It was the dead of night when Carver returned to the group, alone, to tell them what had happened in the city.

Trent Jackson, the sniper to Grissom's scout, facepalmed. "God, leave it to Grissom to get kidnapped not once, but twice on the same damn mission!"

The troop groaned as Carver got them on their feet, none were too pleased their brief respite from days of tracking their teammates through the forest.

Sam made his way to Private Brian Smith, the team's radio specialist. "Hey man, we don't know how long we're gonna be following them. You going to be able to lug your gear solo or you want to swap packs quick before we head out?"

Smith shook his head and adjusted the straps on his shoulder. "I can handle it sergeant. If I need to switch I'll let you know."

Carver nodded, making his way back to the front. Once everyone was ready they quickly made their way to the lieutenant, who was waiting in the bushes Carver had seen the kidnappers run in to.

Taylor did a quick head count to be doubly certain no one else was missing before issuing orders. "Trent, you take point. I found their trail moving south/south-east for a good ways before doubling back so it should be easy enough to follow. I don't think they cared about leaving a trail."

Blake looked quizzically at her commanding officer. "How do you know that?"

"They clothing they were wearing would probably stop any one of the locals from spotting them at night and by morning they'd be too far away to follow. But we have something the locals don't: night vision goggles. Sergeant Carver, I want you on the rear and Mason right behind Trent to use the pair of goggles we brought to keep an eye out for whoever it is we're after. We're already at least 30 minutes behind them and the now the terrain a lot better then we do. Let's move."

The team quickly set off away from Polis, following the direction Taylor pointed them toward. True to what the lieutenant had said, Trent had no trouble following the path the kidnappers had taken and the troop was able to pick up the pace as dawn broke on the horizon, the light filtering through the trees. They slowed down as the forest thinned out closer to shore, only stopping when they found suddenly themselves on a rocky beach which was a rather stark contrast to the woods they'd been traversing for nearly a month. The stiff breeze rolling off the bay was a welcome distraction from the stiffness of their muscles.

While most of the team hunkered down along the tree line and broke out the MREs, Trent walked further down the beach, trying to find the tracks that had led them out on the beach. Seeing the waves washing back and forth across the rocks he threw down his rifle and yelled in disgust. "Just fucking great!"

Taylor, thinking no one should go off alone, had silently followed the corporal. "Hey, what the hell man?"

Trent jumped at the lieutenant's voice. "Jesus, let a guy know you're there first, huh?" He dropped down, putting on knee on the ground, and pointed to the water. "The damn tide washed away their trail!"

Stunned silence washed over the group, just on edge of ear shot of the duo. The realization that they might not find their finds finally sinking in.

Private Smith, however, wasn't so easily deterred and made his way over to the pair. "Well, we may not be able to follow a trail, but we could find them another way."

Trent's reply was less than cordial. "And what way is that, private?"

Smith didn't even bat an eye, pulling his pack off and grabbing equipment out of the bag. "It's simple. The LT said they had radios. I use my tech to track the signal strength of the communications, get a fix on our men, and then go kick the enemy's ass."

Taylor stood up from his kneeling position. "You can do that?"

Smith nodded, tapping commands into the tablet in his hands. "Yes sir, just need to hear them communicate and find their frequency. Once I have that, all I need to do is track the frequency strength all the way to the source."

Jarin stepped. "Good thinking private. And Jackson, keep your head. If I catch you throwing a rifle on the rocks or any other boneheaded shit like that again I'll have you carry Smith's radio pack for him, got it?"

Trent picked up his rifle. "Yeah, I got it." He took a breath to calm himself down and walked around behind Smith who was still getting his gear unpacked. "And what if they shut their radios off?"

"Shouldn't matter. If their base has any sort of comms, I highly doubt they would shut off their main radio beacon, especially since the locals don't exactly have the skill set or the tech to do what I'm going to try to do. Not much reason to ghost your communications when everyone around you is pretty much in the stone age."

10 minutes later Smith was leading Carver and Taylor back and forth down the beach, and then into the trees until he stopped, tapping at the screen. He froze, causing Taylor to bump into him. Jarin came around his right and saw the look of confusion on Brian's face. Before he could answer, Smith took off back toward the beach, cursing as he went. Carver and Taylor shared a look, with the former just offering a shrug while the latter took off after Private Smith.

"Hey, private, mind telling me what the heck is going on?"

Smith sighed as he turned to face the lieutenant, tossing the tablet to his CO. "Take a look for yourself. I don't think you're going to like it."

