Author's Note: I am so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this story. I won't even begin to bore you with the excuses I have for taking so long. Thank you so much to all of you that read and reviewed the last chapter. I whined at people for not reviewing and then when you did I made you wait for so long before updating. Inexcusable! I'm sorry. I really hope you like this Chapter. I've finally completed the whole story outline and it will have some great twists and turns as it proceeds. Stick with me. I plan to start updating regularly again soon! Lots of Love to my readers! Enjoy!
Emily scanned the ground below them as they circled around another peak. The storm around them was getting stronger, whipping up snow and making it harder to see the ground. Mason had lowered their altitude as much as he could and had been battling the strong gusts of wind for the last half hour. As much as it hurt her, she had started preparing herself for the very real possibility that they wouldn't be able to find their friends. That they would have to go back to the airport office and face Hotch and Garcia as failures.
Suddenly Mason swore and the chopper canted hard to the right as a rocky peak broke through the thick clouds directly in front of them. Emily was slammed into her window by the sudden change of direction and was shocked at just how close the rocks of the peak were to her window. She caught a glimpse of something red protruding from the snow before the rotor above them sputtered from the roughness of the maneuver and Mason fought to level them out. It only took a few seconds, but it was enough to make Emily's heart stop in her chest and feel like a lifetime.
"Damn," Mason swore again, "That's was too fuckin close."
"Mason," Emily shouted from the backseat, "Can you circle in close to that peak again?"
"Oh sure, maybe this time I can slam directly into it," he shouted back.
"I thought I saw something," she ignored him.
"Yeah, a big fucking mountain," he spat, "This is getting crazy Cass, we need to go back."
"Please, just circle around closer," Emily pleaded. She'd seen something, she was sure of it. She saw Cassi give him a slight nod.
"Alright, we circle the peak," he agreed, "then we go back."
Emily nodded her thanks, praying what she'd seen was something important.
Mason made a wide circle, hovering as best as he could with the violent wind as they passed along the edge of the cliffs. Emily peered out her window, ignoring Morgan crowding behind her to do the same. Down a steep valley between the cliff sides she saw it again, something red.
"There!" she yelled, pointing, "See it?"
"That red thing?" Morgan squinted, "What is it?"
Cassi's hand was immediately in his face, holding out a pair of binoculars to him. He snatched them away and lifted them to his eyes, focusing the lenses and trying to make out the shape. A gust of wind shook them and Mason jerked the controls as they dropped in altitude before he was able to stabilize them back to hovering.
"This weather is starting to affect the rotors," he shouted, "We have to put it down soon or we'll join your friends up here."
"Did you see what it was?" Emily asked Morgan.
"I barely got focused on it before we moved," he answered, "it was something red with numbers on it."
"Numbers?" Cassi shouted back, "What numbers?"
"I don't know a five and a couple of threes, or maybe an eight."
"Milo," Cassi spoke into the radio microphone she now wore around her neck, "I need the tail number for the plane we're looking for."
She listened for a minute while Mason circled the area, fighting the increase of wind and getting lower with each pass. Milo answered her question and she shot a look back to Emily and Morgan before yelling at Mason.
"How close can you get us?"
"Not much closer than this," he grimaced, "those peaks are forming a wind tunnel. I can't get any closer to it. There's nowhere close that I can set you down. We'll have to backtrack and find somewhere flat."
"Find us the closest drop zone."
Emily's heart thumped in her chest. She wasn't sure what Cassi had meant by "Drop Zone" but it sounded ominous. She could already feel the adrenaline flooding her veins. Milo must have confirmed the numbers from the plane to be a match to what Morgan had seen, or at least a close enough match for Cassi to pursue it. Her stomach did a flip. They just might be able to rescue Rossi, Reid and JJ after all.
Emily pulled her radio from her pocket and switched it on, placing the microphone piece around her neck and plugging the adjoined ear bud into her ear before pulling her beanie cap down over it. She watched Morgan do the same until Cassi ducked around her seat and joined them in the back. She crouched between their seats, digging around in the cargo area, and retrieved a large black bag and ripped the zipper open.
