Please see disclaimers in Ch 1.

"What do you know about the toxeen, Miss Davis?"

Chase dozed on, her form still sprawled out on the table. A large hand pounded the wooden surface sharply, startling the young woman and bolting her upright.

"Sleep well?" her interrogator asked, his voice not warm but not full of ice either.

Chase scowled, but returned herself to the chair that faced the one-way glass. "Fine."

"Now, about the toxeen at the embassee…"

Chase frowned. "There was no toxin at the embassy…"

"Au contraire. Five peeple air undair quaraintine, and three othairs air dead…"

"You lie. There's only one person dead, at the U.S. embassy."

The man's eyebrows raised a little. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I shot him."

"So, you air admitting to open murdair?"

Chase shrugged. "I'm admitting to killing the man, or one of the men, responsible for staging eight kidnappings for use as leverage."

Now her interrogator seemed curious. "Reelly, Miss Davis."

"No bullshit. And in the end, it seems it's all for nothing." Her face fell, downcast.

"Stairt at the beginning."

"You mean you actually want to hear my end of it?"

"We already 'ave you, and on the murdair chairge no less. So, you tell a story. Pairhaps we learn something, yess?"

Chase heaved a sigh, and began by recounting the events from earlier in the day. She had worked her way up to the elevator when the man silenced her with a hand.

"You air saying that Agent Lawrence, a member of the FBI, took you forceebly from thees premises?"

"Yeah. Hey, you don't have to believe me. He almost took someone else as well."

"And 'oo might that bee?"

Chase gave Reid's name. "Ask him."

"Mmm. Pairhaps."

Chase's ire was beginning to boil, but a more pressing question had to be asked. "Are the people from the embassy all right?"

Her interrogator remained mute.

"Look, I just want to know…"

"Oh, so you can revel een your success? That you were able to take down a room full of deeplomats?"

"It's not like that…"

"Then, 'ow ees it? You say you were coearced. Yet you have not proven thees."

"Hmm. Let's see," Chase said, her anger turning into boldness. "An unknown person or persons take my partner out of his own apartment last night, then have the audacity to call me up and tell me "I'll be doing them a favor." I learn that another friend, from the FBI, has gone missing, and from about six this morning I'm in her office, prodding someone to help find her. Then I have this Lawrence guy, who, I'm betting, is one of yours, decide that the elevator is the perfect place to stage a kidnap coup."

"But why you, Miss Davis?" the man in front of her said. "Why not…"

"Oh, fucked if I know."

A hand slammed the table again. "We 'ave you on thee murdair chairge. I like you for terroreesm. Please, settle down or I will 'ave you sent down at once."

Chase heaved another exasperated sigh. "Look. Lawrence said he got a phone call—these people that took my partner, and the woman from the FBI, they also took his little sister. Same deal as before—he did a 'favor' for them, he got her back."

"What was thees, thees favor?"

"Apparently, bringing me to where everyone else was being kept. He had some strange orders too—he had to bring me, and 'anyone else with me'—hence Dr. Reid's predicament."

"And yet 'e did not give the doctor to them. Eenteresting."

"Well, that was me."

"And I am supposed to belieeve you air not part of thees?! You changed the ordair?"

Chase blanched a little. She knew perfectly well how it sounded. "More like we convinced Lawrence to 'forget' about Dr. Reid being there, so that they had a resource to use later in finding the missing people."

"'e agreed?"

"Yeah. For him, the major point of his 'order' was being carried out—I agreed to go over to the people behind this."

"As an ally."

"No. As a prisoner myself."

"Convieeneent."

Chase shook her head, an exasperated look on her face. "Look. You've got me. I'll admit to the murder of that asshole at the embassy. I'm not sorry for it, either. Considering what he had over my head, he got off lucky."

"Very well. Then please, explain: what was Agent 'otchnair doing thair, with you, at the embassee."

"Same deal that those bastards had me for."

"Wheech was?"

Chase heaved a sigh. "We had to kill all of the diplomats at the summit."

"And why not just do thees themselves? Why, eef we are to belieeve you, did they 'choose' you and Agent 'otchnair speceefeecally?"

