(A/N: Sorry for the delay! I was on vacation, and wasn't really sure where to take the story from the end of Chapter 6.)
Later that night, in the hotel room he shared with Morgan, Reid tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He glanced at the clock's red numbers on the nightstand- 3:12 a.m. Don't look, he told himself, or you'll never be able to sleep.
But then his phone buzzed insistently- his FBI one. Reid was sure the team was asleep. So who could be calling him at this time? The caller ID showed Garcia. Shit, he thought, she's come up with a huge new breakthrough, and now we'll end up going to Switzerland and…the Alliance children will die as soon as we free them. But he picked up anyway. "Hi Garcia," he whispered, not wanting to wake Morgan.
"Reid Spencer," she said softly. Reid's hands began to shake so much that he nearly dropped the phone. His stomach flipped unpleasantly, and he realized he was sweating, even though the room was a comfortable 68 degrees
"H-how did you, how did you know?" he stammered.
"Well, I am the fount of all knowledge, I can gain access to information no one else can. Are you alone? Go somewhere where you can be."
Reid slunk quietly down the stairs and out into the cool night- well, morning, technically- and sank down at the base of a large spruce tree in the small patch of grass outside the hotel. "Okay Garcia. It's not what you think- nothing is, there's no black and white here."
"I know, I think so, too, sugar," she said gently. "Based on the fact that Katie seems just fine in her letter, the unsubs keep the kids for a really long time, but there are no bodies or people in the hospital- and that you were apparently allowed to eventually leave them and make this life for yourself- I think this case is, well, different. But I want you to explain. Tell me what happened to you. Who are these unsubs, really? What are they trying to do? We obviously can't sabotage this case, but…"
So Reid did- he started with that night when he was nine, and what his mom was going through. "It's protective custody," he continued. "The threat's real. The team is on to something with the idea that the kidnappings had something to do with Nazism or white supremacy, but if the real criminals were the ones doing these kidnappings, you would have found a trail of bodies rather than one of missing children."
"The real criminals?"
"Look, Garcia," Reid sucked in a deep breath, trying to stop his voice from shaking. "These kidnappings- they prevent deaths rather than causing them. There are these incredibly organized international neo-Nazi groups, they were- I mean, still are- out to kill the children who've been kidnapped. The so-called "unsubs" actually doing these things, the reason we're here in the first place, are taking these children in order to protect them. I was one of those, you know. If this network of unsubs- they're called the Alliance- hadn't kidnapped me when I was little, I'd certainly be dead by now. These Nazis, the Weisse Macht, they're just killing kids, that's their sole focus, and they're very skilled at it. And if you knew that this was going on, wouldn't you do anything you could, legal or not, to stop them?"
Garcia sighed. "I just don't know where we should go from here. It's not like we can sabotage the investigation, and if what you're telling me is true, by freeing the kids through our investigation, we'd effectively be pulling the trigger on the gun that shot them, and disrupting so many lives- from what you said, and Katie, their lives are almost better with the Alliance. It's a hard puzzle to crack, but us two incredible geniuses just might be able to work something out."
Reid and Garcia finally got off the phone at 4:30, in those still predawn hours. Praying that Katie wouldn't contact her family again, that there would be no more leads, Reid snuck back to the room, but never actually slept, not even for a single minute.
Garcia faced her own dilemma here. She'd analyzed border crossings and travel patterns throughout Europe before finding out about Reid, and had found a clear pattern of crossings and visas obtained. The unsubs, or protectors, depending on what one believed, and, likely, the kids, as well, were holed up in Switzerland. And Garcia couldn't hinder the investigation- that would be a federal crime. As much as she hated herself for doing so, she'd have to lead the rest of the team to apprehending entirely the wrong people, assuming Reid was telling the truth.
Back at city hall at 7:30, the team arrived to go over clues to Jacob's disappearance. Almost immediately, Hotchner's phone rang. "Another letter…really? Okay." He hung up just as abruptly. Turning to face the rest of the team, he explained. "The mail processing facility in Ashland was told to keep an eye out for any letters that could be from Katie, as she said she might write to her grandmother again. Another one just came in three minutes ago, they're sending photos of it and rushing it to a lab." Everyone's phone then went off at once with the aforementioned photos of her letter. Reid's heart sank as he saw the postmark. Zurich, Switzerland. The Alliance headquarters lay not ten miles from there. Why couldn't Katie at least have been more careful? Why did the team end up investigating the very people who had saved him, when there were so many real criminals out there?
"I guess we're going to Zurich," was all Hotchner said. "I'll speak with Interpol and local police there, and we should be flying in an hour or two."
Reid had to stop this train of clues. Had to work against his team, his family. At least Garcia was on his side.
Two hours later, as the plane sped across the sky, Reid finally fell into an uneasy sleep. Interpol and FBI agents, including his own team, all dressed in SWAT gear and brandishing rifles, were at the entrance to headquarters. One agent keyed in the entry code and disabled the surveillance camera with a single, well-placed shot. Then they kicked down the door. The speakers on the walls of the underground world Reid had lived in for so long were yelling coded commands- evacuate the children, guardians and others prepare to fight, but he knew it was too late. The group rounded a corner, and there were a dozen or more of the so-called "unsubs," along with a few of the Alliance children, frantically trying to make it to the hidden garage and run with them. None of them had had a chance to pick up any weapons other than the handguns everyone always carried here. And handguns, no matter how good, were no match for fifty agents with shields, bulletproof vests, and AK-47's.
The bloodbath seemed neverending.
Prentiss watched Reid struggle in his dream. Everyone on the team had nightmares, but for Reid they were worst, probably because he was so young. She shook him gently. "Reid, Reid, wake up. You're only having a nightmare."
But Reid knew this was no nightmare. Rather, it was the future that lay ahead for so many. He'd never be able to live with himself after this case.
