Laying The Cards On The Table

AN/ Hope this is worth the wait, seeing as I've not had the will to do ANYTHING creative for ages. Sorry everyone. I'm back to work for now.

June 5th: Laying the Cards On The Table

Grissom, Catherine and Warrick had met at a coffee shop the day after Grissom had met the mysterious assassin. Grissom had given them their envelopes, and waited till he met the others to give them theirs. The contents were horrifying.

Warrick opened his first, and found several pictures of him in casinos, and particularly one spot in Tangier's, a photo of his house, his car, his parking space at CSI, of his wife, and one last photo he kept to himself…

Warrick: "Jesus, these guys are on me everywhere. Who the hell are these guys, Griss?"

Grissom (looking up, troubled): "I wish I knew Warrick, then we wouldn't be in as much danger. Maybe that man can enlighten us"

Catherine: "Guys, we keep looking at these files, we might find something."

Catherine opens her file, and nearly throws up at the sight. The first picture is of her and Lindsey outside her school. The rest were similar photographs to Warrick's.

"My God… they have a shot at my daughter…those bastards…"

Grissom never had any photos, seeing as there was already proof that the killer could reach him.

About 5 hours later, after going somewhere more private, the other team mates, and Brass, joined them. They all went to Grissom's house, and sat in the study. After everyone had seen their photos, Grissom opened a final envelope addressed to Las Vegas CSI Night Shift and read out the letter inside.

"Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, Sara Sidle, Greg Sanders and Captain Jim Brass of Las Vegas PD. You have all been targeted for assassination by Hwang Lim the Inquisitor. His sources and influence reach all the way into the low levels of the FBI, which is how he has managed to acquire the information which you have viewed. This information was mailed to me so I could perform each hit smoothly. I have chosen to decline this contracts and warn you all of danger. Unfortunately, one of you has surely been followed to where you all are now, most likely at Grissom's home…" Grissom stopped and everyone looked up in half panic. Brass, Warrick and Nick all un-holstered weapons, with Sara following suit a second or two later. Grissom spoke up "Calm down, we need to make it clear we don't know who's coming. Let's continue, just be ready."

He continued on with the letter

"The men contracted to kill you will ask their way in, as police officers. In order to survive, I want you to leave the front door so it can be opened by force, and go into Grissom's basement. If you want to live you will follow these directives..."

Grissom thought it over for a second while others starting commenting

Catherine: "I don't like the idea of this, it's a trap, surely"

Nick: "He's asking us to make ourselves easy targets."

Brass: "I'll do it. If he tried to come in and kill us, there's three of us packing. One of us would tag him."

Warrick, Greg and Sara said nothing, they knew Grissom was going to tell them to follow anyway.

Grissom finally spoke up. "Let's get down there. I've met this man; I don't think he wants to kill us. If he did, I'd be dead now. Let's go"

Grissom undid the latch on the door, and went towards the basement, and as the last man, Brass, stepped in, he switched on a lamp and locked the basement door.

About 7 minutes later, the team could hear that the front door had been opened, and could quietly hear 3 men sneaking around. The cocking of guns could be heard after… but then, the sound of a body slumping followed. Someone else was up there, apart from these killers. Another body dropped, just outside the door. The last assassin panicked and tried to escape, but then the sound of a the killer's face slamming into the basement door rang loud and clear, and then, the very faint sound of choking… and then…silence. After about 30 seconds, footsteps growing quieter were heard. He was gone. Brass opened the door and began a clearance of the house with Warrick. Grissom noticed another typed out letter, and had just noticed his typewriter was now out of paper. "After tonight only Lim and Spalding are left to deal with. You'll be re-instated on the 8th. You need to get out of Las Vegas until that time. My contractors will remove of these bodies if they're placed out of sight for now. Farewell Grissom"

Grissom spoke out all but the last two words of the letter, and everyone but Grissom left. Just before Grissom left to go to a hotel in Reno, he left a bottle of Chiraz by the bodies, to thank the man who saved their lives, and left.

June 10th:

Like the killer had told them, they had gotten the call to return after evidence of Spalding's dealings with Lim. Spalding was convicted of many offences all leading up to him being a dirty cop, and was sent to prison. The FBI men operating the CSI lab went back to the Bureau to be re-assigned elsewhere. Lim had simply disappeared.

June 29th: Ian Spalding commits suicide in his jail cell. There were dangerously high levels of depressants in his blood stream. The same day, Hwang Lim had been traced to a house on the outskirts of Vegas, yet when the police stormed the house, they had found Lim, dead, a large bottle of Whiskey spilled on the coffee table beside his corpse. It had been ruled as suicide by overdosing on barbiturates in the half downed bottle of whiskey. The whiskey remaining had large traces of the same drug in Lim's body. When Grissom got home that night, he felt that same chill as he did before. He opened his bedroom door slightly and spoke. " Why have you come back?"

The bald assassin stepped out of the room and walked away, only turning to simply say:

"Thank you for the wine, Grissom"

AN/ There you have it. If you like it, brilliant, if not… ah well I tried. Thanks for reading!