Chapter Twenty-Seven: Gather Up the Killers
"You know the key to running a convincing bluff? Every once in a while you got to be the one holding all the cards." –Ian Howe
Will had just finished making breakfast when he heard the front door open, and Ellie and Carter walked into the kitchen. Growing up in the South, Will had never really knocked on his best friends' doors and saw no reason for Tate's friends to do the same, while JJ really didn't care either way. Usually Tate would be ready to go, but on the off-chance she wasn't, Ellie and Carter would let themselves in to wait for her.
"Morning Will," Ellie said before reaching down to pet Bean, who had raced over upon hearing the pair enter.
He'd finally managed to get Tate's friends to call him Will, which made him feel less old than Detective or Mr. LaMontagne.
"Morning, Tate's running a little late," he told them.
As the kids sat down at the counter to wait, JJ came downstairs with the twins. The entire team had the day off, so she was staying home with them all day, while Will went to work. Noticing Carter glancing at the food, Will slid a container of beignets he'd made the other day across the counter.
"Thanks, Will," Carter said, grinning.
"Excited for the field trip?" Will asked.
"I don't think anyone's excited to go to a bank," Ellie quipped.
The school had decided that some high schoolers along with some of the younger kids should take a field trip to a bank in the city. No one really understood why they wanted a ton of kids ages six through eighteen to spend their day at a bank, but at least it got them out of class.
As Carter and Ellie each took a beignet, Tate came rushing down the stairs, her backpack slung over one shoulder.
"Sorry I'm late," she said to the pair.
Tate said goodbye to Will and JJ before kissing the twins on the cheek, who giggled in response. As Tate grabbed her shoes, Ellie and Carter thanked Will for the food, and grabbed a few more beignets for the road. A few minutes later, they were out the door and off to school.
"Am I the only one who finds this incredibly boring?" Ellie whispered as the manager of the bank droned on about it's history.
"Nope, I'm pretty sure Mr. Donovan's history classes were less likely to put you to sleep than this," Tate replied.
"If Tate's not finding random information interesting then that means it must be really boring," Noah quipped from behind them.
Tate, much like Spencer, could list off information about almost any subject at a second's notice. Granted, she didn't do it often, since no one really cared about the random facts floating through her brain, but all her friends knew she was perfectly capable of doing it. At the beeping noise of the metal detector, Tate glanced over to the entrance. A man had just come through wearing a backpack and was now being checked out by security. She turned her attention back to the tour and noticed that even the little kids in the front were getting bored.
Suddenly, several loud popping noises rang through the room. A woman began yelling, and Tate was only able to identify the noise as gunshots when she turned around. The woman, along with two men, quickly pulled on masks and started yelling at everyone to get down on the ground. Knowing it was best to comply, Tate quickly sank to the floor and pulled Ellie, who was frozen in place, down with her.
One minute Will had been on patrol with his partner, Madeline, and the next Madeline had been lying on the ground with a bullet in her head. Will dove behind the car and reached inside, grabbing his radio.
"10-13. Officer down. Shots fired, repeat, shots fired!" he shouted into the radio.
"10-4, Detective. Backup is on the way," the reassuring voice of the dispatcher told him.
He watched as the robbers retreated back into the bank, and he knew he'd shot at least one of them. He leaned down and pressed a shaky hand to Madeline's neck, and the lack of pulse confirmed she was dead.
The sound of the once distant police sirens grew louder as backup approached, and Will came to a sudden realization. He was sitting outside Colonial Liberty Bank. Tate, however, was inside the bank with a bunch of other kids, all on a field trip. He wanted to charge into the bank and get his kid, but he knew that would only end with him dead. Slowly, he got to his feet, and went to meet the other police officers that had begun to arrive.
JJ had been playing with the boys in the living room when she got the call from Hotch.
"There's a robbery and hostage situation downtown, we're needed," he quickly explained.
"What about crisis negotiation?" JJ asked, confused, as she began to gather her things.
"Out of town. We're setting up at the corner of Penn and Southeast,".
After assuring Hotch she'd be there as fast as she could, JJ hung up the phone. She quickly texted the boys' nanny, asking if she could watch them for the afternoon. Anna, of course, was happy to comply. JJ went to the gun safe in her and Will's room and grabbed her holster and badge. The second Anna walked in the door, JJ was heading out to the driveway to go meet the team.
It wasn't until she was pulling up at the blockade that she discovered where the robbery had taken place. Her heart stopped beating for a moment when she realized that Tate was inside. Her daughter was trapped inside a building with three psychopathic bank robbers. She quickly got out of the car, and noticed Will standing with the rest of the team. She darted over and wrapped her arms around him, quickly checking to make sure he hadn't been hurt.
Hotch began to explain the previous robberies that had been committed by the face cards as he walked towards the mobile command unit.
"They've killed one person at each robbery," he said, glancing over at Will and JJ.
JJ reached for Will's hand as Garica showed the team the live feed from inside of the bank. The face cards had everyone sitting in a circle, and one of the robbers had begun collecting phones from the crowd.
