MIA – MISSING IN ACTION
Chapter 3
Crime Scene Photos

Man is the cruellest animal. - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Do you think I like this?" he yelled, getting to his feet. "I don't want this, Derek. I have never wanted it. I came back for the one case, and I love the field work. It was me or Strauss! Which would you prefer?"

"Well for someone who doesn't want the job, you jumped in pretty damned quick!" Morgan hissed, as he leaned forward over Rossi's desk.

Rossi sat down again and briefly put his hands on his forehead. "Aaron would have said 'Take a walk.' at this point." Derek made as if to leave, fire in his eyes. Dave called him back. "But I'm not Aaron. Come here, I want to show you something."

Morgan stopped with his hand on the door. He was surprised by the gentle tone in Rossi's voice. He walked back to Dave's desk.

"Derek, I took the job on two conditions. The first was that Hotch's office be left for him to come back to, and second, that I be allowed to use Federal Resources to continue the search. You were kept out of the loop, Derek, because it is not procedure, and it is only Strauss who knows. It could mean my job if I'm caught.

Morgan sat down. "So why me? Why now?"

"I felt you needed to know. I felt you would put your career on the line for Hotch and Reid."

Derek rubbed the back of his head. "I'm sorry, Dave. I had no idea."

"Well, how could you. Garcia doesn't know officially, but I think she might have guessed; she has been doing some work for me."

"Dave, we would put our lives, never mind our careers, on the line for those two."

Dave opened his desk drawer, and took out a thick folder. He slid it across the table. "Before you open it, I want to hear you say that you know what you are getting into." Their eyes met, and Morgan inclined his head.

"I understand."

"Ok, now let's go through it piece by piece." Dave said. "You don't know how many times I've done this, I need fresh eyes, and mine will never be that!"

Morgan pulled the folder closer and opened the first page.

Mason Lowe stared back at him with his one good eye. Even in the photograph, Lowe's glass eye stared off into space. Under the photo was the list of offences he was going to be tried for. Some tame, like voyeurism, pimping; some not so tame like male and female rape, kidnapping, poisoning.

"Take a look at the crimes, Derek, and think about them while you read the rest. I'll get us a drink. You are going to need one."

Morgan sat at Dave's desk and turned over the pictures one by one. The wreck of the plane in the Nevada desert; the body of the pilot; footprints around one side of the fuselage of the wrecked plane, identified later as being those of two of the passengers – Lowe and Reid; a close up of the bullet hole in the fuselage shot from in the cabin. Nothing else. No sign of Hotch apart from blood on the seat he had been assigned, and blood on the ceiling of the cabin. Hotch's crutches were gone, so was his body and Reid and Lowe.

Evidence showed that Hotch had been attacked while the plane was in flight. The bullet that had lodged in the wing had been fired from Reid's gun. The plane was not flying at high altitudes so the cabin was not under high pressure, so the depressurising caused by Reid's bullet would not have been a contributing factor. The pilot with his skull bashed in probably was.

Reconstruct based on the evidence...

Mason Lowe beat Hotch unconscious while Reid was elsewhere. Reid fires at Lowe and somehow, maybe through turbulence, misses his target and the bullet passes through the fuselage and hits the wing. Lowe attacks Reid and knocks him out. Lowe forces the plane down and kills the pilot. He is met by other UnSubs who kidnap the Agents and leave.

Morgan picked up a magnifying glass off the desk and looks closely at the photograph. A lack of other prints and tyre tracks led the investigators to conclude that the three survivors had wandered away from the wreck and got lost in the desert where they subsequently died.

But Hotch knew better than to wander off. And if he was out of action, which was a possibility, Reid would have secured the UnSub and stayed with Hotch.

They had to have been taken. But how?

He squinted at the picture. Dave came back in with the drinks.

"They've been looking in the wrong place, haven't they?"

"My conclusions exactly."

"They would never have wandered off, and by this blood here I would think Hotch would be incapable of wandering anywhere."

"Yes."

"So whatever the investigators say, our men were taken from the wreck somehow, either dead or alive, with Mason Lowe."

"Agreed."

But how? There are no prints or tracks."

"Look here." Dave said, pointing to a spot North of the wreck. "What do you make of this?"

Morgan moved the desk lamp and held it at an angle so it wouldn't reflect off the glossy paper. He examined the area carefully. The way the sand was lying against the direction of the wind...

"Oh my god...a helicopter!"

"Yes. They may have been forced down." Dave said. "Remember the black box?"

"They never found it did they?"

Dave turned a few pages over, getting excited now he was sharing his discovery. He pointed at a photograph and its annotations.

