Thanks once again to everyone who has taken the time to read and review/message (esp. the ones I can't reply to). I know this story has not come quite as quickly as it should have done, and for that I apologise. Not too much more to go now. Can't quite decide if I should include a few early days of the whole team actually together, save that for another fic, or just ignore it completely - let me know what you think...and if you have the patience to wait for those extra chapters that are likely to take some time ; p
This is once again going up unbeta'ed, so please let me know if your spot any mistakes I have overlooked or if I have left something that needs greater clarification.
Next chapter is almost completed, so will hopefully be up soon after this one, and with lambing season all over and done with hopefully more writing (and reading) in the future!
"Heya, mate," Mick said as he sat down in the booth. The bar was busy – there was an American Football match up on the big screen and the local crowd, all Redskins fans judging by the jerseys, were shouting abuse at the referee.
Mick was in the US for a few weeks – as part of the SAS, he was often required to take part in joint training ventures with other Tier One groups throughout the world and especially in the USA, given that they often worked together when out in the same AO.
Fort Bragg in North Carolina, a military base to several different Special Forces groups, had been his home for a little over three weeks so far. Mick still had at least another week to go before being shipped back out to Afghanistan for a Special Op., but he had been granted weekend furlough and so took the time to travel up to DC.
He had last seen Sam Cooper shortly before the older man's official discharge from military service. The profiler had made no plans as to his future after the military but it seemed as though his old friend, Jack Fickler, newly appointed Director of the FBI, was not willing to let Sam's talents go to waste.
Mick knew the Director had been trying to lure Sam back to the Bureau for some time, even before he had left the military, and so now Mick was travelling up to DC because Coop had finally acquiesced and agreed to listen to Fickler's offer.
"Mick," Sam nodded his greeting and filled a healthy glass of beer from the cold pitcher in the centre of the table. His friend looked tired, slouched in his booth as if the mere effort of sitting upright was too much to bear. "You ok?"
"Knackered, mate – training's been pretty brutal," Mick yawned as he cradled his beer and reached for a handful of nachos. He was very tired and the journey had been a tedious one. He was aware that he'd probably return to training more exhausted than when he'd left earlier in the day, but he didn't have many opportunities to catch up with his old friend.
"Yeah?"
"Pretty sure the US Special Forces are gearing up towards something big. You heard anything in the scuttlebutt about Bin Laden lately?" he asked, all too aware that that was the op. every member of US Special Forces wanted to be in on.
"Wouldn't you know more about that than me?" Sam asked with a small laugh. "I'm not with Military Intelligence anymore, remember – back to the simplicities of civilian life for me."
"Yeah," Mick snorted. "Because your life is the very definition of 'simple', Mr. BAU. Anyhow, I don't think, when the time does comes, that going after Bin Laden will be a joint operation – I'm pretty sure the Americans want this one all to themselves."
"Do you blame us?" Sam shrugged. "9/11 is still very much at the forefront of the public consciousness in America and nearly ten years later, we've still not got the guy who orchestrated the whole thing."
"No, I don't blame you – just wish I wasn't being forced into extra training for an op. I'm going to have nothing to do with," Mick laughed mirthlessly. In truth, he really was quite happy for the US troops to go hunting for Bin Laden – the potential fallout with those that would seek to avenge his capture, or more likely, his death, would be more than the underfunded MOD could handle anyway.
The recession had cut serious holes into funding for the Ministry of Defence and both MI5 and MI6, and with the War on Terror being brought increasingly nearer the doorstep, the truth that the country was incapable of adequately defending itself from threats foreign and domestic was made more and more clear.
"So you're tired of training and wanting to go home?" Sam summarised.
"Not sure I'm too keen on that idea right now, either," Mick shook his head, his countenance altogether much more grave.
"How come?" Sam wondered quietly, concern leaking through as he took in the changes of his friend's demeanour.
"You'll notice how Danny isn't here?" Mick said, gesturing towards the empty space beside him.
Sam nodded – Mick and Danny were as close as any brothers he knew and having worked alongside each other for so long in the military, it was rare to see one without the other. They had gone through basic together, joined the Paras together, gone through hell together, gone through Selection and joined the SAS together, Danny was even dating Mick's younger sister, Jenna.
