Chapter XXIX
"The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." ~ William Shakespeare
"So can I now ask why were 'you' looking for me?" Gloria asked Blackmore that he still stood close to her.
He gave her a side ironic smile and moved back towards the chair behind the desk, motioning to her to take the seat opposite and she complied. The 'John' guy leaned on the wall behind him, leaving some distance between them.
"Let's say I need information from a guy and you are the one that can extract it in the quietest way as you've done it before."
"Who do you want, Charles?" Gloria asked, realising finally the reason behind the sudden interest in her by some of her superiors.
Victor Malone was probably the person that had sparkled that interest, because Blackmore was looking for someone in the shadows someone in her files, someone she knew and the man in front of her had found a way to kill two birds at once, literally.
Blackmore folded his hands.
"You do know that you appeared in an FBI office during times that many things were going on. In 2001 in New York everybody in that damn office was running around like headless chickens to face the newly-found terrorism, good cover to add an agent that appeared almost out of nowhere, clever move for Whelan."
"Are you going to rehearse history?" Gloria asked.
"I'll get to the point. The liaison between Interpol and the FBI never provided the information you needed for the mission. He wasn't asked for it. You got it from someone from the tech department. You spied the FBI. To please your boss, you manipulated an FBI agent. In order to please me, you'll do the same with the same person, Michael Sutherland," Blackmore smiled more ironically.
Gloria raised an eyebrow but deep down she was shocked. Malone had given Blackmore a full report of Maria's Lloyd mission. Yes, in a way she had spied within the FBI itself. Gloria had thought that they had been testing in a safe environment her abilities in stealing country intelligence. There had been a rumor of transferring her to counter-terrorism ops that never became a reality.
In any way, were these people really looking for that 'kid'? Well, he wasn't a kid anymore, but... Damn it when she decided to push her chances to the edges with this Blackmore story she hadn't counted that she may be asked to bring someone else into this or bring up one of the things she was the most ashamed of...
Sutherland was a child prodigy and had been one of the brightest and youngest hackers of the FBI. He had been in various vital positions. He was working on monitoring any digital traces of illegal gun trafficking back then, that was why she had 'befriended' him but if she remembered correctly at the same time he had also been working on the new security systems of federal buildings given the 9/11. Was that why Blackmore wanted him?
Sutherland was a genius and a good willed person. She had extracted many things from him with a 'bribe' of course. She had never disclosed that bribe to Richard. She didn't know if he had suspected it, he probably did. They weren't together at that time, of course. He had just stopped trying to save his marriage, his wife having kicked him out of the house for the last time and him in the US to supervise the operation. But Gloria had already developed feelings for her boss and she was too embarrassed to tell to his face that she was sleeping with the man for the information they needed, even more, that she was taking advantage of a good guy. Sutherland stayed with the Bureau for some years more. Later he quit, not able to cope with the stress and the secrecy of his positions.
"What do you want from him?"
"Take that," he threw a closed envelope to her, "And tell him to crack it. John will tie up the loose end after."
"Give me a gun. I can take care of Sutherland myself. John may spook him."
"No, you'll go in by yourself. Then John knows what to do. Let's say I don't trust you with a gun just yet. And you are not to learn what's in that envelope at whatever cost."
"You should trust me at some point," she raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Blackmore smiled to the side again and stood up walking towards her.
"You know I had my eyes on you since you were nineteen and playing spy," he stood up and approached her again, "The risk and the dirt make your skin crawl. You like playing games, breaking rules, twisting lines," the backside of his palm reached her cheek and that time it touched her in a way that was unsettlingly tender, "We are alike, you and I, probably even more than we both really think… That's why I can't really trust you."
Back in Quantico, in the conference room, the team was going through every possible lead they had to figure out which container recently arrived or arriving by sea to the docks Brooder had used. As she had agreed with Emily/Lauren the only safe way was to use approximately the same route, same docks, same customs point.
Reid was going through papers like crazy, not every container was filed digitally. Garcia was comparing data on the computer.
Hotch checked his watch. Emily had managed to buy them time to figure the container out. In less than two hours, though, she would run out of excuses. Brooder would be calling her and they would have no time to sabotage the guns. He and Morgan, also in the room, had found out how to do the latter in the most discrete way.
"I got something!" Spencer announced, catching his attention, "There is one container which's recipient is the restaurant where Emily met Brooder, where Blackmore was. Can that be what we are looking for?"
"Nobody is supposed to know that Blackmore has to do anything with this restaurant", Hotch stated.
"Who is the sender of this container?" Morgan asked.
Garcia typed some things and then spoke again.
"Happy BeDeSMing?" the kid felt uncomfortable.
"That can't be right," Garcia frowned.
"What? The name of the company?" Morgan smiled to the side.
"No… The company did exist…" Garcia murmured checking one more thing on the computer, "But yes. It closed a couple of years ago. I remember right!" she looked at the others as she lifted her eyes from the screen, Reid looking confused and Morgan had a teasing smile on his face, "Oh…" she stuttered embarrassed, thankfully Hotch was used to hear the weirdest things from her so he didn't really mind, "I know things."
"That's it, Hotch," Morgan concluded.
"Let's go," Hotch finished.
He and Morgan rushed out of the room with the intention to grab Blake and a few FBI gun experts with them.
Gloria sat in the passenger's seat of the 90's jeep, while John was driving to the house where Sutherland lived in the far outskirts of DC.
"So what's your story, John?" she spoke, "You were in the army, I would say. Brooder's joke about SAS wasn't so much out of line, was it?"
She leaned back into the seat obtaining a more manly posture. John-guy was an army man and looked pretty thick skinned, he wouldn't fall for some social butterfly act, but seeing her as an equal would work better. Even if he refused his military values, deep inside he stayed a soldier and soldiers value their teammates. If she had to manipulate him later, that's how he had to start seeing her. Of course, he would discover down the road that she wasn't that much of a team player...
In any way, she could be an equal but at the same time she was a woman and there was always one advantage in that. Subconsciously, a decent looking woman is never perceived as a threat to the average man, no matter how many times he is told that she may not be what she seems.