Jarin cradled the tablet as he caught it and looked over the readouts Private Smith had pulled up on the screen. His eyes widened and he looked up to double check with the private.

"Yeah, you read that right. Their signal is coming from over the water."

"Oh. Well, that sucks."

"Hey guys!" Carver's voice carried over the breeze, though Brian and Jarin paid him little mind.

Smith crossed his arms. "Yep, and it gets better. Whoever took Grissom and Lopez are in a boat with a motor. It's the only thing that explains the distance they've seemingly covered since we hit the beach."

"Hey. Assholes!" This time Carver got their attention. Both men made their way back over the sergeant who was standing on the other side of a long pile of branches

After the news he'd just received Jarin was not in a mood for his sergeant to call him over to a dead tree. "Sam, what the hell are you doing?"

Carver cocked a wry smile. "Have some faith, lieutenant. This." He gestured at the pile. "Is a really, really big cover." Sam reached down to pull at one end of the pile, and rolled it away like a blanket, much to the surprise of Jarin and Brian. Underneath was a rudimentary wooden canoe with two small oars tucked beneath the middle seat.

Jarin clapped a hand on Brian's shoulder. "Well, I think we just found the answer to our problem."

Now Carver was the one out of the loop. "And what problem is that?"

Jarin held up the tablet. "Turns out that our new 'friends' have a base somewhere on or over the water. And their boat has a motor."

"Oh. Crap." Sam bent down to pick up one of the oars. "Yeah, I don't think we're going to be able to beat a motor with two oars."

Jarin reached into the boat to pull out the other one. "And that's just the beginning. We won't be able to take everyone with us when we hit the water. This is way too small for 10 people and their gear."

Sam put his oar back in. "Well let's get this back to the group and see if it's even seaworthy before we make too big a fuss about anything."

Two hours later Lieutenant Taylor had led a squad of four men and their gear out onto the water. Private Smith and Williams were in the middle of the boat while Jackson and Taylor manned the oars at the bow and the stern, both having plenty of experience pitching in with the fishing crews before joining the military. To conserve battery life Jarin had Smith check the radio equipment every 45 minutes to course correct if necessary. Thankfully, the sun was still high in the sky and would stay aloft for a few hours more, making navigating the waters along their south-eastern route fairly simple. Having calm waters didn't hurt either. For the next few hours the crew took shifts at the oars, and those shifts got shorter and shorter as the evening approached. As the sky was turning magenta due to the setting sun, Smith flipped on the radio equipment to double check their course. He eyes darted over the screen before he rummaged through his bags for the binoculars.

Lieutenant Taylor caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, ceasing his rowing. "We getting close?"

Jarin could only see Private Smith smile widely behind the binoculars. "Hell yeah we are!"

He handed the lenses to Jarin who looked off in the same direction as the private. Almost immediately he saw something on the horizon. He pressed his eyes into the binoculars, trying to bring the object into better focus. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I don't know sir, but it sure looks like an oil rig to me. Not much stands on open water like that."

Taylor handed the binoculars back to the private before motioning for Trent to help row once again. The two men pushed hard for the next few hours, despite the lack of light to navigate by. Their only ability to reckon their position came from the radio table Smith used to test the enemy's radio signal strength. Due to the darkness, Taylor had upped the check in timetable to 30 minutes.

"How close you think we are?" Trent asked between strokes.

Jarin paused, sitting down on the bow of the boat for catch his breath. "Hard to say, didn't get a good gauge of the distance before we lost the light. Brian, anything on that system tell us how we're doing?

Trent dropped his oar in the boat. "Yeah, and tell me again, how you know we're going in the right direction?"

While Smith worked to get out his equipment he tried to answer Trent's question. "Well, other than the fact that we saw a damn oil rig in the direction the kidnappers went, it's actually a pretty simple algorithm. Traveling along the beach gave me two points to measure the radio signals and traveling inland gave me the third point to show the direction. And that's all we've been going on. It's like I could get 100% pinpoint from simple triangulation without a map, but having a definite direction is better than nothing, right?"

Trent seemed to have his answer and fell silent. The crew floated in silence while Brian re-initialized the program. Within seconds the screen flashed red, causing Brian to look up in panic. "Uh, sir, either we're here, or-"

Before Private Smith could finish his thought, spotlights found the boat, blinding the four men. While trying to find his rifle on the floor of the boat, a voice boomed out of the water. "You have been surrounded. If you resist, you die."

A/N: Please review!