Here Comes the Cavalry

"Our behavior is different….If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost, just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price."
~Robert A. Heinlein.

February 2015. Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Let me be clear on this—it's not the fact that you plagiarized. It's how badly you executed the plagiarism," Alex Blake leaned forward, as if to emphasize how the snafu had physically affected her. She kept her gaze locked onto the student seated in her office, easily tossing the term paper back towards him. "It's one thing to rip off an entire article and hope the professor doesn't notice. It's another thing completely to rip off an entire article that the professor wrote herself and still expect her not to notice."

Now the student understood. He sat back, fully aware of just how stupid his mistake had been.

"Yeah," Alex nodded towards him. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize my own work?"

He was smart enough not to respond.

She continued, sitting back in her chair and cocking her head to the side, "Also, the article I wrote was a review of the book on the concept, not a review of the technique itself. That's not the same thing. This whole paper is just one big hot mess."

He'd accepted defeat. He was staring at his paper with a lifeless expression.

"Look, I'm not going to report you to Academic Affairs," she informed him. He snapped out of his daze, the first glimmer of hope in his eyes. Really, he was a bright kid who'd made a stupid mistake—she was pretty sure that having him kicked out of school wasn't the best solution. "What I am going to do is give you back this paper and give you a twenty-four hour extension. Bring me back something that's actually your own work."

The alarm was evident on his face, and he broke his silence, "But….I can't write an entire paper in twenty-four hours—"

"In all fairness, you had an entire six weeks to write the paper, just like the rest of your classmates," she held open her hands. "And that's twenty-four hours more than I should have given you. So if I were you, I'd get to work. The clock starts now."

He hurriedly gathered his things, mumbling something that could be interpreted as both gratitude and irritation before exiting her office.

With a sigh, Alex Blake leaned back in her desk chair, looking up at the ceiling in mild despair.

She could hear snickering from across the hall.

"Shut up, Cheryl," she intoned flatly.

"I didn't say a word," Dr. Cheryl Black, professor of Folklore and Mythology, returned easily from her own office, whose door was a mere five feet from Alex's own. Office space was, as with most colleges, at a premium, and the alcove that Alex had landed in housed an eclectic collection of professors from various points on the arts and sciences scale. There were five offices, two on each side of the small hallway, with one at the end. The end office held a professor of Medieval Latin, the one adjacent to Alex's held a non-doctorate lecturer on Germanic languages and literatures, and the office opposite that one held an anthropologist. Needless to say, when the five of them were all present, some very interesting discussions could be had, usually tossed out into the hallway from their respective offices as they kept themselves busy answering emails or grading papers or planning lectures. It was detached, yet involved—an odd combination that Alex Blake found comforting. Not nearly as tight-knit as her former team at the BAU had been, but still filled with a quiet academic camaraderie that had always felt like home to her.

"You were nicer about it than I would have been," another voice chimed in. Wry and reedy and easily recognizable with its unique cadence, compliments of the Republic of Georgia. So Dr. Aleksidze was back in his office—the anthropologist must have slipped in while she was lecturing her wayward plagiarist. Otherwise, he would have popped his head into her doorway, sing-songing his greetings and perhaps bearing some of his wife's baked goods, if she were lucky.

As if reading her mind, Cheryl piped up again, "Yo, Leks, you need to tell that wife of yours to make some more Gozinaki for your coworkers, whom you adore."

"That's only for New Year's. You'll have to wait another ten months."

"Tell her that we foolish Americans don't understand the difference."

"It's merely walnuts in honey—you could easily make it yourself."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't be as good as the kind your wife makes."

"True," Aleksidze's tone implied that he didn't have much faith in Cheryl's cooking skills. Alex grinned to herself as she swiveled her chair back towards her desk, taking another term paper from the stack on her desk.

Her colleagues continued their back-and-forth, and she got lost in the process of reading her student's work. Her cellphone rang a few minutes later, and she answered it without looking.

"Dr. Blake speaking."