"I was in the army," he said firmly again, obviously warned to avoid talking to her about anything irrelevant.
"Iraq? Afghanistan? Africa?" she asked, he didn't reply and she carried on, sure that he would at the end, "It doesn't matter really. The same crap is everywhere, war zones or not."
"You have no idea..." John groaned aggressively annoyed with her speculations.
"War is everywhere. Do you think, that the streets, that the sketchy areas of every city in the world are any better? I haven't passed my life in posh galas. These are for James Bond, not the real stuff," she answered low.
She could tell that John was balancing whether she was speculating or speaking from experience. She kept staring at him. She didn't even need to pretend. She was indeed speaking from experience.
"Why are you so interested in me?"
"I'm not. We have somehow to spend the time till we get to where we are going, don't you think?" she changed her tone to casual again, "Do you mind if I have a fag (cigarette in British slang)?"
"I don't care," John replied sharply.
Gloria lit the cigarette and took a couple of drags without talking. Not chitchatting when they expect you to can have quite the effect on some people. Even more so, if that John was really SAS. Then in spite of any instructions, he was given, deep down he was curious about her. A nineteen-year-old girl helping out the elite unit of the British Army never happens. The one time it did happen had turned into some legend. None of the soldiers knew her name, the mission or anything specific but it was a running story that provoked reactions from appreciating words to sexist jokes for the last twenty years and on. And John had the protagonist of that so told story sitting right next to him, given that Blackmore had informed him about her. How could he not be curious?
"'Posh', 'fag'? You do speak British, finally. I was wondering with that Italian/American accent of yours," John spoke after a while confirming Gloria's thoughts.
"You know our co-patriots, they pay more attention to what you say, when they hear an 'exotic' accent," she replied mimicking his accent finally, the truth was that she could speak in a British accent as posh as a BBC spokesman or as bad as the illiterate gang member of the furthest town possible.
"Whereabouts are you from?"
"I've been to a lot of places. But my father's family is originally from Bristol. And since you are asking, where are you from?"
"Birmingham."
"Tough place, that one. You went from the gang city to one of the best military units of the planet," she commented.
Gloria knew that city very well. That was the city they had settled in first when her father took her back to England, once they left Italy after her mother's death. Her father had gotten a literature teaching job in a college before he blew that job off and many others after that. Back in the 80's Birmingham was a heavily industrial city, full of gang activity. When she was starting off her life in the streets, that man was getting trained as the elite of the British army, apparently having avoided the bad influence of those same streets. And now he was the loyal follower of an anarchist evil man and she was the one sticking her neck out to take him down. How could have the tables been turned that much? That guy wasn't a career criminal. He wasn't a shady professional, like Hathaway. Something else was making him tick. He had shown signs of agreement when she played the angry with the system agent for not recognising her contribution. Maybe he was angry, too, but anger is not a feeling by itself. It derives from somewhere. SAS people get to that unit mainly for their beliefs, not for whatever they may earn. Easter was like that. What could make such a guy turn?
"I fought in my life, I didn't remain a scum that's just changing employers, like someone else," he looked at her harshly, "You just started working for the law to avoid prison. You didn't even try to better yourself."
Wow... He was thinking that he was morally better than her.
"Oh, you nailed that. I am no saint, mate, but believe me, everyone somehow falls for the 'doing the good thing' fairy tale, till they get hanged up to dry."
John squeezed the wheel, his knuckles turning white. At least she was lucky in the whole situation. She didn't need to spend that much effort to read that man. What she just said hit a nerve. Only a few things could turn a moral guy: Betrayal of trust, disappointment...
He just looked at her for a moment but Gloria didn't talk more. She had said that she was not interested in him. But he was interested in her. And that was the point.
Gloria rang the bell of the house where Sutherland stayed. John was in the car around the corner. But he had made her wear a jean jacket with a mic and a small camera attached to be sure that she would never learn what was in that envelope. She couldn't risk disobeying Blackmore's order. She didn't know if what she was holding was a vital piece of the planned attack or a decoy. In the first case, the attack may stop or change. In the second case, all of it would be futile. So what she had to figure out at that moment was how to save Sutherland from John later. The plan was that once John had seen that Sutherland was finished with what they needed, he would knock on the door and bang. But she had to find a way. She had once used Michael. She couldn't bring a murderer to his doorstep, too...
Michael opened the door after a couple of minutes with a dumbfound look on his face. Time hadn't changed him that much. Despite him reaching his forties like her, he still had the same baby face. He had just gotten a bit more round and his hair was turning grey. His brown eyes had remained calm with the usual sparkle of the genius mind underneath.
"Maria?" his eyes narrowing behind his round, plastic glasses.
"Long time, no see, right?" she smiled sweetly.
"How are you? What happened to your face?" he remarked.
"I had to sit through an interrogation that went sideways. Nothing important. May I come in?"
"Sure... Sure... I thought you left the west coast for good, for those overseas positions. You look different, by the way," he replied stepping to the side to let her in.
She could tell he was uneasy. Michael wasn't what they call the alpha-type of man. Shy by character, coming from a conservative family with a terrorising mother, he was a bit awkward with women, due to lack of many experiences, nothing more. Gloria thought, just like back then, that he was a good guy, not for women like her, but for a simple girl that wanted a simple man who didn't stray and was devoted to his family, he was perfect. The regular sweetheart was what he was looking for, anyway. That was the approach she had played back then with him. Nevertheless, after the "sweetheart" Maria, who at the same time was fooling three gun traffickers and wasn't even called Maria, he hadn't met any other one, he was still single. And he hadn't even suspected that that "sweetheart" was a demon in disguise...
"Time flies, I guess," she replied softly, "But it has been good to you."
"On you, too. By different I didn't mean that..." he mumbled.
"Hey-hey, I know what you meant," she smiled warmly.
