Broken

Chapter 36

Arriving to Rossi's, Reid felt an unexpected surge of emotion. It had been his place of refuge after the ordeals of prison and the kidnapping of his mother, his place of sorrow when he'd begun the internal journey of facing himself, his place of fear, when he'd learned that his friends had been attacked, his place of security, when he finally placed himself into the wise hands of David Rossi.

It had been a journey of months, but Reid felt as though he'd aged years. His time in prison had been lived in an immediate and unending present, necessitated by the requirement to be constantly aware of those in his vicinity, and their intentions, and the dangers they posed. Even in the rare quiet interlude, having been told the uncertainty of his future, he'd begun to let go of his past. He'd lived only in the moment, ageless.

But in the time since, he'd relived of all of it, and spent time delving deep into his own history, trying to search out the person whose life trajectory had landed him in prison. The effort had taken its toll as he'd become mired in both the recent and distant past. It had been only in the past few weeks, in the blossoming of his relationship with Clare, that he'd dared to try to glimpse his future.

If he hadn't been so bent on his mission, those conflicting emotions might have overwhelmed Reid. But he was on a mission, to convince the remainder of his colleagues that there was a mole at work, responsible for most of what had happened to put him into prison, and to keep him there. So he did was he was so very adept at doing. He buried his feelings, and centered on the task at hand.

Rossi met him at the door, and directed him to the kitchen, where the others were already gathered around drinks and hors d'oeuvre.

"What'll it be?"

"Uh, just water, I think."

Rossi gave him a look. "Straight up, or on the rocks?"

Before Reid could answer, JJ was there, placing a glass into his hands.

"It's mostly tonic water, with just a little bit of 'calming influence', and lots of ice. Trust me, you'll like it."

She shot him a look that said, 'and you might need it'. So he took it, and sipped, and nodded his approval.

"Thanks."

He'd barely taken a second sip when Emily called for the group's attention.

"Everyone, you're probably wondering why we're here."

Luke Alvez teased, "You mean, drinks and eats aren't enough reason?"

"Well, they would be. And I'm sure Rossi will ante up another time, but there is another reason we're here. We have reason to believe that the FBI has a mole, and that the person in question had much to do with setting Spencer up in Mexico, and with his treatment in prison."

After all the months of resentment, and the premature mourning of the loss of his friendship with her, Spencer Reid could have kissed Emily Prentiss in that moment. She hadn't relegated the telling of the tale to him, as though he was some conspiracy theorist. She'd owned it, phrased it as 'we' and not 'he'. She was supporting him, and it felt so achingly familiar that he almost did kiss her.

"Reid and JJ have been looking into the possibility, with tech support from Garcia. They've got a pretty convincing theory. Convincing and troubling, because it includes concern that the bullpen is not secure, which is why we're meeting here. I'll let Reid tell you the rest."

Reid made eye contact with each of the others before starting in. He knew he had JJ in his camp, and it sounded like Emily was there as well. Garcia would support him in anything, he knew. So he focused mainly on Tara Lewis, Luke Alvez, and, most importantly, David Rossi.

He reviewed the concern about how Cat Adams had known what she had about him, acknowledging that some could have been gleaned through social media, and some through news media accounts of some of their cases.

"But she also knew that I'd gone to Mexico, and I didn't even know I was going until the day before. I left from a case, remember? Even if Lyndsey had been following me here in DC….and I guess it looks like she had, when she wasn't carrying out her hits along the border….she still couldn't have known I was leaving from the case. She couldn't have followed me to Houston. Someone had to alert her that I was traveling apart from the team."

Luke wasn't so sure. "Couldn't she have had some kind of computer alert for your name on a flight manifest?"

Reid shook his head. "She could have, but she would have needed help with that. There's nothing in her background to suggest she has that level of facility with technology. Beside that, there wouldn't have been time. I bought my ticket on the way to the airport, and boarded right after I got there. Lyndsey had to have already been in Texas. She could have followed me from the airport there, but only if someone alerted her I was coming."

Tara was intrigued. "So, who would know?"

JJ described the 'behind-the-scenes' process of the team's travel arrangements.

"So, even though all we do is get on and off the plane, there's a lot of documentation that goes into our own flight manifests, and hotel rosters, et cetera. The travel office communicates with finance, so those would be the two places where information would be available to a mole. They're the only ones who would have had a clue that Spence had checked out early and was separating from the team."

