In Extremis

by Ken Goddard

  “Anyone else?”

  “Two members of your team are down, sir. Both with gunshot wounds, one pretty bad,” the lieutenant explained.

  “Do you know…who?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. All I know is we’re using one of the Pave Hawks to medivac them all out right now, with the Apaches providing air cover. Have to be careful because Mialkovsky’s probably still within rifle range, and we don’t want him getting another clear shot at anybody. Bastard’s too damned good with that rifle.”

  A sudden downdraft accompanied by the thunderous roar of twin rotor engines caused Maddox to grab Grissom and press him down against the nearby boulder for a few seconds until the crushing wind and brain-numbing engine noise finally died down.

  “Your ride’s here, sir,” Maddox said as he released pressure against Grissom’s back.

  “My ride?”

  “Our second Pave Hawk,” the platoon leader explained, gesturing at the now–landed and waiting assault helicopter some fifty feet away, its rotor blades still spinning. “It’s going to transport you to the Valley Hospital Medical Center, to get you checked out,” the platoon leader explained.

  “Is that where you’re taking…the injured members of my team?”

  “That’s correct, sir. They’re on their way there right now, ETA less than ten, and the emergency room’s got two teams of surgeons waiting for their arrival.”

  Grissom blinked in sudden awareness.

  “So there’s nothing I can do for either of them right now?”

  “No, sir,” Maddox said with audible impatience. “You just need to get yourself out of here on that chopper, right now, so we can go ahead and do our job without you being in the way.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I can’t leave yet,” Grissom said in what he hoped was a reasonably firm and commanding voice.

  The platoon commander looked as if he didn’t quite believe what he thought he’d just heard.

  “Mr. Grissom,sir, you must not have been listening. I just explained—”

  “I understand, Lieutenant; believe me, I do,” Grissom said hurriedly. “And I don’t like being up here any more than you do; in fact, I don’t like it at all. Frankly, the idea of being hunted by a professional sniper scares me to death, and there’s nothing more I’d rather do right now than get on that helicopter and go check on my team. But I’m working a homicide scene that I’m sure has been rigged…and the man who rigged it may, in fact, be your Sergeant Mialkovsky…and the only way we can prove that is to get at the evidence that’s only a few yards away.”

  “Come back later, after we’re done. The evidence will still be here,” Maddox said reasonably.

  “Perhaps, but most likely not,” Grissom said, looking around and realizing that his fluorescent green paint had dissipated into a barely visible glow over an area the size of a basketball court. “My location marker’s gone, and the ones my other CSIs made are probably fading away as we speak. And if the rain keeps falling like it is now, any blood evidence remaining at this scene will almost certainly be diluted and destroyed by the runoff and the prop-wash from your helicopters. And we can’t use the luminol again to look for more evidence, because it won’t be dark again for another eighteen hours…and by then, the chances of our finding anything useful in the way of blood samples will be virtually zero.”

  Maddox started to say something, and then hesitated.

  “All I need is a few minutes to look under some of those rocks”—Grissom pressed, pointing to the general area in which, he was pretty sure, he’d discharged his spray can—“and then under those rocks out there.” He pointed to a faint green spot some fifty yards away in the middle of the clearing.

  “You’d be completely exposed in both locations,” Maddox replied. “Understand that First Sergeant Mialkovsky is perfectly capable of putting a bullet through your head at eight hundred yards in this weather, and we have no idea where he is right now.”

  “But youdo think he’s over there somewhere, don’t you?” Grissom asked, pointing his finger in a more or less westerly direction.

  “That’s his most likely location,” Maddox agreed. “But Mialkovsky didn’t make his reputation—or his seventy-eight documented kills in Afghanistan—by being predictable.”

  “Seventy-eight?” Grissom whispered.

  “And those are the ones we know about,” Maddox added meaningfully.

  “So what I was thinking,” Grissom went on, having to swallow to get the words out, “maybe if I could hide behind something that would move…?”

