"I'm fine, JJ," Reid said with a sigh of relief. It wasn't George. JJ gave him a weird look but continued on the conversation with the investigation.
"Do you have an ID yet?" She asked the woman. She shook her head.
"His fingerprints and DNA are not on the system. If I am correct however on the fact that he may be working for the government, I wouldn't expect one."
"Thanks for your time."
"No problem."
As the pair drove back to the crime scene in the black SUV Reid's mind went deep and pondered on the new information he received. This is bad; Hunter is responding sooner than he hoped. How longer could he hide his deep dark secret that he shares with four others? It was only a matter of time. According to JJ, Garcia found out that George is in a hospital, and the team was well known for the ability to get information out of people. They'll find about Jordan. They'll find about him. If they ever knew, the true 'Spencer Reid' could they ever even look at him again? It's not about the people he's afraid of losing- pretending to care about them was much of a chore anyway. But Jordan did, and he did care about Jordan. Plus, with them, he feels something he hasn't felt in a long time. Stability.
"Spence?" JJ called for the third time. "We're here. We are at Virginia General."
"Oh," Was all he could muster. "Let's get to work then."
The rest of the team met outside the hospital and soon they were all reunited.
"The blood sample back at the apartment is being tested at top priority, and although it's too soon to find a DNA match, they did find out the blood type. O negative- the same as Jordan's. It's too rare a blood type to suggest that both he and the unsub are coincidently the same." Hotch announced to the team.
Each of them took it in their own way, but one question seems to be buzzing in all of their minds.
"Where is Jordan?" Morgan said aloud with concern in his voice. "With a wound like that, he couldn't have made it far, and we've already checked the surrounding streets of the apartment. There is a faint trail of blood, then nothing!"
"If the kid is trying to stay hidden," Rossi added, "then he's dong a damn good job at it."
"The coroner mentioned that due to the high skill needed to inflict wounds like that, the perpetrator may have had government training. And he's been hiding, for months now. What is going on?" Asked Prentiss, but deep down, she knew. She had always suspected him, and considering the fact that she too was in the same position 2 whole years ago, she didn't think her suspicions were wrong.
"We'll get more answers out of the man at this hospital," Hotch assured.
They walked into the reception desk with authority, flashing their badges at the intimidated receptionist. She immediately gave them the number of the room, more out of fear than anything else. The BAU nominated Morgan and Prentiss to visit the man, just to see who they were dealing with; it's not like they can arrest him being bed bound.
"What's your name?" Prentiss started. A female presence will give the impression that they are less of a threat, so it seemed to be a good idea for her to speak first.
Silence.
"A young couple found you, on the side of the road. Who hurt you?" It was more or less a certain fact to Prentiss that this was not their unsub. There was a particular sadness in his eyes that gave the impression that he'd seen a lot.
"What is your relationship with Matthew Jordan?" The man made eye contact as soon as he heard that name, but it wasn't in hate, but in genuine worry. He was not their unsub. He was down at the coroner's this whole time.
"Did you hurt hi-"
"I helped him." He said plainly. Morgan and Prentiss waited patiently for him to continue, but he didn't.
"Look, we don't have time for any games! Jordan is a significant member of our team, and YOU are so far the only lead we have on finding him!" Morgan said sternly as he quickly ran out patience.
"When Jordan wants to disappear, he very well can. After all, he knows all of your tricks, but you have no idea what he's capable of."
"Look, man, we've got you on assault charges-"
"It was self-defence."
"The point is," Morgan stepped closer towards the bed, "you're gonna wanna help us, for your sake."
And with that, Morgan stormed out of the room, with Prentiss lamely following behind.
"Well that could've gone better," Prentiss said after a long silence as she waited for Morgan to calm down.
"I think you should go in, on your own. I'm in no state to play nice. He may be the one who saved Jordan's life, but now, he's endangering it."
"I think that's a good idea."
It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes since they left the patient's room, but when Prentiss came back to re-interview him, he was gone. Out of thin air. All that was left was the flatline of the heart monitoring machine and a ruffled bed.
Garcia noticed something strange. She never did a background check on Jordan, despite the fact that that was what she did whenever someone new joined their team. She did it with Prentiss, Seaver, Todd. All the like, but never Jordan.
She had been asked to do so by Hotch, to see if anything about Jordan's past would shed any light on the case. But that was the problem; there was nothing, no paper trail whatsoever. The few files she did find on him were sealed, and no matter how hard she tried, they just wouldn't budge.
"That's odd." She said to no one in particular.
After a while, Garcia grew tired of the endless cycle of finding nothing. She almost jumped when a call came in, directly through her set up. Expecting it to be Hotch, she answered immediately, but she almost had a heart attack when he heard his voice. She couldn't tell whether the signal was weak or if it was he who was – or both.
"Pen?" It said weakly. Garcia sprang into action, hitting record on her microphone and performing an audio transcript on everything he said.
"Jordan? Is that you? We are worried, so worried. Please, come home." She was close to tears. The only thing she could hear was the sound of heavy breathing from the other line.
"Don't look for me. It's a waste of time."
"Matt, are you hurt? Is someone trying to hurt you? You can come to us, we can help yo-"
"This call was to say goodbye. After two weeks of no contact, it's the least I owe you. And don't even try and track this call- it's impossible. So...goodbye." And he hung up.
Garcia was in tears now, but her foggy mindset to work and she called the team. The team listened to the call. After that, they sat in silence. Hotchner was the first to speak.
"I guess the man at the hospital was right, he doesn't want to be found."
"But this is good." Morgan exclaimed excitedly, "We've got something now."