Rossi's face reflected his skepticism. "You think our travel office has a mole?" Turning his gaze back to Reid.

"Not necessarily the travel office, and maybe not finance, either. The mole isn't necessarily within the FBI."

The response was too cryptic for Rossi, so Reid gestured to Garcia to explain.

"Okay, well…..when Boy Wonder asked me to look into this, I scoured our servers for intruders from the outside, and I found nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. But then Boy Wonder asked me who else has access to government computers, and I said, 'well, the government, of course', and then….gobsmack alert! It makes sense! We weren't being hacked from outside. We were being hacked from inside!"

Rossi needed translation. "You're saying that someone in government has been feeding Reid's information to Cat Adams?"

Reid took back the reins. "I don't even think they had to hack. I think they had access as part of their work."

Tara understood now. "You're talking NSA."

"Exactly."

A light went on in Rossi's eyes as well. "Scratch had a connection with the NSA, didn't he? Weren't they surveilling him, because he was too diabolically genius not to?"

JJ responded. "They were surveilling him even when he was committing those murders. That's how Hotch found him out. He had a contact in the NSA, who pretty much admitted that they'd known."

"And that fact put people in the NSA at risk of blackmail. If we could prove that they'd known, and let a killer stay on the loose….."

Luke was on board now, too. "We wouldn't blackmail them. But Scratch might, once he was on the loose."

Reid caught JJ's eyes and raised his glass to her in a little gesture of victory. They'd won the team over.

He offered his theory. "So, I think the most likely thing is that the mole is actually from the NSA, maybe even Hotch's contact, Anthony Axelrod."

"Axelrod?" asked Tara. "Wasn't he the one who called us in on those missing DEA agents? Didn't he think the DEA had a mole?"

"Oh, the irony," came from a sardonic Rossi. "This is making sense to me now, Spencer. Axelrod was in on the hitman ring as well. He would have known everything there was to know about Cat Adams, and it would have been easy for him to connect her with Scratch."

"So we're all on board?" asked Emily. "Anybody who doesn't want want to go down this road?"

Looking at the two newest members of the team.

"I'm in," said Tara. "It always seemed a bit much to me that Scratch could find my brother, even with his skills. But with NSA access…..now it makes sense."

"You've got me, too," said Luke. "This team has been through too much because of this bastard. I'm ready to take him down."

"All right, then. I'll talk to Cruz."

Reid spoke up. "Uh, Emily? I'm wondering if we should maybe keep this to ourselves, at least for now."

Catching the implication in his tone and the look of caution in his eyes, Emily understood his reluctance. Reid was right. If they had a mole, the best way to hide their own investigation was to keep it small. She ran her gaze over the rest of the team, looking from person to person for assent.

Each set of eyes responded in the affirmative.

"All right, we'll keep it internal. So, team...I'm open to ideas."

Garcia spoke up. "I can't really just cast an electronic net into the NSA to see what comes back. But, since we have a name to work with, I should be able to look at his personal cyber-footprint. If he's done anything from a home network, or on a non-encrypted phone, I can get a look at it."

Tara wondered. "Is that legal?"

Rossi didn't care. "If they wanted us to worry about 'legal', they shouldn't have shielded Scratch from us. Then we'd still have our resident attorney on the team."

"Go ahead, Garcia. But remember who you're dealing with. If you see even a hint that there's counter-surveillance, get out of there right away," cautioned Emily.

"Yes, ma'am!"

As Garcia left for her lair, Reid stood to address the others.

"I've been thinking about this longer than the rest of you. I don't think we'll find what we need... at least, not enough to prove it. I think we're going to have to catch him doing it in real time."

"What are you saying, Spencer?" Rossi's tone made it sound like he already knew, and agreed.

"I'm saying that we need to tempt Scratch somehow. Draw him out, either by getting him to think we've got more than we do, or by luring him into doing what he loves to do."

"Torture us, you mean?" asked Alvez.

Tara understood. "He takes advantage of situations, like he did with Hotch, and me, and you, Spencer. He didn't create the background events, he just took advantage of the fact that they isolated us from the others."

Luke followed her reasoning. "So you're thinking we need to isolate one of us, and wait for him to pounce."

Reid nodded. "I think so. And I'm willing to be the bait."

"No!" Came from every mouth around the table. JJ expounded on it.