  As Lieutenant John Maddox and Sergeant First Class Ricky Gardez watched from cover with disapproving eyes, Gil Grissom scrambled on his hands and knees to a nearby pile of rocks, staying as low to the ground as he possibly could, pulled away several of the rocks, and then reached out, picked something up, and placed it in a plastic evidence bag…all the while hunched down against the swirling prop-wash of the Apache assault helicopter that had landed in a protective—and supposedly blocking—position some twenty yards away with its rotors churning and its 30mm chain gun pointing in a generally westerly direction.

  Two hundred yards away in that same westerly direction, the second Apache was aggressively cruising back and forth—north to south and back again—at an altitude of one hundred feet, searching for any sign of movement.

  “Gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” Maddox muttered as he watched the landed Apache suddenly rise up a few feet, charge forward about seventy-five yards like an enraged bull, and then drop back down again under the steady hand of its veteran pilot. Moments later, Grissom scurried forward, heading toward the distant faint green marker.

  “Roger that, sir,” Gardez agreed.

  “I’ve heard these CSI people were dedicated, but I sure as hell wouldn’t do something like that for a piece of evidence…no matter how important it might be. Would you?” Maddox asked.

  “With Mialkovsky wandering around out there, looking to make a kill-shot?” Gardez snorted. “Hell, I wouldn’t even—”

  At that moment, an excited voice blasted over the radio.

  “BAD BEAR TWO…TARGET SPOTTED…ENGAGING!”

  The concussive roar of a 30mm chain gun disgorging a three-second burst of its massive High Explosive Dual Purpose rounds at a rate of ten every second echoed across the Sheep Range and over the valley below, causing Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown to snap their heads up in surprise.

  “What the hell was that?” Brown demanded.

  The reverberations of another three-second burst thundered across the valley…immediately followed by a third.

  “Automatic gunfire?” Catherine suggested, her eyes widened in shock.

  The investigating team at the campsite had been advised by Metro dispatch ten minutes earlier that military assault teams were responding to the Sheep Range clearing to deal with a rogue military sniper—and to extract Gil, Nick, Sara, Greg, LVPD Officer Carson, and Refuge Officer Lakewell from the immediate area; but that was the extent of the information offered…other than the admonition that they should stay alert for the approach of any individuals on foot, and not try to contact the CSIs up on the mountain because the rogue sniper would probably be listening in.

  “Automatic cannon fire from one of those helicopters, more likely,” Brown said. “Somebody up there is definitely in some serious trouble.”

  The two CSIs looked at each other, neither willing to voice the obvious concern: that the people—or person—in trouble might well be one of their comrades.

  Patrol Sergeant Cooperson came running up to the two CSIs.

  “I just got a report from dispatch that a military helicopter is transporting two injured investigators from the Sheep Range to Valley Hospital Medical Center,” she said, pausing to catch her breath.

  “Do they know who’s being transported?” Brown demanded.

  Cooperson shook her head. “No, the pilot just called in to report that he was inbound with two wounded on board, and
requesting surgery teams be placed on immediate standby.”

  “Did the pilot say how badly they’re hurt?” Catherine asked softly.

  “Only that one is badly wounded, but both are stable,” Cooperson said.

  Catherine Willows looked around. “Are we done here?” she demanded.

  Warrick and Cooperson both nodded their heads.

  “Then let’s pack up and get back to town,” she said, visibly wincing as a fourth burst of very loud automatic gunfire thundered overhead. “We need to find out what’s going on.”

  22

  TWO HOURS LATER, when Gil Grissom finally entered the ballistics section of the LVPD Crime Lab—with a stainless steel cart bearing two small body bags and a smaller evidence bag, and Greg Sanders at his side—looking as if he’d been half beaten to death and nearly drowned, the scene before his eyes was chaotic.

  Captain Jim Brass and DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge William Fairfax were standing at the far end of the lab, dressed in muddy coveralls and boots, and engaged in what looked like a heated argument.

  Warrick Brown and Archie Johnson were seated in front of a computer in the middle of the lab, visibly ignoring the argument and focused on the computer while DNA expert Wendy Simms watched over their shoulders.

  Bobby Dawson and Catherine had their backs to the entire assembled group, talking back and forth with each other as they manipulated the objects mounted on their adjacent comparison microscopes.

