Inspired by A Most Dangerous Tribe by FreeWrite.
This work starts right before Criminal Minds episode 5-18 begins, and diverges from canon from there on.
Chapter 1
A buzzing noise slowly infringed on Emily's state of unconsciousness. She fumbled at the bedside table for her phone and managed to get it up to her ear. "Prentiss" she said groggily, not bothering to move from under her pile of blankets.
"Good morning, Prentiss." Hotch said. She could hear a faint trace of amusement in his voice.
"Case?" She asked, yawning, and ran a hand through her tangled hair.
"Yes. And, you do realize it's past noon?" He said, his amusement still mostly concealed.
"And I was so hoping for an actual day off. I went out with a handful of old friends last night. They all have amazing livers." She groaned at the memory. "Fortunately, mine isn't all that much worse."
"Good. Meet the team on the plane, one hour. We have a long flight to San Francisco ahead of us." Hotch ordered, all traces of amusement gone, and only waited long enough to hear her "Yes, sir" before he hung up.
She rushed around the house, and after getting ready for the day, somehow managing to stuff everything she needed for a potentially long case into her go bag. She always packed enough of whatever she needed for a case that the one bag would last two weeks, even if the case might not last that long, because there had been numerous times where a case was only predicted to last a few days, but instead took weeks. Fortunately, her entire closet was organized so that she could pack for whatever weather that might be needed in a matter of moments. She was just glad that they were leaving cold DC for slightly warmer San Francisco, which at least didn't have snow, unlike the case that they had last week in Maine. Despite her years of living in Russia, Emily didn't like snow and cold all that much. She shoved the last of her 'mild winter' clothes into her suitcase and dragged it downstairs, grabbing her laptop bag and all of its accessories, tossing them in the entryway. She slipped into the kitchen, and with a mournful look at her full fridge, which would likely have all gone bad by the time they got home, grabbed an apple out of the bowl. Sergio's plantitive mewl stopped her from rushing out the door as she stopped just long enough to pour him some food. Emily grabbed her things and rushed out the door, just barely managing to get to the airport just in time.
She pulled her car up next to JJ's in the FBI parking area of the airport, and hopped out of the car. JJ was standing at the trunk of her car, and Emily joined her at the trunk of her own car. "You look half dead." JJ said.
"I feel half dead." Emily grimaced and wished for sunglasses, even if it was October and cloudy. "I went out with a group of old coworkers last night."
"So now would be a bad time to mention that Garcia said we should have a girls night when we get done with this case?" JJ grinned
"Definitely." Emily grimaced and pushed the trunk button on her key fob, and took a step forward as it popped open. "Do you know anything about this case?" She asked.
"No, I think Hotch was told about it by someone else, it didn't come across my desk." JJ said. Both of their heads popped up as they heard the familiar squeal of tires going way too fast for the road they were on.
"Twenty bucks says he's going to get another speeding ticket in the next month?" Emily offered.
"Hell no. Everyone knows he's going to get another speeding ticket soon. He drives like he's chasing a suspect twenty four seven." JJ laughed.
They both smirked at each other as Derek pulled into the parking lot and parked his car beside JJ's, Reid hopping out of the passenger seat. They grabbed their suitcases out of the back seat of the truck, and came over to stand next to JJ and Emily.
"You look half dead Prentiss. "Derk laughed.
"Yes, I do." Emily groussed. "Now, will you stop mentioning it?" She would have been more pissed if she didn't know that, with a few hours and a lot of water she would be back to perfectly normal. If there was anything long term undercover work had done for her, it was to teach her to work in almost any condition, and how to hide things. The fact that she had a really high alcohol tolerance helped, and if she had wanted, none of her team would have thought she had gone drinking at all. That would require a lot heavier make up, though, which would be commented on by JJ, if no one else, and she hated lying to people, especially something as innocent as going for drinks with friends. Not that she was going to tell them who the friends were, though. It would raise far too many questions that she didn't want answered.
"Never." Derek grinned, as Hotch pulled up, with Rossi right behind him.
"Morgan." Hotch Growled as he stepped out of the car.
"What?" Morgan grinned, but Emily could see the slight hints of tension in his body- the curse of being a profiler.
"I was right behind you 5 miles ago. And you got here 2 minutes, at least, before I did. Do I even want to know how fast you were going?" Hotch frowned. "Do you really want to have to go to traffic school again? Because I will not hesitate to ask Garcia to put you in the worst, most awful, annoying class that she can find."
The entire team laughed at Derek's disgruntled face, gathering their things and walking towards the plane. Once on the plane, they waited until they were up in the air to start talking about the case. Hotch quickly gave them the overview- the dead druggies, the missing girls and fathers and that Cooper had a theory.
