Agents Roscow and Linner sat in the back of the van, manacles loosely fastened around their wrists and ankles. Their orange jumpsuits shone brightly through the crack where the door to the back had been slid open. The driver, Mike, sat uncomfortably with his hands clenching the steering wheel at ten and two. He didn't like all the dead angles he was forced to endure from his position. Dobson was pacing in front of the van's grill, the disposable cell phone clutched in his hand. He looked at his watch and dug in his pocket for a pack of nicotine gum. The terrorists had overshot their own deadline by ten minutes. Where were they? Why hadn't they called?
He looked around the park. Many of the people walking dogs or eating ice cream on the park benches were agents in civilian clothes, but not all of them. Neither were the cars that drove past him. The situation made him nervous. Too many things could go wrong. People could get hurt.
His eyes swept the park again and its surrounding buildings. He knew which windows hid his teams, though nothing from the outside distinguished them. His radio was quiet. No one had spotted anything or anyone. His eyes landed on Hotchner's hiding place and he squinted. With the sun reflecting in the glass it was hard to tell, but he thought he saw… mist? Smoke? What was that? He raised the radio to his lips.
"Unit four, report please."
Chewing his lip he waited, but there was no answer. He tried again.
"Unit four, respond."
Mike turned in his seat and looked towards the window in question before exchanging glances with the mock prisoners in the back. Dobson spoke into his radio.
"Units three and six, check on unit four's position. Use extreme caution." A lump of dread was beginning to form in his gut. Without losing focus of his surroundings he kept his eyes turned to the room that should hold agents Hotchner, Marcus and Miller. Within minutes he had his answer.
"We need paramedics up here," someone shouted over the radio. "Miller and Marcus have been shot."
Quickly checking the street for oncoming traffic, Dobson crossed the street at a fast pace, banged open the building's door and barreled up the stairs to the third floor, three steps at the time. He heard coughing on the third-floor landing and carefully poked his head through the door into the hallway. What he saw was his agents pulling Miller and Marcus out of the apartment, smoke trailing them, evaporating in the spacious hallway. Most of the agents held their hands or pieces of cloth across their mouths. Then he was pushed out of the way by the paramedics they had kept on standby.
Agent Swartling, who was squatting by Miller's side, was also asked to give room for the paramedics. Standing up she saw her boss and walked towards him.
"Tear gas, sir," she said, hiding a cough in her hand. "But it's dissipating quickly now that we've opened the door and the windows. Miller has taken a slug to the shoulder, it doesn't look too bad. Marcus was shot in the gut… I don't know…"
"And Hotchner?" Dobson asked.
Swartling shook her head. "Missing."
"God dammit." He absentmindedly scratched his nose as he tried to come up with a new plan. "All right, take units two and three and search the outside. How long ago do you think they were here?"
Swartling shrugged. "No more than a couple of minutes."
"Okay, go. And check if there are any cameras around that might have captured them on tape. Traffic cameras, ATMs, store surveillance, anything you can think of."
"Got it." Swartling jogged down the stairs, calling the designated units over the radio.
Dobson went over to his injured men. Miller was conscious and fighting his paramedic, trying to get a good look at his partner. Dobson knelt beside him and put a hand on the blond head to force him back down.
"Sir," Miller panted as he clawed his oxygen mask off, deaf to the paramedic's protests, tears streaming from his red and swollen eyes. "Sir, how's Marcus?"
Dobson looked over at his other agent, lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor. The paramedic working on him looked up and shrugged, not willing to commit to any kind of diagnosis just yet. Dobson turned back to Miller.
"Just worry about yourself for now," he said evasively. "What happened?"
"The door opened," Miller said between coughs. There was a small cut on his lower lip as if he'd bitten himself. "And a canister rolled in, gas already leaking from it and then it exploded. It all happened so fast, sir, we didn't even have time to pull our weapons. There were three of them, with gasmasks. They had guns with silencers. They shot Marcus first. I drew my gun, but took a slug to the shoulder before I could fire it. I fell to the floor, there was smoke everywhere. I saw them overpower Agent Hotchner, then I don't remember anything…"
The last part of the sentence was drowned out in gut wrenching coughs and Dobson gently maneuvered the oxygen mask in place again as another group of paramedics entered the hallway with a second stretcher. He called for another agent to accompany the fallen men to the hospital and to contact him regularly with updates.
Dobson then entered the apartment that was now sufficiently aired out, even if a sting to the air still remained and hitched in the breath of the agents surveying the room.
