I'm getting the idea that this story is getting a bit too confusing and, since I'm updating slowly (OK this update is quick but I can't promise anything), it's not the easiest thing to catch up. So before the next chapter, I'm giving you a summary to fill you in on what has happened till here. Believe me I need it myself because I'm writing this stuff for more than a year now and my memory isn't the strongest and my mind isn't the tidiest either…! (The summary is written in present tense so as to be completely clear.)

Summary

The BAU has to look into a series of murders that have happened in Washington. Four high rate gang members, two low ones and two prostitutes have been shot. A couple of immigrants and two known lawyers have been also shot in execution style with the same gun. The events seem unrelated but they have happened under weird circumstances and in a very short period of time. The fact that the two lawyers have been meeting a guy who is named as a Person of Interest for Interpol, Roger Peters, brings Interpol in the case. Peters was involved in a criminal organisation trafficking guns and drugs, called Paradise Demons in a seemingly unimportant role. Paradise Demons, who had as "clients" even terrorists, including Ian Doyle, were taken down by Scotland Yard and Interpol in 2004. The last members that had escaped arrest invaded a farm. In the effort to save the hostages, the law forces went in only to face a dangerous and illegal type of guns that can shot through bullet proof vests, MQ-300. The operation was successful but there were many casualties.

Paradise Demons seem to have been revived. According to information, that new version of them, called by the authorities as New Paradise Demons (NPD), traffics MQ-300 straight to the US. It seems that the NPD has started business far too quickly on US soil and they are probably feeding terrorists. The dead victims can be their failed contacts. Alarmed by a current terror alert, the team has to follow up on everything thinking that this speed from the bad guys' part can be for their profit. Looking into the victims and similar, older murders, they come across a private, security firm, called Black Cross. The firm is importing guns from the UK and, according to some surveillance photos from MI6, a pilot-transporter of the firm is no other than Peter Rogers who uses the name James Hathaway. Based on Garcia's findings James Hathaway is the guy's real identity but he is nowhere to be found. Gloria is thinking that something doesn't fit as the transport is too obvious. Emily, on the other hand, without informing her colleague, is considering the option of an undercover operation since the firm is untouchable.

However, the terror alert is proved right when the local newspapers receive a letter that threatens every law enforcement institution in the city followed by an explosion in the FBI parking lot with a bomb put under Anderson's car. Rossi, Gloria who are getting ready to leave for the night, and Strauss, who gets the idea that the relationship between the two may be more than just friendship, are the only ones around but no one gets hurt seriously.

In the meantime, Emily seems off. She is getting irritated easily, she is more emotional than the normal and some circumstances trigger memories from her past years in Interpol, around and during the Doyle operation. Her relation with Gloria does not run smoothly, too. Emily is too stressed about the case and she is suspicious of Gloria. She knows that there is a background, political game against her position and they can make her friend turn on her, not only because she is the one that they want above her but also because she can be manipulated due to her drugs history. Gloria, being informed by Clyde on the matter and not in the best emotional condition, acts passively, thing that raises Emily's suspicions.

The morning after the explosion Clyde comes in DC. Emily looking for answers gets to learn that Gloria's boss, the man she was also involved with, Richard Whelan, was killed during that confrontation with Paradise Demons. Dumbfound, she understands the reasons behind the other woman's behaviour. Clyde also tells her that he put Peters-Hathaway as a person of interest because Whelan had some kind of hunch about the guy, but even him, he doesn't know why.

Unaware of the latter, Gloria searches for Peters/Hathaway's actual past role in Paradise Demons. Realising that the guy played a character with much less skills than he really had, she gets to the conclusion that the man was shadowing someone stronger in order to take his place afterwards, he was a "shadow". That someone is an intelligent, businessman-like sociopath named Henry Fidget.

As the terrorists strike again by killing three and injuring one police officer at a police station, using MQ-300, the team rushes to the scene only to conclude that they have to do with professionals and a team. One of the dead gang members was held in that police station for minor charges before he got into the criminal life and the police officer who assisted him seemed to have tried to influence him into anti-authoritarian ideas. Intrigued by that, the team looks into it.

At the same time, David, Gloria and Clyde – the last seemed to have had some communication with Strauss before – fly to interrogate Fidget in hopes to find something useful about him and mainly about Hathaway. However, the guy is too obsessed with the day of the confrontation and a woman, left outside the farm, crying and not with his illegal, successful businesses. This leads Rossi to theorise that Fidget is the one that planned the act to prove power. Gloria, already shaken by painful memories, thinks that this type of mentality doesn't fit with the Paradise Demons. She remembers that the evening Richard was looking into the "shadows" of Paradise Demons, he had with him some old notes related to a rich man craving power,Charlie Blackmore. Richard had stumbled upon him many years ago and he was trying to build a case against him. She confronts Fidget with it and Fidget doesn't decline working for Blackmore. But he also drops a bomb. He tells her that Richard Whelan got killed on purpose. They knew that he was going to come in and they lied and waited to kill him specifically among the rest.

