A/N: My deepest apologies to all of you that had to wait so long for Chapter 25. FF had a major hiccup. I will repeat again that I post a chapter a day. If that doesn't happen, it's FF, not me. I care for and respect all of you too much. And truly appreciate you following this story. Hang in there gang! FF be damned! We will get there!

Chapter 26 – Building a Case to Close

They all filtered back into the conference room, most of them now with bottled water, giving up the coffee since it was afternoon. Strauss was the sole die hard on the coffee, while Matt entered with a bottle of a clear soda to help with his stomach. They all began to work over items for their presentation to the JAG officer, with Emily taking notes on the white board space that once held Matt's grid, no longer needed.

Collier and Larson, along with Colonel Meacham entered the room. Matt noted that Dunleavy, the lap dog, was not in attendance. Matt slid up to Dave and whispered, "Do we need to worry about that?"

Dave looked at him and smiled slyly. "Not if you kick a certain ass about it."

Ten minutes later, Major Beth Tauscher was escorted into the room and Jordane made the introductions. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you," she said. "My apologies for keeping you waiting; the JAG office is on the other side of the base." Hotch, Matt, Strauss and Jordane briefed her on the security protocols that were in place for the case.

Matt also took the time to very politely, yet very succinctly, inform Meacham that Dunleavy was to have no further contact with the case and was to be held on a very tight leash and muzzle. Meacham arched his eyebrows at Matt. "I don't trust him; which means this team does not trust him." Meacham backed down and simply nodded his head.

"Major, whenever you are ready," Hotch said, "we're ready to present our case to you. However, before we begin, I offer you my apologies. I'm a former Federal prosecutor, and like the rest of us in this room, I want this search warrant to be a brick wall that a gives a defense attorney absolutely zero holes to poke through. To that end, I may give you some advice that you probably already know."

Tauscher smiled. "SAC Hotchner, I'm completely in on that 'brick wall' strategy and I will certainly accept any legal insight you can give me." Matt looked at Dave, as they quickly profiled the situation and smiled at each other. Jordane had certainly brought the right person on board. By Hotch's demeanor, they knew he felt the same.

Strauss looked at her watch. Doing the math with the time difference between Ramstein and DC, she said, "Before all of you start, please let me give the Director a heads-up, so he can get the Air Force JAG on alert." They all nodded as she fired off an email from her laptop.

The team spent the next hour laying their case out to Tauscher, who typed notes into her laptop. While the team gave their briefing, Matt sat relatively quiet next to Garcia, rocking in his chair. Yet every person in the room could hear his wheels turning in his head. When they finished, she looked at all of them. "This all seems pretty straight forward to me."

Matt finally spoke up. "That's the easy part." Everyone in the room looked at him. "Our trophy taker is not going to make this easy. Doc," motioning to Reid, "you profiled him intelligent enough to cover his tracks." Reid nodded. "Do all of you think for one second, even though he doesn't have a roommate, that he's going to have that stash some place easy to find? Yes, we will go through the motions and turn that room upside down. But I'm willing to bet what Abbey and I have stuck away for the kid's college fund, we won't find a damn thing."

"Anything beyond the scope of Wohlers' quarters…." Tauscher started.

"Will mean we will have to have probable cause to search deeper," Hotch finished. Matt nodded. "And Major, that will have to be built into your search warrant, with justifiable means to extend the search if we do indeed find probable cause."

Tauscher blinked as she looked at Hotch and Taylor. "Agreed; but this warrant just got a bit more dicey. We will need legitimate proof of probable cause before we can extend a search." The room became quiet as that fact thundered down on them.

Matt looked at Garcia. "How deep are you into the system?"

"What are looking for?"

"A layout of Wohlers' quarters." Garcia looked at Matt for a second with a question on her face, and then dug in. Less than five minutes later, she had the layout of his quarters. "Garcia, can you please put it up on the monitor?" She nodded and it quickly appeared.

As it appeared, Matt smiled at all of them. "We just caught a break."

"Care to share with the rest of the class, Cob?" Emily said.

Matt rose out of his chair and pointed to the layout of the room. "He's in a corner room." He looked around to still see blank faces. "That just narrowed our extended search parameters. I lived in these kinds of quarters, and back then, surprise inspections of quarters were allowed. So if I wanted to hide something, I'd put it where no one would look, and if they did, I could blame it on the people next door." He pointed to the upper corners that were next to the adjoining quarters.