The truth was he was used to her being a blonde with short to medium length hair, carefully dressed in skirts, pretty much like JJ should have been some years back. At that moment he had in front of him a red-head with long, wild curls, roughly dressed in jeans, almost no make-up and sporting a bruise on her cheek. Back then her appearance was trimmed to match Maria Lloyd. Her current appearance screamed Gloria Paterson but he had never met her, had he?
He smiled back shyly.
"Not many people understand the way you did," he commented shyly, too.
'I understood you because I'm good at what I do and I was in your head exploiting your sentimental weaknesses, using some love and some sex on top. Trust me, you don't want people like me anywhere near you,' Gloria thought bitterly. She had felt dirty for many things she had done. With Michael's case, she felt far too ashamed, though. She had once lied through her teeth, she had manipulated him, she had made him get charmed by a ghost, but deep down she liked him as a person. Truth be told, that was twisted... The only consolation was that she hadn't really harmed him. And now with John waiting to come shooting at him, she was really praying to manage to keep him safe.
"So what brought you to my door?" he carried on quickly.
"I'm afraid this is not a social call. I work on some security checks, that's why I'm back."
"OK. And what can I do for you?"
"We need a few ways on how to break this," she said giving him the folder.
He opened the envelope and he frowned.
"These are from Quantico...?"
"I know what is in the envelope. Can you do it?" she cut him off, so as not to break the Blackmore's rule.
She was on purpose just a bit harsher than the 'sweet' Maria. Sutherland had 'terrorising mother' issues, remember? He noticed it, and he only got more confused.
"This... This normally needs authorisation from high people, not a house visit," he answered, still not really suspicious, "Maria, are you sure that this is for a legitimate check? Have they gotten you involved in anything? Tell me I can help," he got closer to her.
Right... How did he exactly have the word 'involved' in his mind? And 'help'? This very concerning line of his was so ironic on so many levels...
"For sure, Michael, it is legitimate. What did you think?" she smiled softly and confidently again, "Between you and me, this thing is just a pointless exploration of one of these worst-case scenarios. Nothing more."
"OK..." he replied thoughtfully going for his desk.
'You are naïve, mate,' Gloria thought, 'You are a good person, but you are an incredible liability when it comes to the information inside your head.' However, deep down she knew why Blackmore had to use her. Michael wouldn't have given up the information by the use of force. No, he would have preferred to die. He wasn't a coward. And he wouldn't have trusted that easily another person pretending to be FBI or an actual agent turned to Blackmore's side. Their 'personal' relationship was what made him so vulnerable to her lies.
Emily was picking her nails waiting for JJ's call. It was taking them too long with the guns. Brooder could get suspicious. When finally the phone rang it was a relief. She called Brooder right after, giving her a time for delivery.
"If I didn't know you, Lauren, I would have thought that you had really died this time," Brooder said creepily over the phone.
"There are some factors I have no control over Sam," she replied, "Everything is set. I just need the number of the container and you'll have in an hour or so."
"I will. But this time we will go together to pick it up. I am bringing my own transporters."
"OK. Tell me where to meet," Emily replied.
She knew the risk was far too serious. But if she didn't show up, they could get spooked. This whole thing had to stop at last. She ran her hand over her tummy. 'Poor kid, what am I already putting you through?' she thought.
Gloria watched Sutherland, discretely throwing glances outside of the window. John was always in the car. How could she warn Michael that he had to leave the house without alerting the man watching them?
He seemed to be close to finishing and she approached his desk. There was only one way, to block the camera with a legitimate reason, warn him and not letting him talk so as not to the give them away...
"Are you finishing?" she asked casually scanning his desk.
"Almost there," he smiled.
"So we wouldn't need anything more?"
"No. It should be complete..." he replied thoughtfully again.
He was still questioning the purpose of all of it and that was exactly what Gloria needed.
"You worry, don't you?" she said softly, sitting on the armrest of his chair.
"I can't say safely that what you told me stands."
"Why?" she asked, trying to make him say things that would explain what she was about to do.
"These things are to be classified, not even in your hands. I mean since when you do have this type of clearance?"
"You trust me, right?" she reached for his chest.
"That... That yes, I do..."
"I'm glad. Then stop worrying," she spoke softly, "You know something, Mikey? I jumped on the opportunity to come here because I wanted to see you again. I missed you..."
"I did, too," he dropped his eyes, "But you are the one that left, Maria... and with no real explanation."
"I know... I don't know what got into me back then... Finish this and we'll talk, OK?"
She got her face closer to his. The irony of the whole thing was that once she had been sleeping with Michael, while in reality, she was in love with another man that she couldn't have. Now she was in reality in love with David and about to kiss Michael. At least that last stunt was to save him and not to use him...
She caught his lips obscuring the lens of the camera with his body. He kissed her back almost immediately. Michael, strangely enough, was a good kisser but there was no point in that at the moment. Gloria hadn't done something so strange during her whole life. She reached with her right hand for the pen lying beside the papers and pressed it on a piece of scrap paper thrown at the side. However, that meant that she couldn't control Michael's wandering hand that slipped below her jacket towards her back. Damn it! He felt the uneven skin of her scars over her thin blouse. She sensed him pulling back from the kiss surprised but she didn't let him, deepening the kiss, keeping him against her and scribbling the words she wanted on the paper: 'Finish. Make a mistake. Don't talk. Knock on the door, RUN!' There was a small paper cutter on the desk, too. With a swift move she put it in the pocket of her jeans. They were buggy on purpose and since she had lost weight over the last months, they were even more. The blade would not show, only if someone searched her. She coaxed Michael to turn a bit to see the words on the paper and then she let him go.
Poor Michael, he was realising finally that there was something definitely wrong with the woman he thought he had in front of him. The apologetic, narrow look she gave him, which had nothing to do with Maria's upbeat and sweet attitude, just proved it. She may have eventually harmed him with that realisation but it could save him.
"OK..." he said quietly, "I'll be finished in a few minutes."
"Thanks..."
She stood up again, noticing him putting the piece of scrap paper into his pocket. Clever man indeed.
"I'm done," he said after a while.
"Brilliant. Thank you so much!" she replied softly, back again in Maria's demeanour.
