Chapter Forty-nine: Downpour
Horatio started ordering people around after that. He wanted Delko to work the area where Hagen had been found. Ryan was given the lighter task of handling the message to see what sort of evidence he could gather from there. Speed was to do a perimeter search to find anything that might get overlooked. Horatio didn't have to say anymore to him, he knew what his boss was talking about. Sometimes the officers would see a piece of trash or something else along those lines and brush it off as nothing. But that 'nothing' could very well be an important something. With an officer to accompany his every move, by order of Horatio, he began to do a sweep of the area. He found three candy wrappers, one soda can, a cup from a gas station, and a plastic shopping bag. He bagged and tagged each one as potential evidence. As he was reaching the far side of the pond, though, he hit the jackpot. Under one of the bushes he found a towel with what looked like blood stains. And a few feet away was a tissue; which could yield DNA evidence. He made sure to bag and tag each one with the utmost care.
As the day wore on the sky went from a vivid, clear blue to a dull gray as the clouds of a threatening storm began to move in. Within a matter of hours their crime scene would be washed away. It was important, vital, that they gather all the evidence while they could but Horatio was adamant that they not rush the process. In rushing things were missed, overlooked. After about four hours at the scene, Speed tired from looking down at the ground and walking in circles, headed back toward the Hummers with his evidence in tow. He stuck the bags into the trunk of one of the vehicles to secure it. Then Horatio gathered him and Delko and Ryan for a quick catch-up on Hagen was doing. He was out of surgery and in the ICU still unconscious. The doctors were hopeful that he would regain consciousness within the next couple of hours. That was good news. Even better when he told them that Jesup had awakened and spoken with Calleigh. It finally looked like everything was going to be okay, that it would all work out in the end.
So why did he feel like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop?
When they had done all they could with the crime scene, Delko hopped into one of the Hummers with Ryan while Speed took another one. Horatio took the third one and headed for the hospital. He wanted to have a word with Jesup and check up on how Calleigh was doing now that they had Hagen back in their custody. By the time Speed got back to the lab the storm had hit. The rain came down steadily at first, another one of Miami's classic pop-up showers. But it quickly turned into an all out storm, complete with thunder and lightning and torrential rain. The three of them got soaked in their mad dash for the front door. At least the evidence faired better safely concealed in bags. They were set to divvy up the workload when Horatio returned, asking to have a word with Delko. Puzzled, he hand off his evidence to Speed who was the only one with a free hand to carry it.
Before he could walk away Speed said, "When you're done, come find me. There's something I want to talk to you about."
Delko smiled. "All of a sudden I'm popular. Delko on demand."
Ryan just shook his head. "You might want to get that on demand ass in gear before Horatio gets mad."
--
The storm raged on outside. He put on his headphones to listen to the thrum of his music instead of the constant boom of thunder. It had been quite some time since Miami got hit with a band of storms. He knew they needed the rain but he hated having to listen to the sounds of the storm. Not to mention that now their crime scene was completely erased. He hoped that they'd gathered all the pertinent evidence before the rain began. He had taken samples from the towel and tissue and handed them over to Ryan who disappeared with them to the DNA lab so that Valera could run them. On his return he told Speed that if he found any fingerprints to give him a call, he'd run them. In the meantime he was going to head into one of the other rooms and study the photos from the scene. Cooper was busy in the AV lab going over a video from a convenience store located in the same area. They were hoping the camera might have caught something, like who left Hagen beside the pond. He'd lost track of Delko for the most part but figured he could catch his friend when shift ended for the night. Or maybe he would run into him at the hospital when he paid a visit to his fallen colleagues. He knew how big a bummer it was to be stuck in one of those hospital beds.
He began to sway slightly to the music, lost in his own world, oblivious to everything going on around him…
--
Delko was walking back from Horatio's office when he heard the first sound of shattering glass. He figured that one of the rookie lab techs had dropped a vial or accidentally broken one of the many glass walls in the lab. But then he heard the sound of someone shrieking, followed by more glass breaking. He froze, trying to get an understanding of the sounds he heard. He heard the door to Horatio's office open as his boss came to investigate.
"What the hell is going on?"
Delko only shook his head.
A loud clack of thunder nearly covered up the sound of more screams and more shattering glass. And then they heard an all too familiar sound. Gunfire. That was all it took to spur Horatio into action. "Gather the others," he yelled to Delko as he took off in the direction of the sound. "They're making a direct attack on the lab."
All that ran through Delko's mind was 'shit'. Then he was off looking for Valera and Cooper to send them into the morgue to keep Alexx safe. They could barricade the door, protect themselves there. By the time he reached the next hallway the lab had gotten as loud and noisy as the storm raging outside. There was gunfire, more shattering glass and so much screaming. He counted his lucky stars that Calleigh was safely at the hospital. That gave him one less person to be worried about. He tracked down Valera and Cooper, who by some stroke of luck happened to be huddled together. He instructed them to head for the morgue, take anyone with them that they could get. Unlike him, Ryan, Speed, and Horatio the others would be unarmed. They were simple lab technicians, never going beyond the building when they signed in until they signed out at the end of shift. As he went along he kept sending lab techs toward the morgue. And he nearly ran into Ryan.
"What the hell is going on?" Ryan asked. He'd been in the locker room when all hell broke loose.
"They're shooting up the lab," was all that Delko needed to say to get the message across.
Fear quickly clouded Ryan's eyes. "Speed."
"What about him?"
"He was listening to his music when I last saw him. What if…"
But Delko didn't get a chance to hear the rest of what Ryan said because he was racing down the hallway, his only intent in finding Speed.
--
Speed attributed the extra sound to the storm at first. But he realized something more was wrong when he witnessed technicians in white lab coats racing by his room. It baffled him. As he was removing his headphones Delko came bursting through the door, scaring him. "Oh thank god, you're okay," he said, rushing into the room. "We need to get the hell out of here. The militia group opened fire on us."
Speed's eyes got wide. "That means they went through the precinct downstairs."
"I know," said Delko, stopping a matter of feet away from Speed. "Come on, we need to get moving."
"Delko…" Like he was in a horror movie he watched in slow motion as a man in a black ski mask came upon the door. He raised the gun in his hand, pointed in their direction. "Delko!" Speed moved but it was in vain, the gun went off as Delko started to turn. He collided with his friend. The gun went off again. And then they were falling, the smell of gun powder filling the room, a warmth spreading over them.