The Conspiracy
Chapter 6
Search

"Love and friendship are qualities to be admired and sought after above all others." ANON

There was no sound in the mine shaft. Only silence where the echoes of the gunshot faded, leaving nothing in its wake. It was pain that brought Hotch back into consciousness. The bullet had hit him in the side of his right hip, and his right leg was numb. Somewhere in his lower abdomen, the bullet nestled, and every movement Aaron made reminded him of this fact.

He slowly turned onto his front. The pain shot through him as he crawled in the dark to where he thought Reid was, dragging his useless leg behind him.

'Reid....Reid, are you hit?' he asked, reaching his hands out in front of him in a wide arc, searching for his friend.

Reid didn't answer. When Aaron made contact with him, it was warm sticky blood that he touched. He dragged himself closer, fighting off the dizziness that threatened to send him back into oblivion. He ran his hands over the face of the man lying in front of him, looking for signs of life, any movement that would show him that he was still alive.

The blood was on his left upper chest. Aaron carefully felt around Reid's back and found the exit wound.

'Spencer, please wake up.' Aaron urged his friend. 'Please.....'

Aaron was afraid to move him without seeing the extent of his injuries. His own wound was making him feel lightheaded and he wanted to vomit, and the blackness un nerved him to the extent that he couldn't think straight. He tried to work out why they had been shot. He could understand shoot to kill, but shoot to wound was pointless.

Spencer felt hot and sweaty, and his hair was stuck to his face. Aaron pushed it off his eyes and mouth. As he did so he felt a movement, and he noted with relief that Spencer was breathing. His own leg was without feeling and he thought that he had nerve damage. His mind ran away from him as he imagined working without his leg, and he finally threw up into the darkness. He leaned forward on his hands, and his broken hand screamed at him and he fell onto his elbow.

His stomach retched over and over, and his cracked ribs ground together as his body heaved. When it was over he collapsed back onto the hard floor and tears of pain and even fear flowed from his dark eyes.

'Spencer, Dave, I'm sorry I did not protect you.' he cried out loud. Suddenly his fingertips were in contact with Spencer's, and the two men held hands, each gaining strength from the other.

-0-0-0-

Dave was asleep when the knock came at the door of Chita's little house. Morgan and Emily showed their ID to the Mexican woman, and she stepped back at once to let them enter.

'Mr Rossi is asleep, but I'm sure he won't mind you waking him up.' she smiled. She was relieved that they had come, and surprised they were so quick. She led them through to the bedroom where Dave was lying. Emily went to the bedside.

'Rossi, Wake up!' She gently shook him and he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

'Thank goodness you are here.' he said. 'There is a conspiracy in the town. I've been shot and Reid and Hotch have been abducted. I haven't been able to do anything. You need to get onto it right away, Before Hotch or Reid are hurt, and before any more children are kidnapped.'

'Hey hey hey slow down, man.' Morgan put his hand out to Dave as he tried to get out of bed. 'Start at the beginning.'

Dave lay back down on the bed with a sigh. 'Ok. Ask Chita to come in. She's a witness, and will tell you part of the story.'

-0-0-0-

'The first thing we need to do, Dave, is to find Hotch and Reid.' Morgan said. 'They are in immediate danger.'

'Ana can show you the direction they took with Hotch.' Dave said. 'I assume that Reid will be in the same place. That might just be quicker than interrogating the UnSubs.'

Morgan and Emily followed Ana outside to his truck where their car was also parked.

'I can take you so far, but then the tracks were lost in a sand storm. But they were travelling in a fairly straight line.' Ana said, climbing into his vehicle.

Morgan got into the driving seat of the hire car, and Emily sat beside him. They waited until Ana had driven a few hundred feet in front to avoid the dust, and then Morgan pulled away and followed him.

Ana drove fast over the terrain and it was all Morgan could do to keep up. The young man knew the wilderness like the back of his hand and avoided the mounds and potholes that Morgan managed to hit every time. He regretted not getting a four by four almost as soon as they left the farm. Emily put her hands on her head when it hit the roof of the car for the third time. Morgan glanced at her, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, but she didn't say anything.

When finally Ana stopped his truck after driving some miles in a virtually straight line, Morgan pulled up next to him.

'This is as far as I got.' Ana said. 'I assume the place they were taking your friend is in a straight line from here. How will you find the place?'

'We have a magic fairy at our disposal.' said Morgan, opening his cell, and hoping there would be service.

There was.

'Garcia, Angel Babe!' he said as she answered the phone. 'Need your help, Sweetheart.'

'Anything for you Honey.' she answered, and Morgan allowed himself a brief grin.

'Have you got our location?' he asked. She answered yes. 'I need you to extrapolate our journey. Somewhere on that line should be the place where Hotch and Reid are being held. Think you can find it for us?'

He imagined her smile. Of course she could!