"You remember Danny's brother? Simon?" Mick asked, and after receiving an almost hesitant nod from Sam as the older man could see the direction the conversation was heading, he reluctantly continued. "He died."
"How? Where?" Sam urged for more details.
"You know I can't answer that, Coop," Mick shook his head sadly.
Sam nodded – not Afghanistan or Iraq then, as Mick could have said either one of those current war zones without revealing much of anything. So, a covert operation that ended badly – which could be anywhere in the world, given the state of things!
"Danny was granted compassionate leave, so he's at home, trying to organise everything. We're holding a Dead Man's Auction as soon as we get back to Credenhill, right before we ship out to Afghanistan."
"Dead Man's Auction?" Sam wondered out loud, eyebrow raised rather sceptically at the connotations brought up by the term.
"It's not as macabre as it sounds," Mick chuckled mirthlessly. "Basically, when someone in the Regiment dies in the field, anything in their billet that their family either don't want or can't claim, is put up for sale amongst the rest of the lads – anything from equipment to some tacky souvenir from some place half way around the world."
"And you don't think that's rather…morbid?" Sam asked delicately.
"No," Mick shook his head. "At the most practical level, they're not going to need their gear once they're dead, so why not sell it on to another member in the Regiment who can actually use it? More importantly, while everyone's obviously upset, it gives them the chance to take away a memento and help out the family – all the money raised either goes to loved ones or it gets added into Regimental funds, to pay for funerals and the like."
"And Simon's?" Sam inquired of Danny's brother.
"Idiot had a girl," Mick frowned.
"And that's a bad thing?" Sam asked incredulously, thinking of his friend's rather liberal approach to the dating scene.
"It is when he was with her for almost five years, but never married her, never made it official in any way shape or form, so because she's not down on the paperwork anywhere it means that she's not eligible for his army pension. Lucy gets nothing."
"I see," Sam said slowly. He got the 'idiot' remark now – being in the military without any kind of will was more common than people might think. Sam knew those who were overly prepared to the point of morbidity in the event of their death, but he also knew many who refused to even contemplate such an outcome, thinking it bad juju. "They have any children?"
"No, it's a small mercy, but one all the same," Mick said, all too aware how hard it was to grow up with that kind of loss hanging over you from such a young age.
"So any money raised is going to Lucy?" Sam queried.
"That's the idea. Danny got into a huge fight with his mum because as soon as she heard about the auction she thought the money should be hers, only everyone in the Regiment has already agreed it should go to Lucy – I'm not entirely sure I trust that bitch to leave well enough alone, though."
Sam raised a brow at the vicious tone but remained silent – he knew there was no love lost between Mick and Danny's mother. Sam could not entirely disagree with the Welshman's attitude either, having seen just how little regard the woman seemed to have for her own son – Mick and Simon had more or less been solely responsible for putting the young spotter back together after his capture in Iraq, while Danny's mother had been quite happy to remain in a near-permanent drunken state with her latest boyfriend.
"How's Danny doing?" Sam inquired.
"Soldiering on, as always," Mick said, almost flippantly. He'd tried calling his friend, but so far, Danny seemed to be ignoring everyone. Mick had gone so far as to ask Jenna to go to London and keep an eye on the man, and given the way things had ended between them only days ago he'd felt like shit for even thinking of asking it of her.
"Mick?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised and his head tilted in such a fashion that demanded further elucidation.
"He's a mess, Coop," Mick sighed. "What do you expect? There was more than a ten-year age gap between Danny and Si, but with their father pissing off when Danny was still a toddler and a mother who would have sold them both for a bottle of gin at her local offy given half a chance, Si was pretty much big brother and parent for a long time.
"Si was the reason Danny went and signed up for the military in the first place. He loved his big brother, admired him…wanted to be him! Everything Danny's worked for in his life, everything he's aimed towards is because he wanted to make his big brother proud, wanted to prove to Simon that everything he'd sacrificed for his little brother was worth it, that Danny was worth it."
"I can't imagine Simon ever felt anything less than proud of his brother," Sam said earnestly.
"You know that and I know that and Si sure as hell knew that, but Danny…he's a little slow on uptake about these things. That fucked up mother of his has him convinced he's not worth much of anything," Mick spat with disgust.
