Author's notes: I don't own Criminal Minds nor the characters within, nor do I own anything to do with Star Trek. I'm borrowing from both those worlds and promise to return all when done. I do not consider this a crossover since no Star Trek characters appear. Enjoy.
Gamesters
By Mele
"Morgan, you and Reid go visit the crime scene, profile it, see if you can determine its importance to the Unsub," Hotch ordered the two agents, looking up from the files spread out on the table in front of him. "Five murders at the same location indicate that the locale is part of the profile."
"On it," Morgan replied tersely, grabbing up the keys to the rental car with more vigor than would seem necessary. The team had been in Reno, Nevada, for two days and so far there had been no breakthrough in the case or the profile. The ages, races, societal backgrounds and even sexes of the five victims were divergent. No common denominator could be discovered, outside of the location of the kills, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, just outside the city limits.
Though the location was less than fifteen miles from the police station where the BAU had set up shop, it took thirty four minutes to reach the kill site. Isolated and slightly elevated it gave a panoramic vista of the city below.
"Nice view," Morgan commented as they exited the SUV, glancing around cautiously.
"Probably better at night," Reid countered in his quiet manner. "The lights of the downtown area are pretty impressive I'm sure."
"Like Vegas?" the older man asked with a grin.
"Probably. Las Vegas is only beautiful at night, and preferably from a distance," the Nevada native answered.
"I dunno, Reid, the city does have its charms," Morgan grinned with a wink.
"So I've heard," the younger man replied from his position hunkered down beside the bloodstained sand where five bodies had been discovered.
"Come on, man, it's the only state with legalized prostitution," Derek noted, walking an ever expanding perimeter around the kill site. "Though, come to think of it, I haven't seen any signs of a brothel around here."
"You won't. It's only legal in counties with a population of under 700,000, which disqualifies Reno. Also, Carson City, the capital just 25 miles south of here doesn't allow it. But go about five miles west of Carson City and you get to Mound House, home of some of the most famous brothels in the state," Spencer reported in his matter-of-fact way.
"I'd ask why you know this, but what would be the point?" the elder agent commented, striding over to stand by his companion and survey their surroundings.
"People always seem to assume Nevada is like the most lawless state in the union, but they very strictly monitor the legal sex industry. Illegal prostitution is as rampant here as in any state, however," Reid informed his friend, straightening up from his inspection of the kill site.
"You're destroying my illusions, man," Morgan grumbled good naturedly. "Leave me some pleasant fantasies."
Whatever reply Spencer Reid might have had was cut off by a sharp pain in his neck. He instinctively reached up, his brown eyes widening in fear when he saw the small dart he pulled from his neck. Darkness followed so quickly he didn't have a chance to see Derek Morgan grab at his own neck even as he'd turned to his friend in concern.
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George Wilkes and Charles Landshaw were surprised when the two men wearing FBI vests arrived in their hunting area. They had been hoping for a couple of joggers or hikers, but federal agents were an unexpected bonus. Seeing the two agents' collapse the shooters grinned at each other and hurried to the van to secure their prize.
Every few weeks George would receive a phone call requesting 'new players'. They knew the requirements: both men and women were accepted, they needed to be in good physical shape and preferably no more than forty years old. Two or three at a time, to be delivered to a remote location outside Winnemucca.
They stopped the van by the SUV and quickly secured Morgan and Reid with zip ties. George put on gloves and carefully removed the FBI agents' badges, phones and guns, putting them all under the SUV's passenger seat. He drove the rental vehicle behind the van, parking it in a Target parking lot before joining Charles and their two prisoners. Within minutes they'd merged onto Interstate 80, rocking the nondescript van up to 70 mph as they passed the Sparks city limit and headed into the open desert of northern Nevada.
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"I may have something here, Hotch," Rossi exclaimed, moving five sheets of paper into a line and studying them intently.
"What?" the team leader asked, standing beside his old friend and trying to see whatever it was that David saw. Close up he could easily discern they were three credit card statements and two bank statements.
"With the prevalence of using debit cards as often as credit cards, it's sometimes easy to miss cross references," the older man explained.
"And what exactly did you find here?" Hotch encouraged him, a bit less than patiently.
"Our five victims favored the same barber," Rossi said with a satisfied look. "See these charges here, that just reference a number? I had Garcia track down what that was, and it's the Eastside Barbershop. Not that far from the preferred kill site."
"Good work. I'll call Morgan and have him and Reid check it out on their way back. Call Garcia and have her send the address to their phones," Hotchner ordered, nodding to JJ and Kate who had just returned with lunches for the whole team.
Punching in the speed dial code for Morgan, Hotch frowned in displeasure when it went straight to voicemail. Annoyed, he tried Reid, only to get the same result. Behind him he could hear Rossi still talking to Garcia.
