Disclaimer: Not mine, just fun to push around a little.
Four AM at the River Queen Hotel
Room 1606
An older man in pajamas and bare feet stumbled toward the windows of his room. His hands were on his head, tangled in his hair. He thought that he would probably feel more secure with his glasses on. He wished he were not convinced that he was about to be thrown off the terrace, down 170 feet to the deserted street below.
He wished that he had left something – anything -- even remotely useful on the table that adjoined the window. His cell phone. His Springfield Armory .45. Anything but an empty plastic drinking glass, a Bic, and an unfinished crossword puzzle. Or if he had just left his suit coat draped over one of the chairs, maybe.
A thickset man in a fleece-lined jacket pushed the not-quite-scarlet insulated curtains aside and slid the glass door open. A gust of wet, frigid air filled the room. Even if, Macgyver-like, the man in pajamas could have come up with a way to use them, the wind blew the pen, the drinking glass and the folded newspaper to the floor behind him, out of reach.
"Are you sure you have the right guy?" he asked, more to buy himself a few precious seconds than to argue.
"You're one of the FBI big shots from Washington, right?"
"You could say that," David Rossi confessed. "I still don't--"
"Just shut up. Where are your credentials and your gun?"
"On the dresser, the end near to the door."
"You'll stay out here until we're done with your files and shit. Sooner you get your ass in gear, sooner you'll be back in your own little bed."
Which Rossi did not believe for an instant.
Another blast of wind and ice crystals made him shiver. The winter storm that was holding up JJ and Morgan in Illinois had reached Cincinnati, it seemed. "Damn cold out there," he said. "I'm not as young as I used to be."
"Nobody is, you jackass," said the taller man, the one with impressive eyebrows reminiscent of white-gold awnings. "And if you want to come back in here when we're done, you'll shut up now." He shoved Rossi forward.
Room 1606, terrace
Rossi hissed as his feet hit the frozen tiles, then jerked convulsively as he was shoved again.
Fortunately he was only being pushed to the flooring. There was a zip of tape being stripped from its roll, and the younger assailant, the one in fleece, wound the tape around Rossi's hands and the metal railing.
"Now behave yourself!" he snarled into the wind. The glass door slid shut again.
Rossi squirmed around in search of a comfortable position. He rested his forehead on one of his hands and gazed through the gathering storm at the four-story neon dancing Santa down the block.
Jesus Christ, it's cold.
Room 1604
At the same instant, a somewhat younger man in shorts and a tee shirt gave up resisting the hands determined to drag him out of his bed and haul him to his feet. For possibly the only time in his life, he wished he were the kind of cowboy who sleeps with his pistol under his pillow. Unfortunately, loaded pistols and toddlers had no business in the same house, so even if he had been a paranoid cowboy, he had long since been thoroughly civilized. The guns were locked up. Period.
"You're one of those hotshot Feebs from Washington, am I right?" someone asked.
"I suppose so," he replied. "I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner, from the BAU at Quantico."
The bedside lamp snapped to a higher wattage level. A portly man in a red plaid hunting jacket glared at him over pursed and suspicious lips. "That's like part of the FBI?"
"That's – what?" He wished he were more awake. What had happened to the days when he had all of his faculties instantly available when he woke up?
"The BSA and the Quanti-coles."
Help me, Dave; I'm being abducted by morons.
The man in the hunting jacket carried a military issue MP5 with suppressor across his chest. While his grasp of bureaucracy and geography might have been spotty, he handled the weapon with confidence. And as Jason Gideon had often told the agents he mentored, Stupid will kill you just as dead as smart.
Hotchner struggled to maintain a patient tone. "They're both part of the FBI, yes."
"That's good then," the man with the hunting jacket said. "Perry, slide them doors open." Then he turned his attention back to Hotch. "Just move on out to that little porch dealie, sit yourself down and don't do anything stupid. We'll let you back in when Wyatt's done with your files and stuff."