Dave caught on to what Matt was saying. "I'm in Matt. Hell, in my day, I stashed more than one bottle of booze in the ceiling panels." Matt pointed at Rossi.

Hotch was also seeing the light. "And because Wohlers has a corner room..."

Reid dove in, "We've cut the variable by half."

Tauscher shook her head. "Damn, you people are good."

"That still doesn't get us by the fact that we will need probable cause to search those areas," Hotch added.

"But Hotch, he's pulling them out how many times to look at them. And ceiling panels when they get continually moved around leave a dust pattern," Matt smiled. "Colonel Meacham, when we picked put Lt. Collier to go see Haufmeister, I seen your CSU team working. How good are they?"

"They're damn good Colonel, with a track record to back it up." He nodded up. "They're on the floor above us. While they support us, they are their own entity. Their CO is Major Keith Winters."

Hotch continued the plan. "Colonel Meacham, once Major Tauscher has secured our search warrant, we'll need them on board. We would prefer to make the Major's job as easy as possible. That means photos and video cameras of every second of our search. Major we will need you there as well to make sure we're making the right call." She nodded.

Meacham, for the first time since the BAU arrived, smiled. "Damn good call. We coordinate with them?"

Hotch smiled. "Once Major Tauscher has secured our warrant, absolutely Colonel. They will be essential to the case." He looked at Tauscher. "Major, I hate to put more pressure on you, but give us a best guess-timate on when you can send this up."

Strauss' laptop pinged. She pulled on her reading glasses and looked at the message. "The Director has full contact with the Air Force Judge Advocate General, via the AG. The JAG would like to schedule a time with the ranking presiding judge. The search warrant will come down through there." She looked at her watch. "It's currently fifteen hundred here," she said, looking at Matt for back-up. He quickly glanced at his watch and nodded. "That means it zero nine hundred in DC. Major, can you get this done before the close of business in DC?"

Tauscher smiled. "With all due respect ma'am, I thought you were going to give me a tighter window than that. However, since my window is larger than I thought, I'd appreciate all the time I could get to make this airtight."

"Shoot me a time Major," Strauss responded.

"Between twelve and thirteen hundred, DC time ma'am; or in my world, three to four hours."

Hotch looked at her. "Anything I can help with?"

Tauscher shook her head. "Once again SAC Hotchner, I appreciate your help and I may give you a phone call to help with some of the legalese between your team's profile and getting this warrant done. But right now, I just need my quiet office."

Matt looked at Meacham. "Would a base escort get you back to your office sooner Major?" She looked at the both of them and smiled.

"That would be huge sir."

"Then let's get you on your way." Meacham said as he nodded at Matt and rose from his chair. Tauscher finished with her laptop, exchanged cell phone numbers with Hotch and got up as well.

"Colonel Jordane, I seen the autopsies of the victims was done at Landstuhl," Matt commented. He nodded. "Do they have DNA testing capabilities?"

"Yes Colonel; but for crime scene evidence, Winters and his group can access their database to make IDs."

Hotch added, "It would be great to put those preliminary matches under our unsub's nose."

"They'll be able to test it here if we find something," Jordane said.

"Oh, we'll find something," Rossi stated.

"Hang on a second please; both of you," Matt said. Morgan looked at him with a question on his face. That look was joined by Tauscher and Meacham.

"Garcia, where is Wohlers right now."

"Sir?"

"To the very second Garcia; please tell us where he is." Garcia's fingers once again flew over her keyboard.

"The flight he's on is currently in route to Afghanistan. ETA into the base outside of Kabul is 5 pm our time, excuse me sir, seventeen hundred."

"And return time to Ramstein?"

"Scheduled for thirteen-thirty tomorrow afternoon sir."

Matt smiled. "I like that timeframe. Colonel, please get Major Tauscher back to her office." She and Meacham left the room. Emily looked at all of them. Colonel Jordane excused himself as well.

"So what do we do in the meantime?"

"Sit on our asses and wait," Rossi said.

"Just my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world," Matt bitched as he rolled his eyes. Hotch shot him a glance.

"Patience has never been your strong suit, has it Matt?"

"And yours is?" Matt smiled back.

JJ answered for both of them. "This always sucks."

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