The Fisher King [Part 1]- 1:22
Harita's POV
"Oh, there she is. Harots Carrots." Morgan called out to me, as I walked by my desk to get the last few things. We had the next two weeks off, and I'm taking advantage of that. Well, first, Spencer has to drop me off at my apartment before he flies off to Las Vegas to visit his mom, which he has told me about, and I have visited her multiple times. The reason why, you may ask. I broke my skateboard last week, and I'm planning to buy a new one this week. "Last chance. I can get my man to swing you a hotel room for practically nothing. You can even bring your mysterious girl with you."
"No thanks. I got to go, Reid's waiting for me. Hope you guys have fun!" I called out to Elle and Morgs, as I headed to the doors, but stopped in my path. I turned around and at Morgan. "Don't get arrested." I chuckled.
"I'll make sure he doesn't." Elle promised. I head towards the elevators, in which I met Reid. I got in as he pushed the 'Ground Floor' button.
…
*CUE INTRO*
(For one of the 'pictures' in the intro, imagine Harita fidgeting with a pen, looking at a map with her left eyebrow raised.)
…
"You know, we could rule the world." I said as Reid got onto the road.
"Umm, explain?"
"Well, you know, with your IQ, reading speed, eidetic memory, and my math skills, we can just dominate the world."
"That would be fun." Reid remarked. Something was off, Reid was quiet. Too quiet.
"Hey, what's up?" I asked
"Well, my mom."
"Look, you got nothing to worry about, you'll have a great time, and she'll love having you around."
"Thanks, that helped. And we're here." Reid said, as we pulled into front of my place. I buckled my seatbelt, got out and grabbed my stuff. I thanked Reid and went inside. As I put my stuff away, I went to the living room to see Saline sleeping on the couch, while some sort of child cartoons were playing. I quietly went to the bathroom and took a quick shower, not before grabbing some clothes. A few minutes later, I walked out of the bathroom, with a light blue sweatshirt and a pair of black sweatpants, and saw Saline sitting up, reading a book, the TV still playing. I sat down next to her, a miracle she didn't notice me. I pick up my feet and rest them on her lap, and as if she just realized, she looked up and saw my face.
"Finally, you realize I'm here after," I look up at the clock. "46 minutes and 23 seconds." Saline grabbed me into a hug, which I gratefully returned.
"Wait, does your break start now?" Saline asked, as we were still hugging each other.
"Well, it started 47 minutes and 6 seconds ago, but yeah. I have it for the next two weeks. What do you want to do first?" I asked.
"Well, I have a meeting with management at 6, but we could cuddle until then." Saline suggested.
"Or, you can skip the meeting."
"Even better." I laid down, with Saline on top of me. I grabbed the blanket that was on top of the couch and laid it on top of the two of us.
…
"There is no way that the food would get here in 2 minutes, we ordered it 10 minutes ago, and it normally takes 20 minutes, not 12." I argued. Earlier, we ordered take-out, Indian to be specific. Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
"Ha! Told you." Saline exclaimed. I got up, with her in my arms, and dropped her on the couch. "Hey! I'm not a doll!" I ignored her, playfully, and opened the front door. No one was there. I looked down to see a box. I picked it up and saw that it was addressed to me, sent from Jamaica. There was also an envelope on top too. I closed the door, walked back to the couch, and sat down, placing the box on the table.
"What's that?" Saline asked.
"Not take-out, that's what it is." I replied, earning a light punch. I opened the envelope and saw that there was a key. There was a note inside. It read; The younger ones hold the keys. Keep it to save a little girl's life.
"What is it?" Saline asked, looking at my worried face. I handed the note to her, in which she read. She was very confused. I put the key in my pocket and opened the box. Inside was a bloody knife. A Medieval Dagger to be clear, and it was covered in blood.
…
FBI agents came and took the dagger away, to examine it. I dropped Saline at Abby's house, my best friend who also works for the FBI, and drove straight to the Bureau. I got into the elevator and headed to the sixth floor. Once the elevator stopped and its doors opened, I got out and headed to Hotch's office, but JJ stopped me.
"Harita, I've been trying to call you."
"Sorry, I left my phone back home. What happened?" I asked.
"Someone sent you a knife?" JJ responded.
"It's a Medieval Dagger, from Jamaica."
"Morgan and Elle are in Jamaica right now. There was a murder. The body was headless. The head has been sent to Gideon. Elle's been arrested for it." JJ ranted.
"What?" I exclaimed.
"Hotch headed down there last night with some bureau lawyers and a crime scene unit. He should be there by now."