Hotchner thought it was a crappy idea even before the first blast of winter air hit him, but once he had checked out Perry's ordnance (a SIG Sauer P226, God, Hotch had hated carrying that particular model) he figured he would go along and then try to work out a survival strategy once he was a door away from the armed and clueless.
Room 1604, terrace
Once alone, Hotchner instinctively dropped to his knees and doubled up, both to take advantage of whatever body warmth he could hang on to, and to avoid flashing his underwear at that segment of downtown Cincinnati that might be awake and positioned to see him.
Room 1612
Two lean men of average size, one in a parka and one in a pea coat, trained his-and-his matching Desert Eagles at a slender young man in underwear far more festive than Hotchner's. The young man sat on the edge of his bed with both hands open and visible, but he made no effort to raise them. Instead, he gazed steadily at a watercolor print on the wall and memorized everything he could about the intruders.
"So, you FBI or not?" the pea coat guy asked.
His tone one of gentle curiosity rather than challenge, he asked, "Do I look like an FBI agent to you?" He waited as they surveyed his unimpressive physique, colorful boxers and shirt, his long, disheveled hair and mismatched socks.
"That's true, you don't," Pea Coat's partner said. "But we're gonna have to put you out anyways."
"Hold up, Norbie," Pea Coat said. "Here's his papers and badge and gun and stuff, right here. He's FBI, and his name's Doctor Spencer Reid. Look at the picture. It's him, all right."
"Doctor? This kid?" Norbie repeated. He glared at Reid. "What kind of doctor?"
"Veterinarian," Reid snapped. He hoped he might catch a little breathing space while they puzzled over that so he could make an intelligent guess as to what they meant by putting him out.
"Ohh," Norbie said at last. "Is that why you got cows on your shorts?"
Oh. My. God.
"Sure."
He ached to add And the mistletoe's so you'll know where to kiss me, but he figured he had pushed his luck about as far as it was going to go.
"OK, up you go, boy," said Pea Coat. "Out on the terrace. We'll let you back in as soon as Arnie and his boys have gone through your papers."
Dead serious, Reid said, "Can I take a blanket along? It isn't even twenty degrees out there."
"Ah, a little cold never hurt anyone," Pea Coat said heartily as he jabbed his weapon into Reid's ribs. "Puts hair on your chest – and frankly, looks like you could use some. Now move it. We don't have all night. Don't make me shoot the FBI's official veterinarian."
Reid sighed deeply and stood up. He had no body mass worth mentioning, which meant that he would get very cold, very quickly. If he didn't think of a way out of this soon, the odds were against him and getting worse by the minute.
Room 1604, terrace
The precipitation, more frozen rain than freezing, had finally begun to come down in earnest. Hotchner was desperate enough that he was prepared to strip off his tee and drop it down into the street. If just one passerby saw it and was annoyed enough to complain to the hotel, it might bring help. Hell, the shorts could go, too.
His other options were limited. The hotel had been constructed to suggest an old time river boat, with modest verandas in ranks of four. To his left, as he faced out across the street, another three terraces connected directly to one another. To his right lay an eight- to ten-foot chasm between his terrace and the next group of four that might as well have been the Grand Canyon.
He could still hear Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber in his room, and two, perhaps three other voices. The windows in the adjacent room (he thought it should be 1606) glowed brightly. They had been lit already when he had been forced out. He kept trying to calculate what the residents' reaction would be if he climbed over and and rapped on the glass, a tall man in wet underwear, a man whom even his own team occasionally described as looking like an educated thug.
An unexpected wave of sleet slammed across his back and shoulders and he yelped.
"Hotch?" a voice close by hissed. "Aaron?"
He peered over the rail to his left. "Good God, Dave!" he hissed back. "Didn't know you were right next door to me. Hang on, I'll be right over." And maybe, he thought to himself, if someone sees me climbing around, maybe that will bring the locals.
"The unexpected disadvantages of the cell phone age," Rossi said. "We no longer need to know what rooms our team mates are in, because we'll just call them on their cells anyway."
