Thank you all for reading and reviewing the previous chapters, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story so far... so as promised here's a bit more
The phone was ringing. Emily briefly checked the time, 3 am; she was always half awake, never really asleep but still the unexpected call upset her. She got on her elbows and answered, "Wake up Emily!" Clyde's voice was jittery, judging by his breath he was running, but what most worried her was the fact he was using her real name.
"What happened?"
"Change of plans, we're are leaving now. Pack your staff, I'll be there in twenty minutes, no time for explanations"
After she hang up the phone she didn't lose time in conjectures, she hurried to the closet, grabbed her ready to go bag, put on some clothes and washed her face. That's how you do it. That's how a shadow looks like.
They didn't exchange a word on their way to the car, pacing fast but minding to look inconspicuous. Nobody has to notice you, nobody has to remember your face, dress not too bright and not too scruffy otherwise they will think you're either the femme nikita or a junkie.
Once in the car, the questions.
"What happened?"
"You're going back in now"
"I thought it was due next week"
"The situation changed"
Emily looked at Clyde, who slightly clenched his hands around the steering wheel and reluctantly started to explain, he didn't like to talk while he was driving. "Someone tipped off Doyle, he discovered the bluff and ambushed a team who was going to check one of his hiding places. He took hostages and now he's negotiating their release in exchange for the location of his son"
Emily shook her head biting her inferior lips, no matter what alter ego she was impersonating, some habits would never change; she opened her mouth but immediately aborted the thought, it was not the right time for the "I told you so" reprimand. She took a deep breath and asked instead "So, do we have a mole?"
"Apparently"
"How do we proceed?"
"We selected a restricted number of trustworthy agents, and moved the headquarter to a secure location, meanwhile another team is leading the negotiation"
"Do they know they are a diversion?"
"No"
It was risky but effective; the fewer people knew the truth, the better.
That sounded ironically familiar to her.
The atmosphere in the room was tense and eerie; three agents were in the hands of a psychopath who had nothing to lose and already killed one of their own.
Garcia was frantically draining information out of several databases, her hands literally flying over the keyboard. Reid was sitting at her side pressing a bag of ice on his temporal lobe, he almost laughed when JJ handed him an aspirin, had she known the kind of remedies he had to use in order to placate his headaches over the past months she would have probably opted for a pipe filled with opium. Instead he placed a feeble smile and swallowed the pill.
Hotch hanged up the phone and took JJ aside to share some confidential information; in the meanwhile Rossi entered the room, his left harm wrapped in a cast and an extensive bruise on his left cheek. The team gathered around him with gruesome expressions, not ready for further bad news "Seaver is fine" he reassured them "but she has a concussion and the doctors want to keep her under observation. How is he holding on?"
"Fine, as far as we know" Hotch answered "Garcia was able to enter the surveillance system of the place and we have a partial view on them" he carried on in his grave tone.
"Ok, what we've got?"
"As far as we know Doyle is in with other twelve men, two of them inside with him and the hostages and the other ten checking the perimeter. It shouldn't be hard to take them out but we can't risk the life of the agents."
"What do we know about the hostages?" Rossi asked again, trying his best not to freak out at the feeling of déjà vu he was sure they were all sharing.
"Three agents. Two of them were in the first car, and…"
"Morgan? They have Morgan and you tell me only now?" she hissed at him from her seat on the jet.
"Keep your temper for later, Emily. It's not my fault if your team decided to step in" he warned her "They were on their way to search one of Doyle's hiding places. Four member of the AT unit were driving the first car and your team was on the second. Doyle's men ambushed them, took the survivors from the first car and it would have been enough for them if Morgan hadn't tried to stop them. God only knows what he was hoping to accomplish" he commented frustrated raising his hands.
This was not Morgan. The Morgan she knew never gave up the fight, but also knew the difference between being heroic and being suicidal; the Morgan she knew didn't let things fall out of control; but this was not her Morgan, this was an angry, furious agent seeking revenge for a colleague and a friend killed by the man he was just about to catch.
She put her head in her hands, if something happened to him because he had tried to avenge her death she would have never forgiven herself.
Here it is how reality outperforms the nightmare.
"What is the situation with the other members of my team?" she asked.
My team, even if they didn't want her anymore she would have died again ten times in order to protect them.