"Dave, have Garcia trace Morgan's cell phone, will you?" he requested. Garcia had heard him clearly enough and was already running the trace before David could finish relaying the request.
"Oh, this is odd. It appears they are at a Target. Maybe needed some supplies?" the tech reported, her fingers still moving over her keyboard. "It appears the phones are both turned off and still in the vehicle. Curious."
"Send us the address, Garcia," Hotch ordered, grabbing his vest and keys. "Lunch is going to be delayed," he announced as the other three quickly got ready to head out. None of them missed the fact that turning off their cell phones or going to an unexpected location without checking in was against protocol and not like either of the two experienced agents.
Something had to be wrong.
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Derek was the first to regain consciousness, groaning at the painful headache the sedative had left him with. He sat up slowly, finding himself in a bare room, with a faded linoleum floor and plain walls with what appeared to be one-way mirrors on three sides. Frowning, he realized he was no longer in the slacks and dress shirt he'd been wearing, but instead found he had on a mesh tank top that fit snugly, and dark blue sweat pants. His comfortable oxford shoes had been replaced with sneakers. Feeling something odd at his neck he reached up careful fingers, finding a leather collar with a box attached. He encountered nothing that felt like a way to release the uncomfortable device. Lying a few feet away was a similarly attired Reid, still unconscious.
Morgan quickly scrambled over to his friend's side, turning the younger man onto his back and looking him over for injuries. Spencer was breathing evenly, and his pulse seemed strong, if quite slow, so the agent turned his attention to the collar on Reid's neck, studying it for a way to release it. He found nothing that looked like it would help and was about to explore the room when Reid began to stir.
"Kid! Come on, Kid, wake up. I think we may need your brain power here to figure this out," Derek encouraged him, helping Spencer into a seated position as the younger man became more aware.
"What happened," he asked quietly, placing his right hand over his forehead as if it hurt. "Where are we?"
"Don't know the answer to either one, yet."
"It was a dart," Rein mumbled, fingering the collar around his neck.
"What was?"
"What they shot us with. I pulled a dart out of my neck right before it went dark," he explained, frowning at his change of clothing. "This is so weird."
"Yeah, I can't argue with you about that," Morgan agreed, getting to his feet. A wave of dizziness staggered him, but after a moment things settled and he reached down a hand to assist Spencer to his feet.
"One-way mirrors?" the younger man asked, peering closely at one.
"Appears to be," Morgan agreed, tapping firmly on one. "They feel pretty unbreakable, too."
Any comment Reid was about to make died on his lips as the door to the room opened and two men dressed in jeans and flannel shirts entered.
"Today we are offering a rare treat indeed," the larger man announced, seemingly to empty air. "Two FBI agents, which means they will bring special skills to your games. And as you can see, the black one is impressively muscled. Toothpick there may not look like much, but I'm willing to bet he's agile and creative. Who wants to start the bidding?"
"What the hell…" Morgan muttered, moving quickly toward the two men. He'd barely taken two steps when pain originating from his neck took him down hard. He thrashed on the floor in pain as Reid hurried to his side in horror.
"Stop this," Spencer called out to the unseen observers he was sure were behind the windows. Morgan abruptly stopped his pained movements, lying still and gasping, grasping Spencer's lower left arm in a steely grip. "Morgan, are you okay?" Reid asked urgently.
"Oh, God. Have you ever been tasered?" he gasped out. At Reid's negative head shake, Derek groaned. "Well, that was pretty much the same. Came from this thing on my neck."
"A shock collar. I should have realized it," Spencer muttered. "Usually they are used for training dogs. Probably modified to deliver higher voltage as well."
"Nice. Help me up," Morgan requested.
"They do have potential," a disembodied voice announced. "I bid ten quatloos for the pair."
"Let's get real here, folks. These are FBI agents, not some wimpy joggers. You'll get your money's worth for sure," the big man said.
"Fifteen quatloos," came a different voice from behind the mirrors.
Morgan frowned and glanced over at Reid, who had a look of shocked disbelief on his face.
"Any idea what is going on here?" he asked the genius.
"Unfortunately."
"And?" Morgan's expression was anything but patient.
"Later."
Derek's frown deepened as a third voice chimed in. "Twenty quatloos."
"Twenty five."
"Thirty."
"Forty."
"Seventy five!" it was the first voice again, sounding very decisive and satisfied. There were no further bids.
"Excellent, you are now the possession of Provider One. You will be taken to your new quarters shortly. As for you two hunters, you will find your payment in the usual place." The two men nodded, leaving with no further comment. They could hear the clink of a locking device engaging after their exit. Some undefined sense told the two agents that the men behind the windows were also gone.
"Okay, Kid, spill it. You know something, I can see it. What's a …. quatloo?"
"Um….money."
