"What's next?" Nick asked. "I've never worked anything of this magnitude with computers."
"Oh, you're gonna love it," Nunez said dryly, and ran a hand over his face. He was half-standing, half-sitting on the edge of the desk. Then, after considering Nick's question for a few moments, he glanced over at Denard and gave her a quick smile that to Nick was not terribly convincing. Rather contrived, in fact.
"Despite what we've told your boss," Nunez said to the woman, "we'll do our level best to try not to shut down your business any longer than is absolutely necessary-that's why, just now, I called in all the troops. The more hands I have available to me, the better off you folks will be."
"Thank you for that," Denard said, earnestly.
"So," Nunez sighed, continuing, "the first thing we'll do is load all this stuff up, get it back to the lab and, fast as we can, start imaging it."
Denard frowned. "Imaging?"
"That's computer-nerd-speak for copying," Nunez explained. "We'll copy all the hard drives and all the media in the building-floppies, CDs, DVDs, zip disks, everything. You use tape backup?"
"Yes."
"We'll need that too."
"You're…you're stripping us bare."
This choice of phrase seemed at once apt and ill-chosen to Nick.
"Yes we are, ma'am," Nunez said. "We'll get all of that stuff imaged, soon as we can, and then we'll give you copies too, so you can get your business up and running again."
"How can we do that without computers?"
"You may have to rent or lease some, for what should be a matter of days. That's strictly a business decision for you people to make."
"I'm not the boss of this place!"
"Nor am I. But I am the boss of the computers and all media 'of this place.' That's my job, and it's the law. No offense is meant, and I certainly don't relish causing a hardship to your business. Do you understand?"
The color seemed to have drained from Denard's face and Nick wondered if she was about to faint. "You'll give us copies…. What about the originals?"
Nunez folded his arms. "Those will be locked up in the police evidence room until this matter is resolved. When I start searching your equipment for the source of the illegal material, I'll be searching copies, too. The originals will be perfectly safe. Other than copying them, your property won't have any processing done-nothing will happen to it. It will be completely safe in our evidence lockup."
Denard was shaking her head now, disconsolate again, much as they had found her when they first arrived. Catherine tried a few more soothing words, but she didn't have much luck with the woman, and soon gave it up.
"Oh-kay," Nunez said, standing, turning his gaze from Denard to Nick. He clapped, once. "Let's start getting this equipment loaded up-the truck here yet?"
"I'll check," Nick said, moving toward the office door.
He wove through the maze of cubicles, making his way past the conference room to enter the long corridor that led back to the lobby; funny-the floor had been deserted when they'd entered, then was filled with workers starting their day, and now, not long after, was deserted again. Something eerie about it. It was as if the CSIs had the power to…
But Nick stopped the thought cold.
It wasn't the CSIs who had the power to stop the world, or even the police in general-it was crime. Criminals. The job of the police, and the CSIs, was to see to it that its reign was a brief one….
Barely halfway down the hall, he could hear Ian Newcombe's voice carrying from the lobby, where the ad agency partner continued to address his personnel.
"I know it's irritating," he was saying, "and frustrating, but these police and crime scene people have a job to do, and we have to let them…and do anything we can to assist them."
"Are we in any danger?" a woman asked, toward the front.
"Physical danger? No. Not at all."
"Mr. Newcombe, may I ask a question?" a very professional-looking woman in front asked.
"Certainly," the executive said.
"Are we still getting paid?"
A tiny amount of nervous laughter rippled, but the faces were mostly grave.
"Yes," Newcombe said, and the wave of relief was palpable…and short-lived. Because the exec went on to say: "At least for the time being. We don't know how long this is going to go on…how long the authorities will take with this matter. Our computers are being seized. All of our software."
A ripple of discontent replaced the relief.
Newcombe raised a hand and silenced it. "We don't know the ramifications yet, but for now-for the short-term, yes. And please understand, it's to my selfish personal benefit to keep the best team in Vegas advertising on the payroll."
Relief again. Nick did not envy these employees their emotional roller coaster.
"We'll let you know when we're up and running again," Newcombe said, blandly summing up. He turned to O'Riley, and put him on the spot: "Detective, do you have any idea how long that will be?"
O'Riley shrugged; he was a good guy, but not Nick's pick for handling p.r. "I'll talk to the experts and get a better idea. But I can't tell you now."
Another negative roll of the emotional roller coaster, and Nick had had all he could take of it. He walked to the front door and stuck his head out to see a Ryder truck backing into the parking space next to the black Tahoe.
When the truck stopped, Nick watched the driver climb down and come around to the back of the vehicle where he opened the rear overhead door. Just as he did, a sky-blue Dodge van pulled into the lot and parked on the far side. Four men got out and strolled across the parking lot, making a total of five new people coming in, all of whom Nick assumed were answering Nunez's bat signal. One of the five, the driver of the Ryder, was a uniformed officer Nick recognized from swing shift-a tall blond guy named Giles. Another one, a passenger in the van, was an African-American FBI computer investigator, and now a connection finally made itself in Nick's mind: the guy's name was Carroll! They had worked one job together, first year Nick joined LVMPD CSI, albeit briefly, cop ships passing in the night.
Carroll wore jeans and a navy blue T-shirt with a large yellow FBI across the chest. Nick didn't know the other three, all of whom were dressed in T-shirts and jeans as well. But from recognizing the first two, he figured Nunez had already started calling in favors to get all the imaging done ASAP…whether that meant a week or just under a year, Nick had no idea.
"You the CSI on this?" Giles asked as he led the others inside.
"Nick Stokes," he said, nodding to the others. They paused and shook hands, all around; Nick was not, at the moment, in latex gloves. "There's two of us here-you'll meet Catherine Willows, soon. She's prettier than I am."
"Wouldn't be tough," Giles said good-naturedly. "Where's our guy Nunez?"
"I'll take you to him. You're going to be passing through some very unhappy campers."
None of them looked surprised.
The employees were still shuffling around in the lobby, most of them watching Nick and his squadron of computer investigators as they marched through. O'Riley waved Nick over and the tech group huddled just outside the corridor while the CSI and the detective had their own two-man huddle.
O'Riley said, "I'm callin' in some backup to help me interview these employees. If I don't, it'll take all day and they're already starting to look like a mob."
It occurred to Nick that O'Riley would make an excellent Frankenstein's monster for these angry villagers, but he nonetheless had to dampen the detective's notion, at least a little.
"That's a good idea," Nick said, "but we're gonna have to fingerprint them all before they go. And there's just me and Catherine."
O'Riley nodded. "How long you been on shift, anyway? Since last week?"