Chase shrugged. "Best guess? They knew we had the ability to do such a thing. Plus, when the dust settles, their own hands are nowhere near this. Apparently they tried a similar tack in France last year."

Her interrogator's eyes widened. "What ees this?"

"A friend informed me of a group working out of the U.S., one that wants to gain access to nuclear weapons and the like. My guess is, they're kind of Napoleonic in their pursuits. He said last year in France there was a well-publicized attack on another embassy there, in which toxic gas was used. Others were shot. Nineteen people died."

"And thees, thees 'friend"…

"Probably recovering from the knife wound I gave him earlier."

Her interrogator's eyes widened again at that remark. "You tried to keel 'im?"

"And his father, though again, not of my own choice."

"'oo are these people?"

Chase stood mute.

"'oo are they?!"

Again, Chase said nothing.

The rage boiled over in the man interrogating her, but he was quick to keep it in check. "Vairy well," he said. "Eef you will not tell me, pairhaps Agent 'otchnair will…"

"In the end, does it matter?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Does it matter? These people, they won. They're off the hook for these attempts—they succeeded in framing others for the work. My partner is probably dead—murdered for my boldness. So is my friend from the FBI. Four others are as well, most like, because I got caught and didn't 'play by the rules.'" She looked her interrogator square in the eye. "There's nothing left for me." She let her eyes fall down towards the table. "Nothing…"

With that, her interrogator left the small room. "Watch 'er," he said to the two guards standing behind the one-way glass. "She may try sometheeng yet…"

In another room, a similar grilling was taking place. One of Josh's colleagues was trying to get information out of Hotch, but with little success. Aside from a retelling of what he knew (which, admittedly, was very little), Hotch chose to stand mute. Though terrorism suspects were not entitled to legal counsel, they couldn't take the lawyer out of him.

Just as he was preparing for yet another round of circling the drain of information, a new face walked in. The man was round, and he spoke with a distinctive accent.

"My name ees Agent 'ollenbeck," the man said crisply. "I need to know about the eenceedent at the embassee…"

Hotch was taken by surprise. "Which one?" he asked.

"There were more than the murdair and the gassing?"

"Gassing?" Hotch's face was drawn up in a confused look.

"Cairtainly. Two peeple air dead. Othairs are probably to die. Thees ees what you were 'oping for, yess?"

"Absolutely not."

"Your friend, the gairl, she says that she ees responseeble for the murdair."

Hotch baked, then thought through the events in his head. He had shot out a water pitcher…

"Yes," he said slowly. "She did shoot that man…"

"And you were her scout?"

"No. I was supposed to kill the diplomats below, just like she was."

"Then, please, tell me—eef that was your 'ordair,' why then did she kill the man only, and not the deeplomats?"

"She recognized him from somewhere—I didn't get all of it at the time…"

"She shot a man whom you could not place? Why then did you not continue with the 'ordair'?

"I don't kill people," Hotch snapped.

"But, you were, eh, 'coearced," yess?"

Hotch began to argue, then stopped. His mind swam to the thought of his son, who might now be lying dead along with Haley…

"Oh, God," he said. He then fell into silence.

"Oh, no, sair," Agent Hollenbeck said. "You will tell me now, 'oo else your friend 'shot.'"

"Chinese embassy. Two people, friends of hers. One of them was the ambassador himself, I think. They were supposed to be leading the summit at the U.S. embassy…"

The man left the room, and Hotch's mind began to play the devil's game with him. He knew he was not responsible for what had happened over the course of the day—he'd been coerced, threatened to do these horrible things.

The trick now was, would anyone believe him?

Outside the hall, Josh pondered the state of affairs for a moment. Oliver Lawrence had had a hand in this—it had been confirmed by both Christian Hanover and now Chase Davis. He knew that Hanover was certainly a traitor, but Davis…

"Go to thee Chinese embassy at once," he told a waiting colleague, one he knew he could trust. "Find out what happeened there. Eef there is no one, start calleeng thee 'ospitals. There is more to this than we see…"