Captain Witchell stood over by the window, looking at some overturned equipment. He looked up as the other agent entered. "They must have called our bluff. But how did they know where to find him? We only finalized this plan two hours ago," he said bewildered.
Dobson's lips thinned dangerously as he drew the only possible conclusion. "It was a trap. They've got someone on the inside."
Tension was running high in the basement. JJ was running a fever and slept fitfully, mumbling incoherently in her sleep. The others tried to wake her up every now and then, but it proved more and more difficult each time.
The fever had started yesterday and had made for a sleepless night for the rest of them as they worried about what an untreated concussion toppled with an untreated infection might do to her. Last night, as Henry had performed his nightly visit, Morgan had gone so far as to beg for help. That had resulted in a few sterile wipes, some actual bandages and two Tylenols. Not nearly enough, but still better than nothing.
Now it was late afternoon. Prentiss sat on the floor by JJ's cot, dozing lightly with one arm pressed up against JJ and her head resting on the arm, while Morgan paced the floor, his chain rattling with every step. Gideon was behind the screen trying to wash his sweater, his t-shirt and himself in the sink to get as much of the dried blood out as possible. His plan was to offer his sweater, once it had dried, to JJ so she could get rid of her blood soaked blouse. With nothing but toilet paper or his own clothes to dry with, Gideon's chest was still damp as he hung the wrung-out sweater over the screen to dry and limped heavily into the main area of the room again. He had a seatbelt shaped bruise across his chest and abdomen, JJ had a matching one, and also a deep contusion over his ribs on the right side.
"Calm down please, Morgan," he requested.
Morgan glared at him. "Why? Face it, there's nothing we can do. We're stuck here."
"There's always something we can do," Gideon said, lying down on the free cot and putting his leg up on the pile of blankets he'd been using to elevate his swollen knee. He sighed contented. It felt good to be off his feet again. "We do what we always do. We build a profile."
Prentiss cracked open an eye. "Sure, no problem," she said with a sarcastic tint. "Let's start with victimology: Us. But why? What have we ever done to Garcia's boyfriend? If this is revenge for something, it would be nice to know what it is."
"No," Morgan said, "This isn't an act of revenge."
"Why not?" Prentiss asked.
"Because if it were," Gideon answered, "Then Henry would've probably killed Morgan before kidnapping you and you before kidnapping us. He would enjoy sending photos or videos of him tormenting us to those still free, to instill fear, to show what we could expect when it was our turn. Had it been revenge he would've been present here with us, torturing us, forcing us to watch each other suffer. Revenge is always messy and always personal."
"He wouldn't have given us medical supplies for JJ either," Morgan said. "There's another agenda here, he's got something planned for the future."
"I know," Prentiss said. "But why didn't they just grab all six of us when we were all together?" she asked, sounding as if she was just thinking out loud. "Why this outdrawn procedure... why draw it out and give us all the warnings we need. It just makes it more and more difficult for them each time."
"Logistics." Morgan suggested. "It takes a lot of people to take down six agents and there are only four of them. Henry probably wants to keep this tight, the less people that know about it, the better."
"It's also part of the game," Gideon said. "This whole show has been put on for our benefit. To catch us is just that, a prey caught. But to outwit us, make us fail, show us how weak and helpless we are; that's part of his game. And we are meant to be impressed by this. We are meant to be impressed by the level and sophistication of his plans. It's to show us that he's not some two-bit kidnapper, he's our equal, or even superior as he has no problems getting to all of us."
"Yeah, but how did they plan the other things," Prentiss asked. "Like, how did they know when you we're going to the prison to interview Nelson and Marquez?"
"An expected reaction to the ransom note," Gideon said.
"They're getting bolder and more violent with every abduction," she commented.
"That's not really so strange," Morgan said. "In the beginning they relied on stealth. We didn't know they were coming for us, and that was the way they liked it. But now that we know they're after us, there's no need for stealth. Also as we become more aware, we become more suspicious and careful and it becomes more difficult to overpower us."
"We still don't have a motive," Prentiss pointed out.
"He's collecting us," Gideon said. "I don't know why, but we're all still alive. That means that if he wants to kill us, he probably won't do it until he's got all of us or has lost the hope of getting all of us."
"Then it's all up to Hotch and Reid," Prentiss said slowly.