"I'm going to see if they got any updates on dagger, come and get me if anything else has happened."
"Got it." We walked off in separate directions. Agent Carlson stopped me before I got to my desk.
"Harita. The knife that was attached to the box. We processed it. There's nothing. And we're still working on identifying the blood." Carlson announced.
"Try contacting the Montego Bay police. Apparently they have a headless homicide victim." I ordered.
"Got it. Also, you might want to change some clothes." I looked down and saw that I was still in my sweatshirt and sweatpants.
"I was just sent a bloody dagger, Elle's been arrested for a crime she did not commit, and Gideon was sent a head, I think I have more important things to do than worry about my clothes, Carlson." I walked off and got to my desk to make a few phone calls.
…
JJ and I headed towards Garcia's room to tell her what we found out, the blood from the dagger I was sent came from a guy named Marty Harris. Frank Giles was the main suspect, now that Elle has been taken out. I saw that Hotch, Elle, and Morgan came out of the elevator.
"Frank Giles left Jamaica last night on the red eye. He flew to Florida, then got onto another flight to Virginia." JJ told the gang.
"Virginia?" Elle asked. "You mean that son of a bitch is from here?"
"I don't know if he's from here, but this is where he flew to. Arlington." JJ corrected.
"He's got a long criminal record. Manslaughter, robbery, rape." I added.
"What about the victim, Marty Harris?" Morgan asked.
"He's a two-time convicted fetish burglar, registered child sex offender." JJ answered.
"And we have his head and murder weapon." Gideon butted in. "CSU just positively identified the one delivered to my cabin and the dagger delivered to Harita's apartment.
"'Don't waste time on the first victims.' 'They were unrepentant bad men.' 'They only got what they deserved.'" Hotch recited.
"What is that?" Morgan asked.
"I got a phone call last night before you called from Jamaica." Hotch answered.
"Any mention of a 'her'?" Elle asked.
"'You must help the young ones save her.'" Hotch recalled.
"So there are 'young ones' now, too?" Elle questioned.
"I think he means Harita and Reid." I choked on my coffee to Gideon's statement.
"Harita and Reid?" Elle asked.
"We need to regroup." Hotch ordered as we headed to the conference room and took our seats. "So, clearly we have a psychopath intent on drawing us into his game."
"Playing with us." Gideon added.
"Then let's return the favor." Elle suggested, pacing the room.
"He kept telling us repeatedly to save 'her'. What 'her'?" Morgan asked.
"Items he sent must be some kind of clues." Gideon proposed.
"Let's get them up on the board." Hotch ordered, as JJ stood up and grabbed a marker.
"I got a Nellie Fox baseball card from 1963, and I got a head in a box." Gideon said.
"I got a rare butterfly in a shadow box."
"And repeated messages to save 'her'?" Hotch added to JJ's statement.
"I got the decapitated body and a nice visit to the Jamaican Police Headquarters." Elle said, sarcastically.
"Reid called from Nevada. He's on the way back with a skeleton key and a note he got, too." Gideon added.
"I also got a skeleton key, and a note which read 'The younger ones hold the keys. Keep it to save a little girl's life'. Aswell, I got a Medival Dagger, which was the murder weapon." I stated.
"And the guy who called me said the younger ones hold the keys." Hotch remembered.
"That's Harita and Reid." Elle pointed out.
"Ok, but wait a minute. Unsubs, they don't contact us this way. I mean, they might taunt us, dare us to catch them. But they don't drag us into their fantasy." Morgan argued.
"Why not?" JJ asked.
"Because they're sexual fantasies." I answered.
"I mean, taunting us is a show of power, but making us the object is... I don't know what the hell that is." Morgan tried.
"Something else about the baseball card. Nellie Fox was one of the stars of the 1959 White Sox. I went to almost every game with my father that year. Fox was my hero. So is it a coincidence that he sends this to me? Or does he know how I feel about him?" Gideon asked.
"I collected butterflies when I was a little girl. That's how I knew what butterfly was in the box." JJ said.
"I collect knives. Not for murder." I rejected the weird looks on everyone's face. "But for throwing and self defence. The knife I received was a Medieval Dagger, very hard to get. Whoever got this kind is either very organized, or knows the right people."
"That means he knows us, concluded from the things you guys received." Morgan concluded.
"I got an anonymous message." Hotch added.
"I got a police raid." Elle adjoined.
"But he knew exactly where we were. Hotel in Jamaica. Gideon at the cabin. Reid in vegas. You at your home. Harita in her apartment." Morgan got cut off by Garcia, who just walked into the room.