"'The housing for the black box was broken, possibly in the crash.'" Morgan read. "Or more likely by the UnSub after the crash, who took it and destroyed it."

"But the important thing is..." Dave said.

"...our men could still be alive somewhere being held by a rapist kidnapper poisoner."

-0-0-0-

The young man griped his growling stomach. He couldn't remember feeling this hungry. Even Tobias had fed him...

A memory... He lay back and closed his eyes and tried to remember. Little flashes came back to him, one in particular he wanted to hold on to, but like the others, slipped away from him.

Someone held him. Gentle loving arms around him. Who was it?

He made himself relax starting at his feet – a technique he often used when he got over excited – ant thought about Tobias.

There was a gunshot and Tobias was dead. Someone's arms around him.

Dark hair, dark eyes – Hotch. Aaron Hotchner. They worked together. He was an FBI Agent.

The man in the other room was Agent Aaron Hotchner.

It was as much as he could do not to leap off the bed and start jumping around. The UnSubs did not need to know that he knew. He turned over onto his front in case they were watching and he couldn't help the smile. It was coming back. He just needed his name.

When he fell asleep it was deep and for once, dreamless.

-0-0-0-

The dark haired man was damp with sweat and shaking after the dream. He was tangled in the sheet which was now bloody and torn. He pulled himself up and untangled his legs from the sheet and examined it. He tried to fold it to disguise the fact that it was ripped, but it had been noticed by his keepers. He heard the door unlock, and he shook with fear. He knew what was coming but he couldn't remember why.

The door banged back and three masked men came into the room. One man appeared to have only one eye. He snatched the sheet away and threw it in the corner.

He looked at the three men in front of him, and willed them to just get it over with. The first stepped close and lifted his head up by his hair. A second punched him hard in the face; he heard rather than felt his nose break and blood ran down over his lips. A small cry escaped his lips when a second punch, this time on the temple dazed him and his hands that had been trying to free his hair from the grip of the one eyed man, fell to his side. Yanking him off the bed by his hair the man swung him across the room where he hit the wall with his back and the air left his lungs and he crumpled onto the floor

He was struggling to keep awake when a kick to the chin sent his world spinning and another attacker jumped and kicked him in the groin and the shock wave that travelled up his body and broke in his brain sent him into blessed unconsciousness.

The three of them booted his inert body around the floor for a bit, but his unresponsiveness bored them, so they woke him up with a bowl of water in the face and started again.

He held his hands in front of his face to try to protect himself but while he shielded his face, he took a kick to the solar plexus, and he couldn't breathe or move. He tried to cry out as he took another kick to the groin. He curled forwards the best he could and the UnSubs kicked the back of his head and his kidneys and buttocks where he was already injured.

When they finally left the beaten and bloodied man an hour later, he was too weak to get back on the bed, too weak to retrieve the torn sheet to cover himself with. So he didn't move from the pool of blood on the floor and prayed to his neglected god that he would die soon. He didn't think he could take another beating like that again.

-0-0-0-

The young man was looking in the mirror trying to remember his name. Now he was certain that the other man was Aaron Hotchner, FBI Agent, he thought his name would come back quickly, but it was being elusive – it would almost be there, then drift out of reach.

He needed to see the other man again. He went to the door.

"Please!" he shouted. "I want to see that man again!"

He would tell him his name. That would help him. Maybe he would remember his name.

He banged on the door.

"I want to see him. I want him! Please!" If they thought they'd get some more 'entertainment', there was a chance they'd let him see him.

He was surprised when the door opened. The masked man grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door. This time when he memorised the route, it was much shorter, and he thought he'd easily find his way back again.

The other man's door was opened and he was allowed to enter.

Oh no! Hotch!

This time he knew the man; this was the man he saw in his memories. Thinner, weaker, and badly beaten, but it was him. He ran to him and knelt by his side. Carefully he lifted the man's head onto his lap and brushed the dirty and bloody hair off his face. This was the man who held him so gently after his ordeal with Tobias.

"I need something to wash these wounds!" he said, but the man was leaving, and the door was locked behind him.

The young man looked around for something to use as a bandage, and saw the torn sheet in the corner. Gently he laid Hotch back down and went and got the sheet. He ripped it in half, and one piece he tied around Hotch's hips like a sarong, the other half he tore into bandages, and squares to clean him up.

There was nothing to carry water in, so he tenderly carried the beaten man over to the shower, He blocked the drain with a piece of rag, and filled the tray. And gently, with his head on his lap, he washed the blood off his face and body.