As Garcia is looking into Blackmore, worried about Emily that got dizzy without a good enough reason, the three others fly back. Clyde is not happy with the facts uncovered. He is concerned about Gloria's emotional state and what can be brought between Emily and her, even though he is for keeping her on the case. He, also, sees that his colleague and David's relationship runs deeper than it looks. Rossi later tries vainly to comfort Gloria, as she refuses to share.

Chapter XIV

"Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence." ~ Honore de Balzac

It was late afternoon and the Interpol Office was almost empty. That office in the US wasn't big. It looked a lot like the BAU bullpen. It was larger though and a big screen was on the wall. A couple of agents were still working. Gloria and Rossi were about to cross the room, when her phone beeped.

'I found something else about BC. Maybe the Americans can make some sense out of it. It's classified, though. A', the text appeared in the screen.

That was that 'contact' they had used to get the photos from the MI6 surveillance on Black Cross and was no other than Gloria's first trainer that had gone up the ladder and now was managing a whole branch of the British Intelligence Agency, 'A', standing for April Weatherspoon. If Gloria hadn't been in such a bad mood, she would have smiled to the side with the recollection of her. She was a hard, harsh and strict lady that one, 'no feelings involved' as she used to say. Oh yeah, Gloria had seen people worse than Clyde. But probably, the fact that Weatherspoon was like that was the reason that she had been able to tame a wild trainee like Gloria was when she got into the MI6, a barely eighteen year old girl that had potential but she was far too much of a rebel, that knew too much for her own good and the agency's. However, looking at her right now, probably Weatherspoon hadn't done the full job. Anyway. Apparently she had found something more about Black Cross.

They reached her office and Gloria went straight to the lower drawer of the small bookcase at the corner. Rossi looked around for short. The office wasn't fancy and it was small. But he noticed the total lack of anything that could make it more personal, apart from a small plant on the table beside the bookcase. She was used to be like this. She never stayed in an office or even a home for long. She was always moving around becoming someone other than her real self. Now she had to settle down but that hadn't changed. She had failed the 101 rule for agents coming back from undercover jobs: to express their own personality in their environment. That fact plus the nightmares weren't good signs, the profiler in him kicked in. Emily had tried to help her, he had tried, too, and she was a pretty tough woman herself. But obviously there was still something wrong. Then what he had thought the very first time he met her, before he got to learn anything more about her, came to his mind: that woman needed care and affection. Those were what she didn't have. She had them for short when she was very young. But after her mother's death and her father's issues she had lost them. Her risky behaviour landed her in a cruel environment and folowing in a job with people that tried to control her with rules and strictness, while all she craved for was a little bit of understanding and compassion. With all those factors it wasn't a surprise, actually, that she turned out to be like she was, introvert, withdrawn and so easy to attack. 'When I first met her the girl just needed someone to treat her like a lady, Aaron.', he had said to Hotch last Christmas. And he had treated her exactly like that and he still did. Rossi shook his head. Going all profiling with someone you knew too personally wasn't that right.

She took out the bunch of notes, the same one that was on that bed that night. Someone would expect her to have them at home but she always kept them at work, for the very practical reason that they were safer there than in the various flats she had lived and remained vacant for long periods of time during her assignments. How much irony could this life tolerate, though? Whenever she was in an office, she was sitting just beside the very reason of his death and she was completely unaware of it…

"Are these the ones?", David spoke when he saw her staring at the top paper for longer than the normal.

She came back to reality and she nodded quickly.

"I'm here, stella mia. Keep that in your mind."

Dave's words came to her mind and made easier what she had to do. Those notes were as much part of the job as they were personal to her. But she had to share them, if there was any possibility to get that monster.

"Read them. They will help you with the Blackmore's profile.", she handed him the papers, "I know everything that's in here. But apparently, I didn't figure out much.", and she turned to sit at her desk.

While David sat and started to have a look on the pages, noticing that the handwriting wasn't hers, as it looked like it belonged to a man, and realising that those lines were most probably a dead man's thoughts and she had trusted him with them so simply, Gloria tried to get Weatherspoon's file. She had used the inter-agency safety system to send them, because they were classified. But when Gloria typed her password to access the extra secure part of the system, an 'Access Denied' message appeared on the screen. She frowned and tried again. Same result.