Thank God I didn't go knocking on their windows.
Room 1606, terrace
Hotchner slung a leg over the icy railing and launched himself to the other side. "Same people?" he asked as he knelt to free Rossi. "Wanted to talk to big-shot FBI guys?"
"That's the ones. How come you didn't get taped down?"
"I don't know. How come you did? Did you antagonize them?"
"That's right, blame the victim ..."
Rossi seemed to be shivering clear down to the bone. Hotchner wished he had something to wrap around his old mentor. "How long have you been out here?"
"A few minutes longer than you, I think. I heard the door open and shut, but I never heard anyone over there – and they're right at the window, sitting at the table, so I wasn't real motivated to do any calling out."
"Did they tell you what kind of case files they were looking for?"
"No freakin' clue. Other than some old book chapters I'm revising for a reissue, all I have is the sniper material and some cleanup to do on the Springfield Mass thing. There was so little that when they asked for the password to my documents file I gave it to them."
"Mine didn't even ask for my password."
"I don't understand what they want or how they think they'll use it. I've been concentrating most of my energy trying to gnaw my way through this tape shit. I feel like a rat chewing his way out of a trap. God damn, it's cold."
Hotchner tried to get his freezing fingers to function and picked at the tape. "Any idea where Emily and Reid are? Hold still, damn it, I almost have it. Well, this part, anyway."
"Ouch, it's like yanking off a bandage—"
"I'll be glad to leave you here if you find it more comfortable—Oh, Jesus H Christ..."
"What? What?"
Hotchner turned Rossi by the shoulders. "Can you see that over there? Tell me it isn't--"
Rossi craned his neck and said, "Shit, stop him--"
"How? If I yell, Lord knows how many of these bastards we'll alert."
With their eyes now adjusted to the light, they could clearly identify the slender figure three terraces to their left – just across the left side chasm. Spencer Reid was shakily climbing up on the icy railing, one hand braced on the overhang of the roof. The wind whipped his hair into his face and set his boxers and tee to flapping around his skinny body.
"If we don't yell, that kid is going to die, Aaron."
"I'll try." Hotch rose to his feet and waved both arms.
To his chagrin, Reid gave him some lunatic thumbs up, crouched … and launched himself, parallel to the ground, like Superman, at the terrace across the divide.
Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod, Hotchner breathed, afraid to look but too loyal not to.
The gods who watch over geeks must have been out in force, because Reid hit the opposite railing at chest level, clutched at the inside vertical railings, and clumsily flipped himself over, more-or-less safely, onto the terrace he had been aiming for.
"I don't believe it," Hotch gasped. "He made it. How can I be sweating when I'm covered in ice?"
"The tape?" Rossi prompted.
"Right. Sorry."
Room 1610, terrace
His superiors couldn't have been any more surprised than Reid was. He leaned his back up against the exterior wall of the hotel, rubbed his bruised ribs, and wondered whether his heart rate would ever return to normal.
Then, from the other side of the wall, he heard raised voices.
One of them, he recognized.
Room 1610
A tall, tightly-wound woman in a mauve quilted robe faced a pair of intruders with a singular lack of concern. "Give me a break," she snarled. "You have a Police Special. I have bottled water. I don't see why I should drop anything. Unless you're the Wicked Witch of the – oh, damn. West, East. I can't remember. The one with the flying monkeys. The witch that didn't get smooshed by a house."
The short blond dude said, "I don't get it--"
His companion said "Just frickin' forget about it, Elliot. I'll explain it later."
"But--"
She took a last sip of water and set the bottle on the bedside table. "Like your buddy says, just frickin' forget about it, Elliot. He doesn't care whether you know the things he knows. The things that you need to know, too. He would just love to keep you quiet and ignorant, just like a faithful little ol' mule." Automatically, she matched her accent and cadences to those of the intruders.
"Jeffrey," Elliot whined.
