Missed Communication
by Setcheti for NotTasha’s
Vegas Challenge
Disclaimer: Don’t own any of them, don’t have room to keep them anyway so I’ll just put
them back when I’m done.
Ezra sat down beside the backlit fountain and checked his watch. It was nearly
The undercover agent snorted softly to himself. It had to come first for him, anyway. He was out here without backup while all the rest of his ‘team’ were off enjoying themselves. Buck had taken Vin and JD to meet some old friends of his who just happened to be showgirls, Nathan and Josiah were seeing a show and where Chris was at was anybody’s guess – Ezra had tried to raise the man on his cell phone and gotten no answer. No one else had answered theirs either. So now he was out here alone, waiting for the meet that wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow and hoping it wasn’t a setup.
Twenty minutes later, now lying beside the fountain and watching with detached fascination as his blood seeped into a crack in the pavement, he found himself wondering vaguely if the show had been as good as Nathan had hoped it would be.
Detective Brass walked into the ER and straight up to the receptionist with a smile. “Sal, you’ve got one for me?”
Sal waved a beringed hand toward the treatment area. “He’s in Five, federal agent who says he was set up.” She gave the detective a meaningful look. “Nice enough guy, but he’s not from around here and he got real nervous when they asked him to describe his attacker. You know what that probably means.”
Brass sighed, a sigh echoed by the silvering-haired man who had come in with him. “Yeah, I know what it means; it means he’s from out of town and scared you’ll ship him up to the psych ward if he tells you. We got a name on him?”
“Ezra Standish, ATF out of
“I’ll be sure to pass that on,” Brass replied with a wink. “Thanks, Sal.”
Examination Room Five had the curtain pulled, but the man inside was sitting up on the side of the examination table looking put out and extremely worried at the same time. Brass was about to greet him when his tag-along beat him to it. “Agent Standish, I’m Gil Grissom from the Las Vegas Crime Lab and this is Detective Brass, Homicide. We understand you were attacked by someone…unusual?”
The ATF agent’s green eyes widened slightly. “Homicide? But I didn’t…”
“No, Grissom and I were just nearby when the call came in – we got the short straw, it’s been a busy night.” Brass leaned against the wall, studying the other man. “Now I understand you’re refusing to identify your attacker…”
“They would never have believed me. I’m not sure anyone will, perhaps that is why he was costumed the way he was.” Standish took a deep breath and very obviously braced himself. “It was Elvis.”
Brass shook his head and pulled out his notebook. “Which Elvis?” he asked. “Young or old?”
“Old,” the ATF agent answered, surprised and relieved all at once. “White sequined jumpsuit, cape, fairly heavyset, perhaps two inches taller than I.”
While the detective scribbled, Grissom inquired, “Could you tell if the sideburns were real?”
“I believe so, yes.” Ezra closed his eyes, pulling up the image of the attacker in his mind. “The hair, too.”
“Good, that narrows it down some.” Brass folded his notebook back up and put it away. “Now why don’t you tell me what you were doing out there with no backup? Since your ID was the real deal I’m guessing you aren’t undercover, and Sal out front said you didn’t even have anybody they could call.”
“That…is not entirely accurate,” the other man sighed, his shoulders slumping a little. “I have six associates with me, but none of them were available when the call came in for the meeting. I did leave a message on our team leader’s voicemail but the chances of him checking it until much later this morning are very slim. He doubtless will not even think of it until someone notices my absence. I had thought to take a cab back to the hotel before that could occur…”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Grissom told him matter-of-factly; he had unobtrusively picked up the chart lying on the suture tray and scanned its contents, using the scrawled notes to build a mental picture of the stab wound under the white bandages that were taped on the man’s right upper chest. “As a matter of fact, Agent Standish, I seriously doubt you’re even supposed to be sitting up. Don’t like hospitals?”
“Detest them,” Standish confirmed. He sighed again. “And the attendant fuss that comes with being incarcerated in one. Although I must admit that right now falling over where I sit sounds like a truly wonderful idea.”
“I’m sure it does, you lost quite a bit of blood.” Grissom shot Brass a thoughtful, questioning look. “I tell you what, why don’t you let me have your cell phone and the detective and I will try to get hold of one of your people while the hospital staff gets you settled into a room? What hotel were you staying in?”
“The Frontier.” The ATF agent slowly allowed himself to collapse back into a supine position, one leg still dangling off the side of the table. He grimaced as the movement apparently pulled at his wound, and then his eyes closed. “I should warn you in advance, my boss will be…none too pleased by the situation. You might warn the hospital staff as well.”
“I’m sure they can handle it,” Grissom assured him, not at all sarcastically. “We get all kinds here, it’s that sort of town.”
“Obviously.” Standish just barely smiled but didn’t open his eyes. “But I very much doubt you get Mr. Larabee’s kind; he is a law unto himself.”