"Seaver will be kept under observation, but she's fine. She just hasn't learnt to fight with the doctors the way you do. Rossi has a broken arm and Reid has a bump on his head, an aspirin or two and he'll be as good as new"
She thought back at Reid's confession about his headaches and reminded herself to take care of him, if he ever allowed her again.
"What about the hostages?" she then asked, panic transpiring in her voice.
"Two agents of the antiterrorism died in the ambush, the other two and Morgan are fine, apart from being tied to a chair with a gun pointed at their head"
Apart from being tied to a chair, guns pointed at their heads and a terrorist on the verge of the nervous breakdown who has nothing to lose. Awesome. "So we have eyes" she carried on trying to keep it together.
"Yes, they are in an abandoned warehouse. Apparently the previous owner installed surveillance cameras and never disconnected them"
"What did you tell them, about me I mean?" she finally found the courage to inquire.
"Agent Clyde Easter is in charge of the operation and right now he's on his way back from a safe location" Hotch explained to the task force gathered in the room.
"A safe location?" Reid asked voicing the perplexity of everybody there.
Two agents were down and other three were likely to follow soon unless they were able to provide a psychopathic terrorist with the location - unknown to all of them - of his son, to be used as cannon fodder in exchange for the life of the hostages, and the responsible of the operation vanished without explanation to go somewhere not to be known.
If the present situation rang a bell to the four profilers, they didn't show that.
For the first time in many years Hotch found himself short in words, he looked at his team, almost desperately, silently apologizing for all the sufferance he caused, but there was no time to dwell on these considerations, again one of his agents was in grave danger, again he was called to make a critical decision "Given the extreme nature of this situation and the fact that Doyle already escaped us once, we decided to bring in someone who can help us, someone who has unique information on Doyle and as far as we know one of the few who survived him" he felt a wave of self disgust clutching his throat as he saw the pain of old memories lingering on his team, "Considering our suspicions about the presence of a mole this time we took our precautions. The identity of the informant will be kept secret and only Agent Easter, Agent Jereau, me and my team will interact with him. I understand your frustration but we're are doing this for the best"
The five profilers held their breath while they were waiting in a separate room for the informant; Morgan's life depended upon the knowledge he could share with them, and they were ready to do everything that was necessary not to lose another friend.
Finally the door opened and a hooded figure was walked in by Clyde, they hadn't seen the Interpol agent since he helped them to find Emily and now the atmosphere wasn't less tense than during their previous encounter. Everybody looked at Clyde with anticipation, everybody but Reid, whose attention was drawn to the informant's hands, those massacred fingernails "It can be.." he murmured.
He looked at the figure while he slowly took a pace forward with begging eyes full of pain and hope, overwhelmed by the fear that he had finally gone crazy for even thinking something like that. His hands were shaking when he removed the hood and couldn't even mumble her name because of the tears getting to his throat and stealing oxygen, his mouth opening and closing like a fish with no sound, his body paralyzed. Rossi faltered as if a dagger was just planted in his heart and probably it wasn't far from the truth, Garcia needed some moments to regain awareness of her legs and run toward her friend, shaking with sobs.
Emily found herself rubbing the analyst back with one hand in the attempt to calm her, and squeezing Reid's arm with the other to make sure he was still blood and flesh and not suddenly turned into a salt sculpture, meanwhile exchanging a touched smile with Rossi and a knowing look with JJ and Hotch, as to tell them she knew the burden they carried for her and how grateful she was for that.
Penelope finally broke the embrace "How? How is it possible? You were dead, there was a funeral… Oh god Emily, I am so upset and angry and happy and desperate and I'm so packed with emotions that I'm going to explode"
"I know, and there are no words to tell you how sorry I am, guys" Emily tried to remember all the speeches she rehearsed during the past nine months, they all sounded lame and pointless, "I promise I will explain everything, answer your questions and disappear again if you're too upset to forgive me. But right now we have to focus on getting Morgan and the other two agents out of there; then I will finally plant a bullet in Doyle's head and this story will be over".
A heavy silence settled in the room after she voiced her intentions, her friends were looking at her with incredulous petrified expressions, a dreadful shared thought lingering in their minds, maybe after all the woman standing in front of them was really a ghost, briefly come back from the dead to accomplish her revenge and then fade again...
To be Continued...