She reached for the envelope with the new papers inside, when the knock on the door came.
"I'll get that," she offered cheerfully.
The moment she turned her back, Michael stepped towards the back of the room, apparently closer to the back door of the house. The moment he saw John, he made a run for it. John pushed her to the side and took off after him. Gloria had nothing more to do than to wait and get prepared for John's rage, in the wishful case that Michael made it.
And he did make it at last.
"What the hell, bitch? How did this just happen?" John shouted pointing his gun at her.
"We spooked him, John! I told you he is very far from stupid! My appearance out of the blue was already strange. A foreigner on top was too much," she replied intensely.
"Did we really spook him or did you manage to warn him? I told you not to block the camera!"
He grabbed her right arm and threw her on the floor with force. Gloria landed on her right side, and her arm stretched abruptly and her back hurt. She let out the cry that so many times she had swallowed in the past. John pointed the barrel of the gun he was holding to her head. It was the second time she had a gun to her head in two days. This was turning into a record.
Gloria had to bet the highest value card she had, not just to avoid that bullet but to get into John's head and figure out what the by-passers they had just gotten were, what destruction plan she had just handed over. There was some possibility that the card wouldn't work. But she had to take the gamble. At the very end, she was a gambler's daughter and a good one's if he knew when to stop...
"I think you could pretty much hear what I was doing while the camera was blocked. He was having doubts. I had to distract him. Did you want the codes finished or what?" she said back, her face twitching in pain.
"And why did you go for the door yourself? Why didn't you incapacitate him then, if he was a flight risk? And why the hell are you so much in pain?" he finished confused.
The truth was that she wasn't overplaying it. It was the one time she was simply letting the pain to show. She had overworked her back those days. But even regularly it wasn't hurting that less, with any movement that required effort. Emily had told her that she wasn't in physical condition and imagine she didn't even know how much pain Gloria had covered to pass even the basic qualifications. She tried to sit up, the pressure on her arm making her groan again.
"I told Blackmore to give me a gun and let me finish the job by myself! Why do you think I insisted? He does know I was injured during my last op. My right side of my back is shredded. I can barely hit a fly with my right arm, not punch a person!" she argued back and John seemed to have already been informed about her injury, "My former boss left me to die. I guess I'm lucky that I'm just crippled. My ass... That was the 'thank you' for what I have done for them."
"And what happened after?" he asked almost impulsively.
"Nobody cared if I was coping or thinking of blowing my head off. They are all words, John. But when it comes to giving back they throw us on the side."
Gloria wouldn't have been able to voice those words if she hadn't spoken to David the night before. She wouldn't have even dared to imply them, even if they weren't the complete facts for her. It wasn't Clyde's betrayal of trust or her injury that had made her want to spare herself. But half the truth was there and John and many people in their shoes could sense that truth. You can't fool a current or former suicidal person that you are or were suicidal if you are/were not.
John balanced her words. At that moment he was thinking that they had treated the protagonist of that story he had heard so many times, the same as him. Something had happened to him in the war zone. Instead of the support he was expecting, he was given some sorry excuse to leave the unit and the army altogether. It could happen. Some situations are not always perfect. Clyde used to tell that she was his best undercover agent. But when she warned him about the danger, when she persistently asked him to take her out of the op, so as not her dark thoughts to lead her under a blade, he didn't do it. If Clyde had put the suspicions he had for sure, on paper, he would have her kicked off the agencies, with no support, with nothing. The only difference she had with John was that she would have carried on and spared herself and only. John had turned his disappointment into anger and his suicidal tendencies into homicidal ones. Twistedly and ironically, David was probably right. She was very far from monsters.
"Sutherland will take his time before he goes to the police. He has to understand first what he has gotten himself into and it's not very flattering," she finished wishing exactly the opposite, even though she knew that her words were probably right, "Plus Guantanamo is too humid for his soft ass."
Even though he was warned that she could mess with his head, John bought the card. There was also a side bet to that 'relation' card. John, no matter his turn to Blackmore's purposes, he was still a soldier. He wouldn't that easily kill a defenseless woman in pain, not without solid proof that she was still a danger. All the bets were successful as he holstered his weapon.
"Let's get out of here," John said strictly and dragged her to her feet.
Once they got inside the car again, Gloria saw a curtain from a neighbouring house being pulled closed again. Did someone just saw them? There was a street camera around the corner of Sutherland's house towards the street. John guy hadn't thought that she could warn Michael under his nose. It was time to warn the whole FBI under his nose, just in case that person behind the curtain had just phoned the police. She placed her hand on her right cheek like checking her bruise, silently tapping her fingers.
When they drove off, John phoned Blackmore eventually telling him what happened in a soft version. The vicious old man wasn't that concerned about Sutherland's escape. He could guess that former tech guy would hesitate to go to the police. As it seemed, what was planned was to happen really soon...
"So are we going for the tunnels?" John asked.
"No," Blackmore's voice sounded annoyed, she shouldn't have heard that probably, "You'll take your package through the front door."
Emily sat beside Brooder in the car, watching the truck in front of them with the guns pulling up in a field. It was getting late in the afternoon. She had to figure out her way out in case if they decided to check the guns. Was there any, though?
Everyone with Brooder looked rushed. Probably they wouldn't have the time to check. They were joined by at least ten more people, four were already in the truck. Whatever was about to happen was big. There was no sign, though, either from Blackmore, the British man that had taken Ria, not from Ria herself.
"Gear up, guys," Brooder said to them rolling down the window, "You are too good, Lauren," she turned to Emily.
The words made her think of the time Doyle had said the same. She had been scared that time, thinking that she was figured out, only to realise that maybe Doyle had fallen into the same trap as her… Now she wasn't scared for her safety, she was scared for that peanut inside her. What an irony to get to know the feelings of motherhood under these circumstances…
"That's why you'll see something big with me tonight," Brooder smiled.
"I am intrigued, Sam."
No, she wasn't.
"Well, this is, also, super strange…" Garcia spoke again after a beep heard from her computer.
"What is it, Penelope?" Rossi asked.
