August 7, 2015
Midtown Manhattan Hilton

JJ stays with me and Garcia at the hotel while we get to work. Hotch told Daniels that JJ wasn't feeling well, the heat and the stress taking their toll on her pregnancy, and that she'd been ordered to rest for the day.

JJ says it's important that the team know every detail of the case and our covers, but I think she's mostly here because she wants to protectively watch over both of us until we leave for our flights later this evening. She keeps watching me, and sometimes shakes her head before she catches herself. She knows this is our best - our only - option for getting Derek back, but she clearly does not like it.

She and Garcia help take videos and still pictures of me against a green screen that Garcia brought with her when she flew in the night before. The team will soon be ordered to return to headquarters since there are absolutely no leads on Derek's disappearance or Ari's. When they get back to DC, with some crafty editing software that Garcia gives JJ a crash course in operating, it will appear like I am actively working in the background when Hotch has some carefully executed video conferences with Lieutenant Daniels.

When the team returns to DC, JJ will use my credit card to check me into a hotel there. As it stands now, Daniels knows that I've flown to New York to provide comfort and any resources to the team. But he hasn't met me and he doesn't need to, provided the team is ordered home tomorrow like we believe they will be.

It's important that all Daniels sees of me are vague images behind Hotch, and never my profile. I have a distinctive nose, and while I would undergo plastic surgery in a heartbeat if it meant getting Derek back, there simply isn't time. There's a very real likelihood that sometime before the end of August, I'm going to have a personal conversation with Peter Daniels while I'm undercover as Irina. It's critical that he doesn't even think of Emily Prentiss when he meets me.

Clyde arrives shortly after we finish taking the pictures and videos; he's laden with two large duffel bags and several shopping bags from a high-end lingerie store in New York that contain everything we need to become other people. The illegal supplies he obtained not from Interpol, but from an arms dealer and counterfeiter who owes Clyde one. I never liked the side deals Easter made with criminals over the years, but I'm thankful for them now.

Our plans have altered slightly in the past sixteen hours, mostly due to some hard questions last night from the ever quick-thinking Spencer Reid. I had the opportunity to talk with Clyde briefly last night before he got on his plane about what it really meant to have Penelope coming with us, and who exactly Irina would feasibly be if she wanted to go from the outside and straight into a human auction in approximately six days.

Clyde and I can both pull off being Russian, but Garcia can't. And on that off chance that someone meets her or speaks with her, we need to protect her cover. So I will be Irina Popov, sister of Katarina Popov, who died in a tragic boating accident back in 2004. Clyde will be Evan Greenfield and Garcia will be his sister, Anna Greenfield. Evan is my submissive partner, not husband. Because after tossing things over with Reid, and then with Clyde, we determined Irina Popov would not do something as conventional as marry. It's crucial for the success of this plan that I come across as unabashedly confident and in charge of my household, a woman who has more money than she could possibly spend in a lifetime, and who is never, ever submissive.

My last name is only important if people try to run my prints, and I'm hoping they do because it means I'm being checked out and getting closer to Derek. And when someone tries to run my prints, they will come back to Irina Popov, and Garcia will get a notification. Then those people will likely run a search for Katarina Popov, and when they do, they'll find a couple of carefully planted news stories from 2004, about a terrible boating accident in San Diego.

JJ and Garcia watch in awe while Clyde Easter brings out wigs and different colored contact lenses. We take turns taking pictures and creating two different passports for ourselves, temporary identities that will allow us to travel out of the United States or anywhere else we might need to go while we're undercover. JJ flips through the fake passports that are only missing our pictures, and Clyde has a small machine to effectively put everything together for us. The passports won't be as good as we could get, but they'll work.

Then he gets things set up to create our long-term covers. He starts with my hair, and while he expertly sections it, squirts it down and begins to cut, he catches JJ and Penelope's eyes in the mirror. "I'm a man of many talents. ladies. I've been doing this sort of thing for over half my life now, and it's not always possible to have someone on the outside doing all the detailed personal work for you. Penelope, darling, we'll only need to give you a trim and take a straightener to your hair. But we will need to dye it brown."

Penelope blinks and nods and keeps watching along with JJ while Clyde quickly and efficiently cuts about seven inches off my hair, leaving me with a chin-length bob. Once that's complete, he begins the process of bleaching the hair on my head and eyebrows so that it's ready for the vibrant red dye he'll apply later. We're going for a certain look, one that says that I'm not hiding, that I want people to notice me, that I may be in my forties, but I'm definitely not middle-aged when it comes to my appearance or proclivities.

