This Crazy Thing Called Life-Chapter 10
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Two weeks went by and nothing happened. Every time his phone rang or there was a knock on the house door, Dave's heart leapt into his throat as he expected the worst, but nothing happened. He checked with the guys who were following all of the girls around and they hadn't noticed anyone out of the ordinary. It was as if Dmitri Lazlov had disappeared into thin air and Dave began to cautiously hope that John had been right, that Dmitri wouldn't come after him because he hadn't technically been part of the CIA team that took him down. Unfortunately, that illusion was shattered soon after it had taken root in his brain.
His world exploded on a Thursday, the day after Valentine's Day. He had come into work late because he and Erin had celebrated the romantic holiday by eating dinner at an overpriced but wonderful restaurant. They had gotten home late and, after discovering that all of their daughters had gone to bed early, they had continued their celebration until the early morning hours. They celebrated for so long that it was only minutes after Dave had tiptoed down to the couch that Allie was up watching cartoons. Needless to say, he hadn't gotten much sleep with the little girl sitting on the floor in front of him watching her shows with the volume cranked, so after the girls had left for school, he and Erin had celebrated a little more before grabbing a few hours of shut eye.
As he entered the office via the bullpen later that morning, there were no sly looks, there was no ribbing him about coming in so late after Valentine's day, instead everyone looked shaken and a bit somber.
"What happened?" Dave asked Emily as he walked through the unusually quiet bullpen.
"Anderson was shot last night," she told him.
"What?" He asked incredulously. "Was he on a case?"
The brunette shook her head, "No, someone busted into his house and shot him before he could react. He's in the ICU right now, but it doesn't look good."
"Jesus," Dave said in disbelief; if something like that could happen to a desk agent like Anderson...well, it could happen to any of them. He shook that thought out of his head as he made his way to the conference room for the team's late daily briefing.
After the briefing, Dave was weighed down in paperwork and he didn't look up from it until around four o'clock, when Erin walked into his office and shut the door. "I'm going to head out; will you and Katie be okay on your own this weekend?" Katie had forgiven him quickly for not allowing her to attend the formal dance, mostly because she had known he would say no, and their house had been fairly harmonious in the weeks since.
"We'll be fine, but we're gonna miss you," he told her as he got up from his desk and pulled her into his arms. The girls all had the next day and the following Monday off from school due to a large teacher's convention and the Strauss women were attending a Strauss family reunion in New York City. Erin had invited Katie to the event, but she didn't feel comfortable attending family functions yet, so the two of them were on their own for the long weekend. He wasn't sure what they were going to do, but he wanted to make it a nice father/daughter weekend and he had arranged to have a long weekend as well.
"I'm going to miss you too," she told him as she looked up at him. Without warning, their lips came together in a passionate kiss. She finally pulled away from him and caught her breath. "So much for remaining professional at the office."
"Hey, we closed the door, that's professional," he argued with a grin.
"You're incorrigible," she said as she pulled out of his tight grip and headed for the door. "I'll see you on Tuesday."
"Be careful on the roads and make sure to keep an eye out for things," he told her, thinking about Anderson.
"You too Dave," she said as she answered her ringing cell phone. After she left, Dave decided to call John to check on the status of the escaped Russian mobster. He tried the man's listed cell phone number and his unlisted, private number without success. Finally, he tried his CIA office phone and was surprised when an unfamiliar voice picked up.
"Hello," the baritone said.
"I'm looking for John," Dave said without explanation. If there was one thing he'd picked up on his consultations for them, it was that the CIA didn't mess around with introductions and explanations; they liked it when people were direct and to the point.
"He's not here," the person said.
"Do you know when he'll be back?" Dave asked.
"What is this in regards to?"
"None of your damn business," Dave said, getting agitated. "Just put John on the line."
"We're in a heightened state of security here, so I'm going to need John's secret phrase before I can give you any information," the man said.
"Jesus Christ, you people take paranoia to a whole new level," Dave said exasperated. "How do I know you're not some turncoat who will use the phrase against him?"
"Well you'll have to take your chances, won't you, asshole?" The voice snarled at him.
