By Aouda Fogg

*~*~*

Summary: The Major Crime team works together.

*~*~*

Captain Simon Banks surveyed the crime scene, very pleased with what he saw. All in all a good day's work, he thought, rolling a cigar between his index finger and thumb.

Putting it in mouth, but not lighting it, he took stock. Officers keeping the crowd and the press back, paramedics helping the ex-hostages, Coroner's Office just pulling up to deal with the ex-hostage takers, his team working the scene, doing their jobs with the excellence he expected of them. He swelled with pride at their work today -- they'd worked like a well-oiled machine dealing with the hostage-takers, eventually taking them out with a coordinated effort that would've made the instructors at Quantico proud.

And, speaking of his team, Captain Banks thought, where were the point-men, well, point-people, of said team? He could see Sanders, Taylor, Lui, and Harkov, but what about the rest? Where Brown, Conner, and Rafe? And what about Sandburg and Ellison?

Oh, God, he groaned mentally, what's going on now?

Trying to be unobtrusive, he stalked around the scene looking for some trace of the missing officers.

Finally, he stepped to the end of the building and the walkway that led to a private park; there he spotted his quarry. Well, 60% of them, anyway.

For a large man, he could move quietly, so he managed to startle Conner, Brown, and Rafe in the little huddle they'd formed next to a cinderblock wall that marked the border of the park.

"Are you enjoying your break? Or have you discovered some new quantum physics that allows bullets to make 90 degree turns?"

Reflexively coming to attention, they all started babbling, "No, no, sir. Nothing like that, Captain."

"Then would you like to explain why you're standing here, doing what I can only assume is a minute inspection of this wall?"

"We didn't see anything, sir," Megan Conner assured him.

"Nope, didn't hear anything, either, Captain," Henri Brown piped in.

"And we won't be saying anything either, sir." Brian Rafe finished as all three looked at their commanding officer earnestly.

He stared back at them. "And the fact that three of my detectives have gone blind, deaf, and mute is supposed to please me?" He held up his hands to stop the flood of protestations and then pointed at them accusingly with his cigar. "Wait, wait, why am I getting the feeling that this involves Sandburg and Ellison?"

"Um, because you're the Captain and you're always right, sir?"

Simon raised his eyebrow at Conner and the grin she ended the question with. When she then motioned toward the wall and the other two took on an expectant air, he followed their unspoken suggestion and craned his neck to look beyond the wall into the private park.

And there, a little ways away, under a tree, were his two missing detectives. They stood with their arms around locked around each other. The taller man had his head inclined down in a protective, intimate way, his cheek pressed against the shorter man's hair, while the smaller man rested his head against the larger man's chest. Both men had their faces turned toward him, but with their eyes closed, they were in their own secluded world.

Seeing the looks of joyous contentment and relief on both men's faces, Simon flashed back to the terror he'd recently seen on Jim Ellison's face when shots had rung out from the building where Sandburg was negotiating with the kidnappers. The look of drained exhaustion on Blair Sandburg's face as he exited the building a few minutes later, nearly carrying one of the victims, flashed by his mind's eye next.

Clearing his throat quietly, the Captain turned back to the three officers waiting to see his reaction. "Right. Exactly. Nothing to see, hear, or talk about here, people. So, that leaves you three free to get back to work. Rafe, Brown, I want you to coordinate with the Coroner's Office; Conner, would you please supervise the patrolmen doing crowd control. I am entrusting the scene to you until I return, which will, undoubtedly, be shortly."

"Very good, Captain," Rafe replied for all three as they turned away to take their assignments.

Simon Banks, however, stayed behind. Leaning against the wall, he fished in his pockets for matches, lit his cigar, and assumed the post of making sure no one disturbed this part of his well-oiled machine.

Fin

Send feedback to Aouda Fogg

Go to Home Page