Before six o'clock in the morning, all of the agents on the BAU team were in their offices or the bullpen, working. Garcia had managed to stream the feeds of the specific cells to their intended team member targets' computer screen. They all wanted to watch out for those poor kids that they had been worried about all last night. No case had ever stuck so quickly to them like this- the team all had their share of connections with victims and unsubs, but these kids were taken because of them because they were supposed to be them. The agents all felt like they were to blame for this.
This was the tension Strauss walked into when she entered the bullpen and into Hotch's office that next morning.
"Hotch, how early was your team in this morning?" she asked, noting the numerous boxes of kidnapping files littering his office.
"Reid, Garcia, and JJ were here when I arrived at quarter after 5, Morgan, Rossi, and Blake within a half an hour of me." Hotch replied.
"Have you made any progress in how to approach this case?" Strauss asked in an accusing tone.
"I was going to call a meeting to discuss our progress. You are invited to join if you wish." he said, standing up and grabbing a few files from his desk.
"Then I will sit in." Strauss said, moving towards the door.
Within two minutes, the entire BAU team, Strauss, and Garcia were in the conference room. Reid got up first to present his geographic profile of the unsub.
"What I found with the geographic profile is pretty huge actually. All the kids were actually taken on the same day, three days ago. The estimated times of disappearance all point to the unsub taking them one right after another, what I call the 'road trip' theory. The unsub started out in Milford, Delaware, were Carter lives, then went to Georgetown, New York, Providence, Boston, and finally to Bradford, Pennsylvania. This trip was structured to look like a 'z' on the map. This gives us several clues about the unsub. He doesn't have an accomplice, or else he would have broken up the kidnappings and had the accomplice watch the victims. He also has planned this way in advanced to plan out the route, places, and times of abductions. He also has a vehicle that can transport seven unconscious teenagers without getting to much attention on the toll roads between sites. He knows us, and what we would figure out through tracking his day like this. He wants us to figure this out. He made it to easy. It seems like he wants us to find him, but he still believes in his job to accomplish."
"He wants us to go after the kids as bait so he can get to us." Morgan inferred.
"That's what it looks like." replied Reid.
"He's planned this all so much. If he wants us to find him, he'll make it so that we can't find him until he wants us too." Blake added.
"We should get to Bradford as soon as possible. But first, has anyone else found anything pertaining to the case yet?" asked Hotch.
He was met with silence. "Alright. Wheels up in..." he was cut off by a noise coming from Garcia's laptop. She had been streaming all the cells' live feeds to her laptop to keep an eye on the kids. The team rushed over to he laptop and stared at the screen. The kids were all awake. They had been for about an hour, but there was no sign of the unsub. But the sound they heard wasn't coming from the cells since there was nothing new going on. Instead, the sound was notifications coming up on Garcia's database. New kidnappings. All in the last 24 hours.
Garcia and the rest of the team raced to her lair where they began to read the new missing person files coming in.
Emma Rees. Claira Micks. Denise Barron. Kiers Marten.
"Who are these kids? Do they have any connection to the case?" JJ asked.
Garcia went straight to work, pulling up everything on these kids she could find. As she was ransacking every database in the world, the once dead eighth screen the unsub had hacked came to life again.
"All set." he said before the screen went dark again.
"These new kids definitely have connections to the first victims." Garcia announced. "Emma Rees is a student at BU studying theater and also is the ex-girlfriend of Marcus Kalser." Hotch put his face in his hands. The ex. Of the boy made to mimic him.
"Claira Micks is a student at Columbia who was engaged to Grant Florent in high school before she lost the baby they were going to get married for, after they split up." Rossi was thinking about Carolyn. But she had committed suicide. Maybe the unsub didn't care that much about how, as long as what was achieved.
"Denise Barron is Melissa Barron's older sister. Dropped out of college, checked into a mental health facility for depression many times, but living at home now." JJ took in a breath. She knew what happened to her own older sister.
"Kiers Marten is a student at St. Andrew's at home on break. He's Ellen Casey's boyfriend." Blake wondered about her own husband. Nothing had happened to him or them together. Yet.
"We need to get there now. Wheels up in twenty, pack for a while though. This unsub is organized and has a plan, however long that might last." Hotch said hurriedly.
The agents rushed to pack and get to the airport. The game had started.
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