"Spence, no! Not after what you've just been through. You can't bear the weight of this, too!"

"But it makes sense, JJ. I haven't reintegrated with the team. I mean, not fully. I'm already isolated."

Seeing the others exchange glances at that, he clarified.

"I'm not saying it's because of you. It just is. That's all."

Emily stepped in before the conversation went completely off course.

"I don't think it can be you, Spencer. It's true that you're still reintegrating, but it's also true that your mother is in a safe, secure place now, isn't it?"

"Yes, but…."

She held up a palm. "No buts. You guys are right, he goes after people who have something to lose. Remember what he did with those families from the foster home. He had them kill someone they loved. He went after Tara's brother because she loves him. And he did the same with your mother, Spencer."

"Lyndsey Vaughn did that, and Cat Adams."

"But Scratch helped them, probably because it was an irresistible setup for him. He.."

JJ interrupted her superior. "Can we think that through? I mean, Scratch didn't just help Cat Adams after Spence was alone in Mexico, right? He had to have helped her before. Lyndsey leased that apartment long before Mexico. It wasn't just Spence's being on his own that drew Scratch."

Reid understood what she was saying. "It was my mother. He knew how important she was to me because I'd been traveling back and forth to see her, and then because I brought her home with me. That's what attracted his attention. He just used Cat's hatred of me to do the rest."

They all thought about the implications for a moment. The silence was broken by Luke.

"All right, so we need to draw him in by letting him see that one of us has an important relationship first, and then we need to get him to think that the person is isolated, putting them at risk. The only important relationship in my life right now is with Roxy. I'm willing to put that out there, as long as we can keep her safe."

Emily smiled at him. "Thanks. But I don't think Scratch can fathom the relationship between a human and an animal. Which leaves me and Sergio out, too."

Tara spoke up. "I can probably get my brother on board, but I don't want to put my dad through anything else."

Rossi shook his head. "One to a customer. I can't put Joy or my grandson into the middle of it, but there's public record evidence that I've got a third wife floating around out there somewhere. Maybe we can fake it."

JJ sighed a deep sigh of realization and resignation. "It has to be me."

She did, after all, have the most to lose in terms of family. How could Scratch resist?

"No, it doesn't." Reid's tone was firm. "We're not putting the boys in danger."

And we're not putting you in danger, either.

In the end, and at his strong insistence, it was decided that Rossi would serve as the lure. His large home would offer plenty of cover for a security detail, and they would recruit one of Emily's former Interpol colleagues to impersonate his third wife. It was deemed too risky to use someone from any of the stateside agencies, as Scratch….and Axelrod…might have more ready access to records indicating their true identity.

After being contacted by her out of the blue, Rossi would take some of his untapped vacation time to host the long missing Krystall, in town for some sightseeing. Garcia rubbed her fingers in delight at the idea of setting it up.

"What's your pet name?"

"My what?"

"What's your pet name? What did she call you? I have to make these emails look authentic."

Alvez wasn't so sure. "Won't they be able to tell the emails are coming from within the FBI?"

The others couldn't help but smile at the withering look he received from Garcia.

"Listen, newbie. Axelrod and his cronies at the NSA might be black ops, but I'm the Black Queen. Besides, setting up a fake account is so easy, Roxy could do it. Even making it look like the IP is in Vegas isn't all that difficult. But hiding the fakery from the NSA? Well, now you're talking genius."

Blowing on her own nails.

Luke had gotten stuck on something. "The Black Queen?"

Emily interjected before the conversation could derail.

"Long story, best told at O'Keefe's."

Luke got the message. "I hear you. Okay, so we're assuming Axelrod, or Scratch or someone at the NSA will intercept these emails and know where Dave will be, and when, and….what?"

Reid elaborated. "He'll either go after Rossi while he's separated from the team, or he'll go after the agent impersonating Krystall, to cause Rossi emotional pain. Either way, it's dangerous, and we're going to need to be extremely careful."

JJ agreed. "We're going to need to have security at the house, and with eyes on both of them at all times. No exceptions."

Emily nodded. "Agreed. Dave?"

Rossi nodded as well. "Agreed. I've actually got security cameras on the grounds already. We can put up a few inside the house, and they can monitor them from one of the bedrooms. I'm game….as long as I can keep my pet names to myself."

Garcia made a face, but then quickly brightened.

"Can I make one up?"