Rossi had stood up the second the seatbelt lights went off, and returned with a cup of coffee. "What do we know about the past years victims?" he asked, standing behind Reid's chair.
"The tenderloin district is a high concentration of drug addicts and homeless people. All of the victims have been transients." Reid told him.
"So this unsubs choosing easy targets that won't be missed. He's not concerned with the challenge of the hunt. All these victims are part of a larger plan." Derek mused, looking over the pictures attached to the file.
"Which he executes in the same few days every year." JJ finished, glancing over at him.
"Reid, did you find any significance to the dates?" Hotch asked.
"Nothing historical. It's got to be personal for the unsub."
"JJ you and Reid hit the San Francisco P.D. Rossi and Prentiss to the dumpsite. Morgan and I will go to the Coroner's office. Nobody should expect to get a lot of sleep for the next 3 days." Hotch said grimly, and Emily winced inwardly. She hated the extreme rush, no sleep cases. Fortunately thanks to the amount of coffee that she had drank in the last hour, she was now feeling normal, as if she hadn't gone drinking the night before.
"What about Cooper's team?" Rossi asked. "You said he had a theory."
"He believes that whoever is murdering these homeless men is also abducting fathers and daughters and killing them once the tranists have been disposed of." Hotch told them. Emily thought it made sense. It would be one thing if fathers and daughters had disappeared one year, but every year. That was more then a theory, it was a pattern. And yes, San Francisco was a big city, but the timing could not be ignored.
"So we'll investigate the dead men, and his team can see if there is a missing father and daughter."
"Why isn't his team on the jet now?" Emily asked. Given how much the upper brass of the FBI liked penny pinching, she wouldn't have thought that they would pay for two jets to fly from the same places with what was likely hours of each other.
"Because the Director wouldn't authorise them joining the investigation." Hotch told her.
"They are working against the Director's orders?" Rossi said, sounding mildly shocked.
"We need to concentrate on the dead men abducted from the tenderloin. Cooper's team can help determine if there is a missing father and daughter and whether it's connected to our case." Hotch explained
"Or you could get in serious hot water with the director if he thinks that you are helping to defy him." Emily said wincing. She would not want to be anywhere near the ass chewing that would come from that.
"No. Hotch is right. I've known Sam Cooper for 20 years, and I've never seen him defy an order. If he feels this strong about a hunch, we need to help him however we can." Rossi told them.
"Ok, everyone. Look over the files again, and if anything pops out at you, bring it up. Otherwise, get some rest. You are going to need it." Hotch told them.
Emily sighed and stretched as the plane came to a halt on the tarmac. She hated the long plane flights- at some point in the journey, they always ran out of things to discuss about the case, and either went to sleep, or were consigned to boredom. Emily, despite the fact that she knew that they were going to be working on very little sleep the next three days, was completely unable to rest. That was thanks to the fact that she slept in till noon, she slept 9 hours that night, and her body was used to sleeping only 4 or so hours while there were open cases, and once she got used to sleeping that little, it was hard for her to sleep anymore unless she really needed it.
After getting off the plane, she and Rossi headed to one of the government issued black SUVs waiting for them, and spent the drive complaining how unsubs always liked to hide their kills in the most isolated spots that they could find, even in the middle of a major metropolitan city. She really wished that she had decided to wear her combat boot and black cargo pants ensemble that she usually favored when she might have to do anything that might include hiking instead of her pantsuit and heels. She had decided against it this morning because the last thing that she wanted was to look casual while looking like death. After an 45 minutes of swearing, which included "Why does it take almost an hour to go 18 stupid miles!" and "I really really really hate rush hour!" and "Can't you see the flashing lights dumbass move out of my way!" they finally arrived at Presidio Park.
A very helpful young officer led them into the park, where Detective Ekler was waiting, standing next to the roped off crime scene. After the usual pleasantries, Rossi got down to business "Have all of the dumpsites been this isolated?" He asked.
"He keeps away from the main paths" Detective Ekler nodded "Never dumps them in lighted areas."
"So he had to have studied the terrain beforehand. He's organized." Emily said, studied the leaf cluttered area around them.
"And physical enough to haul a body a long way on his own." Rossi agreed.
"What can you tell us about the victims?" Emily asked Detective Ekler.
"They were all living on the streets. No witnesses. Our guess is that he managed to lure them, promising food or drugs." he told them.
"Were any reported missing?" Rossi asked.
"No, we do know they all came from the same few blocks in the Tenderloin." Elker told him, and Emily and Rossi frowned at each other, a few blocks was a very tiny hunting zone, which probably means his comfort zone was equally small, and somewhere in or near the hunting zone. At least if he was only hunting in those few blocks, he would be semi easy to catch.
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it. "It's Hotch. He wants all to group up and go over what we found." She told Rossi, and he nodded.
"I have to stay here until the crime scene is fully processed, just in case they find anything else." Ekler told them.