Sam nodded, thinking it ironic that Mick could see such a trait in his best friend and be so wholly blinded to his own self-worth issues. He wondered if Mick had ever had a Simon Wallcroft of his own somewhere in his past who had done their level best to convince the young Welshman that someone, somewhere cared. He hoped so, even if he doubted it.
"He still has you," Sam pointed out. The continued presence of the sniper in Danny's life would in no way make up for the loss of his brother, but it would surely help. "He has you and he has Jenna."
Mick winced at that. "I'm not sure I'm much of a consolation prize and as for Jenna…"
"What?"
"He broke up with her about five hours after he got the news, over the phone no less," Mick sighed. "If I didn't understand why he was doing it and how much he hated himself for it, I'd have hunted him down and kicked his arse six ways from Sunday for hurting her like that, Fort Bragg or no Fort Bragg."
"You understand?" Sam asked inquisitively.
"Of course," Mick nodded. "Been there myself once or twice."
"Really?" Sam leant forward, his curiosity further peaked.
"When something happens that reminds you just how potentially fleeting your mortality is in the military, you react, and it's not usually in a rational fashion – in fact it tends to be pretty damn stupid and involves a lot of alcohol. Danny cares about Jenna, and he doesn't want her to go through the same thing Lucy did – some stranger in a uniform knocking at the door, telling her nothing more than the fact he's dead. Most of the time, the 'how', 'when' and especially the 'where' we die is classified, even from next of kin. That's not an easy thing to deal with on either end of the spectrum.
"He's an idiot and if he continues to be an idiot I'm going to have to beat some sense into him when I get back to the UK, but right now he's reacting to losing Si, so he's allowed a little leeway…for now," Mick promised.
"'For now'? So, you're expecting wedding bells in the future, then?" Sam teased his friend good naturedly.
"When they can stay together without breaking up every four months, then I'll start to consider it a possibility, although I don't reckon there'll be much more to fight about in the future," Mick shrugged.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked, not entirely sure what his friend was talking about.
"Most of their big arguments have centred around one thing – the Army."
"She wants him to leave?" Sam guessed.
"Technically, she wants us both to leave," Mick pointed out with a nonchalant shrug.
"But you think Danny will listen to her?"
"I think that what Danny wants more than anything is a family. He's built for that nine-to-five life complete with a semi-detached house in the suburbs, two kids and a Golden Labrador – all that stuff he never had growing up."
"Seems pretty well suited to army life, if you ask me," Sam noted.
"It does suit him, but ultimately, it's not what he wants. He didn't join the Army because it was his dream, he joined because it was Si's. After Simon left home, Danny was pretty much by himself and he hated it, felt like he'd lost his only real family – following in his brother's footsteps seemed the natural thing to do," Mick shrugged. There were other reasons why Danny had enlisted, but he didn't feel it was his right to go into those much more personal details.
"And now you think he'll leave."
"He's not said anything to me, but I know he's been thinking about it for a while now," Mick confessed. "I'm sometimes wonder if he's stayed in as long as he has because of me…I hope not. But after this…after Si…I think he's revaluating everything in his life."
"So why break up with Jenna if he's thinking about a life on Civvy Street?" Sam wondered.
"Maybe because nothing is final yet, or because he's not thinking straight, or maybe because I'm way off base and jumping to all the wrong conclusions," the sniper explained.
"I've already told you, you're a natural born profiler," Sam shook his head in disagreement at Mick's last statement. "So I'd trust your instincts on this. Does this mean Jenna will go back to pestering you, now?"
"I'm not sure how effective that would be," Mick laughed out loud. "She's already found out the puppy-dog eyes don't work on me and she can hardly use the same encouragement she uses on Danny."
"What do you mean?" Cooper asked curiously.
"Well, let's just say that there are certain…things in her arsenal that she can use against Danny that she can't use against me – we Rawsons have a lot of issues but incest has never been one of them."
"She's using sex as a bargaining tool?" Sam asked incredulously, more so at Mick's complacency with that fact than anything else.
"When it first came up, Danny was as shocked as you and he spoke without thinking it through," Mick laughed. "You should have seen the look on his face when he realised what he said and the fact that I was standing right there in front of him!"
"I can imagine," Sam laughed along with his friend.