"I figured as much, Reid. Money from where?" Morgan prompted him, huffing out a deep sigh of exasperation.
"Triskelion."
"What? What is that, a new name for an old country or something?"
"No, it's a planet. From Star Trek," Reid replied.
"Are you trying to say we've been sucked into an episode of a television series that's been off the air for forty years?" Derek asked in disbelief.
"Forty five years, actually," Spencer corrected absently.
"Reid," Morgan growled in warning.
"This is so far a credible recreation of the circumstances of a classic Star Trek episode, the Gamesters of Triskelion. Kirk, Uhura and Chekov are zapped away to a distant planet, Triskelion, where disembodied brains kidnap and enslave beings from all over the universe. The victims are trained to fight and used in gladiator type games to amuse the captors, who are known only as 'Providers', since they provide for the slaves' basic needs." Reid explained.
"And people wonder why that show barely lasted three seasons," Derek muttered. "So, how'd they get out of it?"
Before Reid could explain a huge man wearing a black leather uniform entered. At least six foot seven and probably weighing a well muscled three hundred pounds, he glowered at the two captives before speaking.
"Come with me, and don't try anything," he instructed them.
Sharing a look that clearly telegraphed that this was not the time or place to attempt an escape, the two agents quietly headed out with their guard, hoping a way out would present itself soon.
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Despite the parking lot being crowded, it was quick work to locate the SUV Morgan and Reid had taken a couple of hours before. Sheriff Adams provided the spare key, then stepped back to let the FBI agents do what they needed to do. Rossi gave a soft 'uh-oh' as he pulled out the guns, badges and phones that had been stashed under the passenger seat.
"Wherever they are, Aaron, they're unarmed and we can't trace them," the elder man announced, setting the items on the seat itself and looking to see if anything further could be found.
"Hopefully they are together, that'll give them a fighting chance at least," Hotch replied. He stepped back, considering the agents and sheriffs, formulating a plan.
"Okay, Adams, can you and your officers dust the SUV for prints and look for other evidence?" At Adams' nod of agreement, he continued. "Dave, you and JJ go to the barber shop you found, we still need to keep working on the case. Kate, you and I will go to the kill site, see if we can find any clues to what happened there."
"Do we even know they made it there?" David Rossi asked practically.
"For now we assume they did. We should be able to tell once we get there," Hotch said grimly, waving Kate to the SUV they'd taken. "We'll be in touch."
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Hotchner and Callahan drove their SUV up the dirt road until they spotted the stacked stones that marked where the kill site was located. Hotch brought the black vehicle to a stop and opened his door without comment. Kate also exited and joined her boss at the front of their vehicle.
"Two fresh sets of tracks, probably not more than 2-3 hours old," Aaron noted, pointing to the faint tracks in the hard packed dirt road. "Adams said this road was mostly utilized by joggers and walkers during the week, with hunters and four wheelers using it on weekends. These tracks are over the footprints, indicating they are recent. Most joggers and walkers get their miles in in the morning or after work."
"Agreed. Shall we walk on and see what the tracks can tell us further?" Callahan asked, looking up the road with a frown.
"Why don't you do that, and I'll look around the kill site?" Hotch decided, veering off to the left without a backward glance. Kate nodded and headed up the road on the shoulder, watching the tracks carefully.
Hotch pulled on the requisite latex gloves as he approached the large red/brown stain in the desert sand. He saw multiple sets of footprints, so many and so overlapping it was impossible to read the story of the activity there. No signs of anyone being dragged however, and no additional blood outside the central stain caused by the stabbing of five victims over ten days. Moving carefully and watching every step, the senior agent searched for any clue that his two younger agents had been there.
A glint of sunlight on metal caught his eye, and he reached out to remove the source, finding he'd picked up a small dart. Opening an evidence bag he deposited the small missile before carefully inspected the soft soil, noting where it appeared a person might have been lying down. Noting definite, but markings that could be an arm or a hip, or the blurring caused by a prone body being shifted. He was so deeply absorbed in his observations that Kate's return startled him.
"I think I can see what may have happened there," she said, carefully ignoring her superior's start of surprise at her arrival.
"And that would be?" Hotch prompted her.
"One vehicle, which I'm thinking was Morgan and Reid, made a U-turn less than 100 feet further up the road. The tread matches the newer tracks on the road. The other vehicle went maybe a quarter mile further, pulling in by that clump of trees up there," she reported, indicating the green copse of trees in the distance. "At some point they backed back out and came back down the road."
"So you're thinking Morgan and Reid walked into an ambush?"
"Maybe. But who? Our killer? Wanting to capture those who are working to capture him? That changes the whole tentative profile, doesn't it?" Kate asked with a frown.
"What are we dealing with here?" Hotchner wondered, looking around with a sigh. "And where are Morgan and Reid now?"
To be continued...