  For a long moment, no one noticed Grissom’s arrival. It was Jim Brass who finally glanced up and saw the CSI supervisor.

  “Gil! It’s about time! Where the hell have you been?”

  Grissom quickly found himself surrounded by Brass, Fairfax, and the members of his CSI and lab teams.

  “Are you okay?” Catherine demanded, taking in Grissom’s disheveled and drenched appearance with her detail-oriented eyes, and immediately spotting the bruises on his cheek and forehead.

  “I’m fine,” he said, looking around the lab with a sense of pending dread. “Uh, has anybody seen Sara or Nick?” he finally asked hesitantly.

  “We’re here,” Sara called out from the doorway.

  Grissom quickly turned around and sagged in relief. He started to say something, but then paused when he saw that both of their CSI uniforms were covered with blood. “I thought you…and Nick…”

  “It wasn’t us, it was Shanna and Joe,” Nick said with a grim look on his face. “Shanna caught a bullet in her upper shoulder. The wound was through and through—a lot of tissue damage at the exit point, and we could tell her collarbone had been shattered—but we got the bleeding stopped right away in the helicopter…and the surgeon working on her sent word to us that she’s going to be okay.”

  “And Joe?” Grissom asked, remembering the eagerness of the young, full-of-life patrol officer.

  “Three surgeons were still working on him when we left,” Sara replied. “His was a shoulder wound also; but the bullet entered through his right scapula, punctured his lung, and then shattered the shoulder ball-socket joint. The chief of surgery couldn’t tell us much, other than to say his chances of surviving the initial reconstructive surgery appeared to be very good…but we got the distinct impression Joe won’t be doing any major physical activity with that shoulder when he recovers.”

  “Definitely sounded like he’s headed for an early retirement,” Nick added solemnly. “Tough deal for a young kid like that.”

  “He ought to be grateful he’s still alive,” Fairfax commented sourly. “Not many people survive an encounter with an expert military sniper.”

  “Actually,” Grissom said, “I get the sense our rogue sniper wasn’t trying to kill either of them…or any of the rest of us, for that matter.”

  “Oh, really? Why would you say that?” Fairfax asked.

  Grissom shrugged. “Everyone I talked with says he’s an expert marksman under a wide range of combat conditions, and we were all out in the open and oblivious of his presence. If it had been his intent to kill us, I’m sure Jim and I would be wearing toe-tags right now, like the young man in that truck…instead of this young lady,” he added, gesturing down at one of the small body bags on the cart.

  “Young lady?” Brass asked.

  “Correction, a young lady mule deer,” Grissom amended. “But a very special lady deer who just happens to have a six-inch-square piece of hide missing from her right thigh.”

  “And that’s supposed to mean something?” Fairfax asked.

  “It definitely will, if the missing square of tissue matches this,” Grissom said as he opened the evidence package and removed a wire-framed object with shreds of hide and tissue dangling from the middle of the frame.

  “What’s that?” Fairfax demanded.

  “It could be a lot of things,” Bobby Dawson said, smiling broadly as he moved in close to examine the object. “A makeshift flash suppressor, for one.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Actually, it could have that effect,” Dawson replied. “Attach it so that the square of tissue rests precisely in front of a rifle barrel, and the targets downrange might not get a true fix on the shooter’s position…especially if the targets were wearing night-vision goggles and that rifle barrel was fitted with a very precisely manufactured sound suppressor. Or, at least, I’m guessing that’s what the shooter might want a crime scene investigator to think if the CSI happened to find this little gem and then started wondering what and why.”

  “You mean one of those odd pieces of evidence that might be misinterpreted at the scene, and thus end up being misleading…especially if the CSIs didn’t know a great deal about guns and flash-suppressing?” Catherine asked.

  Dawson nodded his head silently, giving Fairfax a contemplative smile.

  “Certainly not a major component ofmy reading materials,” Grissom conceded.

