Chapter 1

A/N – The story picks up six months after the "present" events in Russian Roulette

"According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, the three touch-sensitive light-up bars on the Enterprise-D's transporter console were an homage to the three sliders used on the transporter console on the original Enterprise…"

"Come on Reid, cool it with the Star Trek talk." Morgan sighed as he walked down the familiar third floor hallway of an affluent D.C. condominium complex, stopping in front of the door he had come to know so well.

"Prentiss, open up!" He shouted as he banged his fist against the dark wood.

Reid stepped next to him, closing his cell phone. "It's still going straight to voice mail and she's not picking up her land line. Why isn't she answering? She said she would be back from her trip Monday night, so she should at least be answering even if she overslept. Shouldn't she?" Worry laced his tone and the young doctor looked up and down the long hallway, surprised that Morgan's yelling hadn't drawn any curious neighbors.

After one final attempt at banging on the door, Morgan inserted his key to Emily's apartment and opened the door.

As they walked across the threshold, Reid shrugged off the temptation to fidget as the eerie silence of the apartment seemed to close in on him. Something seemed off but he couldn't quite place his finger on it. To his relief, Morgan slid his gun from his holster and Reid quickly drew his own revolver and followed Morgan's lead towards the kitchen.

The kitchen was very modern, which didn't surprise Reid, but what did surprise him were the dishes in the sink: two plates, a pair of wine glasses and a couple of forks. A pair of identical take-out containers peeked out from the top of the garbage container.

"It looks like she had company before she left." Morgan grimaced as Reid pointed out the obvious, and continued into the living room. As he cleared the room, Reid moved down the hall, his gun at the ready.

The living room was lightly lit by a lamp that had been left on and Morgan could find no signs of a struggle and no sign of Emily. An opened DVD case was left on the coffee table and Morgan couldn't help but smile as he glanced down to see "Dial M for Murder." Emily was fond of classics and he had spent many evenings watching Hitchcock movies with her; this one was a particular favorite of hers.

"It's all clear! Morgan, come take a look at this!" At Reid's shout Morgan trotted down the hall to join the other agent, holstering his gun as he went. Reid's tone wasn't panicked so he assumed he hadn't found Emily hurt or worse.

The first thing he noticed was the rumpled bed sheets on both sides of the bed as he entered the room. Morgan assumed she had suffered from nightmares after her ordeal with Tony Michaels. And even though she never made mention of any, that would explain the state of her bed.

"Look at this." Reid stood in the doorframe of the en-suite bathroom, holding a small trash canister. "A used prophylactic." He held out the bin for Morgan's inspection and the dark agent carefully composed his face to an impassive expression. The incriminating evidence seemed to prove that nightmares were certainly not responsible for Emily's disheveled bed.

Reid walked back into the bathroom and replaced the canister. "Did you know she was seeing someone?" He asked as he returned to the bedroom.

Morgan blinked as Reid's voice pulled him from his dark thoughts about the used condom. "No, did you?"

The young doctor shook his head. "Emily's not exactly an open book, even in the best of times."

Morgan's phone sounded loudly in the quiet bedroom and a black form streaked from under the bed and out the bedroom door. Morgan answered his cell as Reid left the room, calling for the cat.

He found Reid on his hands and knees peering under the living room sofa, trying to coax Sergio from out of hiding. A loud hiss caused Reid to back off slightly and he turned as he heard Morgan approach. "Let him be Reid. Hotch wants us back; I guess Strauss is finally out of her meeting and she has some information on Prentiss' whereabouts."

With one last peek under the sofa, Reid rose from his crouch and followed Morgan to the front door.

"Maybe it was a one-night stand." Reid stated as Morgan locked the door behind them.

"What?" Morgan stopped abruptly when he noticed the pretty young woman standing in the doorway directly across from Emily's. He judged her to be in her early thirties with blonde, wavy, shoulder-length hair and light brown eyes. Her eyebrows were drawn and a little worry line creased the skin between them.

"Do you guys work with Emily?" Her voice was soft as she stepped out of her apartment.

"We do. I'm Derek Morgan and this is Doctor Spencer Reid. Have you seen Emily lately?"

"I'm Breanna. And no, I haven't seen her since she left for East Hampton on Saturday. I check up on Sergio when she's out of town, and she told me she would be back last night. But she still hasn't come home.

Morgan frowned as he looked at Reid, who returned his gaze wide-eyed, his mouth slightly agape. "East Hampton?"

"Strauss is on her way, what did you two find out?" Morgan and Reid took seats at the round table with the rest of the team as Hotch strode into the room behind them.

"Her neighbor across the hall said she was going to East Hampton with a couple of college girlfriends." Morgan sat quietly as he let Reid take the lead. His head was still swimming with everything he had learned about Prentiss today. They all knew she was intensely private, but Morgan had thought the two of them were making strides in their friendship and trust. Now he didn't know what to believe.

"East Hampton with a couple of girlfriends? But I thought she was going to visit her mom?" Garcia looked to Morgan, who shrugged his shoulders as he gave her a sideways glance.

Reid fidgeted a little in his seat before he continued. "It also seems she had an overnight guest before she left."

"What makes you say that?" Rossi asked, clearly surprised by Reid's statement.

"The used condom in the trash can was a pretty good indication." Morgan replied flatly.

All heads swiveled to the door as Erin Strauss briskly stepped into the room. "Good morning. I see that everyone is here, so let's get started. Saturday Agent Prentiss was asked to consult on a case. She agreed to the consultation and her days off were postponed. We've have had no contact with her since she left, and when she didn't make it into work this morning, I reached out to the agency she was working with. I've had to jump through several hoops, but I finally got some answers. The first one being: they don't know where Agent Prentiss is."

