He kept his eyes closed and his face down, listening as the men in the back of the van with him laughed and joked about him as he lay by their feet. Their words meant nothing to him now; he took solace from the fact that they were more than likely taking him to his final resting place. They would finish the job that they had so meticulously planned and dump his broken body where it would likely never be found again.
Had the situation not been so dire, he might have laughed at the parallels between his veiled past and his current predicament, both ending with his death, but this time it was for real.
He heard a voice shouting from the front of the vehicle, "We're about forty-five minutes out from Coral Springs, boss."
Danny pulled the phone from his pocket, "We're on route, Tony. Make sure the boat is ready to leave as soon as we get there."
A burial at sea seemed kind of apt to him, the details of his sordid past along with his body would sink beneath the surface of the water, never to be seen again. He winced as his head lifted from the floor and back down again in a swift motion as the van hit a bump in the road, adding another bruise to his growing collection.
His one good eye travelled down to his left side, gazing at his swollen and damaged arm. It had stopped throbbing a few hours previously and he figured that the blood supply had likely been cut off by the swelling around the bone. He attempted to lift the arm but it was worse than useless as it failed to move at all.
He felt the air rush out of his lungs again as his attempts at moving were rewarded with another swift kick from Gianni. He gasped for air as he felt a rib crack and was unable to stop the paltry contents from his stomach landing on the floor beside him.
His captors laughed as the van took a sharp turn to the right, unable to stop the vomit from rolling towards his face. He simply lacked the energy to move his heavy head out of the way and so he lay in a pool of his own mess, Gianni and his men laughing and taunting him, his humiliation complete.
It had taken almost three hours to find the warehouse, Eric and Andy had stumbled on it almost by accident and had nearly missed it completely had it not been for the flat tyre that stopped their Hummer in its tracks. As soon as the building came into view, Eric was certain that this was the place that Horatio had been held.
They had searched a dozen buildings just like this one but all of their searches turned up empty. Andy watched as Eric stood gazing at the large warehouse, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
"You thinking what I'm thinking, kid?"
The tall Cuban turned to look at the rotund man standing next to him, "There's something about this place, something's different about it."
"You wanna go in?" Andy asked as he reached for the small pistol strapped into his ankle holster.
Eric had certainly considered the idea, his initial reaction would have been to run into the building with all guns blazing but years of experience with Horatio by his side taught him that it would likely get all of them killed. The two men would be vastly outnumbered should the Malucci's still be in the building and as much as it pained him to do it, he reached into the Hummer and pulled the on-board radio handset towards his mouth as he requested back up.
Calleigh had arrived shortly after receiving the news over the radio, the tyres of her Hummer screeching along the dry and arid mud outside the building, leaving huge skid marks in their wake. She jumped out of the vehicle with her gun aimed out ahead of her as several patrol cars started pulling up behind her.
"Have you been in there yet, Eric?" she asked as she kept her gun and her eyes levelled at the building.
"No, but believe me, I wanted to."
"Good," she nodded as she began giving orders to the uniformed officers to cover the rear of the building. "Have you seen any signs of movement?"
"None. I've got a feeling that they've already moved on but we didn't want to risk going in without back up."
"You made the right call, Eric," she replied as she gave him a small smile, signalling that their earlier spat was all but forgotten.
"Are you coming?" she scowled at Andy as he stood awkwardly, staring at the dust covering his shoes.
He checked the rounds in his snub-nose revolver one last time before answering. "Does a bear shit in the woods? Of course I'm coming."
The two men searched room by room together whilst Calleigh paired up with a uniformed officer to check the other side of the building, the plan being to meet back up somewhere in the middle. They made their way into each room, guns drawn, but began to give up hope after almost ten minutes of searching and coming up with nothing.
"They're not here kid; we would have found them by now if they were."
The building was big but even Eric had to admit that the chances were that the Malucci's had escaped and likely took their prisoner along with them. Unless he's already dead.
Andy opened another door without much hope of it holding anything interesting, he flicked the light switch with his gun drawn and was irritated that the lights didn't seem to work.
"Give us your flashlight," he commanded as he held a hand out without looking back. As he walked further into the room it became obvious that they had stumbled onto something.
The light from the torch shone quickly around the room, the beam flitting across something metal in the middle of the room. Pulling the light source back to it, both men gasped in shock.