"Jeez, Elliot, stop screwing around and find her credentials."
Emily Prentiss flashed her warmest smile at Elliot. "They're in my purse, sweetness, over there by the TV. There's a zipper flap at the back and everything you need is right there."
They had to be brothers. Both had uneven, amateurishly trimmed dirty blond hair and slightly off-center clefts in their chins.
"And my gun is in the center drawer," she added. "A Glock 19, way hotter than that old Smith and Wesson. I'm sure it'll be in good hands with you."
She observed the quick exchange of resentful glances, and smiled again, this time at Jeffrey.
Yo, Abel, let me introduce you to my dear friend Cain …
Jeffrey waggled his revolver in her direction. "Out on the porch," he said. "We'll bring you in when the boss man has all your files."
She ramped up the candlepower in her eyes. "Thank you, Jeffrey. There's a green and violet scarf in my bag. Would you mind if Elliot brought it to me so I can keep my ears warm?"
A barely-twenty-one pouty lower lip jutted out, then Jeffrey said, "Sure, no problem, I guess. Elliot, you hear that?"
"Yeah, I heard it."
Prentiss accepted the scarf with the hottest smile she dared give. She tied it around her hair, spun gracefully, and strolled unbidden out to the terrace like a queen about to review the troops.
Room 1610, terrace
Until she heard the door slide shut behind her, she stood still, watching the blinking and twitching Christmas displays mirrored in the icy streets.
And now what the hell do I do?
"Emily," a voice rasped at her. She turned slowly.
Spencer Reid huddled against the wall where he could not be seen from her room. He hugged himself and shivered violently. "They have all of us out here," he continued, his voice unsteady. "Hotch and Rossi are over there."
She turned. Not knowing what else to do, she waved to them.
"Do you want my robe?"
Reid looked as if he really wanted to refuse, but in the end he lowered his head and mumbled, "Yeah, for a little while. Maybe five minutes."
"Wait, I think I have a better idea,"she said. She untied the sash of her robe, exposing a frilly ivory satin nightgown with a teddy bear appliqué.
"You know, for about three seconds that was a really smokin' gown."
"Like you should talk." She opened her robe wide. "Come on in. There's room enough for both of us."
There was no hesitation. He slid his hands around her waist and the two of them huddled together. Gradually his shaking dropped to manageable levels.
"You're sure your teddy bear doesn't mind?"
"She's more concerned about all those cows you brought along."
"I think that Hotch and Rossi want us to join them on this next terrace," Reid murmured.
She looked at them, a pitiful pair of drowned rats.
"I don't think we have room for them in here. Do you?"
Reid, who could be mindbogglingly literal at times, said, "We could rotate in and out."
She gave that a moment's thought. "Could, but won't."
"We have a scarf and two socks we can share."
She patted one of his shoulders. "Seriously, sweetheart, I think you were right. We should climb over and meet them in the middle."
He backed out of her arms and moved toward the rail. "I'll help you over. Just let me get there first."
He dazzles us so easily with his brilliance, she thought. Sometimes we miss his kindness and his courage.
Of the senior pair, Hotch seemed to be weathering the cold better than Rossi, who limped to the rail and needed Hotch's help to climb over.
Room 1608, terrace
As soon as all four huddled in the same area, Reid sat down beside Rossi. He removed his socks and started to slide them onto Rossi's feet.
His voice soft with emotion, Rossi murmured, "Reid, you don't have to do that."
Without looking up, Reid said, "Yes I do. They don't match my half of the robe."
Before Rossi could say another thing, there was a horrendous racket from inside the room. Three chihuahuas from hell launched themselves repeatedly at the glass door, yapping and growling. The room suddenly blazed with light.
"Crap," Hotchner groaned."Get back, everyone, into that corner." He indicated the area of the terrace least visible from the room, and then he crawled dead center. There he sat, knees drawn up, arms folded, and his teeth chattering from the cold.
