. "I'm going to go take a shower, and get started on those autopsies," she said quietly.

"This early?" Woody asked. He wasn't quite ready to let her go.

"I can't sleep anymore…and the sooner I get started, maybe the sooner this will all be over," Jordan answered.

Woody nodded and squeezed her hand. Once Jordan was gone, Woody got up too. He put his coat on and left a note telling Jordan he had gone for coffee and breakfast, just in case she returned before he did. He sighed as he opened her office door. Today would be a long day.

Kate, Jordan, Garret, and Bug were diligently, but nearly silently, working on their autopsies. Each of them had five to do; they set themselves up in the same room so that they could compare their findings more easily. Nigel was busy running all of the trace they had found at the scene, plus what the doctors pulled off the bodies.

The only noise came from the occasional mumbles as the medical examiners did their jobs, and Seely's indignant huffs. Woody was there…the two detectives had had a loud fighting match over whether Woody could work the case or not. Seely had clearly lost the battle against Woody watching the autopsies, and he was showing his displeasure flagrantly.

Jordan was just about to start the autopsy on the copilot when Nigel came into the room, obviously agitated about something.

"Jordan?" He asked. "Have you drawn blood from Mr. Saunders yet?"

"No, Nige. I was just about to," she replied. "Why?"

"The other pilot's tox screen came back. He was drugged."

That got Kate's attention, as she had performed the autopsy on the pilot. "With what?" she asked.

"Tetrodoxin," he said. "Just like that stuff that killed Shelly Levine last year. It paralyzes the victim before it kills them."

"But doesn't that take a long time to take effect?" Garret asked. Everyone had come over and joined the huddle by Jordan's body.

"Not at these levels," Nigel said, showing Garret the print out. "It would only have taken the toxin about 2 hours to metabolize…and then, once he was paralyzed…down she goes."

Jordan quickly turned around and drew blood out of the copilot. It only took Nigel a few minutes to confirm that he had been drugged as well.

Grim faces stared back at the computer screen.

"This was no accident," Woody said.

"It was murder," Kate replied.

"Terrorists maybe?" Bug asked.

Seely shook his head. "Probably not. There weren't any middle-eastern names on the manifest. And besides, they like to make more of a show about killing people...and aren't they all suicide bombers anyway?"

"Unless it's a homegrown terrorist," Jordan said. "They don't usually kill themselves along with their victims…look at Timothy McVeigh."

"Well, whoever it was wanted those pilots to know that the plane was doomed," Garret added. "They could see and feel everything around them, but they couldn't do a thing about it…they knew they were going to die."

A shiver almost visibly passed through the group.

"How could someone do that to other people?" Nigel asked.

"I don't know…but we're going to find out," Jordan answered, her face set. No one contradicted her, because they were all thinking the same thing.