While the bleach is setting on my hair, Garcia quietly takes my place and Clyde trims her hair and then starts applying brown dye. "Your name," Clyde says to me while he works on Garcia.

I've thought a lot about this, I thought about it nearly the entire night before after I got off the phone with Clyde: We can't rely on Sam O'Brien at all. It's a gamble - Sam could possibly get me the location of the auction, but he could also totally blow my cover, and then it's game over. Also, Irina Popov would not be invited into a club on the wings of a twenty-four year old drug addict; she'd consider Sam O'Brien well beneath her. The safest path is to get where I need to be on my own. I decide to play out that scenario for Clyde and see what his opinion is.

"Irina Popov," I say in a Russian accent. I speak to Clyde's and Garcia's reflections while I sit next to JJ on the hotel bed, and I speak as if I'm talking to someone at the club I'm going to walk into tomorrow. "My sister was Katarina, perhaps you remember her? It was a terrible tragedy when she died. I'm still not over it. Yes, of course we look similar! When we were younger, people thought we were twins! It's why I started dying my hair different colors while Katarina kept our natural blond. I loved her, but always wanted be my own person."

The key is in the personal details, not too much, just enough to seem genuine and believable.

"And what brings you to our club, Irina?" JJ pipes in, seeing what we're trying to do and deciding to participate.

I turn to look at her and blink my eyes slowly, "An email I received yesterday. Though I'm not very familiar with the scene here, I do still have some connections in the area because of Katarina. Katarina and I were very, very close, and when I visited with her while she lived here, we shared everything."

JJ blinks a couple of times. "And what connections do you still have?" she asks.

I lean towards her and whisper quietly, "I never reveal my sources, love. But when I read an anonymous email yesterday, it caused me to leave my family's estate in Russia and immediately get on a plane."

"And what did you read?"

"Hmmm, perhaps it would be better if I told you a little story first. If you look up my sister's death in the newspapers, you'd find she had a terrible boating accident in California. What the papers don't tell you and what I know, because I was there, is that my sister got careless with certain things - actually one certain, very young thing - and it was the FBI who was chasing her when her boat crashed against a rock." I lean forward and run my fingernail gently across JJ's cheek and down her neck, "So you see, don't you, why I might be very interested in that email I received yesterday? I can imagine no greater way to avenge my sister's death. Can you, milaya moya?" My sweet.

JJ leans away from me and clears her throat. "You're scary as fuck when you're like this, Emily."

I lean back, smile softly, pat JJ's hand and drop the accent. "Sorry" I turn back to the mirror where Penelope is staring at me like a deer caught in the headlights and Clyde is grinning at me. He agrees. No Sam O'Brien. "Your name," I say to him.

He clears his throat and continues to apply dye to Garcia's hair. "Evan Greenfield," he says without his British accent.

"And where did we meet?" I ask him. I watch him consider his response, based on the scenario I just presented him. His mind works just as quickly as Reid's.

"My sister introduced us. You knew her first, and she found out you and she shared many of the same hobbies, so then she decided to share me with you. I didn't like it at first, but what could I do?"

I stare at him. We're going well outside the norms of the BDSM lifestyle, which is traditionally and intrinsically about trust and consent, because the people we ultimately want to get to play by entirely different rules. I nod at Clyde. "The incest is a good call. The more actively entrenched in their lifestyle we can come across, the faster we can move through. But it worries me that it might lead to involving Garcia," I say while meeting Penelope's wide eyes in the mirror.

Clyde tilts his head and contemplates that. He gathers Penelope's hair and places a plastic cap over it, then removes the gloves covering his hands and tosses them in the trash. He meets her eyes in the mirror and speaks directly to her. "Let's have you get on the plane in Moscow with a wig and a different identity. You don't have to appear to be in town with us, we just need a cover in case someone happens to meet you."

Penelope nods her head quickly and then turns her body to stare at me. I touch her shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you. You're going to be safely tucked away in a luxury penthouse suite at a hotel in London."

Penelope blinks rapidly and a couple of tears fall down her cheeks. "I'm worried about you."

"Don't be," I say with conviction while I give her shoulder a squeeze. Already I'm feeling myself get lost in my cover, and the fear I felt yesterday is dissipating. Irina Popov would not be afraid; Irina Popov will get what she wants by whatever means necessary, and what Irina Popov wants is a kidnapped FBI agent to break and dominate as a means to avenge her sister's death. And I'm becoming Irina Popov.