"Put these on," she directed, handing them each a rappelling harness.
They did as they were told, watching her as she pulled a large spool of nylon rope from the bag and attached the clip on one end to a loop on the floor near Mason's seat. Then she pulled on her own harness and motioned for Morgan to move away from his door before she slid it open.
The blast of wind that gust through the open door knocked them off balance and made the whole helicopter rock from the force of it. Emily blinked, unable to see anything past the snow that attacked her eyes until she pulled the tinted ski goggles from her pocket and secured them over her face. The darker hue of the goggles seemed to dull the intensity of their situation with the darkening of the harsh white backdrop of the mountain coming up quickly underneath them. She felt Morgan grip her hand and realized he'd been talking to her.
"What?" she shouted over the wind.
"I said are you ready?" he repeated.
She saw her reflection in his similar ski goggles as she nodded, feeling like the person looking back of her from the lenses was someone else. Surely she, Emily Prentiss, was not about to rappel out of a helicopter into a brewing snowstorm. That was something a crazy person would do. Those adrenaline junkies she saw on TV and wondered about their mental stability. Then the sudden shouting from the other woman was like a slap in the face, reminding her that this was in fact real. She, Emily Prentiss was a crazy person.
"Hand me those bags," Cassi shouted, pointing over Morgan's shoulder to the cargo area.
Morgan leaned over the seat, handing her each of their packs, which she tossed out the door as far as possible and made a mental note where each of them landed, then dropped the other end of the rope down to the ground.
"Alright Derek," Cassi shouted, handing him the rope, "Get on the ground as fast as you can and get clear of the rope. Last thing you want is to get tangled in it with the wind whipping it around. Got it?"
Morgan nodded and she helped him loop the rope through his harness. He tested his grip with his weight as he stepped out onto the skid and carefully lowered himself down. It was only about a thirty foot rappel to the ground, and Mason had managed to keep the aircraft fairly steady as he dropped. The wind and ice beat against him, making the rope swing and he came very close to a tree a couple of times before his feet touched the ground. He quickly gained his balance in the deep snow and moved away from the rope as instructed and looked up as Cassi prepared Emily.
"Okay, Emily" Cassi instructed, "The rope is good and wet now. You're gonna have to grip it as tight as you can. Get down quickly and once you're at the bottom, get as far away from it as you can."
Emily nodded, taking a few deep breaths and willed her hands to stop shaking.
"Hey," Cassi waited until she made eye contact then offered her a small smile, "You got this ok. Piece a cake. Morgan's at the bottom waiting for you."
Emily nodded again and made sure her feet were steady on the slippery skid before leaning back to let the rope take her weight. The wet rope slid through her gloved hands faster than she'd intended, dropping her a good seven or eight feet before she caught herself. She winced at the pain from her hand as the rope squeezed down on it and stopped her abruptly. She could feel the rope below her, whipping around in the wind and the helicopter banked slightly, causing her to swing.
"Come on Prentiss," she heard Morgan through her ear piece, "You gotta move. Just take your time."
She took a calming breath through her nose and released it through her teeth, nodding as if he could see her. Carefully she loosened her grip, wincing as the rope continued to squeeze her hand but slid away, slowly lowering her further. A few minutes later, which was not a minute too soon for her liking, Morgan was at her side. Her feet sunk deep into the snow and she struggled to balance herself on shaky legs. Morgan steadied her then went to work helping her unwrap the rope from her hands and pull it through her harness.
Suddenly the rope jerked, going tight around her wrist and she shoved Morgan away before her feet were off the ground again. Her eyes shot up to the helicopter above as it spun, fighting to level out as a piece of ice fell from the rotor. She tucked her head in as much as she could and the ice bounced off her back, breaking apart and scattering below.