"Ok, we'll see you back at the station later." Emily smiled, and she and Rossi turned around, and managed to get back to their car without getting lost in the maize of trees. After another round of rush hour traffic, they got to the Tenderloin station of the SFPD. Once there, the team went over the profile several times, adjusting it with the new information, until Cooper called Hotch sometime after one am. It was agreed since they weren't likely going to be able to get any more intel, that they should all take the opportunity to get some sleep and they would all meet at Cooper's mysterious base in the morning.
The next morning, Emily woke earlier then she thought she would, considering their late night, and took the opportunity to get a shower before JJ, who she was sharing a room with. They always shared a room when possible, both for the safety of it, and so the Bureau didn't complain about expenses as much. She dressed in another pantsuit, and waited until JJ was ready to leave by looking over the file again. Once JJ was done, they met the rest of the team downstairs, picking at the megar offerings of the hotel's continental breakfast before they went to go meet Cooper's team.
While her team started filing in Cooper's team on what they had come up with as a profile, Hotch and Coop went to visit the poor kidnapped girl's mother. It wasn't long before Hotch called- with the disturbing news of what had been done to keep the mother silet, of what would likely happen to her, and one more thing- that there was another body in Prediso Park.
As they got out of the car, Emily let loose the question that she had been wondering about ever since she met Mick "How does a Brit-" She started
"A handsome Brit."Mick interrupted.
She barely kept her lips from twitching, but continued her question like she hadn't been interrupted "How does a Brit end up in the FBI?"
"It's pretty simple. Cooper and I bumped into each other a few times. 10 months ago they told him he could handpick a new team. He called. I came. Passport didn't matter." Mick told her.
"Huh." Emily said, wondering how his government and hers didn't pitch a fit over that. "So, is it true that no one in the British special forces is allowed to admit they are in it?" She asked, smirking. She hadn't looked him up, but it was in the way he moved, the way he acted- he definity had special forces training.
"I don't know. I'd have to ask around about that one." To anyone other then a profiler, that was a no, but as a profiler, she could tell that he had been in a unit, she just couldn't tell which one.
She laughed, then kept digging "You know, there's a lot of rumors about your boss."
"Yeah?" Mick said.
"One I heard was when he left the BAU, he was doing psychological ops overseas.
"Well I've never been big on rumors" Mick tried to waving it off, but she continued.
"So I don't suppose you're going to tell me just where you two bumped into each other." Emily asked.
Mick paused and looked at her for a long moment."I heard you spent quite a bit of time in Europe, working undercover ops for the CIA…"
"I can neither confirm nor deny." Emily smirked at him. Internally, she felt the butterflies start fluttering in her stomach. She had done her best to forget what she had done for the CIA, and had thought she had wiped all traces of those ops existence from her brain. There were no FBI files detailing what she had done, none that were anything more then black lines, a handful of random words and letters, and one word written in red- CLASSIFIED.
"I'll tell you I trust the man with my life." Mick said, abruptly jumping back to their previous conversation. "I'll tell you that I'd die for the man." And with the look that he was giving her, she was sure that he would, as he turned to go to the actual crime scene, and she stared at him dumbfounded. After a brief conversation with the locals, which included her having to convince them that Mick was actually FBI, to the man's ire, they got to the body.
"So, the Tenderloin's full of junkies who would be easy to control, but the first victim had no drugs in his system, and this geezer looks pretty healthy too. Except for the whole dead thing." She watched as he picked up the victim's hand "He's got skin under his nails." He shifted, deep in thought "Didn't the first victim have scratches on his chest?"
"Yeah, we assumed he fought back against the unsub, but these victims might actually be fighting each other."
"Exactly." Mick said, sounding slightly smug.
"I take it that you are about to wow me with a theory." she said, waiting.
"The first victim is dumped before the fathers and daughters are taken. Why?"
"Because he wants to send a message to the wife that he means business, make sure she doesn't call the police."
"And it also sends a message to the prisoners he already lose a fight, you die." he said grimly. "What do those welts look like to you?' he asked.
"My guess, they are wounds from rubber bullets." she said, wondering where he was going to go from there.
"Like they use to control rioters, or prison inmates."
"Ok." She said, waiting for him to continue. He didn't disappoint.
"I think the Unsub's been locked up. It's where he learned to control his own prisoners."
"Well, if he's learned how to dominate them, why are they fighting each other?" she picked at the weak point.
Mick shook his head "It has to be part of his plan- to watch them beat the hell out of each other."
"And then the loser is executed." she finished. It fit with what they knew, they were finally getting somewhere with the unsub!
"Admit it, I'm starting to grow on you." he smirked.