"You told me to monitor everything the police files. Washington PD just filed a possible break in a house. A neighbour phone it in. Nobody answered the door but the owner's name is flagged by us," the tech girl informed them.
"Flagged? Why?"
"Let me check... Wow... The house belongs to a guy that used to work in security for federal buildings. Michael Sutherland."
"The name Sutherland is mentioned in 2001 Gloria's files," Clyde's interest was picked.
"Penelope, pull up any street cameras from near the house, around the time the call was made," Rossi instructed.
"I got the feed…" Garcia said after a while, "There is only one camera … Let's rewind it… Is that Ria in that car?"
Both men stared at the screen. For sure the woman inside a blue sedan was Gloria. The man driving was apparently the British ex-soldier.
"Is she twitching her fingers?" Garcia noticed the tapping on her cheek, "Nervousness?"
"Gloria doesn't twitch when she is nervous," Rossi replied.
"No, she tries to communicate something to us," Easter spoke again, "Could you please zoom in on her fingers and put the video in slow?"
The whole movement of her fingers lasted just six seconds in real time. Clyde squeezed his eyes, trying to see beyond the blur of the zooming of an already bad quality image. He was the only one that had worked with Gloria under. He was the only one that could understand those signals. He grabbed a pen and started scribbling on a paper dots and dashes. Rossi noticed that when Gloria was twitching two fingers at once, Clyde drew dashes and dots when she was moving only one, leaving spaces every time she moved her pointer finger.
"Is that Morse code?" Rossi asked surprised.
"Paterson has a thing for the old-fashioned ways. No offense," Clyde replied.
"Not taken," David breathed watching the man matching the symbols to the letters.
"There?" Clyde read the word formed on the paper, "What does that mean?"
"She knows that it will be us seeing it," Rossi spoke.
"That we will see it here. Is there any chance that by 'there' she means here, as the FBI building?" Garcia continued his thought.
"The hit!" Rossi realised, "That meeting is taking place here. With what's going on in the city, they think that the federal buildings are the safest places for it."
Penelope's mouth formed a perfect O with fear and surprise.
"Can they breach this place?" Clyde asked.
"It has happened before," Rossi replied remembering when a deranged navy seal managed to take them hostage in the ballroom not so long ago, "Easter, we have to inform Strauss. Garcia, let Hotch know and put an APB for Sutherland, we have to find him as soon as possible," and they rushed towards the door.
"Are you 100% sure?" Strauss asked the two men once they informed her about the situation.
"We are," Rossi replied.
"There is no way Paterson's message was coerced. The way she sent it was unconventional anyway, only I could understand it," Clyde added.
"How can the attackers enter here, though?" Erin asked.
"There are some options but the biggest danger is the escorts of some of the participants of the meeting," Rossi answered.
"I have to call the Secret Service and whoever else is involved with that meeting. It has to be canceled immediately," Strauss picked up the phone.
"The attackers will pull back as well. The small attacks will carry on and we will never have the chance to catch the majority of them," David argued.
"And what do you have to propose, Dave? Let the FBI Building be flooded with anarchists carrying a bomb and lethal, illegal guns?" Erin raised her voice.
She barked a few words over the phone, demanding answers. Then she put her phone down a frozen look on her face.
"The first people for this meeting have already arrived. Intruders may be in. Technically we are already under attack. At least we know about it," she said looking at Rossi.
A soft knock came from the door and Garcia's face appeared.
"Ma'am, Sirs, apparently Sutherland just walked in a police station. They are bringing him here."
Hotch ordered the whole area in lockdown but gave specific instructions to everyone to stay discrete and change their radios to a secure channel. He moved with Garcia to their main operational computer of the building.
"We have far too many men here. We were on discrete alarm anyway. We can implement a more aggressive tactics," the head of Security commented to Hotch.
"No. We don't know if they have more guns than the ones we stopped and for sure they have normal guns. It can turn into a massacre if we don't stay ahead of it without attracting attention just yet," Hotch disagreed, "Have you isolated quietly the protective escorts of the participants at the same place?"
"Yes, they are on the fourth floor."
"Secure it. Nobody in or out."
"Done. Everyone else attending the meeting is stopped at the gates, separated by their escorts, only police escorts."
"Scan their vehicles for explosives."
"Are you sure that this is happening, Agent Hotchner?" the guy from the Secret Service asked, he still hadn't believed the whole story he had just heard.
"It is. It is," Strauss spoke while the BAU chief ignored him.
If the Secret Service had let him know about the place of that meeting, as he had practically begged them for, they wouldn't have been in this position in the first place. Hotch didn't even want to think what could have happened if Gloria hadn't managed to send them that message and if Emily hadn't gone under so they could sabotage those guns. Emily? Where the hell was Emily? Why did she have to insist to stay under, while her cover could be already blown by the sabotaged guns? Aaron had to stay focused. They were far from over… They were just starting.
Rossi talked with Michael Sutherland. The younger man narrated what had happened.
"So you do know that the codes were from security entrances of this building but you don't really remember which ones?" Dave summarised.
"No, I've been away for almost a decade. I have high IQ and excellent ability in solving problems but not an eidetic memory."
"Where have you worked on?"
"Entrances, Main gates, Emergency exits, almost everything, even the tunnels when they renewed the systems."
"Did you give her the right by-passers?"
"No, she asked me to make some mistake. I figured that if I give her something that won't at least get them through the first door, whoever forced her to do it would kill her. So that's the only thing they can open with these codes, the first door. They wouldn't be able to get into the main parts and the system will show the breach once accessed, no visible alarms."
"You did the right thing," Rossi reassured him.
The man hung his head.
"Who is she, Sir?" Michael asked and then he shook his head disappointed, "I used to trust that woman, you know. I used to... And now I don't even know who she is."
"She is not the enemy," Rossi replied softly, for sure Sutherland didn't need the extra details, despite his IQ, his mind wouldn't handle it.