Dave closed his eyes and shook his head; he weighed his options and decided he had no choice. "Live each day as though it were your last; one day you're sure to be right." His CIA friend was a fan of obscure movie lines and that was one of his favorites.
There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment. "Okay, you're legit," he finally said.
"No shit, so can I talk to John now?"
"No, he's dead."
"What the fuck happened to him?" Dave asked, panicked.
"Assassination; one to the head, one to the heart."
Dave didn't even bother saying goodbye, he just hung the phone up and sat there in shock. John was dead, Lazlov hadn't forgotten about them and now he was the last one alive. Fuck, this was really bad. He grabbed his keys, said a quick goodbye to Hotch and left the building. As he made his way home, he called Katie under the pretense of checking in with her, but he really wanted to make sure she was okay. She answered and reminded him she would be home late that afternoon since she was at the mall with friends. He almost made her come home but as he glanced at his watch, he realized that by the time he got home, she and her friends would be leaving the mall themselves so she would only get home a few minutes earlier than planned, but she would be angry with him for the entire weekend, so he let it go.
Once he got home, he beelined it for the liquor cabinet, but he stopped abruptly when he saw an unfamiliar laptop on the kitchen table. There was a note taped to the top that said 'open me.' Dave knew at once that the laptop belonged to Dmitri and the knowledge that he, or one of his men, had been in his house made him draw his gun and sweep the entire place. Once he was certain he was alone, he sat down at the table and opened the computer. As soon as he did, a video conference program opened up and soon he was face to face, or screen to screen, with Dmitri Lazlov.
"Ah, Agent Rossi, we meet again," the Russian said in heavily accented English.
"Dmitri," Rossi said, schooling his features so the mobster wouldn't see how rattled he was. He had interviewed Manson, Dahmer, and Bundy yet Dmitri Lazlov scared him more than all three of those men combined. Lazlov had absolutely no conscience and he was the most ruthless man Dave had ever profiled.
"Your team is dead, Agent Rossi. I saved John for last but I wish I'd saved that young one. She had spunk, fought to the end to save her family but it was all for naught. Tell me Agent Rossi, have you ever seen a child die? It is strangely peaceful."
"What do you want Dmitri?" Dave asked, pushing his horror at the man's words into a box in his mind.
"Ah, so we're on a first name basis, are we? Let me ask you something, Dave; do you know what a Russian Gulag is like? Anyone who says hell is hot is wrong; hell is a Siberian prison cell in the dead of winter and I had four years to experience it."
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"
"Oh, by the time I'm done with you, you'll be sorry, don't you worry," Dmitri said arrogantly. "I was stuck in that hellhole for four years! And then, when I finally broke out, do you know what I found?" He asked rhetorically. "I found out that my wife and son had been killed by one of my enemies. The only thing that had kept me going in that god awful place was the thought of seeing them again and it turns out they had been killed right after I'd entered the prison!"
"I'm sorry Dmitri," Dave said genuinely. "No one should have their family taken from them."
"And if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have!" Lazlov shouted, banging his fist down on the surface in front of him. "The CIA was clueless as to where I was, but then you came on scene and within weeks they had captured me! My capture, my sentence, and my family's death is your fault, which is why I saved you for last."
"You can blame me all you want Lazlov, but you're the scumbag criminal, not me," Dave said with a confidence he didn't feel.
"Tell me Dave, how is Agent Anderson doing?"
"You son of a-" Dave started angrily, but the mobster cut him off.
"You're going to die, Agent Rossi, that's a given, but you're not going to be the first to die…no, you took my family and now I'm going to take yours, I'm going to take all of your family," he said almost gleefully. "Maybe I'll start with Agent Hotchner and his son, they like going to the park in the mornings. Or maybe that pretty technical girl; it would be pretty easy to get her while she's walking home from the Metro station. Hmmm, or maybe your girlfriend should be my first target. No, I think your daughter-"
"If you touch her, I'll-" Dave wasn't able to get his entire threat out before Dmitri interrupted him.