To avoid answering, she pulled out her phone "Hotch, it's Emily, we have an idea about what he might be doing with the victims. We may be able to give the profile- Hold on a second." She pulled the phone away from her mouth and turned to Rawson, who was calling someone else "Hey, who are you calling?" She whispered.
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"If i'm right there's somewhere else we need to be delivering that profile." he told her.
She moved her phone back so she could talk to Hotch "We're coming back to base, and we'll give you what we have figured out then." she told him, and heard his agreement before hanging up the phone.
Mick had also hung up "I call shotgun." He smirked.
"As if I actually want you driving." she scoffed "You'd end up on the wrong side of the street, and not even the flashing lights would save us from being hit."
"Hey, I'll have you know that I passed my quantico driving course exam with flying colors."
"Yeah, but after how many tries?" She rolled her eyes as she climbed into the car.
"Hey!" he said, outraged, and she just snickered.
After she and Mick had met up with the rest of the team, they shared the profile that they had created. The combined teams had agreed that it fit, then split up to deliver it. She and Mick went off to a police station to deliver the profile, and when they came back, they met up with Cooper and waited for Hotch to get back from his delivery of the profile at a different police station.
"The police department has the profile." Hotch said as he stepped across the wet road. "They've tripled patrols in the Tenderloin."
"You know what? I think we need profilers out here, too. He could be out hunting for homeless men to fight the father." Cooper said, and Emily nodded, profilers would see things that cops might not. He pointed at Mick "This kid- best sniper I've ever seen. He could view a lot of ground from the rooftop."
"You're comfortable on the ground solo." Hotch checked with her.
She wanted to tell him that she had been in a lot worse situations then this alone, but merely said "Of course."
"Cooper's right. Maybe we can catch him trying to abduct another victim." Hotch said and they all walked into Cooper's base.
An hour later, night had fallen, and Emily was standing on a street corner, trying to find her killer. "So what are you wearing?" Mick said in her ear.
She glared up at his rooftop then said "A gun. Hey Mick, explain something to me. How come I'm out on the street and you're sitting on your but up on some roof." She didn't have any problems with it, but was feeling slightly obvious in her suit, when surrounded by junkies. She would be fine, but would rather have been undercover- at least she could blend in that way.
"Well you heard the man."Mick smirked- she could tell without even being able to see him. "Do you really want me to expound on my own prowess? It's undignified." she smiled, in spite of herself, and he continued "Stay on your headset. All his victims are coming from this 4-block radius." he said, and she murmured a conformation.
An hour later Emily was tired and cold. She had had to flash her badge 5 times at random junkies hassling her before all of the rest seem to have gotten the message. So it was a relief when Mick started talking again " Ok, I've got something. I'm not sure if it's anything, but Southeast corner. See the guy clocking the junkie?"
"CAre to expand on that? All I see are guys clocking junkies." she said slightly frustrated. They had a number of false alarms already, and she really wanted to catch this guy.
"Grey shirt." Mick added.
She peered through the crowd for a second, then said "yeah, I got him."
"Stay close, I'm on my way." Mick said, but Emily was already moving to intercept the potential unsub.
"He's heading Southbound." Emily reported, and the unsub saw her and spooked, sprinting away. Emily sighed and gave chase, hoping Mick got off his building soon to come and back her up. "FBI Stop!" she yelled the two most worthless words in law enforcement, wishing for once that it actually worked, but it didn't, so she kept running. She labelled off the cross streets for Mick, trying to avoid the cars the unsub seemed intent on dodging. Why couldn't he just run on the sidewalk, she wondered as she was slightly too slow to dodge a car, and she rolled over it's hood, feeling her shoulder and side take the brunt of the impact. She knew that she would feel it later, but instead just rolled up and kept running. It wasn't until the unsub turned into an alley that she was finally able to catch up and shove him against a wall. "Stop." she yelled, breathless.
"I didn't do anything!" the man said, his hands in the air, looking terrified of the two guns pointed at him.
"Why were you following that man?" Emily demanded.
"I knew he was holding, I just wanted a fix." he said, and Emily paused. Mick was obviously on the same midtrack as she was, because he holestered his gun and grabbed the man's arm, pulling up the sleeves to reveal track marks. "I don't distribute." the man protested. Emily backed up, and holestared her gun- this wasn't there guy. Mick looked at her, then shoved the junkie away.
"Get out of here." he growled, and the junkie disappeared. Emily straighted, then winced, rubbing her side. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, fine, just had a run in with a car when the moron was playing dodge a car. Why can't they ever run on the sidewalks? No, they always have to run through the streets of major cities." she complained.