"What the crap?", she murmured surprised.

"And I'm guessing Fidget isn't going to say the same things in a court.", Emily said as she, Clyde and Hotch had retrieved to Hotch's office after Easter had dropped the news and he filled them in the facts.

"Of course not. He won't make our lives easy.", the British man confirmed.

"He responded to Paterson's antagonising. During a formal interrogation he is going to refuse it all.", Hotch added.

"Are you sure he was telling the truth?", Emily asked.

"He knew what he was talking about, Em.", Clyde confirmed.

"The problem is that this doesn't help us to look into Blackmore and if there is no apparent connection between him and Black Cross, then we can't follow any straight way of investigation.", she replied bringing Hotch the same anxious feeling about that undercover thing she was considering.

At that moment Garcia walked quickly into the office.

"Sorry for the interruption, Sir. Sirs.", the tech girl said noticing Easter too in the room.

"What's up, Garcia?", Hotch asked.

"As I said, there was nothing offensive with the suspicious old man. So I cross-referenced all the names from the case with him. Remember the police officer that manipulated the child according to the family? He is resigned from the force and he is working in Blackmore's security.", she answered clearly problematized.

"Did you find anything more about him?", Hotch asked again.

"No.", Garcia replied.

"Clyde, how's Ria?", Emily asked urgently.

It was out of place, but she had to ask. There wasn't much time till the last two would be back. She had her back towards the door, though, and she hadn't noticed the woman leaning on the frame of the door, left semi-open by Penelope.

"I'm here and I'm fine."

Gloria could feel the three out of the four sets of eyes on her. That was what she hated, the stares. They reminded her of the worse she had ever experienced during Richard's funeral. The greater rumours, the fact of her crying outside the farm and the running gossip that she had mysteriously collapsed at the stairs of the plane, when they landed back to London after all, and that Clyde had taken her to a private clinic had fuelled people's curiosity and people can turn cruel, when they get intrigued by personal dramas. Not that she had even cared. These stares right now weren't like those ones back then. They were just concerned but still she couldn't stand them.

"This obvious link with his security, don't you think that is too obvious?", she carried on normally, looking at Hotch, "For a man that tried so hard to erase every suspicion about him ten years ago, that's far too clumsy."

"Possibly he has an agenda.", Hotch agreed, content that even what had happened Gloria seemed to function pretty clearly.

"Peters being in Black Cross was also obvious but think that man couldn't imagine that Peters/Hathaway was listed by Interpol. That contact from MI6 sent something more about the firm, by the way. It looks like I can't access the classified part from the system for some reason. So it's better to get it yourself.", she added towards Emily.

Emily nodded.

"We have to build this UnSub's profile.", Hotch decided.

"I'll catch up with you on the profile.", she said to Hotch, "Clyde, can you come with me?"

They went towards the door and Emily passed from Gloria touching her arm supportively. She had to talk to her at some point. But her friend remained emotionless for a while. She had that same unreadable look that she had once they met again in London, the first day Emily had gotten the office.

"Feeling lucky? He came in and she stayed out."

Again Fidget's words were poisoning Gloria. No, no… Her friend didn't deserve whatever dark thoughts had once crossed her mind. So she gave her a short, reserved smile and as she moved her eyes away she saw Easter watching her warningly. Damn that man always knowing everything…

The team had decided to treat the UnSubs' and Blackmore's profile separately. Everything was pointing to that man but till that morning they were talking generally about teams of organised crime and terrorists and now the case had narrowed down too much. It was better to keep a greater view. Emily had said nothing about taking Gloria out of the case. It wasn't just the fact that she may have had something more buried in her mind. Emily could imagine what was going on in her. She needed to help catch Blackmore like she needed air to breath. So she just let her working with David on Blackmore based on the notes and everything else they knew, while the rest were analysing the profiles of the people they were looking for. Emily talked with Clyde about what she had in mind, leaving him to make some phone calls and took the paper that came from Britain. It was a weird paper, though. It was coded. She decided to study it later and attend the profile first. So she joined the others and sat at the conference table, like the good, old times.

"The leader of this group apparently has the financial means to orchestrate the transport of guns.", JJ said.

"So we are sure that we have to do with the same team and not the terrorist group buying the guns from someone else.", Morgan noted.

"Given the speed of the transport and the start of killings is highly unlikely that in such a short time they managed to get the links, bring the stuff here and find buyers.", Emily clarified, "At least, the transport of the MQ-300 from the UK to here and the attacks are done by the same group."