"They're using the hostages as human shields," Rossi noted.
JJ felt Will's grip on her hand tighten, and she knew he was just as terrified as her. One wrong move, and Tate could be dead in a second. Looking over the footage, JJ finally spotted Tate sitting between Carter and Ellie towards the back of the bank.
"This is the first time they've been interrupted," JJ added quietly.
JJ knew as well as the rest of the team what could happen when a killer's plan goes off the rails. They start to panic, and then they resort to violence. Violence that could get her child killed.
"I want to let the police deal with them first," Hotch told the group. "We don't want them knowing we're here if it can be avoided,".
Tate sat on the cold marble floor of the bank, with Ellie pressed up close to her left side and Carter sitting on her right. As one of the cards had the bank tellers fill bags with cash, the other one went around and collected everyones' phones. Tate dropped hers into the box quickly, and nudged Ellie when the girl didn't make a move to give up her phone. Tate knew she was in shock, but she had to get it together, before one of them tried to kill her. The remaining robber was slumped against the floor, blood pouring from his wound onto the sleek floor.
The phones in the bank kept ringing and every so often the man Tate assumed to be the ring leader would answer one. He would speak to whoever was on the end of the line for a few seconds, before angrily hanging up.
"That's not gonna do us any good," the woman warned.
"Shut up! The stupid cops keep calling,".
"Well, why don't you talk to them?" the Queen replied, annoyed.
"I wanna talk to someone important not just some dumb detective,".
The man suddenly grinned a little, and it made Tate's blood run cold. She'd seen that type of smile before–on Freddie Carlisle. It was the smile only a killer could have.
"Maybe I'll just start getting rid of some of these kiddies until they find someone better," he said, walking over to the group of elementary school kids.
He walked back and forth in front of them for a moment, before picking his target; a young, six-year-old girl. The man raised his gun slightly, and Tate found herself speaking before she could stop herself.
"Wait,".
The Queen and the King whipped around, seemingly very interested in who had the guts to talk to them. The man flashed his cold smile again, and Tate tried to stop herself from shuddering. She could feel Ellie stiffen beside her, and Carter tried to shush her, but it was too late for that.
"You wanna take her place?" he asked.
"No, but if you want to talk to the FBI, you can. I can get them on the phone," she quickly offered.
The King looked over at the Queen and the pair seemed to be considering it for a moment. The man strode over to where the Queen had left the box filled with phones and brought it over to Tate.
"If you're messing with me, just know you're gonna regret it," he said.
Tate carefully looked through the box before pulling out her phone. Before she could search for the contact she wanted, the man snatched the phone from her.
"Who am I looking for?" he asked impatiently as he looked through the phone.
"Aaron Hotchner," Tate told him quietly.
"And what exactly does he do?" the Queen spoke up.
"He's the head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit,".
"How's he gonna help us? Hostage situations are handled by Crisis Negotiation," the Queen explained as she glared at Tate.
"They're overseas which means the BAU would be called in if there's an emergency. Besides, you've killed seven people in seven months, which makes you a serial killer. And that's what they specialize in," Tate said hesitantly.
She could tell Izzy was the type of person that didn't beat around the bush, so Tate went straight for the truth. Tate had once asked Reid how they dealt with killers, like how they had tried to talk Freddie down. He told her it was all about getting them to respect you, and to trust you. That was supposedly the key to getting out alive, and it hadn't failed him yet, so Tate decided to give it a try.
"How exactly do you know this guy?" the man asked.
Tate quickly thought of a reasonable answer. She knew telling them she was basically the daughter of an FBI agent was a bad idea, so saying that Hotch worked with her mother was out. Saying he was her godfather would also make her seem like too much leverage.
"I babysit his son sometimes," she said finally.
Granted she didn't watch Jack very often, but it was one of the main reasons she had Hotch's number.
"You better hope your story checks out," the man warned as he dialed Hotch's number.
As Hotch was assigning each member of the team a task, his phone started ringing. He quickly dug it out of his pocket while continuing his orders. When he saw the name on the caller ID, he paused, and the team noticed.
"What is it?" Morgan asked.
"They're calling from Tate's phone," he said, glancing at the security cameras to see that the man in the king mask was indeed standing in front of Tate.
Hotch had planned on Rossi handling the negotiation, so he quickly handed the man the phone, and Rossi answered it.
"Hello?" he spoke into the phone.
"Well hello, Agent Hotchner," the king said. "A kid in here was oh so kind and gave me your phone number,".
"Who am I speaking to?" Rossi asked, not bothering to correct the man in case it angered him.
"I want a doctor in here, and then I want out of here," the man told him, not bothering to respond to Rossi's question.
The agitation in the man's voice worried JJ. If the other man, the jack, started getting worse, there was no telling what the King would do with his anger. He could take it out on everyone inside, including Tate.
Rossi tried to negotiate with the king, but the Queen quickly separated a man from the crowd and shot him twice. Hotch then nodded to Rossi, and Rossi promised the man that a medic would be along shortly.