"He got that from the bureau computers. Your locations are always in there so they can find you if they need you. I checked the log. Hacker was definitely in the personnel folders. There were room numbers to the hotel in Jamaica, the address of Gideon's cabin. There's a lot of information in those databases."
"Have you figured out how he was able to get into the bureau's computers?" Hotch asked.
"I'm still working on that." Garcia hesitated.
"Garcia, if you know something." Hotch pondered.
"No... It's... I- I was playing a game yesterday. An online game."
"A game?" Gideon asked.
"Not on the bureau computer, sir. On my own personal laptop."
"Oh, Garcia! No, no, no, no." Morgan sighed as I shook my head. Garcia did a bad thing.
"I don't understand." Hotch said.
"Wireless internet." I answered.
"By wirelessly hooking into the net here to get online, the hacker could have gotten into my computer first, and I have far less protection on my own laptop." Garcia finished,
"And he could have gotten into the entire bureau computer system this way?" Hotch asked.
"Yeah, it's possible."
"Playing a game? How could you be that stupid? Information, files. You have a responsibility." Gideon accused.
"I know, sir. I'm so sorry. But I found him." Garcia pointed out.
"You what?" Elle exclaimed.
"I know who he is, the hacker. His name is Giles, Frank Giles. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, 4 miles from here. I have his address."
"Garcia, you said Giles?" Garcia confirmed Morgan's statement by nodding.
…
We got to the address, but instead of finding Giles alive, we found him dead. He was laying on a table, only wearing boxes, and a medieval sword was pierced through his chest. On the wall was written 'Here thy quest doth truly begin'.
"He's definitely playing with us." Hotch stated.
"His identification checks out. That's Frank Giles." I confirmed.
"There's a big old bag of money sitting right here on the dresser." Morgan added.
"So, Giles took Harris to Jamaica to kill him and the unsub killed Giles." Hotch suggested.
"Yeah, but he paid him first." Morgan started taking the money out of the bag.
"Left the cash?" Elle asked.
"He is apparently well-funded."
"He said these were unrepentant bad men. Are we looking for some kind of vigilante?" Hotch asked.
"No. The bodies are nothing but a way to get us interested. They're game pieces. The killings are secondary." Gideon answered.
"Well, this guy likes to write things in blood on the walls." I pointed to the wall with the dripping blood.
"All kinds of cult and demonic significance to that. 'Thy? Doth? Quest?'" Morgan added. "'Thy quest doth truly begin.'"
"Why start phrasing things like this now?" Elle questioned.
"All the other messages were in modern english." Hotch added.
"Maybe this is the first one the unsub actually wrote." I suggested.
"So we're looking for Shakespeare?" Morgan asked.
"Hey, guys?" Jane, the other agent, called out.
"Yeah?"
"There's something etched on the blade."
"'To learn of what should next be done, leave the blade till the hour be none.'" Hotch read.
"'Hour be none?'" Morgan read.
"'Leave the blade.' Elle, move for a second, move to your left. The bed's in the middle of the room. Which isn't by chance. And maybe the light from here casts a shadow and points to something." advocated.
"Come on. Are we in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie?" Elle asked, but I did see her point.
"The unsub wants us to be." I said.
"'The hour be none?'" Hotch asked.
"Midnight is 00:00 hours in 24-hour time. Would that be none?" Morgan questioned.
"Midnight wouldn't cast a shadow." I replied.
"'Hour be none.'" Morgan recited.
"3 pm." A voice called out. I looked towards my left and saw Reid standing in the door frame. "Garcia, told me where to find you."
"3 pm? Oh, and welcome back." I asked.
"Thanks. It's medieval. The days used to be broken into hourly intervals. The canonical hours of the Breviary. Prime; 6 am. Terce; 9 am. Sext; 12 noon. None; 3 pm. And Vepers; 6 pm." Reid stated.
"Reid, do not ever go away again." Elle pointed.
"Medieval. That's why the language changed." Gideon said.
"Everything this guy does is a clue." Hotch added
"Ok, but, guys, it's 4 :35. What do we do? Leave the blade until 3 pm tomorrow?" Morgan asked.
"Not if we can block that window out. Do you have any spotlights in your car?" Spencer asked Jane.
"Sure."
"Thanks, Jane." Jane stood up and left. A few minutes later, we got the scene working.
"The sun is right here at 5 pm. Morgan, follow the shadows, I move the light higher." Spencer ordered as he started to move the flashlight down.