"You'll what? You don't even know where I am! You're getting rusty in your old age, Agent Rossi. Hell, even when you weren't so…seasoned, you still couldn't do anything to stop me," he told him. "Did you ever wonder about your wife's car accident? How she was run off of a seemingly deserted road? Didn't that ever seem suspicious to you?"
"What are you saying?" Dave asked in a deadly voice.
"What I'm saying, Dave, is that I had some time in a regular Russian prison before I was transferred to that hellhole in the north, and while I was there, I made some arrangements, payback for your ingenious profile. I was angry when I learned she was alone, as I had also hoped to kill your daughter as well, but it seems as though I'll get a chance now."
Dave sat stunned at his table; Janet had been killed because of him, and it was only by the grace of God that his daughter hadn't been with her. Jesus.
"Here's how this will work, Agent Rossi. I am going to start killing people you know and love and it will be at random intervals so you cannot predict it. If you are as good as you once were, then maybe you'll be able to stop me before you lose too many people, especially since I'm older now."
"I swear to God, Dmitri-" Once again, Dave wasn't able to finish his sentence.
"There are rules to this game, Dave," Lazlov interrupted. "The main rule is you cannot tell anyone what is going on. I have all of your people watched and if I notice that one of them has gone into hiding, or they are all varying their routines, I'll have my men kill them all at once. I have your phones, your email and your internet tapped, so don't think you'll warn anyone that way either. And if you think your precious FBI building is safe from my surveillance, you're mistaken. But I'm a nice man; I won't start this until Tuesday, that way you can spend the weekend with your daughter, like you had planned and you won't have to worry about anything happening to Erin, Ellen, Alison or Clara while they're in New York, but don't try going online for any of your files because, again, I have everything tapped."
"What about Agent Anderson? Was he just a warning?" Dave asked tightly.
"Agent Anderson was proof that I'm not bluffing."
"I'm going to find you Dmitri, and when I do, you won't have to worry about prison. No, I'll kill you slowly and painfully," Dave said scarily but the mobster just laughed arrogantly.
"Good luck with that, Agent Rossi," he said jovially. "But we should end this conversation; your daughter is just walking up the path to your home. Tell her she should have gotten the blue blouse as well, it looked good on her." With that, the connection went blank and all of the fear Dave had been holding back, came bubbling to the surface.
Sure enough, Katie walked through the door a moment later and she was holding a Gap bag. "Hi dad," she said brightly. "Wanna see the cool pink top I got today?"
He stared at her for a second and knew he had to get her out of there, if only for the weekend. He couldn't stand the thought of both of them being watched and Dmitri said the 'game' wouldn't start until Tuesday, so he should be safe in getting her out of town for a few days. But where should he take her?
"Pack your suitcase!" He ordered abruptly, which startled Katie.
"What do you mean?" She asked as dropped her bag. "Where are we going?"
"Disneyworld." The idea came to him out of nowhere. It was far away and crowded so he could potentially lose their tail, but not so crowded that it would be dangerous for his daughter.
"WHAT?" Katie asked incredulously. "When did you decide this?"
"About two seconds ago."
"But…but we don't have plane tickets, or reservations, or-"
"Belle, if we leave within the next hour and I drive through the night, we'll make it to Orlando by noon tomorrow. We can sleep tomorrow afternoon and then go to the park in the evening and we'll have all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Then we'll leave Sunday night and be back here by noon on Monday. Besides, it's February so we shouldn't have a problem getting a room," he told her. "So what do you say, you wanna go to Disneyworld with your old man?"
"You're crazy," she laughed, wondering if he'd lost his mind, but she didn't care. "Of course I want to go! Give me twenty minutes and I'll be ready."
"Don't forget your swimsuit," he told her as she ran up the stairs. He hoped he could manage to keep up his carefree façade because he was going crazy inside and, truth be told, he knew it would take him some time to catch Dmitri and while he would somehow keep her, her sisters and Erin safe, he knew it was going to get ugly and, truth be told, he wanted to give Katie one last happy memory before the proverbial shit hit the fan.
A/N 2: I won't be writing the Disneyworld chapter simply because I have never been there and I don't think I could do it justice.