A/n It's my birthday today Woohoo!
Here's your next chapter
An old Russian proverb reminds us, "There can be no good without evil."
Emily P.O.V.
It has already been two weeks since I broke it off with JJ and time has never gone so slow. I hadn't expected that I would miss her this much, but when I saw Jones standing in front of my house I knew I had made the right choice.
When I saw Jones I went to grab my gun from my safe, but by the time I had returned he was gone. I called Sean and he said he would get the information to the team that is working on recapturing Jones. Despite my protests he said he would also make sure that the security cameras in the building are up to date.
Right now I'm looking for my pen which I forgot in the conference room. I look up and see Mother talking to Anderson. I walk out of the conference room and say "Mother?"
We just stare at each other a few seconds before I walk towards her.
"I need to speak to you and one of your superiors"
"I'll see if Agent Hotchner has time" I tell her. I walk towards Hotch's office and I know that Mother and her associates are following me.
"Hotch do you have some time?"
"Yes, do you need something?"
"My mother wants to talk to you" I tell him and he immediately stands up and walks over to the door. Even after all these years I'm still surprised of how most people act after hearing the Prentiss name.
"Ambassador Prentiss, how are you?" Hotch asks her
"I'm fine, thank you. I'm sorry for being this abrupt, but we need your help"
"What can we do?"
"Just listen to their story and see if you and your team are able to help" Mother answers and Hotch gestures them to sit down.
"I found my father's car last night when I took out the garbage. The door was open and his bag on the ground, but he was gone" Natalya says
"Gone?" I ask
"He's been kidnapped" my Mother answers
"Are you sure?" Hotch asks
"Yes" Natalya answers
"Have you been to the police?" Hotch asks
"They came directly to me. As I think you can understand, Agent, they don't easily trust the authorities" Mother answers
"There are protocols, Ambassador Prentiss, the local police. There's an FBI office in Baltimore" Hotch tells her
"Yes, but you do handle kidnapping cases, don't you? You, the BAU, it is your mandate" she retaliates
"Yes, when necessary" Hotch answers
"Mrs. Chernus' brother, Natalya's uncle, worked for me at the embassy in Ukraine" Mother says
"Be that as it may. There are channels these cases must go through and if our particular expertise is required-" Hotch starts, but he is interrupted by Mrs Chernus who starts to speak in Russian
"Please, we don't have time" Natalya says
"It's just not something that's up to us" I try to explain, but as soon as I have stopped speaking Mrs. Chernus speaks again. This time she talks about how officials are the same everywhere. Her daughter tries to calm her, but fails.
"Please, it's already 8.15 in the morning" Natalya says, both Hotch and I are intrigued by this sentence. Before one of us can ask what she means, Mother explains
"The kidnappers left a note, demanding a $100.000 be wired to a bank account in Moscow by noon today. That's less than four hours" she tells us
"They say if we don't, they'll send another piece every six hours after" Natalya says
"Another piece?" Hotch asks, she opens something. I walk over to take a better look and I see a finger, presumably a ring finger seeing the wedding ring.
"That's my father's wedding ring" she explains "Please help him" she finishes
"Tell the rest of the team, conference room in three" Hotch tells me
Hotch has called someone to process the finger, but when the Agent tries to put the finger in a cool box Mrs. Chernus becomes distraught. While Mother and I try to calm her down, Natalya asks if they can keep the finger.
Hotch tells the Agent who came for the finger that it's fine and that she can leave the finger here.
Reid tries to analyse the letter, but the Unsub(s) didn't use any other words than strictly necessary. So it doesn't give us anything for the profile.
"It doesn't even say not to call the police" JJ notices
"Russian expats don't have the greatest experience with their home government. They tend not to trust officials" I explain as my eyes are once again drawn to Jay
"Well there's another reason they aren't worried. According to the note, they aren't planning on contacting them again" Gideon says
"It's completely self-contained. They expect their instructions to be followed" Hotch says
"We don't have $100.000" Natalya says
"They seem to think you that you do" Morgan says and Natalya looks surprised
"Garcia, can you get any information on the account?" Hotch asks
"Already checking. The account number does seem to correspond with that bank" she answers
"Can you get the account holder's name?" Hotch asks
"I have no idea how Russian banks store their data, how their servers are constructed. We'd have to call the bank directly" Garcia says dejected
"No way. There's no way a Russian bank is going to give information on personal accounts" I say
"Well, I could try to go through the embassy in Moscow" Mother says
"And say what? The FBI is looking for information on Russian citizens bank accounts. I mean if we were lucky we would spend the next six years drowning in red tape" I say having a very good idea of how that will work out
"I can make some calls. I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries" Mother tells the others, ignoring me
"That would be a great help, Ambassador" Hotch says
"If you'll excuse me" Mother says and she leaves
"Morgan, somebody needs to go to the Chernus house in Baltimore, in case they are contacted again"
"You got it, Hotch"
"I want to be there" Natalya says, but Hotch basically tells her to stay put
Morgan, Reid and Gideon go to Baltimore while the rest of us stay here. JJ and Garcia are working on the bank account and Natalya is acting as their translator. I'm staying with Mrs. Chernus and Hotch is contacting multiple people in the hope they can help.