"So the UnSub has also the means to control a group of people with criminal history.", Blake added.

"Actually, he has the means to pick the people that can control the rest. An UnSub like this, with sources of money is used to have some kind in hierarchy in his businesses.", Reid thought.

"So there is a rank that he have to break down.", Derek spoke again, "Apparently some of the initial victims were the lowest, the disposable ones."

"Yeah, we looked into them but we came up empty. Apart from the Black Cross and the police officer, there was nothing else useful.", JJ answered him.

'And that police officer was probably some kind of bait', Hotch thought. Gloria's remark had started making more and more sense. This guy was too careful to leave something like that open. Something didn't fit into this.

"In any way he is organised, meticulous and he can blend with all types of people, given the fact that he has used, apart from criminals, an otherwise classy and apparently legitimate, private company somehow.", Blake said.

"There is one thing that doesn't fit at all in this story. The bomb in the parking lot.", Morgan remarked.

'That's the other thing not fitting', Hotch carried on in his head.

"Did they really want the press attention? They could have gotten it with the attack at the police station. They didn't wait for so long, eventually.", the agent continued, voicing the Unit Chief's thoughts, "I have started doubting that they did it only to build tension in the media."

Everybody recognised Morgan's point. But there was no answer and silence fell for a minute or two.

"We are running in circles.", Emily commented taking the lead, "We may be missing something about the explosion but we may already have someone that fits into parts of this. The problem is that we have to make this UnSub come out. He is not the guy next door that someone would recognise. We need to bait him with something, so he expresses himself. We need to find his weakness."

These things with the 'baits' and 'weaknesses' weren't the most preferable to Hotch. He usually avoided the challenging methods. They had this factor of unpredictability. Adding what Emily had in mind and the reason of her question, Hotch was getting worried. It wasn't that easy eventually to work with her and be together at the same time. He didn't even know anymore how he had managed to be so cool all those years working with her while she was attracting all the danger. The truth was that he hadn't been cool. He had just managed to hide it.

"The matter is that we have to build our own bait.", Emily continued, "And not exclusively around Blackmore."

"Then we have to hit in between the ranks, if we want to make the head come out. Hathaway is in some rank. But he is nowhere to be found.", Blake replied.

"That was true till two minutes ago.", Garcia's face came on the screen, "And get relaxed in your seats because I have something creepy to show you. The security of our building just finished scanning all the cameras around the parking of the explosion.", a video feed appeared on the screen, "See that guy over there?", a red circle appeared around a shadowy figure that got lighter in colour and revealed a pretty known face, "That guy is James Hathaway."

"He is just standing there in a suit.", JJ noticed.

"Can you see where he went or where he was coming from, Baby girl?", Morgan asked.

"No, he just appeared and disappeared after a couple of minutes.", Garcia answered.

"Garcia, can you check if you can match his appearance, height, clothes, with anyone else in any other feed?", Blake said.

"Already on that. But have in mind that the FBI building was evacuated and, if you have noticed, we have far too many men in suits around. But I'll be back!", the tech girl said decisively and ended the call.

Only one question was in everyone's head: Why was that man here? And why he just stood there attracting attention to himself?

"That guy was far too skilled and brilliant and he played the dumb below Fidget. Then he became again the clever one and now he is acting dumb again.", Morgan commented.

JJ frowned for a moment, Hotch noticed. But she didn't say anything. She had that habit of wanting to be sure before she voiced a theory. They went over Hathaway's information for one more time and finally Hotch gave them all a brake for a couple of hours. They hadn't gotten any answers, only more questions. Emily's question wasn't answered, too. Exhausting themselves wasn't helping and it was almost midnight. He exited the conference room, noticing JJ taking a couple of files with her. Maybe JJ was onto something, really. In the meantime, though, he had to give an update to Strauss.

Walking down the aisle towards his ofiice, Hotch passed outside Rossi's office. The blinds were closed but the light was on. Dave and Gloria were still working on Blackmore's profile. For a moment he thought of knocking but he decided to leave them alone. Given the woman's distress, the last thing that Hotch wanted was to step into some consoling hug. At the very end, Strauss would be in his own office quite soon. He shook his head. With all this co-operation, at least that 'be careful' advice he had given to his friend months ago had come handy.

"Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it." ~ Agatha Christie

I hope that with the summary things are a lot clearer, now.

A bit of case and a bit of drama! Oh yeah, I have to say that my rustiness is passing!

Spoiler: Hotch's advice may not come handy but Gloria not being able to access the classifieds will.

Don't forget to let me know what you think! Reviews are really-really helpful!