"I love my sister and I'm glad there are still similarities to point out between us after all these years growing up apart, but god, sometimes I wish she hadn't picked up my particular way with words," Mick shook his head with feigned exasperation. "I swear, she says stuff I really don't need to know just to get a rise out of me."
"That does sound familiar," Sam smirked.
"Yeah," Mick agreed somewhat sheepishly. "Anyway, anything Danny had to say on the matter was going to be tame in comparison."
"And you let him know that, of course?" Sam asked, despite already knowing the answer.
"Hell no!" Mick exclaimed. "I need to keep him on his toes!"
"Older siblings," Sam clucked, shaking his head as he laughed knowingly.
"You were the oldest in your house, too, mate – you may not want to go around saying anything too disparaging," Mick said with a knowing look.
"I had several younger siblings," Sam conceded. "But they, like me, were foster children."
"As if you, with all your mother hen tendencies, would have let that stand for anything," Mick pointed out with not a moment's hesitation.
Sam rolled his eyes – he had taken on the mantle of 'big brother', and he had done so with a degree of sincerity and devotion that had belied his age at the time. However, while he was eventually adopted by his foster parents, the other children were not, which meant that there had been a constant stream of young children passing through the house at various times and few were there long enough to form any deep and meaningful bonds.
"So, come on, spill," Mick demanded as he took a healthy glug of beer.
"'Spill'?" Sam asked. "Spill what?"
"The Director of the FBI has been dogging your every step even when you were still embedded with the Marines," Mick stated. "Now you're up in DC and visiting Quantico – I'm pretty sure there's a reason behind it all."
"Ah, that," Sam laughed – Mick really did like to get straight to the heart of the matter.
"Yes, that," Mick agreed.
"He's offered me my own team," Sam confessed. "A Red Cell."
Mick whistled. Red Cell teams were originally designed to test the readiness and effectiveness of American personnel in combat-ready teams and were usually composed of US Navy SEALs, Recon Marines and other Special Forces Groups. After 9/11, they became something more than a military response team and branched out into various federal agencies, too, readying themselves for rapid response to any number of crises.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. It did sound an impressive invitation, even more so given Fickler's other offer. "He's also letting me choose my own team."
"You have full control of hiring?" Mick wondered.
"Apparently so," Sam said, still surprised himself by the level of trust his old friend had placed in him with that offer. Sam had thought that given the way he had left the BAU and the FBI all those years ago, it would take a lot more than one man's word, even the Director's, to ease the concerns others might have about his reappearance.
"I wish I had that," Mick laughed, thinking about someone in his Squadron he'd sooner be without. "So, when do you start?"
"What makes you think I'm agreeing to this?" Sam asked curiously.
"Come on, mate," Mick said, exasperation leaking into his tone and a look that said 'how stupid do you think I am?' with one brow. "You've been destined to return to the FBI long before you left the Marines."
"Yes, so you've said on a number of occasions," Sam chuckled.
"Am I wrong?" Mick questioned the evasive man.
"No, you're not wrong," Sam confirmed. "I've been given some time to think about it, think about getting a preliminary team together and get it past the Director, but I've not even given him an answer yet."
"A Red Cell," Mick stated. "That's good, right? It will mean you don't need to wait for a phone call anymore, right?" he said, knowing that the loss of life between the initial murders and the official invite had been particularly soul-destroying for the older man.
"Theoretically, yes. We'll be responding to amber alerts, bomb threats, possible terrorist activity, and we won't need to wait for an invitation due to federal jurisdiction, but there will be other cases where I imagine we will still need to wait for an invite. Hopefully once the team is up and running and people learn about our existence and what we do, they won't wait as long to pick up the phone, but I know from my last time at the BAU that it is never that simple."
"So, who are you hoping to steal?" Mick asked, curiously. He wondered if Coop would try to recruit Hassan Saifa, his old partner from his time of being embedded with the Marines.
Sam laughed – if only Mick knew who was right at the top of his list! But he didn't think now, with Simon's death and Danny's loss, was the right time to ask.
"It's not a very long list, but it is an unconventional one and I'm not entirely sure just how much pull I have to manage this," Sam confessed.
"Ooh, intrigue," Mick joked. "Tell me more."
"Well, I suppose the one who will be hardest to obtain is a man named Jonathan Simms," Sam stated.
"Why? What's the problem?" Mick asked.