Grissom’s light eyes suddenly darkened. Brass saw the change in his expression and he didn’t like it; he knew what it meant. “Agent Standish, Grissom and I are going to step out for a minute,” he said. “You just take it easy, okay? We’ll be back.” The agent waved a tired hand at them and Brass pulled the forensics expert out of the small room and out of earshot. “What? I know that look.”
The taller man arched an eyebrow at him, frowning. “His boss is Agent Chris Larabee, Denver ATF – that’s the team they call the Magnificent Seven, have you ever heard of them?”
Brass shrugged. “It rings a bell. Bunch of cowboys, right?”
Grissom gave him a patient look. “A bunch of cowboys with one of the highest closure rates in the country,” he explained. “Their team was put together by Larabee under the direction of a federal judge two years ago, they only get put on the cases other federal teams have already tried and failed at.”
“Okay, so they’re good.” The detective shrugged again. “That doesn’t explain the look on your face when he said Larabee was his boss.”
“Team Seven is a very tight-knit group,” was the reply. “That’s what he meant by the warning; Larabee is rumored to be just short of fanatical about protecting his men.”
“So if that’s true the question is…why isn’t he here?” Brass saw what Grissom was talking about now. “Standish was waiting for the meet to be set up so they’re here on business, so where’s the rest of the team and why couldn’t he contact any of them?”
“Exactly.” Grissom was looking thoughtfully at Ezra’s cell phone, turning it over in his hand. “Cowboys,” he murmured to himself. “But this one is wearing Italian shoes and Armani slacks…” He looked up at Brass again abruptly, the intense expression on his face that said he’d figured something out. “I think you should go to the hotel and get Larabee in person, explain what happened to him,” he said. “But before you bring him back here, ask to see his cell phone. If I’m right, once you’ve had a look at it he won’t cause any problems.”
Brass cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re staying here?”
“It’s best if I do. Larabee will be even more upset if he thinks his man is alone with no one to watch out for him – be sure to tell him that you left me here for just that reason.” Grissom smiled. “Now you’d better get going, you want to catch him before he starts missing Standish and turns those five cowboys of his loose in our city to find him.”
Brass was back in less than an hour, a tall man dressed all in black with him. The man’s short blond hair looked like he’d been nervously running his fingers through it and his expression was compounded worry and guilt. Grissom got up out of the chair he’d been sitting in outside of Standish’s room and held out his hand. “Agent Larabee? I’m Gil Grissom. Your man is sleeping right now, and they’re giving him some blood to replace what he lost. He’s going to be fine.”
“Thank God.” Larabee’s voice was as rough as the calloused palm that fit itself into Grissom’s smooth one; it matched his clothes, the forensics expert decided, it was a Marlboro Man sort of voice. “Thanks for staying, he hates hospitals and he tends to sneak out if no one’s watching him.”
“I had a feeling,” Grissom replied. “Agent Standish mentioned his disinclination to be admitted in the emergency room, he was planning to take a cab back to your hotel before you realized he was missing. He wasn’t quite up to following through with it, though.”
Larabee grimaced. “That doesn’t always stop him, believe me. Do you guys need anything else from him? Or from me?”
“Not until we find the guy,” Brass told him. “It looks good for catching him, I called it in and they’re alerting all the specialty dry cleaners.”
The ATF agent gave him a strange look, and Grissom explained. “Those white sequined jumpsuits don’t grown on trees, not custom made anyway. He won’t be tossing it into the washer to get the stains out, and he certainly won’t throw it away.”
Larabee shook his head. “Only Ezra,” he sighed. “Well, I appreciate your help, Detective Brass, Mr. Grissom. If you need us you know how to get in touch – and you will be able to, you have my word on that.”
“I have no doubt,” Grissom told him sympathetically.
Larabee shook hands with both men again and then slipped into his agent’s room; Brass caught a glimpse of Standish, still pale but apparently resting peacefully, before the door closed behind him. Then he rounded on Grissom. “How did you know?!” he demanded. “That guy all but went off like a bomb when I said hospital and Standish and he got downright scary when I asked for his phone before I’d tell him where his man was, but once I looked at it…”
“He realized that he’d let the battery run down last night,” Grissom finished for him with a smile. “You were right about them being cowboys; I figured they were all out playing tourist. Except Standish, of course, he’s too sophisticated for the touristy stuff his friends were gawking at to hold much allure for him so he stayed at the hotel to relax. They weren’t expecting anything to happen, but a man like Larabee knows how fast expectations can change so he grabbed his phone on his way out, just in case.”
“But he’d forgotten to charge it up after they got here,” Brass said, smiling himself. “Probably charges it in his car going back and forth to work, right?”
“So I would guess – although I’m pretty sure it’s a truck, I can’t quite picture him in anything that doesn’t have four-wheel drive.” The forensics expert grinned. “I don’t know about you, but I could go for some breakfast. Why don’t we get out of here?”
“You’re buying,” Brass told him, and the two of them started off down the hall for the elevators. “You owe me, sending me over there not knowing what was going on. That Larabee guy has a glare on him like nothing I’ve ever seen…”