"Hang on Emily," Cassi yelled in her ear and she could hear the sounds of mechanical alarms behind her voice, "We'll get you back on the ground in a minute, just hang tight."
Emily looked at the rope wrapped tightly around her wrist, cutting off circulation to her hand. Hanging on wasn't a problem. She couldn't let go of the rope if she wanted too.
As promised, Emily's feet hit the snow again, but this time much faster as she wasn't in control of her decent. Her feet sunk into the snow as the rope went slack in her hands and she tumbled, tangling her feet in the rope as she tried to catch her balance. Morgan was on her in a second, ripping the rope away from her in a panic. The last thing either of them wanted was a repeat with her getting flung through the air dangling by her feet. Before they had completely freed her from the ropes, they felt it tightening above them. They looked up and were relieved to see the movement was caused by Cassi already making her way down, not waiting for them to be clear of it. When she was a few feet above them, they both heard her voice over the radio.
"Cut it, Mason."
Suddenly the rope went slack, dropping her the few feet into the snow next to them and the rope fell away from the helicopter as it lifted up higher into the air, banked a hard left and flew away. Morgan helped Emily stand as Cassi pushed herself up onto her knees, wincing slightly when she stood.
"Well that sucked," Cassi said loud enough for them to hear when they approached her. "Are you both alright?"
"Fine," Emily answered for both of them, "You?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
"What about him?" Morgan asked, motioning in the direction the helicopter had flown. He'd heard the alarms too. The helicopter was obviously suffering some sort of mechanical problems.
"He'll be fine," she answered, brushing the snow from her chest and arms. "We better get moving."
Cassi collected the rappel rope, wrapping it around her arm and securing it into a tight knot and looped it over one shoulder. She then pulled the GPS unit from her pocket and scanned their surrounding while they waited for it to power on.
"Milo, do you guys copy down there?" she tested the radio.
Their radios crackled and Garcia's voice broke through, "Are you guys alright? What happened?"
Cassi looked to Morgan and Prentiss, shrugging and motioning for them to give her an answer.
"Hey Baby Girl," Morgan answered, "We're fine. We just had to take the fast way out."
"Oh thank god! Wait, what's the fast way? Never mind, I don't want to know. Did you find them?"
"No, but we found a place to start looking. It'll probably take us an hour or two to get up there though. Keep an eye on this storm for us will ya?"
"Of course," Garcia agreed, "I've got all kinds of new toys to play with down here."
"Don't let Milo hear you say that," Cassi smirked as she walked across the clearing to collect her pack, then shouted, "I'm' sorry guys but we gotta move."
Morgan told Garcia they'd contact her soon and he and Prentiss secured their packs on their backs and regrouped with Cassi.
"Ready?" she asked while pulling the hood of her coat down over her cap. They nodded and she smirked, "Where's the yellow brick road when you need it?"
Back down at the office that had now been dubbed "base camp", Garcia let out a breath of relief. Morgan and Emily were safely up on the mountain and also had discovered something that may lead them to the rest of the team. Hotch had been standing in front of her, listening to her conversation with Morgan over the radio and even he looked relieved now. The first words that had blared over the base radio on the table had startled them all. Everyone on the other end of the radio was yelling. On their end it was merely to be heard over the wind, but on their end it had sounded like the beginning of the apocalypse. When both Cassi and Morgan started shouting at Emily, it had sounded like she was in serious trouble. Hotch would make it a point to ask Mason what had happened when he returned. Assuming he did return.
"Alright Garcia," Hotch pulled her attention away from the radio, "I want you to grab whatever gear you need and head back to the hotel. We need intel on d Milo Green and Mason Reno. I want to know what we're dealing with here."
Garcia nodded and began quickly packing up her laptop when the door to the office swung open, spitting Milo in with a blast of wet wind.
"Man, I hate snow." He grumbled as he shut the door behind him. He shook the small collection of snow from his unruly hair and stomped his feet against the floor in attempt to rid himself of the offensive substance.