For a few seconds, Rossi watched Hotchner positioning himself as a target. Then he whispered, "All right, we need to compare notes. Let's put together every name, every physical description, every weapon--"
Emily Prentiss pulled the sash to her robe out of its loops. She removed the garment and draped it across Rossi's and Reid's bodies. She wrapped the ends of the sash around her hands, hoping for an opportunity to defend her team.
How could she be cold when she was Mother Bear, protecting her family?
The terrace rumbled lightly as footsteps approached the sliding doors. The dogs were wrangled and put – somewhere.
The curtain was drawn back.
The door slid open.
A tired, angry -- and armed -- man in a suit faced Hotchner. Another man stood behind the first. They stared at Hotch's soaked underwear and bare feet and their frowns grew deeper.
Hoping like hell that they weren't allied with their intruders, Hotch raised his hands in surrender. "I need you to call the police and the FBI," he said. "Please."
The first man drew a SIG Sauer from his holster and reached into his pocket. He flashed a familiar-looking piece of ID. "You're in luck there, fella. Agent Eric Lee Mayhew, FBI. Put your hands on your head."
Hotchner beamed as he complied. "Man, you are the most beautiful sight I've seen in a couple days."
"And you are?"
"SSA Aaron Hotchner, Unit Chief, BAU, Quantico. And my team." He nodded at the others. "Come on out, guys. It's the Feds."
Mayhew blinked a couple times, then said, "Well, Jeez Louise, come on in and shake the icicles off yourself."
Hotchner sighed deeply and said with undisguised passion, "Yes, sir."
Room 1608
Less than an hour had passed since the initial entry into David Rossi's room.
Room 1608 buzzed with police, FBI, an assistant hotel manager, and random prosecutorial representatives from three separate districts. The chihuahuas almost swooned in ecstasy at all those extra smells, all those hands ready to pet them and sneak bits of donut into their crates.
The Cincinnati police and SWAT teams had secured the four agents' rooms and arrested all of the intruders. They collected and delivered the agents' weapons, credentials, electronics and cell phones. They had brought over clothing, too, but the BAU team seemed content for the moment to snuggle in the blankets and towels that fussy Mrs. Leora Worley, the elderly owner of the chihuahuas, had wrapped around their shoulders. Trays of assorted pastries and sliced fruit from room service emptied out fast. Cups of coffee and hot chocolate steamed on every horizontal surface.
Mrs. Worley's son, Victor, a pale and scarred, wheelchair-bound man in his mid-forties, was the reason for the Federal presence. He was principal witness in a particularly ugly money-laundering investigation that involved both mine owners and officers of the Kentucky UMW. Victor Worley's house had been fire-bombed. His lungs had been damaged and he was dependent on supplemental oxygen. The aged mother he had cared for now cared for him.
Six FBI accounting specialists and a "Victor Worley" decoy had been assigned to a hotel several blocks away. Other teams had been positioned to pounce on anyone sent to interfere with them. Unfortunately, a front desk employee at the River Queen had been all too willing to snitch out the "top level FBI dudes from Washington staying on the sixteenth floor" for a thousand dollars and a Blu-ray.
The BAU team's instincts had been dead-on. The only reason they had been forced out onto the terraces was in case the higher level Unsubs who were supposedly reviewing their case files had needed more information than was in the files – information that could be wrung from them by whatever means necessary before the agents at last became useless and could be eliminated.
"And you had absolutely nothing to do with this?" a deputy federal prosecutor asked again, still stunned by the all the coincidences. (Not the least of which being that the agents' rooms bracketed the Worleys'.)
"No," said Rossi. "We've been called in to help with this Ohio River sniper mess. We got here yesterday afternoon from Cairo, Illinois."
Another agent leaned forward. "OK, that part I can understand. Now, what do you guys need an FBI veterinarian for?"
Rossi, Hotchner, and Prentiss looked dumbstruck.
Reid rubbed his face self-consciously. "Hotch, can I plead the Fifth on this?"
~ end ~