Thank you all for the reviews! I'll try to get the next chapter up this weekend.
Quantico, VA
4:20 pm
Hotch was in his office, rubbing his aching head, and wishing just a little bit that Emily Prentiss wasn't a part of his team. Then he wouldn't know her, and he wouldn't care so much now, and he would never have had to deal with Andrew Callahan. The man was politician through and through. No wonder she hated politics so much, it had destroyed her childhood. He sighed and closed the file that he'd already read six times, and was yielding nothing new.
JJ had Ambassador Prentiss in her office, trying to calm her down, comfort her, and give hre a quiet, private place to cry all at once. After the initial shock, she'd given Drew the slap the rest of them had been aching to deliver. Hotch didn't know much about Prentiss's relationship with her mother, but awkward as it might appear to them, Elizabeth was still her mother. And, she ached like any mother would knowing that Drew might have just gotten their daughter killed.
Reid was handling the Morgan's family, still in the conference room, and trying to give them a little hope. They were all stuck in shock. Hotch hadn't wanted them in the room during the call, but he couldn't really deny them access when Emily's family had it. He wondered, if Morgan died, would they resent Emily for her unwilling part in it? Or would they forgive her for what she had no control over? Hotch knew her well enough to know that Morgan suffering for his association to her would already be weighing on her conscience.
Dave was in an interrogation room with Callahan, trying to get him to give up whatever secrets he was hiding. Hotch wasn't optimistic, seeing as how threats against his daughter didn't seem to work.
And, Garcia was-he was jerked out of his thoughts by a knock. The computer whiz was actually standing in the doorway to his office, a laptop in her hands. He waved her inside, and tried to ignore the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. He knew how close she and Morgan were, and that she didn't have the same emotional walls as the rest of the team. He was a little proud of her that she was able to hold back as much as she had been, but at the same time, a little saddened. Garcia helped keep them human, he didn't want to think the job was making her less human.
"I think I might have something," she began. "Well, more like a few possible somethings. I finished going through the names of people who were at embassy in 1976, and a few came up as interesting."
Hotch nodded, and sat beside her so he could follow what she was showing him on the screen. A photo of a man in his early thirties popped up.
"Donald Jones-and let me tell you what a bitch it was to search that name-was fired by Ambassador Prentiss on September 2, 1976. He was the translator attached to the Korean Consulate at the time, and lived there full-time with his wife and their two, going on three children, two girls and a boy. Jones was terminated from foreign service after being caught in a hotel room with a 13 year-old Korean girl. In less than a month, his wife divorced him, moved back to the states, and popped out baby number three. She was awarded sole custody of their children, and he was given limited, supervised visitation. He would still have had friends in the embassy and would likely have known about the kidnapping, may have even seen the pictures the kidnapper sent."
"How old was his son at the time?" He stared at the face on the screen, mentally aging him 33 years, and concluding that he was too old to be the voice of their caller.
"4 years-old. The daughter too, fraternal twins. They'd be 37 or so now." She clicked onto the next photo. "Marianne Collins."
She was in her late twenties, very beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed, and with the trademark 1970s Farah Fawcett hair. He looked at Garcia. "Do I want to know?"
The tech chuckled. "The Ambassador's secretary, rumored to have had an affair with her boss's husband, and though she was with Elizabeth in the states and Korea, she did not make the move with them to Russia, lending credence to those rumors. 1977 on, she seems to have dropped off the Earth. I'm still looking though."
"The unsub is male, so put her on the backburner. Anyone else?"
Her fingers danced along the keys until another photo popped up. A man, not much older than Jones, maybe late thirties, and looked the picture of a young politician.
Hotch almost groaned. "And, who did he sleep with that he shouldn't have?"
Garcia smiled. "As far as I can tell he was faithful to his wife, and devoted to his son."
"Nice change."
"Well, not that nice. His wife and five year-old daughter died in a car accident before he moved his son to Korea." She took a breath. "Okay, Garret Bernhardt, Elizabeth's Chief of Staff, who also didn't move with them to Russia. A lot of the information on him is classified, Hotch, but what I've be able to glean is that he was arrested, tried and convicted of treason. Nothing specific on the charges though. I also found a death certificate from 1981, so he was executed as well. I could probably get more information on the charges, but I feel you probably don't want me to do that kind of hacking..."
Hotch was suddenly reminded how Garcia came to work for the Bureau, and silently commended his bosses for their decision. She could probably do more damage with her fingers and a keyboard than the entire team could do armed to the gills.
"No, I have some contacts that I can get the information from." Or at least, he'd try. "Work on tracking Jones' son, and Collins, and give the information to JJ, she can ask Elizabeth about these people." He wanted more information before they questioned Callahan about them. She nodded and went to get up, but Hotch stopped her. "A trace still isn't an option, right?"
Garcia shook her head. "No, they're bouncing the signal from a hundred places, and mirror sites and...no, it's impossible to trace them."
Hotch rested a hand on her shoulder. "You did your best." Of that he had no doubt.