Garcia ignored his look of confusion as she pulled her coat from the rack next to him and wrapped it around herself before scurrying out door into the storm.
"Where's she going?' Milo asked.
"She's going back to the hotel." Hotch answered, "We've been here all night."
Milo shrugged and shuffled across the room to plop down into the chair that Garcia had vacated. He tapped a few keys on his keyboard before slouching back in his chair and releasing a jaw cracking yawn.
Hotch watched him curiously, studying his relaxed movements and careless demeanor. The man was probably in his mid twenties but his thin frame and lanky limbs made him look more like an awkward teenager. He wore rumpled jeans and a hooded sweatshirt under his dirty jean jacket that made him look as if he'd just rolled out of bed and found whatever clothes he had tossed on the floor the night before.
"Got anything to drink around here besides coffee?" Milo asked, breaking Hotch away from his scrutiny.
Hotch eyed the case of water bottles on the counter next to the coffee pot.
"Just water," he answered dryly.
Milo sighed and slunk further down into his chair, pulling a plastic bag full of gummy worms from his pocket and cramming one into his mouth, never once looking up at Hotch.
"What all do you have running here?" Hotch asked, moving to stand behind him to look at the computers.
"The satellite I just hooked up outside is tracking the radios on the search team," he answered, using the slobbery gummy worm to point at the computer screen.
Three red dots now adorned the digital map on the screen and they were slowly moving up into the highlighted area that Garcia had expanded as possible area for the plane to be. Hotch frowned at the vast area in comparison to the small dots.
"It should also keep their frequency clear so they can talk to us without interference," Milo added.
"Meaning what exactly?" Hotch frowned.
"Meaning nobody can hear or use our radio frequency unless they're using one of our radios."
Hotch thought this through for a moment, hoping that the man hadn't hijacked one of the airport's frequencies in order to have the communication line.
"Do you always do that?" Milo asked, interrupting his thoughts.
"Do what?"
"Zone out into your own head every time someone tells you some new piece of information," Milo smirked, "cause I gotta say, it makes for some long awkward pauses in the conversation."
Hotch simply scowled at him.
"Not the type for casual conversation then," Milo nodded, "Got it. You're the boss, Boss."
"I'm the Boss?" Hotch hadn't expected that.
"Boss says give you what you want. That makes you the boss while she's gone."
"So Cassi is your boss?"
"Did you see any other Napoleonic Power mongers running around barking orders at people while she was here?"
"How long have you worked for her?"
Milo finally looked up from his bag of candy and made eye contact with Hotch.
"A long time."
It was a simple yet nonspecific answer, but the look in his eyes answered the question Hotch had been asking himself. Was Milo involved with Cassi back in DC last year? Everything about the way he'd answered that question told him yes. Milo knew exactly what had taken place between Cassi and the team. He probably knew everything about him. A sudden realization hit him.
"You sent that Archer file to Sikes' computer," Hotch now understood one of the missing pieces that had nagged at him for the last year. "You told us Cassi was Archer."
Milo held his eyes and nodded, then shocked him again.
"She told me to."
It seemed like they'd been walking for days when the cabin they'd been hiking to finally peaked around through the trees. Rossi's arms were stiff and his back ached from carrying JJ. After only a few yards of carrying her in his arms, JJ had suggested the much easier style of a 'piggy back'. The change had done wonders for his arms but after a mile in the deep snow, his whole body threatened to dump them both to the ground. Kyle and Reid seemed to be in a similar state with Reid leaning heavily on the young kid and hobbling along.
The wind was beginning to whip around them and the sky was darkening by the minute. The appearance of the cabin was like a godsend just when their stamina was at its end.
"I'll hurry in and get a fire going," Dan hollered and shuffled ahead of them with Dozer bounding happily behind him.
"Oh my god, a fire sounds amazing." JJ grumbled from Rossi's back.