  “But, of course,” Dawson went on, “it could also be a very clever way of slowing down a seven-point-six-two hollow-point bullet, and causing that bullet to pick up a small chunk of female deer tissue in its expanding tip before going on and impacting our Mr. Toledano’s neck. All in all, a perfectly valid explanation for a lot of open questions about that particular shooting—assuming, of course, that Wendy can match this piece of shredded hide with the tissue we pulled from the bullet,” Dawson added, as he gently placed the gory bent-wire frame back into the evidence envelope, waited for Grissom’s nodded approval, and then handed the package to Simms.

  “I’m on it, right now,” Wendy promised as she quickly exited the ballistics lab with her latest piece of genetics evidence.

  “So, now all we need is the rifle that caused all this havoc in the first place, so we can start matching bullets,” Dawson finished, looking at Grissom hopefully. “Unfortunately, I don’t see a rifle pouch on your cart.”

  “Well, actually, you do,” Grissom said as he reached down, zipped open the second small body bag, and carefully removed what was barely recognizable as a rifle.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Fairfax demanded.

  “That is—or was—a military M-24, bolt-action sniper rifle,” Dawson said, frowning in dismay as he stepped forward to take the twisted, scarred, and gouged piece of metal out of Grissom’s hands. “It used to be a precision-grade weapon. What happened to it?”

  “It was on the receiving end of approximately one hundred and twenty high-explosive cannon rounds fired at relatively close range from a thirty-millimeter chain gun, if I’m using the correct military descriptors,” Grissom said.

  “You are,” Dawson said, still examining the twisted metal with a pained look on his face. Then he seemed to remember something. “Hey, what happened to the sound suppressor?”

  “An Army colonel by the name of Sanchez ordered that particular piece of equipment to be pried off the end of that…uh…rifle before he turned it over to me,” Grissom replied. “He said something about the device being highly classified…and firearms examiners talking too much…and how h
e didn’t give a damn if it would help or hurt our investigation. He seemed to think you could make your comparisons without it.”

  “Bastard,” Dawson muttered, looking thoroughly disappointed. “I really wanted to take a close look at that thing.”

  “What about the shooter?” Brass asked. “You find anything remaining of him?”

  “They allowed me to examine what they called the ‘impact area’ very briefly before they flew me out of there,” Grissom said. “I saw that”—he gestured at the twisted remains of the rifle that Dawson was gently putting back into the small body bag—“and I saw a great deal of gravel that I assume had recently been large boulders, but no trace of a body, human or otherwise…or, at least, none that I could see.”

  “So our shooter’s still on the loose?” Brass said, frowning.

  “Yes, I suppose he is,” Grissom said. “According to Sanchez, he was being actively pursued by a rather upset South Korean Army major who takes issue with military sniping instructors who misuse their talents. With any luck, the two of them are somewhere deep in the mountains far north of us by now.”

  “Yeah, we don’t need a guy like that showing up at our crime scenes again,” Brass commented. “It gives me the shakes just thinking about it.”

  “No, we don’t,” Grissom agreed, “but for a very different reason than you might expect.”

  “Oh?” Brass responded, his right eyebrow rising curiously.

  “First Sergeant Viktor Mialkovsky,” Grissom went on. “That’s the name of our shooter, who happens to be a very dangerous man—according to Colonel Sanchez, who apparently knows him very well. Personally, I’d like to think that we’ll never see or hear from Mialkovsky again; but that may not be the case, because, unfortunately, it turns out that he and I have met before.”

  “Are you serious?” Nick responded, looking dubious. “How can that be?”

  “Yeah,” Sara agreed, “how would you have ever run across a man like that? You weren’t in the Army, were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t in the Army,” Grissom said with a slight smile as he reached down to the lower shelf of the cart and pulled out a thick wire-bound handbook, “but I did attend an American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference a few years ago, and found myself listening to a rather interesting breakfast talk about crime scene investigations on decomposed walruses. And, after the presentation, I remember having an equally bizarre but interesting and detailed conversation with a uniformed Army sergeant who’d been sitting at the same table. A sergeant who said he worked shooting-incident investigations and reconstructions for the Adjunct General’s Office, and who had what I thought at the time was a rather unusual name.”