Mick laughed, and they started walking back down the alley. "Or when they think that them and their one tiny revolver with only 6 bullets in it is going to be able to take down a dozen cops, who all have much better firepower. Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I managed to angle it right. And the car was mostly stopped anyway. One of the most stupid morons I had was this guy with a 2mm Kolibri, and there were 6 of us, and he actually tried to kill us. The thing is, he was a terrible shot, so all he could manage was to hit the cars, and even if he could even try to aim, we were all wearing vests, so that was obviously useless. Morgan fired a bullet that went right past his head, and he was on the ground whimpering on and on about police brutality and a violation of his constitutional rights." Emily said, barely managing to repress the laughter that came with remembering the incident.
"Was he actually firing at you?" Mick sounded incredulous.
"He fired three shots. The first two went really wide. Like hitting the cars wide, and the third hit the car door that Rossi was standing behind. He was perfectly fine, just annoyed that he would have to drive a car with ding in it- the bullet didn't even penetrate the aluminum! It was very funny- he went all Marine lecture on the idiot "if you don't know how to fire a gun don't own one, have you ever cleaned this thing?""
"Really, Rossi?" Mick raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, even Hotch was laughing, it was hysterical." she grinned, rubbing at her ribs again. Then her phone rang, and she looked down at the screen. "Speak of the devil. It's Hotch." she grinned, and picked up the phone "Hey hotch, just got another false alarm, we actually had to chase this one, he was just a junkie."
"Nobody has gotten anything either, and we've scared off anyone who might be our unsub, so we are calling it a night. Even if it's technically already morning." Hotch sighed faintly- she could barely hear it, and she was used to trying to decipher Hotch's various lack of expressions. "YOu and Rawson head back to the hotel, we will meet you there."
"Ok, we are on our way." Emily told him, and hung up the phone. As if thinking about the time was what caused it, she yawned. "Hotch wants us back at the hotel. What time is it?"
Mick checked his watch "3:30. Thank god, cause I really don't want to chase anyone else tonight. I hate running down stairs full speed. I always feel like I'm going to miss a step and fall down the stairs on my face." He yawned.
"I'll go get the car while you get whatever you left up on that roof if you drive the rest of the way to the hotel." Emily said with another jaw cracking yawn.
"So now you trust me to drive." he smirked at her.
"Oh shut up, there are less cars for you to hit on the road now." she just smirked back. "In all honesty I'm exhausted, and you look more awake then I do."
He eyed her carefully, then nodded "If sniper training has done anything for me, it's made sure that I could shoot someone after 48 hours of no sleep, drunk. I'm fairly sure I can drive a car."
Emily groaned- this was such a bad idea. "Oh shut up Rawson."
The next morning, despite the late night, they were all up and in Cooper's base by 8:30. Everyone, even Hotch looked tired, and they had enough coffee to supply a Starbucks for a week. Cooper started off the day by crossing off the Day 2 on his chalkboard and circling Day 3- the last day they had to catch this guy for a year, or else they would be coming back next year. "Did your analyst get us the data?" Cooper asked. Garcia had spent all of the night and most of the morning finding anyone who could possibly fit the profile and sending all of the files to them. She was somehow still awake and coherent. Emily wondered how many all nighters she pulled without the team knowing about it. Emily suspected that that number was fairly high.
"Yeah, I can lay it out for you." JJ told him.
"Good, let's cross-reference it against our suspect pool." Cooper told them as Prophet's phone rang.
"Hello." Prophet said "Yeah we can be there. You up for a ride to San Quentin?" he asked Rossi as he hung up.
Rossi made a face and Cooper smiled "It's like the old days, spending all of your time interviewing prisoners."
"Don't go getting all sentimental on me." Rossi told him, and followed Prophet out the door.
Emily followed Mick over to where Hotch was standing over a pile of paperwork, with a folder in his hands. "What we got?" Mick asked.
"The profile says he spent time in prison. He probably lost a teenage daughter in a way that corresponds to the dates that he abducts and kills his victims." Hotch told them, walking over to the table that Reid was standing behind
"We have the dates divided into 4 specific subsets. This group is teenage girls age 13 to 16 who were removed from their father's care. These are deaths of teenagers the same age. The remainder are men arrested for violent crimes and anyone serving a prison sentence in the same window." Reid told them in his typical rush of information.
"The stressors in here somewhere. Let's find something that looks promising so we can start running background checks." Cooper told them as Hotch fished his ringing phone out of his jacket. They all nodded and got to work on the pile of paper in front of them.
An hour of papercuts and coffee later, Emily stared at the file and tried to resist the urge to chew her nail. She hated the habit that was born out of years of nerve wrecking undercover work and tried to keep from doing it as much as possible. "Find anything yet?" Hotch asked as he walked up.
"Not yet, and this one is a no go" Mick sighed, and tossed his file into the stack of the discarded ones.
"This one should be in jail for something, but he's not our unsub" Emily threw her file on top of Mick's.
"Well, keep working, he's in there somewhere" Hotch said as he got a phone call from Morgan, and when he turned around, he had a lead "The McBride family went to a therapy center in the Tenderloin. The place also did evaluations for social services."