Strauss' statement stunned the team into silence except for two: Morgan and Hotch interjected at the same time.

"What do you mean they don't know?"

"Why wasn't I notified of Prentiss' assignment?"

Strauss ignored Morgan's question and turned to Hotch with a closed expression. "At the time it was strictly need-to-know."

"And you didn't think I needed to know?" Hotch tilted his head and frowned at his superior.

"Who is she working with, Erin?" Rossi sat back in his chair and watched with amusement as she turned and fixed him with a cold stare.

After a long pause, in which she continued to stare down Rossi, she finally answered. "The Central Intelligence Agency."

"What?" Morgan rubbed his temple as if the motion could ward off the headache that was beginning to form. "Why would the FBI assign Prentiss to help the CIA?"

"It was the Agency that requested Agent Prentiss' assistance." Strauss replied.

JJ finally spoke up, her expression confused. "But why?"

"She's ex-CIA, isn't she?" Her silence seemed to confirm Rossi's statement and he nodded his head. He had long suspected there was more to Emily than the less than stellar FBI career that was currently in her file.

Garcia looked from Strauss to Rossi, then back to Strauss, uncertain to whom she wanted to address. "But why didn't she tell us? Why did she keep it a secret?"

"Operatives rarely tell anyone they are CIA. They usually say they work for the State Department." As Hotch turned to Strauss, he struggled to control the anger bubbling under the surface. He had been suspicious of Prentiss' mysterious assignment to the BAU and it had made trusting her difficult in the beginning, but he had never considered that she might have been an ex-intelligence officer. "But you didn't think I needed to know the real background of one of my agents?"

Morgan growled with frustration. "Look, right now we need to focus on finding Prentiss."

"Agreed." Rossi nodded his head. "We can work out who should have been told what later. What can you tell us about her assignment? Because obviously it was more than a mere consult."

Strauss motioned to Garcia. "I sent you a file; can you please bring that up for us?"

As the tech started pounding on her keyboard, Strauss continued to fill them in. "Several weeks ago Andres Rojas, a former South American drug lord surfaced in Los Angles. What makes this unusual is that eleven years ago, he committed suicide. Though some thought it was just made to look like a suicide and he was actually killed by his rival, a drug lord named Juan Carlos Moreno. Federal agents have had Rojas under surveillance since his emergence in LA."

On the screen, Garcia brought up a picture of a dark-skinned man in his early sixties, getting into a blue luxury sedan.

"What is the connection between Prentiss and Andres Rojas?" Hotch turned from the image on the screen.

"Prentiss and her former partner Nicholas Murphy were gathering intel on Andres Rojas as undercover weapons traffickers until his death unceremoniously shut down their assignment. Murphy attempted to make contact with Rojas a couple of weeks ago but without Prentiss, Rojas didn't trust Murphy."

Morgan's eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Nicholas Murphy, and an image of shaking hands with a snarky, blonde man in Emily's entry hall flashed in his mind. So did the image of that same man kissing Emily on the mouth. "So they needed Prentiss to get them in to see Rojas."

"Yes, but…"

"What went wrong?" Hotch demanded.

"Murphy and Prentiss got in to see Rojas, but they never checked back in with their team."

"So they both just disappeared?" Garcia suddenly covered her mouth as she looked at Strauss in shock. "You don't suppose that Emily is…"

A sudden ringing interrupted the conversation. Strauss checked the number on her phone and answered it quickly, moving to the corner of the conference room. Her hushed tone made it difficult to understand the conversation, no matter how much the team strained to hear. She ended the call and punched a few buttons on her phone before returning to the round table.

"That was my contact at the CIA. We now have every reason to believe that Prentiss and Murphy were still alive as of last night. Please bring up the photo I just sent you, Garcia."

The image onscreen was slightly out of focus, but it appeared to be of Emily and a tall, blonde man talking to a small dark man in a grey suit.

Strauss turned her back on the image to address the team. "This photo was received this morning from Colombian Intelligence. The CIA believes this is Prentiss and Murphy, and the man they are talking to is Javier Moreno, the son of Juan Carlos Moreno."

Morgan clenched his fist in frustration and drew in a deep breath, his headache growing as the briefing continued. "So, he is the son of the man who may have killed Andres Rojas - who isn't actually dead?"

"Why would Emily go to Colombia and not tell the team she was working with?" JJ shook her head. This was not the Emily Prentiss she knew. Emily Prentiss did not break protocol, put her life at risk, and keep her team and her friends in the dark.

"The picture was taken by a Colombian operative who had infiltrated the Mendes compound. According to Colombian Intelligence, their asset reported that Murphy and Prentiss were there to buy women for a Middle Eastern client. The operative's handler has not heard from his asset since he sent the intel last night."

Rossi's voice pierced the sudden silence that had blanketed room. "Buying women for a client? What the hell has Emily gotten herself into?"

Thank you for reading and thank you to everyone who read and followed the story after the first posting. And to those who left a review... THANK YOU! I've been away for awhile and you made my day, each of you.

No Emily in this chapter, but we'll see what she's up to in the next update.

Because I threw a lot of names at you in this chapter, below is a reference

Andres Rojas – Former Columbian drug lord believed to be dead. Emily and Nick had at one time infiltrated his operation.

Juan Carlos Moreno – Former Columbian drug lord and rival to Andres Rojas. Was assassinated at a sidewalk café in Serbia in 2003.

Javier Moreno – Only son of Juan Carlos Moreno. He inherited the family business