"Your Mother has got feelers out. She's confident she can get results" Hotch tells me after hanging up
"Well, if anybody can, it's Ambassador Prentiss" I say
"How is she doing?" Hotch asks referring to Mrs. Chernus
"How would you be?" I ask him
"Right"
"Agent Cramer is meeting Gideon, Morgan and Reid at the Chernus house. This is the translator, I have already briefed her" JJ interrupts
"Will you introduce her to Mrs. Chernus?" Hotch asks JJ and JJ walks the translator over to Mrs. Chernus
"Thank god" I say "I'm really not good at Russian" I explain at seeing his confused expression. Hotch lets out a little smile and starts walking to his office "Sir?" I ask
"Yes"
"If it would be alright, I would like to go and help my Mother"
"Alright, keep me up to date" he tells me
At the Prentiss residence
"How are you enjoying your assignment to the BAU?" Mother asks me
"Well, enjoying is an odd description" I answer
"Is it?" Mother asks while continuing with working on her laptop
"Well, we deal with some pretty horrible things"
"I thought that's where you wanted to be"
"It is, definitely" I say immediately
"Then you do enjoy it"
"All I'm saying is that 'enjoy' feels wrong"
"Alright, what would you call it?"
"Who do we have to end up in an interrogation?" I say feeling a little frustrated with both her abruptness and that she doesn't even look at me while we're talking.
Her assistant informs us that Gregor Popovich is calling her back.
"Gregor?"
"Yes"
"My daughter, Em, is in the room with me"
"Ah, little Emily"
"You have some good news for me, I hope"
"I'm afraid not, no-one in the Russian government is going to officially give you permission to look into the account holder's information in this bank"
"Do they understand this is an emergency?"
"They were not impressed"
"Thank you for trying, Gregor"
"I wish I could have done more. Goodbye Emily"
"Goodbye Sir" I answer after being a little startled and Mother hangs up
"I really thought he could do this" Mother says in a tone that I haven't heard often before and it makes me a little uncomfortable
"Um, I should head back to the office and let them know" I say
"Yeah, please tell Agent Hotchner I'm sorry"
I'm very surprised by that last sentence, but after a few seconds I answer "Right" and I walk out of the room
Back at the office
"Anything?" Hotch asks as soon as I have knocked
"Her contacts fell through" I answer
"Really?" Hotch says surprised
"Apparently, she's not infallible"
"Is there something else?" Hotch asks me after my eyes were drawn to JJ and I sort of stared at her
"No" I say quickly before adding "I just wish there was something more we could be doing for this family"
"We still have over an hour" Hotch says and I don't think he saw through my façade
"Yeah" I say before leaving his office
After half an hour Mother walks into the bullpen, just at the moment that Hotch has told Mrs. Chernus and Natalya that they have recovered an ear of Mr. Chernus.
"Has something happened?" she asks me
"Yes, the kidnappers didn't wait until noon. They cut off Mr. Chernus' ear and sent it to their home address" I tell her
"Oh god" she says just loud enough for me to hear "Is he-" she starts to ask, but I interrupt her knowing what she's going to ask
"No, we don't think so, but they have given us a new deadline and increased the ransom demand. You still think I enjoy all of this?"
"Are they still instructed to wire the money to the same bank in Moscow?" Mother asks surprising me
"Yes, I think so"
"Something your computer expert said this morning about if she understood how Russian banks hold their data she could get information about the account holders"
"Right"
"After you left I called Gregor back, he made some calls and gave me this. He said she would understand it" Mother says and she hands over an envelope.
While I'm on my way to Garcia I hear JJ tell someone that the finger isn't in the box anymore. As I walk by a take a glance into the conference room and the look on Natalya's face doesn't sit right with me.
I hand to papers Mother gave to me over to Garcia and she immediately knows what to do with it. As she starts typing on her computer she tells me "its breadcrumbs"
"I'm sorry?" I ask not understanding what she means
"It's a set of address string and passwords, a path. See? I'm jumping from site to site, country to country and each time I got a cursor I put in the next address and password. It's equivalent to breadcrumbs of Hansel and Gretel"
"What is that?" I ask when the screen fills with other words than before
"Oh, it's downloading the structure of Nadka's bank servers to me"
"Are you kidding?"
"Whoever gave this instructions, is really good"
"So you can get the account information now"
"If I can figure this out" Garcia says and literally seconds later she has an address. By accident there's a SWAT team close. They have our Unsub in custody very soon and Mr. Chernus is saved.
One Agent brings Lyov Lysowsky up to our floor and another one will bring Mr. Chernus up when Lysowsky is in the interrogation room. Natalya and Mrs. Chernus insisted on waiting for their husband/father in the bullpen. Garcia, JJ, Hotch, my Mother and I are also waiting in the bullpen.
When Lysowsky is walked through the bullpen he tells Natalya "Natalya, why don't you tell them your real part in this?" while we are a bit distracted Lysowsky manages to knock out the Agent who was holding him. I see him running towards us from the corner of my eye and within a split second I decide to stop him.
I tackle him with a good tackle, but he simple turns and punches me in the face. I'm able to block his next punch as I punch him myself. Every Agent has their gun out, but we're too close to each other for someone to take the shot. After about two minutes we're still fighting, we're both getting weaker and I'm sure both of us will be black and blue if we live to see tomorrow. Somehow we have ended up in a spot where no-one can really get a good angle. He's straddling me now; I bring up my knee and catch him in the spot that really hurts. The rolls have turned I'm standing over him now, but before I can do something, he brings up both his feet. He places them on my stomach and sends me flying through the air. I hit a desk and I know that if after all these impacts I still have no broken or cracked ribs I'm really lucky. A good thing about his last move was that it gave multiple Agents the chance to put a bullet in him. Natalya runs towards him, but is stopped by Hotch who then continues to arrest her for assisting in a kidnapping.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Leo Tolstoy
A/n let me know what you think of it. The next chapter will contain the aftermath. If you have anything you would like to see just leave a review and let me know