However, David had started having mixed feelings about this. That man was very much decent and in the past, Gloria had used him in cold blood. She had slept with him for the same purpose and she had apparently pushed all the right buttons with the expertise of a con-artist. It was the very first time David saw for real what Gloria was capable of.
"Are you sure? I mean how can you tell who she really is if she appears exactly as you wish her to be?" Michael asked.
The old man then smiled a bit to the side. The guy had just answered Dave's questions.
"Well, she doesn't always do that."
"Yeah... She does it only for profit..." the younger man dismissed him.
Poor guy was hurt. Gloria, 'Maria' actually, had made him fall for her for good.
"You don't strike me as the type of guy that would so easily and so quickly would have come and admit all that," Rossi spoke.
"I was worried about her, whoever she is. Where are you going with this?" Sutherland asked annoyed.
"I'm just saying that she wouldn't have put her bets on you coming here to inform us. There was no profit and no case. You do know that she risked her life just to save you, right?" David added patting the other guy's shoulder.
Perhaps she didn't always do the right thing but always did it for the right reason.
That's what Rossi thought for one more time while leaving the room. Not many people could understand that, probably no one. Only love was able to get it and that's why Dave did...
When they were in some area close to the FBI building, John stopped the car at the side of the road, pulling a gun out of his pocket.
"What's with this thing now?" Gloria asked unfazed.
He slipped to the backseat never averting his attention from her.
John pulled the backseat down. Gloria raised an eyebrow when she saw the bomb in the trunk. He pressed a button. The digital clock started counting down fifteen minutes.
"You are the one with the badge you drive," he said motioning her to move to the driver's seat, "We have a booming package to deliver and get out of this car…"
"Alright," she replied.
Her mind was trying to figure out ways to face this. She just wished that Clyde had gotten her message, that they were prepared.
"Do you think that the gun is really necessary?" she asked watching him slipping at the foot of the backseat.
"Start driving," he said coldly.
As they were approaching the FBI entrance with that 'booming' package in the car, John stole a glance towards the front and saw the SWAT vehicles parked ahead blocking the entrance.
Gloria smiled just so slightly to herself. Clyde had gotten the message.
"What the fuck?" John got surprised.
"What did you think, John? That it would be us carrying out some part of the big hit? And it looks like someone has tipped those guys off. We are the distraction, set to die either by their bullets or by the thing in the boot (trunk in British English)."
"That's impossible..."
Gloria had to take one more gamble, but the bets were off. She moved her hand still holding the wheel closer to her pocket where she had stuck the paper cutter she took from Sutherland's office.
"What are the tunnels you were talking about?" she asked directly.
The man got confused, but he realised what was going on.
"You, bitch! How?"
Gloria pressed the gas pedal to its limit making him fall back the small space to the seats.
"What the hell you are doing?"
Gloria held the wheel with one hand, violently turning it all the way to the right and then immediately all the way to the left. That John guy was at the feet of the backseats and that meant no seatbelt. He bounced having no time to stabilise a shot. She kept turning causing the car to twist violently from one side to the other and the tires to skid noisily. He brought his unarmed hand up to get hold on the front seat. Gloria grabbed the paper cutter from her pocket. With a quick move, she stabbed his hand on the front seat, twisting the tool, nailing his palm on the plastic, destroying every single bone and nerve of it. She left the cutter and grabbed his gun just on time to send a bullet away from her.
"You lied to me, slut! You fooled me!" John shouted realising that she wasn't as incapacitated as she had seemed, that the whole story about betrayal and anger for the ungrateful system was a deceit.
"No, I didn't lie to you. You assumed that everyone wants to kill those who somehow didn't give them the recognition they think they deserved. You assumed that I wanted to take revenge for my screwed up head after an injury. You never questioned if I really wanted any recognition in the first place or if my head was already screwed up before I was crippled, because of my choices or what your boss did to me. You assumed all that because that was how you think. Nobody failed you, John! Shit happens, that's all. Tell me where the other bomb is! I'm giving you a last chance to do the things right!"
But John didn't want to take that chance. If he wanted to unstuck his hand from the seat, he had to let go of the gun. But he wasn't trying, despite everything and her continuing turns of the car, he was trying to shoot her. But it wasn't only his own bullets that she had to worry about…
Emily knew very well where Brooder's car had stopped, the forest in Quantico, by the federal buildings. It was public space, no security. They were on higher grounds and actually the view was straight to the FBI building. Emily was worrying more and more. They weren't planning the hit to that building, were they? But how? The federal buildings should have been fortresses given what was going on.
"Who the fuck could tell, eh?" Brooder commented.
"Tell what, Sam?"
"You see that whole building over there. Who could ever imagine what's lying underneath? You know what all these people in that place are? Moles, time for them to fall right into their own holes..."
Emily wondered what the woman meant. She had heard once about the shelters beneath the FBI building. It was rumoured more like a story than a reality. That story said that there were spaces built many meters under the ground to be used in case of extreme crisis, war, chemical attack and everything else derived from the worst scenarios ever considered. Were these people planning to use them? They should be impossible to be broken into... That was a wild guess, wasn't it?
There was a van parked in front of them. One of its doors opened and a guy stepped out. He was young. But when he turned, Emily's blood ran cold. She was sure she knew the face. She knew him from the FBI office...! Oh no! They had thought with the team that Blackmore had recruited men from law-enforcement but she hadn't considered that complication. She couldn't imagine, of course, that the terrorists they were chasing were planning to attack the FBI HQ... Considering that, that man's presence made a lot of sense. And well, Emily wasn't supposed to be there in the first place...
With a slight move, she slipped her hand into her pocket, to her phone, blindly writing a text. She didn't know if the matter with the tunnels was close to the truth. But she didn't, also, know, how this all would work out with her identity exposed. At least she had to let the team know, she had to let Aaron know. He could probably combine that clue with something else.
"Sir… There are shots getting reported at two entrances," Garcia spoke, as the Head of the Security stepped in to help with the situation
"These people start to understand that things don't seem to work according to their plan and they react rushed," Rossi spoke.
