"Well, that ends the moving picture show." Rossi declared as he stood up and stretched. He and Garcia had been sitting several hours reviewing surveillance videos and he could hear and feel his back crack as he stretched upward.
"Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a show," Garcia observed as she pushed several keys on her keyboard. "You guys weren't within range of many security cameras on that particular case."
"Or the unsub knew where they were and avoided them," Rossi suggested as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"And, the few people who did look suspicious didn't show up in any of our databases," Garcia continued as she turned to deal with one of her other computers which had started beeping at her.
"OMG!" she gasped as she examined the other computer screen. "I do not believe this!"
"What?" Rossi leaned over her shoulder to read the screen.
"Call the others," she declared. "I think we have a lead."
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"I hope you have something for us, Baby Girl," Morgan said a short time later as everyone again gathered in the conference room. "Because I have nothing." He waved his cell phone in the air.
"As do I," Lewis declared as she burst into the room. She looked around at the astonished faces. "What?" she asked. "You didn't expect to see me here?"
"As soon as I heard what had happened," Lewis continued. "I began interviewing some of the inmates Hotch helped put behind bars. I wanted to get to them before the rumors started flying. And, I am sad to say, I have come up empty. I don't think any of them know anything."
"Well, there goes another line of inquiry," JJ said sadly as she took her seat at the round table.
"Well, I haven't come up empty," Garcia promised as she put multiple pictures up on the flat screen. "And, boy, do I have something! Everybody here?" As she looked around the table she smiled as she noticed that Lewis had taken her accustomed seat.
"As I have often heard said around here," Garcia began. "As smoothly as Hotch's and the other abductions were carried out, this can't be the first time this unsub and his friends have done this. So, I began looking, gradually expanding my search until it covered a very wide area. And, this is what I found."
"That looks like several family groups," JJ observed.
"That is what you might think," Garcia replied. "However, in reality, very few of them are actually related. Let's begin at a small fishing village in Georgia." She highlighted a group consisting of a woman, a man, and two children.
"Meet Devin Hale, divorced father of two," she began. "About six months ago, when he didn't show up for work one morning, his boss tried calling him. After he failed to reach him, one of his co-workers went over to his apartment during his lunch break to check things out. He found Mr. Hale's car still in its parking spot but Mr. Hale was gone. No sign of a struggle or a break in and no clues as to why he had disappeared. Not being a family member, he had to wait 48 hours before filing a missing persons report. Devin Hale has never been found."
"On the other side of town," Garcia continued. "We have Ms. Evelyn Guzman and her eighteen month old son Mario. They were residents of the local homeless center. When they didn't return to the shelter one evening the people there just assumed that she had gone off on a bender, as she apparently was wont to do. It wasn't until her family showed up two weeks later looking for her that a missing persons' report was filed. At that point, she and her son had been gone for so long that no one could pinpoint exactly when they had disappeared."
"In the meantime, five miles away at a small local mall, eighteen month old Leah Mills was out shopping with her parents. They turned their backs on her as she sat in her stroller and, when they looked back, she was gone."
"Every parent's worst nightmare," JJ remarked. "You look away for just a minute and – " She shook her head sadly.
"Very smooth, very practiced," Lewis observed. "I assume the local police never connected the abductions."
"You are right about that," Garcia told her. "Due to the time and distance involved no one ever noticed."
"And, again, all the victims look like they belong to the same family," Reid pointed out. "One containing genes for brown hair and lighter colored eyes than Hotch's gene group."
"I would assume that the next group is the same story," Morgan said, nodding towards the screen.
"You would be right," Garcia highlighted the next group to the right. "These individuals were abducted about a year ago from the general area of Brighton Beach, New York. Due to the presence of the Russian Mafia in that area, most of them were written off as warnings being sent to uncooperative individuals."
"Even the children who disappeared?" Lewis asked, shocked.
"Especially the children," Rossi told her. "Those aren't nice people. However, - " he looked at Garcia.
"On this occasion, I don't think the Russian Mafia was involved," she clarified. "I think it was our unsub or group of unsubs – That is if you want to call them 'Ours'."
"Besides, I would assume that the bodies were never found," Rossi continued. "And, with a mob hit, a major part of it is leaving the bodies where they can be easily found so they will send the intended message."
"Whoever this is, they just added a blond haired, blue eyed, family to their collection," JJ observed. "I am surprised that they haven't taken a family of color yet."
"Not that I have found," Garcia replied. "However, I am still looking."
"There is one thing," Reid said thoughtfully. "The locations these people were taken from. They are all on the Atlantic Seaboard."
"What are you thinking?" Rossi asked.
"How difficult would it be to load these people onto a boat and take them to one of the Caribbean islands?" Reid asked. "There are well over 700 of them and I know that many of those are supposedly uninhabited. Plus, you have to take into consideration that there are numerous islands which are part of the various island countries of the broadly defined Caribbean region, and that some continental countries also have islands in the Caribbean. And that, of course, includes the U.S." He stopped to catch is breath and look around the table.
"That would account for there not being any abductees of color," Lewis spoke up. "The people who live on those islands would provide that family group."
"Who would know if there were people disappearing from the islands?" Morgan asked. "That's a huge area out there in the ocean and it involves numerous countries with their various police forces."
"I think I might know someone," Rossi said as he stood up and took out his cell phone. "Let me call Jack Garrett and see if any of his contacts in the area may have heard something." He walked out of the conference room.
"So, these abductions go back approximately two years," Lewis said thoughtfully.
"I wish," Garcia pushed a button on her computer and suddenly the screen was covered with pictures of people.
"All of these people?" JJ questioned shocked.
"And I only went back about twenty years," Garcia explained sadly. "But, whoever this is, they keep to a strict schedule in a set area - One group of abductions every six months on the Atlantic Seaboard. That is, of course, assuming that the longer stretches involve people being taken from various Caribbean islands."
"And they were never connected because of the size of this unsub's hunting grounds," Morgan observed.
"Well, they have been connected now," Garcia declared heatedly. "So, come on crime solvers, let's go out and catch this guy! We need to get Boss Man back!"
"Well, Jack couldn't tell me anything definite," Rossi said as he walked back into the conference room. "However, he did assure me that he will be talking to his contacts, as well as keeping his eyes and ears open for any evidence of this unsub."
He stopped and stared at the flat screen. "All missing?" he croaked in amazement.
"All," Reid assured him. "And, I'm beginning to think that there is a sizeable group behind all these abductions. This appears to be a team effort."
"That would account for how the men are being overpowered," Morgan observed thoughtfully. "Some of them appear to be in pretty good shape."
"As well as some of the women," JJ added. "A mother will definitely fight back when her child is being threatened."
"So, we have a group of unsubs," Lewis summarized. "What do we know about the dynamics of a group like this?"