She made her exit, and Hotch went back behind his desk, and picked up the phone. Time to beg for some information.
Quantico, VA
6:00 pm
Elizabeth had collected herself, and rejoined the Morgan women in the conference room, awaiting the next call, so JJ once again had her office to herself. Elbows on her desk, head in her hands, she allowed herself a few tears before abruptly shifting gears back to work mode. It had been over two hours since the last call, and they were all wondering and fearing the same thing: would the next call they get be from an a state trooper, a city cop, an agent in a field office, telling them the bodies of a male and a female, matching the descriptions of two missing FBI agents were found, and could someone come out to make a positive ID?
Callahan wasn't talking, and Rossi had walked out almost an hour ago, too frustrated to continue pressing him. Hotch had decided to let him sit there and rot until the next call came in. She had no idea what anyone else was doing. JJ glanced up at the knocking on her door, and saw Reid with a padded manila envelope in his hand.
"Security just dropped this off, they said someone left it at the front desk. It's addressed to you." He looked uncertain, and was holding it gingerly by a corner. "You weren't expecting anything, were you?"
JJ stared at the package and shook her head. Reid laid it on her desk, while she dug in one of her drawers for gloves, fortunately finding a pair. She snapped them on, while Reid studied the top. Her name, title, and the units name were printed in neat block letters, letters that resembled the ones on the note to Ambassador Prentiss. Though, all block letters tended to look similar.
She used a letter opened to slice open the side, and then peered inside. A small white box that looked suited for jewelry was inside. She found herself hoping Will was trying to surprise her, but knew he'd never use this method. The man was a detective, manila envelops and block lettering wouldn't suggest romance to him.
"I don't suppose that's a necklace from Will?" Reid looked at her hopefully.
She gave him a look, "Get Hotch on the phone." Then she gently eased the box from the envelope, examined it for an signs that it was dangerous and slowly worked the top off. JJ immediately slammed the back of her hand over her mouth, as her stomach turned over. "Reid."
He turned away from the phone, saw the box, and looked up at her wide-eyed. "Hotch, you need to see this."
The Unit Chief was in her office in minutes, Rossi right behind him. JJ had rested the box on her desk, and was inhaling and exhaling deeply. Reid apparently had better control of his emotions, because he was bent over the box, studying the teeth.
Three blood-covered teeth. And, blood-covered really meant blood-covered, it was all over the cotton used as bedding for the teeth. The unsubs had sent her Morgan or Emily's teeth, after ripping them out of one of their mouths. She'd already called Crime Scene to come to her office and take the teeth for testing.
"JJ, what's going on?" Hotch asked. She simply pointed at the box. He and Rossi started, and Rossi got his emotions battered down first.
"What can you tell from them, Reid?" He moved beside the genius, and tried to study them as he was, but was less successful.
"It's a molar, an incisor, and a canine, top or bottom I can't tell. Judging by the size, it's more likely they're female, and with that much blood, she's still alive." That done, Reid moved away, and averted his eyes from the teeth.
"So, they ripped three of Emily's teeth out, and sent them to me?" JJ asked. "Why?"
"To tell us that they won't limit their torture to electric batons," Hotch said.
She nodded. "But why me? Why not her mother?"
"They're smart enough to know we'd never let a package like this get to her mother. Whether it was addressed to her at not, anything packaged like this would pass though one of us first, and they wanted to pick which one of us." Rossi held up the packaging.
"It's about speaking," Hotch commented, eyes roving over the teeth. He looked at Rossi. "The unsub has been trying to get Callahan to admit something allowed, JJ is the communicator of the team, teeth come from the mouth, the human communicating device. It's about bringing out this secret that Callahan is hiding."
"Then they're plan on calling back," Rossi said.
"The teeth support that," Reid added. "If they didn't want to continue talking, they'd have sent us bodies, not teeth."
"It's interesting though, he chose something that could be replaced."
Hotch frowned at Rossi. "What do you mean?"
JJ felt like she was watching a three-way ping pong match, trying to follow the guys as they went back and forth.
"Well, normally kidnappers send a finger, a toe, or a tongue when they want to make a point. And, a tongue would have still fit with their desire to communicate. But, they chose one of the few parts of the body can be replaced. If she walks away from this, a good dentist can fit implants for her. He's already admitted he knew her at one time...I don't think this guy really wants to hurt her, Aaron."
"But that doesn't mean that he won't," JJ said.
Hotch glanced from Rossi to her. "It does suggest that his plan isn't to kill them though, which is better news than we had ten minutes ago." He then picked up a desk phone, and typed Garcia's extension, requesting her presence. He told her to bring what she had on those people they were looking into.
Elizabeth hadn't been all that much help in that regard. She was still horrified over Jones, didn't know about the affair rumors, and still upset about Bernhardt. Apparently, she was completely blindsided by his arrest, and would never have imagined that he'd be treasonous.
The crime scene techs arrived then, and JJ felt her office getting smaller and smaller as more bodies crammed into it.