"Okay. And do what?" Morgan asked.
"Tap." Morgan kept tapping until the tapping became a higher pitch. He went over the spot a few times.
"It's hollow."
"Definitely an Indiana Jones movie." Elle muttered.
"Feels like the wallpaper's been replaced."
"Tear it open." I said, and Morgan did as told.
"It's a box." Morgan announced, as he took it out and placed it onto the table. He tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. "Locked. You want me to break it?"
"No. We should process it first." Hotch said.
"'The younger ones hold the keys.'" Gideon recited. Reid and I looked at each other, but I motioned him to go first and see if his key fits. It did. Morgan opened it up and inside there was some music playing."Schubert. The Trout Quintet. Five people fishing." Gideon stated as Spencer pulled out a note.
"'Never would it be night, but always clear day to any man's sight.'"
"Well, that was worth it." I signed.
"The lid. Little tab right under the lock." Gideon ordered as Morgan did what told. There was a CD and a lock of hair. "Leave that in this bag. Here you go."
""Thy quest.'"
...
"He moves funny. Looks like he's injured or something." I pointed. We were back in the conference room, watching what was on the tape.
"I assure you... You'll all understand in the end why it must be that way. You might even thank me." The unsub was breathing very heavily.
"Don't hold your breath, scumbag." Elle muttered.
"You know now you're on a quest. A young girl's life depends on the successful completion of it. As you can see, she's quite beautiful, and in distress. Now please listen closely for there is one rule and this rule must be followed. The one rule is, only the members of your team may participate in the quest. Jason Gideon, Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Elle Greenaway, Harita Nathan, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia." Pictures of each of us were being played. "A quest must be completed in the proper way or it isn't a quest, is it? That's it. One rule. Simple. Now, you will be receiving an item soon that will hold the final clue you'll need to finish the quest. You will find you will also need a book which has inspired many, an adventure like mine. Believe me when I tell you I'm truly hoping to see you all soon. It will mean a successful end to this adventure. For all of us." The video stopped playing.
"This guy's got pictures of us?" Elle questioned.
"What do we do now?" Spencer asked.
"The lock of hair is being analyzed for DNA. There might be something on file." Hotch announced.
"I'll get video to enhance the shots of the girl." JJ left the room.
"Let's get the clues up on the board. Maybe we can make some sense of something." Hotch ordered.
"We're gonna play this guy's game?" Elle asked.
"Do we have a choice?" I replied. Gideon stormed out of the room.
"Be right back." Hotch got out of his seat. "You guys keep working."
...
"My eyes are so heavy, I can barely see it." Elle sighed.
"I think it's a coded message of some sort." Reid pointed. Earlier, Hailey came in and said that some guy delivered a note to her, saying that 'a young girl's life depended on it. "The unsub said we needed a book, didn't he?" Spencer asked.
"Yeah. 'A book that inspired many an adventure.'" I recited.
"It's a book code. Each one of these sets of numbers represents a particular word. For instance, page 118, line 30, word 3. We need to figure out what the words are and fill in the blanks." Spencer stated. I groaned.
"I hated being the one to find the word every time we were assigned that kind of work at school."
"Sucks to be you." Morgan muttered.
"Sure, but from what book?" Elle asked.
"I don't know. The trouble is it has to be the exact same edition of the exact same book that he used."
"Just got a DNA hit on the lock of hair. Rebecca Bryant. She's been missing out of Boston for 2 years." JJ asked.
"2 years?" Elle exclaimed.
"Guys, how are we supposed to figure out which book this code is copied out of?" Morgan asked.
"I have no idea." Spencer replied. "He said we have everything needed to complete the quest."
"The answer's gotta be up there somewhere." I added.
"JJ, get some reporters here as soon as possible." Gideon announced as he walked into the room.
"For what?" JJ asked.
"Just say we need help on a new case."
"Press conference?" Morgan questioned as JJ shrugged her shoulders.
...
"A pale clouded yellow butterfly indigenous to Great Britain." Spencer muttered.
"How's it going?" Hotch asked.
"The answer to what book we need has to be in here." I replied.
"Yeah, but we sure as hell can't see it." Morgan argued.
"Yet." Spencer rejected. Hotch woke up Elle and told her to go home, who refused at first, but then agreed. We were all stumped. Who knew that an actual psychopath can stump us.
It's the end of season 1. I stayed up until 5:40 to work on this, but I don't regret it. I do blame my insomnia and messed up sleep schedule.
Toodles,
HernameisBurrito