Clyde moves to one of the suitcases and I turn towards him. "If we're not going to use Sam, we need to get him off the streets so he doesn't run into me while I'm inside. He'd try not to, but he'd blow my cover."

Clyde turns to face me, a paper bag in his hands. "I'll have him picked up tomorrow, before we get to London. A mandatory thirty-day drug rehab program should do it, and we can pull him out if we end up needing him."

My eyebrows arch up and I can feel the bleach drying on them. "How are you going to pull that off?"

In a Russian accent, Clyde responds, "I never reveal my sources, milaya moya."

That earns him a little smile.

He tosses a small plastic tub my way and holds up some cloth strips and a small, flat, wooden stick. "It's been over a decade since we've been undercover together in this capacity. How are you wearing your hair these days?" he asks while gesturing in the general direction of my crotch.

I blush and Clyde grins. "Do you need to wax?"

"Yes," I reply in a normal voice, wishing the heat in my cheeks would go away. I get waxed regularly, but not as significantly waxed as this situation is going to require. This isn't that big of a deal, but for JJ and Garcia to be getting a crash course in some of the more delicate workings of going undercover is embarrassing me.

"Warm that up in the microwave for a few minutes and then go in the bathroom and rinse that bleach out and take care of the rest of your hair," he says, gesturing below my waistline again.

I look at the jar of wax in my hands. I have a deep aversion to self-inflicted pain, and I cringe at the idea of doing this on my own, but there is no way in hell I'm letting Clyde or anyone else in that hotel room help me.

Clyde tilts his head again and looks at me. "Leave a little landing strip and let's bleach it to a lighter shade. If you're going in as a natural blonde who chooses to dye her hair red, let's give your story some visual validity for whomever your audience may be. Let's let the carpet match the natural color of the drapes, so to speak."

I cluck my tongue at him in disgust and ignore the slight smirk on his face. I know he's trying to bring levity to a tense situation, but I'm not in the mood for Clyde Easter's brand of humor right now. "You're a pig," I say to him as I head towards the microwave in my hotel room.

"So I've been told by you, several times throughout the years," he responds.

When I'm standing in front of the microwave and the only sound in the room is the whir of the appliance as it heats the wax, Clyde moves to stand beside me. "We'll get him back, Emily. I won't give up until we do, that much I can promise you. And if we can only get him back and you can't deliver on The Minotaur, Interpol can fuck themselves."

People can say what they want about Clyde Easter. He can be crude, and he loves embarrassing me, but at the end of the day, he truly cares about me, and therefore truly cares about anyone I care about. He helped me hide Declan when I needed him to, he didn't blink when I hopped on the jet to take off and help save JJ when I needed to. And now he's here, prepared to go undercover and breaking the law to get us there, and possibly publicly have to play the role of my submissive partner, because I need him to.

"Thank you," I tell him as I swallow past the lump in my throat right before the microwave dings.

I grab the tub of wax and turn to face Garcia and JJ who are staring at me in horrified fascination. It was probably when Clyde mentioned an "audience" seeing me naked that did it, that slapped the reality of this situation hard, right in their faces. This is very real, and I'm not going to get to Derek without going through a few tests, and I know it. Probably several people will do more than just see me naked.

I smile at them reassuringly. "I'll be out in a bit," I say casually as I head towards the bathroom.

August 8, 2015
Location Unknown

I'm supposedly somewhere near Vienna, but the truth is that this place looks no different than the place I originally was held. The exceptions are that there are more people here and I'm no longer in chains all of the time. There's also more food, but I'm still being drugged.

I'm not sure if their calculations are off, or if my body is just metabolizing what they give me faster than is normal, but my moments of lucidity are becoming longer. I try to pretend they're not, that I'm just as out of it as I was before, as I assess my situation. There's no way out. There are guards and I'm locked in a cell, and when I'm allowed to roam a bit, it's only into a slightly larger cell, with another thick door and more guards.

After what I think is about a day and half, a woman I've never seen before opens my cell door. "Come, pet. It's your turn," she says to me.

When I raise my head to look at her, she slaps me across the face. "I didn't give you permission to look at me," she hisses.

I bow my head and stand up. I follow her out of my cell and into the larger room. Thug A is there with a gun in his hand.