Just then the door opened and Hotchner was forcefully pushed into the room, bound and blindfolded like the rest of them had been, an armed henchman keeping the others immobile.
Once Hotchner's shackle had been secured around his ankle, he was put on the floor and had his picture taken. As soon as he'd been freed from the duct tape and blindfold and his captors had left the room, Hotchner turned to his team. "Is everyone okay?" he asked, cataloging the various cuts and bruises showing on their bodies.
"Yeah, we're good," Morgan said. "You?"
Hotchner touched his sore nose, brushing away some flakes of dried blood and then moved his hand up to his red and puffy eyes. "I'm fine," he said. "I can't believe I let them get the drop on me."
"Well, you're in good company," Morgan said wryly. "What happened?"
Hotchner sighed and rubbed his eyes again. "We got instructions for a hostage exchange, the four of you for the two of them. We were supposed to take them to the Garden Park and get further instructions there over the phone. Marcus, Miller and I were in an empty third-floor apartment, keeping watch over the north-bound road. A minute after the deadline our door was opened. It was supposed to be locked, but I don't know, maybe it wasn't. I went for my gun, we all did, but they'd thrown in tear gas canisters. The room filled up fast, I could barely keep my eyes open. I hardly heard the shots, they had silencers, but I saw Marcus go down, then Miller. Then someone punched me in the nose and I blanked out for a moment. When I came to they were dragging me down the back stairs. They stuffed me in the back of a car, tied me up and blindfolded me."
"So it was a trap," Prentiss said.
"Looks that way," Hotchner agreed.
Prentiss frowned. "Don't they want their people back? What would they have done if you'd really brought the prisoners?"
"I don't think they're stupid enough to believe we'll free Nelson and Marquez that easily," Hotchner said. "They probably never expected that they would be there."
"This is getting ridiculous," Morgan said. "They're just picking us off one by one without even breaking a sweat, and we can't even figure out why."
Hotchner's eyes turned to JJ, who was moving restlessly on one of the cots. "Is she…?"
"Sleeping," Morgan said somberly. He sat down on the place on the floor Prentiss had just vacated and put a hand on JJ's forehead to calm her. "She does that a lot."
"Here." Prentiss handed Hotchner a leftover piece of the chemise that she'd wet under the faucet and Hotchner gratefully put it over his still stinging eyes.
"What have you learned so far?" he asked, his head tilted back to keep the piece of cloth in place.
"That Prentiss gets cranky without her coffee," Morgan joked.
Prentiss made a face at him and then proceeded to fill Hotchner in on everything they'd seen, heard and theorized so far.
"Henry Caswell? Garcia's boyfriend?" Hotchner said, letting the wet cloth slip off and looking at them. "I met him getting off the elevator on the way to the hostage exchange. He would've seen the plans in the bullpen. No wonder it was so easy for them to grab me, he had all the information. Has he said anything to you about what this is about?"
"We hardly ever see him," Morgan said. "He only comes down sometimes in the evenings. I suppose he has to keep up appearances with his day job."
"And he's been picking Garcia up from work every night," Hotchner added. Morgan's face turned grim at that thought.
"What's happening on the outside?" Gideon asked.
"The investigation has been turned over to anti-terrorism," Hotchner told them. "Simon Dobson is in charge."
"Dobson? No, not him," Morgan complained.
"What?" Prentiss asked. "What's wrong with Dobson?"
"He's an egotistical, career hungry, narcissistic know it all," Morgan fumed. "And, oh yeah, he doesn't believe in the psychological mumbo jumbo we do. Hotch, how could you let him get involved in the investigation? And what about now? You and Gideon can hardly get him to listen, how's Reid gonna have a chance to stand up to him?"
"I didn't let him do anything," Hotchner said, "He was forced on us by Director Strauss. But at least Reid isn't alone."
"Is Reid…" Prentiss began and then stopped. She looked down at her hands as she tried to find the right words for what she wanted to know. "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but since the kidnappers managed to get all of us with relative ease, what chances does Reid have of avoiding them?"
Gideon gave her a skewed smile. "Don't underestimate Reid, Emily."
"Or Dobson," Morgan said. "He's not going to let him out of his sight. If I know him, he's taking this very personally and is probably furious with himself for letting them walk away with Hotch right under his nose. He'll lock Reid up in a broom closet if he thinks it'll keep him safe."
"If you don't mind, I think I'm gonna worry anyway," Prentiss said, throwing a look at JJ.
"We all do," Gideon said.
TBC…