"Car driving erratically towards the West Entrance! At least one shot inside the car!" one SWAT man's voice came on the radio in the Security Room alerting the agents there, "Men into position, ready to fire."
"West Entrance, West Entrance…" Garcia pulled up all the relevant cameras.
"What is going on down there?" Blake watched the screens, "Another Blackmore's soldier losing his temper?"
"This car is not registered to get in, in any capacity," the Head said.
"We have visual. A female driver and a man inside the car fighting!" the voice from the radio said.
"One of them is not one of Blackmore's soldiers…" Rossi said, "This car is the one with Gloria and the British former soldier from the street camera."
"What?! If the car doesn't stop soon, SWAT will fire!" Garcia panicked, "They shouldn't fire!"
Hotch's mind raced. He could order SWAT to stand down. But was it the right decision? Was still Paterson in the car? And if she was, what was she trying to do? He threw a look at the two men beside him. Rossi was biting his lip, to hold himself back from letting his feelings make him agree with Garcia, probably his mind was telling him otherwise. Easter was calm and focused, trusting that his former agent, if it was her, had a plan. Gloria had once put herself in front of Hotch's gun, still having a plan of survival, trusting that he would take the best shot. He had to trust her, too.
"If it's Paterson, she is aware of SWAT's tactical response. She knows what she is doing," Hotch finally spoke.
Gloria couldn't make John drop the gun. Holding the wheel with her left hand, her injured, weak right side had neither the coordination nor the strength needed to control the man. She was in pain, too. She had to make the SWAT fire and make them do it before reaching their perimeter. The car shouldn't crush. It shouldn't get really close to them in case any bullet set the bloody thing in the trunk off. And there was no time to disarm the bomb. The FBI had bigger problems…
John managed to pull his bloody hand off the seat. She left the wheel just for a second, grabbing the gun with both hands, sending a bullet out of the window, towards the sky and at the same time diving behind the dashboard, pressing and turning his hand between the front seats, forcing him to stand up just a bit higher than the dashboard.
"Shots fired! Shots fired!" the SWAT man spoke again.
Milliseconds after his first word, multiple guns were fired, shattering the windshield and the windows, causing the BAU agents to hold their breaths.
The brakes and the tires of the car screeched, as it was turned to the right and stopped. Someone still had control of that car.
The SWAT started approaching the vehicle shouting whatever the protocol said, but before they managed to, the gas pedal was pressed all over again and the vehicle moved towards the direction it came from, while Gloria's face appeared looking straight at the camera of the entrance.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Hotch barked just in time before the second round of shots started, "She is an agent! I repeat hold your fire!"
Gloria made a motion that in the agents' sign language meant that she got that and she looked like she shouted something to the SWAT agents, just before she was out of the view of the camera.
"Why didn't she stop?" Garcia asked, fearing the answer.
"Something is wrong with the car or inside the car…" Morgan said.
"The problem is that it is not the only thing that is still wrong. Send agents and support after her car" Hotch said to Blake who ran out, "What did the agent say?" he spoke louder to the radio, "Are you copying me? What did the agent say?"
Then his phone beeped from an incoming text.
'Shltrs, LvU' he read the misspelled word on the screen. He didn't know the number but it was familiar... It was Emily's undercover number! What was going on?!
"The woman said something about tunnels," a voice replied from the radio.
"Sutherland has worked in the system of the tunnels," Rossi stated.
Hotch tried to hide the stress from his face and turned to the Head of Security.
"Have you secured the shelters? The tunnels below the building?"
"I am not supposed to even verify their existence..." the man got confused.
"Agent Hotchner, I am convinced about the attack, but what you are suggesting now is based on fables and stories...!" the SS man got in front of him.
"Agent Claremont, we have already problems at the outskirts of this building. These people haven't stopped at that and the only reason we are in the position to face this situation is two agents and they are passing on the same information. So either help me or move out of my way."
"They are permanently locked. They can only be opened with the Director's authorisation and only in extreme emergencies," Strauss spoke.
"They may have found a way to bypass the codes, at least partially. Send a SWAT team and Bomb Squad down now. And start an evacuation. Rossi and Morgan with me," Hotch ordered the security man and moved for the exit.
"I'll tell the Director to join you," Strauss spoke.
Emily saw Blackmore finally coming out of the car and towards them. That was no good, she knew it, and she couldn't do anything.
Brooder frowned and rolled down the window.
"What's going on?" she asked.
The old man didn't reply, he just pulled a gun out of his pocket.
"What the hell, Charles?" she opened the door and stepped out.
"Everything is falling apart," he said dangerously low.
"Have you lost your mind? How?"
"You tell me! You are the one that brought the fed into our business!"
"You were the one wanting that fucking Lloyd!"
"I am talking about the real fed, stupid woman!"
"What?" Brooder got confused and then looked over at Emily.
Emily got ready to set off if needed. But the man she had recognised stood by her side of the car. There was way out...
"You were always useless, Sam."
Blackmore lifted the gun. The woman never had the time to process his movement.
The Director was expecting the agents in front of a simple screen. It was hard to imagine that such a small machine like that could control a whole building below the obvious one.
"Sir," Hotch greeted him.
"I hope you are right, Agent Hotchner. What I am about to do is breaking every security protocol. An intruder has to bypass multiple alarms, not many people on this planet can at least try to do this."
"One of the designers of the system got a visitor just this morning," Hotch replied.
"OK," the older man said, "Let's see."
He pressed a few digits on the touchscreen and then put his right eye in front of the sensor. The computer beeped softly and then red signs appeared.
"The tunnels are indeed breached," the Director explained, "Apparently they didn't have the full codes so the system has left them out of the main parts. But they are into the peripherals."
Hotch nodded. Emily and Gloria were right.
"The building is getting evacuated. Sir, you should go," Hotch said.
"Bah, I'll stay here. You may want the lights on," the man winked, "Good luck."