"We profiled that the unsub might have had his daughter taken away from him." Emily said- it fit, and if they could get the records they might have their unsub.
"If he was processed in the same place, then he would know how to target the fathers and daughters. Can I talk to your analyst?" he asked Hotch.
Hotch handed over his phone with a "Sure." and Emily turned back to the papers on the table.
A half an hour later, Garcia called back, and Hotch put her on speaker. "All right, my tribe, I have a list of parents, evaluated by social services, who ended up losing custody. But as Cooper predicted, it is a lengthy tale of woe." she told them
"We'll use it to cross against the teenage girls who died on some of the dates in question. I'm going to start reading names. You tell me if they are on your list." Hotch said.
As he started reading the names, Cooper's phone rang and the team turned to him "Hey. Right sounds like a possible. Thanks Prophet." he said and hung up "We have a name. John Vincent Bell." he told the team
"One of the girls that died was Mandy Bell." Reid said, and Emily once again wondered at his encyclopedic memory of random names and dates.
"Garcia, run the name John Vincent Bell against the family therapy list."
"Shazam." Garcia said triumphantly "Bell and his wife divorced, then the wife died, and Bell was declared incompetent to have custody of his daughter due to a host of mental health issues."
"We got that one right." Mick said.
"Oh Lord. And then, when Social Service Agents showed up to remove the girl, Bell beat one of them to death. He was given 7 years for manslaughter." Garcia added, and Emily winced, mental health issues indeed.
"Yeah, during which time, his daughter was in a car accident. Looks like she survived three days on life support but eventually died of brain injuries." JJ said, look at the file on the table.
"Ok, so Bell is making these men fight to the death just like he did." Emily said. It fit- the three days, the forced fights, presumably for the life of the daughter. "He's trying to prove he would do what any father would do."
"Do we have an address?" Cooper asked.
"Uh, the only listing I have is a gym on hall street in the Tenderloin." Garcia told them. "It belongs to Bell's family. Hasn't been operational in years"
"He got him." Hotch said, and the team exploded into action, grabbing bulletproof vests and checking their guns, then running for the cars parked outside.
As they and the SWAT team pulled up to the gym, Emily just hoped that they were in time. They didn't know what time that Bell killed the fathers and daughters, and it was dark out, fairly late. The two teams followed Swat into the building, finding the grim scene of a pool stained with blood, and the father chained to a pillar. There was no sign of Jane. The team split up to start searching the area for Bell, hoping he hadn't gone far, with Cooper giving them directions from the air in a chopper.
"I need everybody on your radios, I'm going to be your eyes." Cooper said in her ear, and Emily gave her assent, combing through streets alone, trying to keep to the area that Mick could see, just in case. The all heard Cooper's triumphant "There. Right there. We got a visual. Turk and Franklin. Southeast corner." Emily glanced at the nearest street sign- she was only a few blocks away. She turned and started sprinting in that direction.
"We're two blocks away." Morgan said in her ear, and Emily upped her pace, determined to get there at the same time despite the fact that Morgan was in a car and undoubtedly going much faster then her.
"Everyone be advised, he's going to the roof. He's going to the roof." Cooper said, but Emily didn't bother wasting any breath responding.
Emily managed to get to the parking garage only seconds after Morgan and Gina did, and followed them through the empty building. They caught up with Bell as he hit the furthermost corner of the roof "John Bell, FBI." Morgan bellowed over the sound of the chopper above them. "Put the weapon down."
"Don't shoot me." Jane pleaded hoarsely, tear tracks in her dirt covered cheeks.
"Drop the gun." Emily pointed her gun at Bell.
"It's over! Look around you." Gina yelled as they slowly crept closer.
"Don't do it, put it down!" Morgan hollered.
"You know what it feels like to lose your daughter. Do you really want to hurt someone else's" Gina attempted to reason with Bell as he climbed up a set of stairs, still with his gun pointed at Jane. He shoved Jane towards them, and kept climbing up.
"Get off the wall!" Morgan raised his gun, following Bell and starting to move forward. Bell just looked at them, cocked his head, and jumped, with Morgan and Emily rushing forward to stop him, but they were far too late.
"Wait!" Mick's bark froze them the second they watched the unsub jump. "There is a secondary ledge, he's alive, a few feet below you, and he still has the gun. If you poke your head out, he can easily shoot you, and without him cooperating, there is no way to get him off of it." Mick's rushed explanation instantly relieved Emily that he managed to get it out. She was about to poke her head out just like he described, and she would have been dead.
"Thanks Rawson." Morgan said, raising his gun back on the wall, not that he could shoot the unsub through it, but it was better then the gun pointing at the ground. Behind them Gina pulled Jane away and walked her towards the exit, just in case.