"Well, I suppose the biggest problem right now is that he's in San Quentin," Cooper conceded.
"San Quentin? Isn't that a prison?"
"Yes," Sam confirmed. "He killed a child molester."
"Ok," Mick said at a loss for what to say. "Well, I can't say his choice of victim bothers me, but can you even hire someone with a criminal record, let alone a murder charge?"
"I guess we'll find out," Sam laughed mirthlessly. "He was a newly minted detective in Philadelphia the first time I met him. He called in the BAU and we worked a case together – he was smart, observant and very passionate."
"Evidently," Mick quipped, thinking about where the 'passionate' man had ended up.
"He'd transferred to San Francisco, followed a girlfriend out there, I think. But a couple of weeks later there was a pretty brutal case involving a paedophile ring, and Simms was one of the detectives in charge of the investigation. He worked his own profile and found the guy, but the UnSub resisted arrest and died – a hearing later deemed that excessive force was the reason.
"There had been recent reports in the media about police brutality and so the Brass wanted to make an example – they charged Simms with Voluntary Manslaughter and sentenced him to nine years in prison. He's already served over six, and now he's eligible for parole – with his previous record, his scores at the Police Academy, the mitigating circumstances of his case, I'm sure I can push for an early release if not a full pardon."
"And the Director is ok with this?" Mick asked, slightly incredulously. He'd known several different people in high-ranking positions throughout his time in the Army, and while some of them were good and concerned with doing their job and doing it well, there were others who were more concerned with making sure their own arses were always covered before anything and everything else. Letting a convicted killer out of prison and handing him a gun and a badge to back it up…he wasn't sure if anyone would go for that kind of a deal.
"Well, I haven't exactly told him yet," Sam conceded. "He gave me this offer two days ago and I've been going through my options, but I want Simms. He's a good man, who was handed a shitty case and got pulled into PD politics that were beyond his control. He wasn't the only officer involved in arresting the UnSub, but because he was the lead investigator, he was the one the Brass decided to use as their whipping boy.
"I've read the case file, Mick. The UnSub died of a subdural haematoma which he got when he tried to escape – Simms and three other officers chased him until Simms caught up to him, the UnSub struggled and they both fell down the steps. The UnSub hit his head pretty hard but was up and cursing at them within seconds, while Simms ended up with just a few bruises and one hell of a headache, but then the UnSub died while being transported and the whole affair was shoved under a microscope.
"It had been a high profile case from the get-go, and the public wanted to see the perpetrator face a trial and a damn long prison sentence, and when he died they were denied that, so the media stirred the waters and the usual 'police brutality' stories cropped up. The Brass wanted to stop any stories about police-bias and so they went after Simms with everything they had to show that they didn't tolerate that sort of behaviour in their Department.
"He was handed a raw deal and he lost everything because of it – his girlfriend, his job, his reputation and his freedom. It would be criminal to let all that talent go to waste and it would be criminal to let Jonathan Simms spend one night more in prison – an ex-cop in San Quentin? You think he's had an easy time of things?"
Mick shook his head, words unnecessary. It was good to see Coop so passionate about something, his last few years in the military having all but distinguished the spark he had seen in the man the first time they had met. It did sound like Simms had caught a raw deal, and if it was true then he hoped Coop could get the man out – more than anything, he hoped this Simms was worth the trouble, worthy of Cooper's seemingly absolute faith in the man's virtues.
"So, a disgraced former cop who had some right wankers in charge, check. Who's next?"
"Well, there's an agent I think would be well suited to the BAU but she's got another assignment at the moment," Sam shrugged.
"You don't think you could get her reassigned?" Mick asked. The man was hoping to get a convicted killer out of San Quentin but he thought a reassignment was beyond him?
"I don't think I'll have long to wait," Sam smiled. "She's not exactly great at making friends and seemingly even worse at keeping them. She doesn't tend to spend too long in any one department so I doubt I'll have long to wait before I can offer her a place and not piss anyone off because I'm stealing their agent."
"Sounds like a peach," Mick grinned. "I can see why you'd want her – you just don't want to be stuck being the unsociable one, huh?"
"Something like that," Sam grinned back. "Beth Griffith has had many complaints added to her files, all from her superiors, but it seems like they usually come about because they don't like to be proven wrong, which she has done on numerous occasions, and because she lacks tact."