And with that, the door opened and the agents rushed in, geared up with heavy weaponry and Kevlar's and night vision glasses. Thankfully they didn't need to cover a lot of corridors. Soon enough they heard noises and saw flashlights. The letters FBI started getting shouted around. Shots were fired at every menacing move. Some of the intruders soon realised that their "invincible guns" were no better than water throwing toys and they surrendered. Soon enough they found two guys installing a box, a bomb. Hotch and Rossi fired before the men even had the time to process that they were getting caught.
"Lights!" Hotch shouted and all the corridors lighted up, the Director had stayed at his post.
Morgan ran towards the bomb, the best guy from the Bomb Squad right behind him. They accessed the device quickly.
"You should pull back," the guy said to Morgan.
"The people down here don't have the time to evacuate," Morgan replied, "We have to disarm the bomb."
He watched the timer. At least the bomb had a timer. For a bomb so many meters underground, they couldn't use mobile activation. Those were the good news. The bad ones were that they had two minutes to figure out the way to deactivate it. It looked like a bomb that could have made the part of the building to collapse if it had been placed in some central part of the tunnels. Since they were at the edges, it was only the lives of the agents down there that were at stake.
"It's one of the best constructions I have ever seen. Have you seen one like this before?" the guy was examining the wires.
"I have, but I just drove it away," the bold agent replied.
"This should be the feed and that should be the trigger," he pointed, "But whoever made it used the same colour wires."
"You are right. That seems like the feed."
"If we cut it, we should be alright. But we can't be sure. One wrong cut and we will get pulverised."
"They never thought that we will get here, that someone will get to even try to deactivate the bomb. The most obvious answer should be the right one," Rossi spoke quietly, watching the younger men as they worked.
"Rossi is right. This should be the one, man."
"OK," the bomb expert spoke closing the pliers around the wire. The click of the pliers was heard throughout the corridors, that was how much quiet everyone was.
The timer of the bomb stopped and its lights were turned off.
The bomb guy fell back to the floor letting a heavy breath of relief.
"Clear everything that's left," Hotch ordered setting off for upstairs, phoning Garcia the moment his signal was back on and telling her to trace Emily's text and her phone. Rossi and Morgan were right behind him.
The small bursts outside were controlled. Just like the guys in the tunnel, most of Blackmore's soldiers surrendered were killed or injured by law-enforcement. No agent or policeman was seriously harme
"What do you mean they can't find Gloria? How is that possible?" Rossi asked Blake, rushing out of the jeep towards the now burnt to the ground car that Gloria drove.
"Dave, there are human remains inside the car… The firemen can't tell if the person or persons were at the front or back seat..." Blake spoke quietly.
"She wasn't alone in that car. The man was shot, probably dead already. She drove all the way out here, she had time to jump out. No..." David tried to reason.
"The emergency vehicles were here five minutes after the explosion. Where can she be?"
"No... It's not her, Alex... It can't be..." Rossi denied, his breath quickened, looking around desperately trying to find the smallest clue that would prove that her badge in his pocket wasn't the only thing that was left from her...
"Agents," a policeman spoke suddenly, "This blood is fresh," he pointed at a rock.
Morgan noticed a few bushes disheveled beside that rock. He walked behind the plants. Tire tracks.
"There was a car or a van parked here, someone was dragged through these bushes and loaded into it."
"Can this mean that Paterson was abducted after she jumped out of the car, even the small time window?" Blake asked.
"This will also mean that Blackmore was in the area," Clyde spoke.
"That's not unlikely. A guy like that wants to see his achievements up close and it was impossible to search the whole forest." Morgan said.
"The entrance to the tunnels is close by, too. Paterson may fell right into his lap by chance," Hotch added.
"At least, he didn't harm her seriously on the spot," Easter breathed.
"He wants to take his time with her..." Rossi replied low, hating his own ability to predict this, "Nevertheless, the blood is not that much to knock her unconscious."
"It can be a head injury or Blackmore drugged her," Hotch assumed.
Clyde shook his head in a reluctant agreement to their points. Then he frowned for a moment. Was there something shiny among the leaves on the ground? But before he had time to get closer to make sure of what he saw, Morgan shouted.
"Hotch!" Morgan jogged up towards the jeep, "There is a car further up!" he pointed higher the hill.
The other men followed him quickly, pulling out their guns but the car was empty. Morgan released the trunk. Rossi lifted the cover. It was empty.
"Guys, there's another body here," Morgan saw the shape of a woman lying on the thick grass.
"That's Brooder…" Easter recognized the bloody face, gunshot to the head.
Hotch's phone rang. He put it on speaker and JJ's anxious voice came from it, almost out of breath.
"I can't get hold of Emily. Her car is not at the motel and there is no sign of her. She hasn't come back from the meeting with Brooder."
"Sir, sir!" Garcia interrupted the call remotely, "Emily's text to you came from the location you are standing right now! After that, the phone is shut off, battery off, too."
The agents looked at each other, fear written all over their faces. They had profiled and assumed everything right. They had reacted right. They had stopped a hit that could have certainly deadly consequences. But the biggest monster was still out there, their friends were taken and they had no clue where...
"There are no heroes... in life, the monsters win." ~ George R.R. Martin
Spoiler: There is one clue "left"...
Thankfully I managed to write an update after a very long time... Sorry, again, but my life changed "again"... Anyway, I hope this time is for the best FINALLY...
And, I know, it was a long chapter, but I had to finish with the case part finally... The rest of this story is water under the bridge. Yes, I mean it this time!
In any way, I must finish this story. Honestly, with all these changes I feel like I'm writing about a different era. When I started it we wished Emily came back, Hotch was still there, Morgan, Blake even...! Now Hotch and Morgan are gone, Emily runs the team, Reid was in flipping prison and the cast has gotten squeezed to fit on the screen for the team photo of the credits...!
However, I am happy both for Season 13 and the fact that the Scratch-nonsense is finished. Season 12 was a bit of a mess for no real reason. Whatever happened happened. No one is irreplaceable. Prentiss came back and that should have been the end. Anyway, series do have the tendency to get panic hiccups when someone goes (Law& Order: SVU had its own when Elliot left and he didn't leave so violently. The series is still on six years later.)
It's been a really long time, so please let me know your thoughts!