Emily frowned, trying to think of a way to get the unsub alive. "Rawson, can you see any way to get him alive that isn't dangerous to law enforcement?" she asked, knowing that he could see the area much better then they could.
A few seconds of silence rung over the coms, deafening in their quietness. "No. He is in a fairly precarious position, he could fall fairly easily. If I shoot him, I can't guarantee him not falling, either. Either way, we need to have agents clear out that area of sidewalk and road."
Cooper relayed that order over to the San Francisco police, and it took five very tense minutes before he said "Ok, the ground's clear, and Gina has Jane back with her parents. Mick can you see any other way out of this?" he asked, the wind from his chopper once again blowing Emily's hair into her face, even with it up in a ponytail. She spent a few seconds wishing she had another hairtie, so she could put it in a bun, but pushed the thought away just as Mick responded. Gina ran back up the stairs, and lifted her gun back up, like Morgan, pointing it at a wall that the bullet likely wouldn't make it through. Still, if nothing else, it would injure or scare the unsub.
"No, and he still has the gun pointed at where someone's head would be." he calmly responded.
"Ok, then take the shot." Cooper said, and two sharp pops were heard.
"It's all clear." Mick said, a second later.
Emily and Morgan run over and peer over the ledge just in time to see the body slip over the edge and fall towards the ground.
"Thanks for saving my ass, Rawson." Emily said.
"Yeah, ditto." Morgan said.
"Anytime." Mick said. "I like saving people. They usually buy me drinks afterward." Emily could see him standing up in his perch, breaking his gun down.
"Whatever. How about we all go out, and Emily pays the bar tab." Morgan said.
"Hey!" Emily said, outraged, but she was grinning, "Says the man who has used literally every excuse in the book to get out of paying, then made some more up! And what about last week?"
"Are you really going to let that stand?" Gina laughed, sweeping a strand of blonde hair out of her face.
"I forgot my wallet that one time!"
"How come I found it in about 30 seconds under the passengers side seat of your truck?" Emily challenged, laughing as they made their way down the parking garage. She caught sight of her hair in a window of one of the few cars left in the garage and grimaced, taking the ponytail out and trying to smooth it out, before putting it back up.
"It must have fallen out of my pocket." Derek lied unconvincingly.
"You need to learn how to lie better." Emily said, shaking her head.
"I can so lie." he challenged.
"Yeah, to who? A toddler?" Gina laughed.
"Ladies, stop being so mean to the poor man." Mick's amused voice rang in their ears.
Emily snorted, and was about to respond with something along the lines of the fact that Derek so deserved it, but the buzzing of her phone cut her off. "Prentiss going off comms." She said, abruptly professional "Got a call that everyone doesn't need to hear."
"Got it Prentiss, thanks. Everyone else cut down the chatter, please?" Hotch's authoritative voice cut in, sounding slightly annoyed. He hated when they talked too much over coms when it didn't have to do with the case. Prentiss could see why, as it would be aggravating to try to deal with the LEOs and have a bunch of people chattering in your ear at the same time. The coms were voice activated, so it's not like they could talk without making the coms transmit.
Emily just barely heard Mick's disappointed sound before she yanked the earpiece out of her ear, and put the phone to it instead. "This is Prentiss." She said.
"Do you always answer the phone so professionally, Emily?" An amused voice responded.
"No way? G! How are you?" She grinned, stopping and leaning against the concrete wall beside her. Derek stopped, waiting, but she waved him on. G and her had done enough classified things together that the last thing that was needed was someone overhearing their conversations.
"Ok. Slightly shot and very bored, but ok."
"I heard about that. And I think you were slightly more then a little shot." Emily winced. "Arkady was amazed you lived."
"Wait, you heard from Arkady?" G said shocked. "I thought you heard from some LEO or another."
"Nope, Arkady called me the day it happened to tell me. I think he might have been warning me. Who knows, with Arkady though. He told me that you were dead, though. I found out that you managed to survive from a local LEO who I called asking about it."
"I haven't heard from Arkady since Operation you know what 10 years ago!"
"Well, from the looks of it, he's in LA and doing very well for himself. I looked into him after he called me, I hadn't heard from him since I was playing barmaid and unofficial back up on that op. I noticed they didn't come after me, and I was curious. I was on a case then in a middle of nowhere town in Ohio. Maybe because it was unofficial, and not even Stanhope and Taylor knew. Just me and you. Arkady only knew because he had met me when my mother was the US ambassador and he recognized my face."
"Wow." G said. "I don't know if you had heard or not, but the case was cold, and I think you just broke it wide open."
"Hey." Emily snapped "I know that tone. You are not allowed to go all lone wolf on me G Callen. Call your partner. Call your boss. I have a lot of overtime I can spend. Or I can call some old contacts and they could "need" me for something. We will attack the lion's den together."