"Morgan, what do you mean? This doesn't help us, in fact, it puts us in a worse situation. Cases are piling up, and Strauss isn't too fond of us aimlessly searching for clues- she handed the case over to another team who are less emotionally involved-"
"Screw Stauss. This is Jordan we are talking about! He was stabbed, he's in danger!"
"Matthew was my friend too, but other people need our help, who actually want our help. We are not giving up, but you need to look at the bigger picture. The case is going cold."
Morgan needed to leave before he broke something. He could feel the rage building up in his chest and quickly released it by punching the door on his way out.
Reid woke up from his third nightmare that night. Ever since Jordan fell off the edge of the world a month ago, he's been kept in the dark on the whereabouts of Hunter. George fell off the radar too, seeing as he was practically a fugitive witness who didn't want to be asked questions. How had his life changed so drastically in just 6 months? Maybe I should run too he thought to himself as he gave up his futile attempt of a good nights sleep.
As he lay upon his bed with his hands behind his head, he thought back on the grave situation he was in, and the worst part there was nothing he could do. He could only wait. He wondered what the team's reaction would be, to find out he's been lying since he's met them, that he carefully crafted and altered his personality just to integrate perfectly into their group, to provide them on what they were missing. How long could he keep playing Spencer Reid?
The day had barely started and Reid already knew it would be a bad one. He had this feeling – a third instinct that put his body in constant fight or flight mode. The feeling stayed with him when he left his apartment when he was on the subway to work, and it heightened even further when at work ( which he was late too), all the way to the bullpen where he sat down with a sigh and his head in his hands. Morgan noticed this, but just as he was about to confront him again about his behaviour for the 4th time this month JJ walked briskly into the bullpen.
"Conference room in 5. We've gotta case." She announced hurriedly.
A little while later, the team gathered around the table to witness JJ debriefing the case. Reid was last to enter, however, as he stumbled into the room almost tripping over his feet to his chair, but to his embarrassment, it wasn't the usual case – there were two tall men in the back of the room with emotionless faces that scream authority. Reid instantly recognised this type of behaviour. They were CIA.
Shit.
"Well, aren't you going to join us, Reid?" Rossi asked with a frown.
Reid suddenly snapped out of it when he realised he was simply just standing in the doorway.
" .S-sorry." He stuttered, blushing slightly.
So this had been the bad feeling he was experiencing. Them. Even after a decade, the CIA always managed to find a way back to them, to him. Whatever they were here for, it can't be good. The agency is quite well known for pretending to not exist. Conferring with another agency was quite a bold move for them, but even still, this case was not going to be easy. Once Reid sat down, JJ stood up to explain why there were two suits standing behind them, watching.
"Right, so the Central Intelligence Agency has requested help with an old but now ongoing case. Agents Neal and Foster will explain further on this ongoing investigation."
The two emotionless CIA agents gathered in front of the team in a rushed manner. Agents Neal nodded at Foster and began to speak.
Suddenly, the bad feeling started to come back, stuck in his throat as his heart started beating faster and faster. Out of all the cases, it can't be. No, it can't be.
"We as the CIA are requesting your help on an old but reopened case. Over a decade ago the agency was trying to neutralise an ongoing threat of the time, Jeremy Hunter."
It is.
"He was a threat to national security with his drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit terrorism. We thought he had been killed in an explosion in Tunisia in 2002." Foster added.
Wrong.
"Unfortunately we lost one of our own due to an error whilst executing the planned building explosion." Agent Neil said with the first real hint of emotion he had.
Wrong again.
"So, how do we come in and what do you need our help with?" Morgan interrupted confrontationally. Hotch gave him a subtle glare as a warning to his rude behaviour.
"Well after all this time, it turns out Hunter is alive. This man is extremely dangerous and a vast list of current and ex-agents who were involved in this case are potentially in danger as this was one of the biggest cases at the time. There are so any people involved and many others in the crossfire as Hunter seems to have made quite a lot of friends over the years. The CIA is at the moment putting many resources into finding him – even the NSA is getting involved. And now so is the FBI, what we need you to do is create an accurate profile to help us find him."
The room paused for a second to evaluate all the information that has been said. After a brief moment of silence, Hotch was the first to speak.
"It would be wise to get in contact with the old team since they would've interacted with him the most. They could identify behaviour patterns."
Neil was hesitant to agree, "Well thing is, we'd imagine they would be No.1 on Hunter's revenge list, so I don't think that would be wise. Besides, it was so long ago I'd doubt they'd remember such precise details. They are all probably in their late twenties and thirties right now."
One less thing to worry about, Reid concluded.
Hotch, however, was quite surprised to hear this new piece of information. "Wouldn't that have made them around 18-19 at the time all of this went down?"
"Yes precisely. The CIA was never proud of using children as young as 16 in aid of their investigations, but they were astoundingly useful as n one suspected them undercover."
That's because we were their dirty little secret, he thought again.
Hotch turned around to look at his team. This was likely going to be the case of a lifetime, and a hard one at that as they had close to nothing to go on. His surveying eyes stopped at Reid, who looked quite pale and honestly as if he'd seen a ghost.
"Reid, are you ok?"
It seems that everyone is eager to know if the infamous Dr. 'Spencer Reid' is ok. No. I am not o fucking k. My life is a fucking disaster. Everything is falling apart. My surrogate brother is missing. My surrogate family is also God knows where. I'm practically a sitting duck waiting for Hunter to find me, and probably execute me in the harshest way possible, and you have the fucking nerve to ask whether I am ok?!
"I am fine." He responded plainly.
Hotch didn't really believe him for a second, but he didn't have time to confront him now He'd do it later, and thoroughly as well until he got the truth out of him. He would make the same mistake as he did with Jordan. Never again.
"Ok team. The jet leaves in 15." And they all disbanded in preparation to leave.