Sat in the centre of the spacious room was a metal chair with ropes hanging from the back of it, inching their way closer into the room the two men could see blood on the chair itself and the floor beneath it. Eric's training told him that it wasn't enough blood for a fatal wound but certainly enough to prove that whoever's blood it might be was injured and in need of some medical assistance.
"Don't touch anything," he commanded the older man as he pulled his phone out, his gaze never leaving the floor.
Moments later, Calleigh came rushing into the room and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what the men were looking at as the blood drained from her face.
It took her a few moments to gather her composure, "Have either of you touched anything in here?" she asked as she re-holstered her weapon.
Both men shook their heads.
Using her own flashlight, Calleigh ran her torch quickly around the room before concentrating the beam on the area by the chair. Something caught her eye by one of the legs of the chair, crouching down; she picked it up with a gloved hand.
"Looks like a tooth," she surmised as she shone the light on it, shuddering as she saw the blood and flesh still attached to it.
"Can you smell that?" she asked as she sniffed the air, "It smells like vomit."
Eric felt his heart begin to pound; Horatio was alone and at the mercy of a group of thugs, clearly injured and sick. Although they hand found where he was being held they had arrived too late, they had already moved on with their prisoner in tow.
"Did you find anything on the other side of the building?" he asked Calleigh as he swallowed thickly.
"Only evidence of people inhabiting the building for the last few days. I didn't find any blood or bodily fluids, looks like this was the room they were keeping him in."
"Do you need me to process the room?"
"No, we need to concentrate all of our efforts on finding Horatio. We can assume that all of this trace evidence is from him; we'll tape the scene off and process it later. After we find Horatio."
Calleigh opened her mouth to say something else but was stopped by her phone chirping at her once more, she looked at the caller ID and prayed that Ryan had some good news for her.
"Have you found him?"
"Yeah, Cal. We did," Ryan replied as he let out an exhausted breath. "Patrol spotted him on Highway 21, heading towards the lake. Looks like he heard where we were heading."
"Is he with you now?"
"We and a couple of patrol cars managed to cut him off before he could get too far. He's pissed though; I had to handcuff him to the Hummer. Do you want me to get him transferred back to the department?"
"No, keep him with you. I need you and Natalia back out on the search, we found the building that Horatio was being held in but there's no sign of him."
"Sure, you got it, Calleigh."
"Be careful out there, Ryan. And for God's sake, don't let Kyle out of your sight."
"Understood."
She returned her attention to Andy and Eric as they stood back, waiting for her to issue them with new instructions. Their expectant faces riled her already frazzled nerves as she shouted at them.
"What are you two waiting for? Get back out there and look for him!"
Sensing that now was not the time to argue Eric pushed the other man out of the door and back towards the Hummer as Andy grumbled beneath his breath.
Once back inside the vehicle, the burly man turned to his younger companion. "That broad is on a serious power trip."
"She's under a hell of a lot of pressure, Andy. Cut her some slack."
"So she thinks shouting at us is going to help find John?"
"No, but she's scared, just like we all are."
The older man huffed as he brought stumpy leg up to the dashboard and re-holstered his gun. Eric raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing.
"Any idea where we should start looking, they could have taken him anywhere. Hell, we don't even know if they just dumped the body somewhere."
Eric glanced out of the window as he considered the other man's words, "They must know that we're onto them by now, that's why they've bolted. My best guess is that they'll be heading towards the coast, looking to make it to international waters before we can reach them."
"And just how many coastal areas are there in Miami? I might be from New York but even I know that this whole city is pretty much surrounded by water."
Eric pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, knowing that his companion was right. The Malucci's could be heading to any number of ports or harbours in the Miami Dade area. It would take too long to go through them one by one, by the time they had done, the Malucci's and their prisoner would be long gone.
He looked to the skies for some divine intervention, praying that someone or something would give him a sign.
As if by magic, the radio on the dash crackled into life.
"Patrol 62 to Dispatch. I've spotted a dark blue E Series Van on the Freeway heading towards Coral Springs, the vehicle matches the license plate on the APB."
Eric grabbed wildly for the handset, "This is CSI Delko. Keep with up with the van, we're heading your way now. Whatever you do, do not lose that vehicle. Understood?"
The radio unit buzzed continuously as unit after unit radioed in their assistance, turning the key in the ignition, Eric threw the Hummer into gear and sped towards the Freeway.