"Thanks Emily." G said softly. "Look, where are you?"
"San Francisco. Thats what, a 6 hour drive, or I could just hop on a plane. I'm going to go talk to my boss, and see what I could get away with doing from him, and if he refuses, I'll call some old spook friends.".
"Ok, and thank you Emily." G said, sounding relieved.
"Be honest with me, how injured are you? Cause I will not hesitate to call Hetty if I think you are doing something stupid, and she will not be happy if she hears about this from this from me and not you."
"That's a fairly terrifying death threat." G said, not sounding all that scared. "It's been 6 months, Emily. I am about as healed as I will get. I'm mostly in shape. I don't have any more physical therapy to do. If I were willing to do a desk job, I'd probably be at work right now. As it is, I'm about a month away from working. I'm fine, I'm ready to go, but my doctor refuses to let me do it."
"Yes it is, and I will call her in about ten minutes, and if she hasn't heard about this from you by then, I will not hesitate to tell her myself." Emily said sternly. G had a tendency of lone wolfing if he thought he could get away with it. Fortunately, like any smart operative who knew her, he was terrified of Hetty. Emily certainly knew that she was too.
"Now I'm scared." G laughed. "I swear I will call her once I hang up with you."
"You better. I'm going to go do things, I'll talk to you soon, ok?" Emily smiled. She waited for his acknowledgement, then hung up. She then ran down the parking garage, rejoining her teammates at the bottom.
"Emily, whats up?" Derek asked.
"A friend might be in trouble. Who knows. I'm going to go visit him, so I can talk to some of my informants and see what they know." SHe said as Hotch walked up. "Hotch, I was wondering if I could use some of the ridiculous amount of time off that I have stored up."
"Yeah, sure. Who is the friend?"
"G Callen, NCIS. He got shot a few months ago, and one of my informants called me, telling me that he was probably dead. I then called G's boss, and she said that he wasn't dead, just really injured. But the thing is, my informant shouldn't have known anything- he's most definitely not anyone that any federal agency would ever tell, especially with how classified the things that G does are. So I was going to track down my informant and demand answers. And if I'm there, I can keep G from going all lone wolf on us."
"As long as you finish off all of your paperwork, I'm fine with it. Just try not to do anything that would get you arrested? And remember that you are off duty once the paperwork is finished." Hotch said, with a faint hint of a smile.
"Prentiss might get arrested? For what?" Mick said, smirking as he walked up.
"Probably for wiping that smug smirk off your face." Gina said, grinning.
"I have to go visit a friend." Prentiss quickly explained.
"Where is the friend? We might be able to drop you off on our way back, it will save you money on plane tickets, anyway." Hotch asked.
"My informant is in LA, and G's meeting me there, so no, unfortunately." She said, attention mostly on her phone. "And I now have a red eye out of Sf to LA, leaving at ridiculous o'clock in the morning."
"And I was going to suggest that we go celebrate." Mick said mournfully.
"We can totally celebrate, I just shouldn't drink." Emily said to the smiles of the group.
"Ok, then let's wrap this case up, and then we can celebrate." Hotch said, with a hint of a smile on his face.
That was how, three hours later paperwork finished and the case all wrapped up, Emily found herself standing in a circle of her coworkers, with a soda in her hand. They were trading weirdest ever cases stories, and she was having fun making her teammates wince, and trying to avoid the more classified things that she had done. It was especially annoying how Mick smirked at her wherever she had to do some on the spot editing. He'd probably looked her up, the asshole. Hopefully he hadn't found anything too classified. She would interrogate him later though and tell him to quit flirting with her. Especially in front of both of their teams. Right now, she was enjoying some time spent relaxing. With what she was about to dive into, she would probably need it.
This work all started with one question- why did we not see any more then one undercover op of Emily's? Then I wondered who else would of known about Emily's past, and an answer came to me- Mick! For a long time, the idea sat in my ideas folder as four lines ""One I heard was when he left the BAU, he was doing psychological ops overseas./ "Well I've never been big on rumors" Mick tried to waving it off, but she continued./"So I don't suppose you're going to tell me just where you two bumped into each other." Emily asked./Mick paused and looked at her for a long moment."I heard you spent quite a bit of time in Europe, working undercover ops for the CIA…"" It sat like that for over a year, until I watch NCIS LA for the first time, and realized, that as an undercover operation, who was ex CIA, she would probably know G Callen and Hetty Lange, and the rest of the team. After that, the idea for this story wouldn't let me go- I wrote the first chapter faster then I've ever wrote anything before! I hope you like it, and please review!
Note- I have in no way shape of form a gun/criminology expert. I've never even fired a gun. Anything I mentioned in this chapter comes from research I found online. Sorry if I'm wrong!