By the time they made it to the front door of the dingy dwelling Dan had the kindling in the stone fireplace lit and was attempting to get it to swallow the logs he'd thrown in on top of it. The cabin was dark, true to Dan's words that it had no electricity. It was only a single room with an old brown leather couch in front of the fireplace and a queen sized bed made up in the corner. A small wooden counter extended away from the front door, lined with various battery powered kitchen appliances and large red ice chest sat on the floor against the wall.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Dan spoke over his shoulder, "there's a bathroom out back."
"There's running water?" Rossi asked while depositing JJ to sit on the end of the bed.
Dan laughed, "Sorry no. Outhouse style."
JJ grimaced and wrapped her arms around herself, immediately missing the warmth from the contact with Rossi.
"How do you communicate out here Dan?" Rossi asked, "Someone's got to drop off supplies or pick you up at the end of the season right?"
"I have an old battery powered CB."
"We need to use it to contact our team. They'll be searching for us."
"Sure. It's in that footlocker over there. Help yourself."
Rossi hurried across the room to the box and lifted the lid. He shouldn't have been surprised at the revealing of two large hunting rifles inside the box considering they were in a hunting cabin, but they momentarily distracted him.
"Are these loaded?" he called over his shoulder.
"One of them is," Dan answered back casually.
Rossi frowned and carefully pulled both guns from the box and set them gently on the floor for safety while he dug through the contents of the box for the radio. He located it stuffed between a wool blanket and bag of beef jerky and pulled it out and turned it on.
"Hello?" he keyed it up and spoke loudly, "can anyone out there hear me?"
All eyes were on him as they waited, met only by static and silence. He waited for a whole minute then keyed it again.
"This is FBI Agent David Rossi, can anyone hear me?"
The device beeped and he looked down, heart stopping at the battery indicator. They battery was dying. With a new sense of urgency he tried again, then switched frequencies and tried again.
"Dave?"
Hotch's voice broke through the static and the three agents let out a breath that could have put out the fire.
"Hotch! Hotch can you hear me this time?"
"Yeah, I read you Dave. What's your status?"
"We're all okay," Rossi answered, flinching as radio beeped again, "The storm seems to be picking up again though."
"Just hang tight. Morgan, Prentiss and Cassi are coming for you."
Rossi paused and stared at the radio for a second, he couldn't have heard him correctly.
"Did he just say Cassi?" Reid asked confirming what he thought he'd heard.
Rossi had questions, loads of questions, but no time for any of them. They'd be sorted out after they got off the mountain.
"Hotch, we're no longer at the crash site. We moved to a hunting cabin about a mile away."
The radio beeped and Hotch's voice came back, distorted in static while asking him to repeat his last transmission.
"We're not at the plane." Rossi spoke out crisply, "We're a mile east of it at a cabin. Do you copy?"
"I copy…plane….a cabin?...mile…what's your loc…"
Hotch's voice crackled and broke away as the radio's battery died completely, drowning the cabin into silence. Rossi frowned at the useless electronic and turned back to face the wide eyes of his friends.
"Sounded like he got the important parts," he shrugged.
"Rossi, Morgan and Emily are out there in this looking for us," JJ shivered at the thought, "what if they get to the plane and we aren't there?"
"Hotch copied the cabin. He knows we aren't at the plane anymore. Don't worry kiddo, they'll find us."
"With Cassi?" JJ shook her head, "That can't be right. Hotch would never…"
She trailed off knowing it wasn't true. Hotch and the rest of the team would do anything to save them. Even if it meant risking their jobs.
"I don't know," Rossi confessed, "We'll just have to wait until they get here."
Reid quietly limped over and sat down on the bed next to JJ.
"Look on the bright side," he gave her a slight grin, "If anyone could get them up here in a storm to find us, it would be her."
She gave him a sympathetic grin back, not quite feeling better about the situation.
"Plus," Rossi added nudging her shoulder with his own, "at least there's no arrows flying at them this time."
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry it was a bit short for me. We'll start seeing some more action and lots more information on Cassi's reappearance in upcoming chapters. Let me know what you think! See you soon!