"What do you mean?" Mick asked as he waved over a nearby waitress and asked for something more to eat.
"She's good at her job, but not everyone agrees and she quite vociferously takes offence at that," Sam said simply. "She's never worked in the BAU but she's taken a few of the courses they offer and done a fair bit of psychological profiling before – she's done some work on domestic terrorism and threat assessment that is particularly compelling, especially on personal cause bombers."
"Sounds like she'd be a blast at parties," Mick laughed with an impish grin. "You're looking to put one hell of a team together, Coop."
"I'm not done yet," Sam pointed out. "There's a rookie, she's still going through training at the moment, but she shows a lot of promise."
"If she's going through training, how do you know about her?" Mick asked curiously.
"I know her father, have done for years," Sam offered with a shrug. "He's Army, high-ranking – a good man and one hell of a soldier, but I'm not sure how well he scores as a father. He's a pretty demanding man, which is all well and good in the military, not so much at home. Both daughters were pushed to the extremes to 'make' something of themselves.
"Gina was always an overachiever at school, but she resented being compared to her sister and the constant one-upmanship that her father tried to instigate between the two girls. In an effort to appease her father, she applied and was accepted at West Point, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you what an achievement that is, but she was unsatisfied with it, with the potential pathways it opened up to her and with what it would mean for her future.
"So, she risked her father's wrath and left West Point, and joined the FBI instead. I sometimes think I might have had somewhat of an influence on that decision, but honestly, I wouldn't regret it if that were the case. She's tough enough to stick it out with the military, but with her compassion and level of perception, I think she'd be wasted there."
Mick didn't have anything to say to that – over the years, Coop had tried to convince him that he could do more in life than soldiering, and Mick had always found himself getting more than slightly irritated at the man's casually dismissive manner in regards to his military career.
He knew and understood that Cooper's experience with the military had not been an overwhelmingly positive one – working in interrogation and intelligence, how could it have been any different? But Mick had started from the ground up – he'd entered as basic infantry, granted it was as a member of the Paras 1st Battalion, but he had not been a man of rank. He had worked his way up to his current station and had earned it through blood, sweat and tears in the most literal sense of the phrase.
Mick had mixed views about the military himself – having lost his innocence and naiveté long before he enlisted he hadn't entered with his ideals intact, but overall, he liked being a part of something more. He had made a couple of very close friends, had friendships that spanned the globe, travelled through all seven continents (although honestly, he could have done without Antarctica), learned several new languages and too many skills to count.
The British Army had given him a roof over his head, food in his stomach and clothes on his back, and there had been a time in his life when those things had certainly not been guaranteed. The friendship, camaraderie and, dare he say it, the sense of family had been unexpected but much appreciated benefits.
Out in Afghanistan and Iraq and all those other areas of conflict he had been to over the years, Mick had helped set up refugee camps, distribute aid, dig people out of avalanches and mudslides and rubble alike, provide the injured with basic medical care or transport them to someone better equipped, not to mention all that he had done for his fellow soldiers. He might not have been out catching serial killers and rapists, but he certainly didn't see his military service as a waste of time.
"So are you hiring her because you know her father or…?"
"No!" Sam interrupted adamantly. "I might not have known about her had I not known her father, but I want her on my team on her own merits. I'm sure she'll have doubts of her own on that score if this ever gets finalised, but I assure you, she will make a damn good agent and I want her on my team."
"Just asking," Mick said softly, putting his hands up in an effort to placate his friend. "So, that's your potential team?"
"Most of it," Sam nodded, quickly looking away from the young Welshman – he desperately wanted Mick on his team but was afraid what the younger man's answer would be.
From a strictly unbiased point of view, Mick was a highly intelligent and incredibly perceptive young man with a broad general knowledge and a skillset that consisted of long-range shooting, bomb disposal, interrogation and counter-interrogation and many more besides. He was usually pretty calm and level-headed, and at times so hard to read that the UnSub would have to do something very specific in order to get a rise out of the usually stoic Welshman.
His high-level military training would provide the team with a unique asset, and his life experiences in both foster care and on the streets, far from normal and far from easy, gave him an insight into both criminal and victim mentalities.