Garcia looked at the area extrapolated from the line of Morgan's short journey. There were no villages along the way, and no buildings on the satellite image, but what there were, were gold mines – disused and abandoned. She called Morgan back as she marked them on her map ready to send to him.

'I think they are in an old abandoned gold mine. There are six along the route that the car probably took them. I'm sending a map now with them marked on.'

Emily opened her PDA and received the map. Morgan closed his phone, and Ana came to look over their shoulders at the bright red dots that marked the positions of the disused gold mines.

'I know where these are.' Ana said. 'I can take you to them.'

'We need to hurry, Ana.' Emily said. 'Hotch and Reid are in serious danger.'

-0-0-0-

Aaron crawled painfully closer to Reid's side. He was cold, and hoped that they could share body warmth. The severe pain of his leg and hip had changed into a sickening low throbbing ache, and he fought to control his nausea. Reid wasn't moving now, and Aaron tried to feel if he was breathing. If he was then his respiration was intermittent and shallow. He pressed a shaking hand to his neck and felt for a pulse. He found one, and thanked his long neglected God.

He wrapped himself the best that he could around his colleague. Ok, he wasn't able to protect this team member from being shot, at least he could try to keep him warm.

Which was more than he did for Dave. His stomach knotted as he remembered watching his closest and best friend fall to his death.

He hadn't had a chance to think about the fact that he had lost him. He wanted to grieve but it felt unreal to him. Almost as soon as he had fallen, the UnSubs had beaten him and transported him to here – where ever 'here' was.

He assumed that he had been transported by car – he could smell motor oil and exhaust fumes on his clothes. But he had no idea of the duration of the journey. He couldn't see how they would be found. How long would it be until Morgan realised that his cell was switched off? If he was still on the other case, he thought it could be days, and he didn't think either of them had days.

He sighed a shaky sigh and hugged Reid closer. He hoped that soon he would fall unconscious and bleed out peacefully before he died of starvation or thirst.

-0-0-0-

'This is the first one on your map.' Ana said. Emily and Morgan got off Ana's truck.

The three of them stood at the head of the shaft and Morgan shone his flash light into the hole. There were no buildings, and no safety barriers, just a rotten wooden ladder disappearing into blackness. Morgan shouted Hotch and Reid's names into the hole, and listened as his voice echoed in the miles of tunnels below him. Emily thought for the first time that they had no idea how they were going to conduct the search. She called too, but there was no answer.

'They could be unconscious or.....' she said to Morgan.

Morgan inclined his head slightly. 'Let's check out the ladder. Then at least we will be able to tell if it has been used lately.

He leaned over the edge and pulled at the top rung. It didn't take very much effort to pull the rung off in his hand. He reached down to the next one, and got the same result.

'No one has been down here in a long time.' Morgan said.

'Where's the next one, Ana?' asked Emily, already heading back to the car, praying that their assumption was right. Emily rarely second guessed herself. But two colleagues' lives were at stake here, one of those lives she was particularly fond of. They had to get this right. A mistake now and they could lose them.

Ana got into his truck, Morgan and Emily sat in the front beside him. The sat wordlessly as Ana's truck bounced across the landscape. Emily and Morgan were both thinking the same thing – what if they were wrong.........

-0-0-0-

The rats were out. Aaron felt one scuttle across him, and nip at his wound. It didn't hurt – his lower body was numb now, but the thought of what would happen should he pass out brought a wave of nausea. He released Reid and rolled away from him. Resting on his elbows, he threw up again, the wrenching waves bringing tears to his eyes.

oh god......... oh god.........

He clutched at his rib cage, trying to hold his broken bones together, only succeeding in hurting himself more.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and rubbed at his tear filled eyes. Then he moved back to Reid again.

'Are you still with me, Spencer?' he whispered, almost as if the silence and darkness mustn't be broken. 'Are you still with me?'

He put his arms around him and drew him close, swiping at the creatures that were crawling over Reid's prone body.

He was now determined to remain conscious as long as possible. He needed to keep the rats away from Spencer.

-0-0-0-

Emily leaned over the edge of the second mine shaft and pulled at the rung. This time the wood stayed put. And the next one.

'They could have used this one.' she said to Morgan, who was shining his flash light down the shaft on the ladder. The landing was about fifty feet down.

'Reid! Hotch!' he called. As before there was no answer, but it didn't mean that they weren't there.

'Let's look.' he said, and he swung down onto the rungs of the old ladder. He hung on tightly just in case they wouldn't take his weight. With his flash light held firmly in his teeth, he began the slow climb down into the darkness.

Ana went to follow him, but Emily stopped him.

'No, Ana. You stay up here. This is where we need you.'

Emily followed Morgan into the mine shaft, wondering if this was where they would find Hotch and Reid......

.....and wondering if this was a rescue or a body retrieval.