Will panicked slightly as the Queen shot the man. That was three people dead, and the robbers seemed to have no plans to stop anytime soon. They already knew that Tate knew Hotch, which meant they might use her to get out of there. His father had often taken him hunting as a child, and he always remembered the look in an animals' eyes before it died. Trap. Scared. Panicked. It was exactly how the King looked right now. Yet, it was the Queen that worried him more. She was cool, calm, and collected, which made it clear to Will that she would do whatever it took to get out of that building alive and free.
Four people were dead, Agent Green included. Tate had recognized the man when he walked through the door. She'd never formally met him, but she'd seen him once or twice around Quantico when she went to visit JJ. Despite having never spoken to him, she knew Green was a good man. JJ always had nothing but good things to say about him, and whenever Tate and the twins went to Quantico he'd always flash them a smile and say hi. He'd been pretending to be a medic when he paused for a moment and reached towards his bag to pull out a gun. Not two seconds later, he was on the floor, dead, as was the Jack.
Unlike the first three men that had been shot, no one screamed when Green was shot. They'd been held hostage for just over an hour, and they were already accustomed to seeing a person shot to death. However, whereas everyone else in the bank seemed to have calmed down slightly from the initial hysteria, the King was only getting more panicked. Tate eyed the security camera in the corner and knew the team was watching. She knew that the only reason they had sent Green in the bank in the first place was because they could see the man falling apart.
Tate knew it was Rossi on the line now, as she had heard his voice, and he seemed to be trying to turn the King and Queen against one another. Sadly, Rossi's attempts failed when the Queen managed to talk him out of his paranoia. The King then demanded that he talk to the cop who shot his brother, before hanging up the phone. Tate knew nothing good was going to come of that. It was just going to be another man dead.
"No, no forget it," JJ told Will.
"JJ, I have to go in there," Will argued.
"What makes you think he won't shoot you the minute you walk inside?".
"Better me than Tate,".
JJ choked slightly at Will's words. It wasn't like she'd forgotten that her daughter was being held hostage, but she had to look past it, otherwise, she'd be no help to the team. The mother in her wanted Will to go inside and save Tate, but as an agent, she knew that was the worst decision. Sending Will in there would only get him killed, and then they'd have no leverage.
"I'm sorry, Will, but you're not going in there," Hotch told the detective.
The King threw down the phone, and Tate knew Rossi had just told him they couldn't send in the police officer that had killed the Jack. After all, there was no other reason the man would be so angry. Tate suddenly noticed a gleam in the man's eyes, one that had been there right before he shot the four others. The King told a man to go over to the phone, and a few seconds later Shawn Harper was dead.
"I'm gonna shoot another hostage every 60 seconds until you send in the cop," the King told Rossi, and Tate willed herself not to panic.
There were roughly thirty people in the bank, fifteen of which were students on the field trip. As much as Tate didn't want to do the math, she knew she had to. It would only be a maximum of fifteen minutes until one of her classmates was dead.
As the King started his periodic killing of the hostages, Will knew he had no other choice but to go inside. JJ would hate him for it but he could deal with that later. Right now, all he had to do was walk inside the bank and make sure no one killed his daughter. He slowly approached the bank while the SWAT team was setting up, and he could hear JJ behind him. Will wanted to turn around at the sound of her screams, but he couldn't. He knew that if he looked back then he would never be able to go inside. He would never be able to walk into a suicide mission if he looked at the mother of his children, the love of his life, begging him not to.
JJ yelled frantically after Will as she tried to break free of Morgan's grip. She knew without a doubt that the second he got inside, the King would kill him. Even though she knew he was doing it to save Tate, there had to be another option, there just had to be. JJ refused to believe that any of their remaining choices would result in the death of one of the people she loved most in the world.
Tate had been sitting numbly on the floor with her right hand wrapped around Carter's and her left hand in Ellie's. She wanted to do something, anything to get them out of their situation, but she knew they didn't have any other option but to sit and wait. Wait for them to be called to their deaths, to stand in front of a phone and tell Rossi their name before he heard them die.
As the man on the phone told Rossi his name was Matthew Downs, Tate heard the door open, and a wave of relief rushed through her. She knew it was likely the King would kill the cop, but maybe the officer would be able to distract him long enough for them to send backup in. However, Tate's relief was short-lived when she saw the officer's face.
There was Will, standing at the entrance of the bank with his hands raised. He sent her a quick glance and then turned his attention back to the King. Tate could feel her heart beating out of her chest as Will told the King his name. She'd always thought of guns as a quick weapon; one pull of the trigger and someone was dead. But when the King raised his gun and delivered two shots into Will's chest, it was anything but quick. She wanted to look away as Will's body fell to the floor, but she couldn't. She was paralyzed, completely numb, and as hard as she tried, she couldn't breathe. All she could do was stare as Will collapsed onto the floor, his blood spilling out onto the pristine white marble below.
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, thus far, so nobly advanced." –Abraham Lincoln