The man had friends and associates in many different groups and agencies – the various military outfits he had come across during his time in Special Forces, Military Intelligence from the UK, the US and many more besides, various PMCs and close allies in both Interpol and the UN Police.
From a more personal point of view, Sam just wanted his friend out of the military. He knew that asking the man to sign up to a high-risk job at the FBI wasn't exactly going to provide the Welshman with the kind of safety and security that he would want for his friend, but he also knew Mick well enough to know that anything less and the sniper would go out of his mind with boredom – he needed a challenge, physical and mental, to keep him interested and a spot on the Red Cell team would provide both, with Sam there able to watch his six.
Surely the odd firefight with a deranged psychopath held better odds of survival than daily run-ins with IEDs and sniper fire.
Mick narrowed his eyes as he took in the sudden lack of eye contact and awkward silence from his friend – he could hazard a guess at what had brought on the sudden closed-jaw syndrome but he would have no idea what he would say to the man if he really did ask, so he thought it best not to pursue.
"Well, good luck getting it past FBI Brass," Mick finally said, after the pause in conversation had stretched into the uncomfortable. "It sounds more than a little unconventional, but then maybe that's what the FBI needs to help get the job done."
"Hopefully," Sam agreed quietly. "I've already spoken to Hotchner – he leads his own team in the BAU and is pretty much the go-to guy in the Unit these days. He seemed pretty happy with the idea of me coming back to the Bureau but to be honest, who can really tell with the man – Hotch could teach Zeno a thing or two about Stoicism."
Mick nodded, smiling. He had always suspected that several people who had been with Coop from the early days of the BAU would be glad to have the man back in the fold but he knew that the older man had been less convinced – he was glad to see the confirmation and the effects of it.
He yawned, almost jaw-splittingly wide. "Sorry mate," he offered the older man.
"No apologies needed," Sam shook his head. "I knew you were exhausted – I should have sent you off to your hotel room hours ago. That or plied you with coffee instead of beer."
"Coffee always works," Mick agreed sagely. "So when are you getting yourself an apartment? It would be so much easier to pass out on your sofa than go through the hassle of signing into some hotel everytime."
"As soon as things look a little more concrete," Sam conceded.
"Given the fact that this Fickler guy came after you while you were still in the military, I'm guessing that means you've got a fair bit of sway right now."
"Hopefully that's the case," Sam agreed – after all, he would need all the sway imaginable to get a rookie, a con, a problematic agent and a foreign citizen approved as agents on one of the FBI's most elite teams. He would ask Fickler about the possibility of hiring Mick before asking the Welshman himself, no point in making things awkward until absolutely necessary. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."
So, introduced the team and tried to keep to canon as much as possible given what little we do know from the show. Quite a lot on Simms, mainly because I wanted to explore how it was possible for the FBI to hire him and trust him despite the murder charge and the criminal record - I thought being an ex-cop who was screwed over by his superiors was one possible explanation for a full pardon and a job. Also needed to explain why Beth Griffith is not in the team straight away (she was there in CM:SB episode 1, but not in the introductory crossover episode with regular CM). Hopefully I've more or less covered everything : )
Please let me know what you think and if you spot any mistakes. Thanks!
Tier One – Special Mission Units – made up of Special Forces, they are given special missions, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein or the death of Osama Bin Laden.
AO – Area of Operation – military term describing where they are operating – it can be as small as a village or as big as a country.
MOD – the Ministry of Defence – equivalent to America's DOD or Department of Defence.
MI5/MI6 – Military Intelligence 5 (largely deals with domestic situations) and Military Intelligence 6 (largely deals with foreign situations – the UK's intelligence agencies equivalent to America's CIA and NSA.
Offy – British slang term for an off-licence, or what Americans call a liquor store.
Civvy Street – slang term to describe servicemen and women leaving the armed forces and returning to life as a civilian.
PMCs – Private Military Companies/Contractors.
UN Police – they act as a peacekeeping force for the UN – they monitor and report on situations, as well as advise and train the local enforcement agencies throughout the globe.
IEDs – Improvised Explosive Devices.
Zeno – an ancient Greek who founded the school of Stoicism in Athens circa early C3rd BC. The Stoics believed that to become a person of 'moral and intellectual perfection' they should not let emotions, particularly destructive ones, rule them.