They have me lay on a padded table and I have to hold back a sigh; it's the first soft surface I've touched in several days. But I don't feel like sighing when the hot wax touches my body. The woman explains that it wouldn't do for my skin to be irritated when the auction comes, so it's time to take care of me now. She seems to be enjoying herself quite a bit, based on her tone, as she talks to me while another woman strips every bit of hair off my body.

I cringe and clench with each rip of the wax and the woman only laughs as her finger runs up and down my penis. She keeps this up for some time and I feel myself getting hard despite the pain I'm in and the disgust I feel. And then Thug A shouts out, "You're not supposed to touch the merchandise!"

Her hand disappears and her laughter quiets. But the wax still gets spread on my body and then ripped away and I feel like it will never end.

August 8, 2015
Club Equinox, Leicester Square, London

I stare at the face of Irina Popov in the mirror of the bathroom at the dance club and can feel the thumping music reverberating through the bathroom door and across the linoleum floor. I've been here for two hours now, several people have bought me drinks, but I've seen no one I can make contact with about getting an invitation to one of the private clubs. My timeline is frighteningly small and I'm hoping to find someone that I recognize from my Katarina days. The person who initially invited me to a private club back then is, thankfully, in jail on drug trafficking charges. He's the only one who would wonder why Katarina had never mentioned a sister.

I pat some powder on my face and make sure my eyeliner hasn't smudged too much; the blue accentuates my blue contact lenses nicely. I gently re-apply red lip stain over my sensitive, bruised lips. The collagen injections Clyde gave me yesterday did their job and my lips are tastefully fuller, but they'll be bruised for a few more days.

I'm in here alone tonight because time is wasting; I need to be in a private club by tomorrow night if we're going to pull this off the way we think is best. Clyde and Penelope are back at our hotel frantically hacking away and planting a history for Irina Popov on the internet that corroborates the story I'm planning to share with just the right person tonight.

I touch my diamond earrings and glance at the expensive diamond ring on my right hand. They're real. Clyde took them on the sly from Interpol's supply of undercover accessories. The one piece of jewelry he bought yesterday morning in New York was a platinum ring with a triskellion symbol on it, the subtle message that's supposed to let others who share the same lifestyle know that if they've got whips and bondage equipment, I'm in.

My outfit, a black, tight leather dress with a neckline that plunges to nearly my navel and a hem line that falls about mid-thigh leaves little to the imagination, but lends to the mature, wealthy aura I'm trying to portray; it's far more clothing than many of the women in this club are wearing. I'm also sporting tall, patent leather, black boots. It's been a long time since I've walked in spiked heels, and it's a miracle I haven't fallen on my ass yet.

I open the bathroom door and head back out towards the bar and the dance floor, and that's when I spot her. She told me her name was Helena back in 2004, and I had two conversations with her back then. She's a dominatrix just like Irina, and she has one hell of an amazing tattoo on her back of a fairy in black leather flying over a man who is on his knees beneath her, chained, with a ball gag in his mouth. I can see it from here because her hair is pulled up and her corset is cut low on her back.

My heart races in excitement and anticipation. This is exactly what I need. I can make a connection with her based on a description that Katarina may have given to me about Helena's tattoo back then. I can make the first strike - rather than someone thinking I might resemble a woman they once met, I can introduce myself to Helena and fill her in on my back story before she asks any questions.

I stand tall and walk confidently towards Helena, and she catches me in her sight before I reach her. Her green eyes are laser beams and she looks me up and down slowly as a small smile plays on her lips; she's intrigued.

I spend an hour with her in the club, first just chatting in the quietest corner we can find, and then cutting to the chase, telling her basically the same thing I said to JJ the day before, right down to swiping my nail gently against Helena from cheek to neck. Helena neither confirms nor denies the story about a potential FBI agent that might be available, but her stunning eyes never blink away from mine. She might be trying to read me, but I can read her better because it's what I've been trained to do for nearly twenty years. She is buying my story, and I'm both surprised and slightly exhilarated by the fact that I still seem to have it - that uncanny ability to go undercover so completely.

I leave her with my cell phone number, in case she might be able to help me out, like this is not all that important and I have ample time and endless patience. I tell her I'm staying at the King's Suite at the Corinthian in London and her eyes raise a bit at that; the room is over seven thousand dollars a night. I leave my glass on the small table in the bar, and when I stand to leave, I don't look back, but I know with little doubt that she's going to take that glass with her.

If Garcia gets a hit that someone ran my fingerprints tonight or tomorrow morning, we'll know I'm on my way.