The diner was wrapping up dinner hour, and a few patrons - short-haul truckers, construction workers, and the odd business commuter - still lingered. Some swapped small talk over a beer while others skimmed through the daily paper hoping to find something positive for once. A few people were feeding the jukebox a steady diet of quarters and singing and dancing to whatever tune floated out.
Phil walked in and had a seat by a plate-glass window, through which he could see his objective across the street. The storefront was a bit older than the buildings around it, and a few of the shops were closed and boarded up. There was a row of apartments above the shops, and Phil figured that Mrs. Piper and Latisha, Kit's youngest daughter, were probably in one of those apartments. The trouble was that even though it was a bit run down, the storefront was still in a visible area relatively close to downtown. That would make it difficult to do anything without either someone seeing him from inside the building or a bystander noticing that something was up.
What to do?
"Griss, you there?"
The earpiece crackled. "Yeah, mate. What's goin' on?"
"I'm across the street from it," Phil said, "but I'm not sure how I'm gonna get in without anyone noticing." He looked around. "It's right near the downtown area, with streets on three sides, plenty of windows, and a fair amount of traffic around the place." He paused. "We're gonna have to wait until it starts to get dark."
"You sure?" Grissom sounded a bit impatient. "I can be in and out without too much trouble."
"But what if they have communication between the two sites?" Phil argued. "If you go in right away, they could sound the alarm, and there'd be no way for me to get in. Hell, they might just start shooting the hostages." Phil looked around again to make sure nobody was listening. "We gotta synchronize this down to the second."
"I have been doing this for a while, you know."
Phil sighed. "Griss, neither of us is much of a team player when we're in our element. But this is different. We're gonna have to trust each other on this one, man." He paused. "What do you think?"
"I think we should do what we can to keep them from talking to each other," Grissom said. "If one of us cuts a phone line at just one of the places, then the other can jam the cell phones at the other place, and... no communication."
"You did give me a static box," Phil recalled, referring to the multi-frequency white-noise generator Grissom had brought along 'just in case.'
"Then I guess I'm the lucky one who gets to cut the phone line," Grissom said.
"We'll still have to time it pretty well," Phil said. "Once they realize that they've lost their avenues of communication, they'll know something's up. We've got to work fast." Phil looked out the window. "What the hell...?"
Four police cars were pulling up around the storefront across the street.
"What?" Grissom asked. "What's going on?"
Phil got up and headed for the door. "I'll get back to you."