"Alex, it's Aaron Hotchner."

"Hotch," she stopped what she was doing, sitting up straighter. Her brows quirked downward in concern. "Is everyone alright?"

She was asking because she'd seen the news reports, of course. However, Hotch couldn't help but wonder if she had a premonition about the call.

He quickly informed her of the injuries sustained by Garcia and JJ, not surprised by her immediate reactions of concern and empathy. By the time he got to Reid, she was on the verge of panic.

"Hotch, how could they even think that?" She got up and quickly went to close her office door. Whatever happened next, it didn't need to be observed or overheard by her colleagues.

"It's…complicated. And convoluted." Hotch answered hesitantly. She knew that he wasn't trying to be secretive, but was merely too tired to relay the entire story to her—and she silently wondered who else he'd told this to, how many times he'd given this information. She knew that she'd been given a simplified version of events, and the thought of all that she didn't know made for an unpleasant churning in her stomach. "But that's not why I'm calling, technically."

"What is it?" She felt a prickle of apprehension.

"The man who framed Reid—at least the one who was killed—seems to have had an obsession with the Amerithrax case."

"Oh, god," she sank back into her chair. "You don't think…"

"He was young when the case happened—still a teen. He wasn't an agent at the time, obviously."

"So, no Curtis-copycat coming back for revenge," she surmised.

"At least not for that," he corrected, and she understood that there must be some part of the profile that did point towards a man seeing retribution for some slight. "But the case has some eerie similarities to the Replicator case."

"What do you need me to do, Hotch? How can I help?"

"We need to figure out how this guy connects to the Amerithrax case, and how they both connect back to this current one. And how Spencer Reid could possibly get sucked into the mix. You're a profiler, as well as a firsthand witness to the Amerithrax case who also personally knows Spencer Reid—and most importantly, you're someone I can trust."

That was a compliment of the highest regard, coming from Aaron Hotchner. She ducked her head slightly, as if made shy by the honor. However, she quickly refocused on the more important detail, "There's something you're not telling me, Hotch."

"You're also outside the Bureau now. And that's a very important element."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. "Hotch…you're not…this particular vein of investigation—it's not on the books, is it?"

She knew the answer, even as she asked the question, and they both knew it. However, Hotch gave her the courtesy of answering, "No. As far as the Bureau is concerned, we're called off the case."

"I see." She glanced at her watch. Then she swiveled her chair towards her computer, pulling up a list of flights from Boston to D.C. "There's a flight leaving for D.C. in two hours. I'll be on it."

"You don't have to come down here." As with Emily Prentiss, Aaron Hotchner got the distinct feeling that he was fighting a losing battle.

"Hotch, I think we both know that I do. I'll see you soon."

Fairfax Medical Center. Washington, D.C.

"What time did you say this agent was admitted?" The security guard directed the question at Jonas Shostakovich, but his eyes remained on the computer in front of him, which was currently fast-forwarding through video footage from two days prior.

"Um…sometime around ten, ten-thirty," Jude answered, biting her bottom lip in apprehension.

"Look for when the steady stream of ambulances clears up a bit," Jonas instructed. "Agent Jareau had to be rescued from an elevator shaft—she was one of the last agents to be rescued, and would have been one of the last ones to arrive."

The security guard made a small noise of understanding. Then, he stopped fast-forwarding to let the footage play at a regular pace. It took a while, but eventually, a bus pulled up and a blonde woman on a stretcher was taken out of the back—followed by a long, lanky man.

"That's him," Jude nudged Jonas, who had already recognized Dr. Reid.

The doctors who'd been waiting for Agent Jareau whisked her away, and Reid followed close behind.

A paramedic stayed, cleaning out the back of the bus. Then he crouched down, scooping something from underneath one of the benches installed along the side of the wall.

"Pause it." Jonas commanded, and the security guard obliged. Then he directed his next question to Jude, "What's that look like to you?"

"I'd say it was a phone, if I had to guess," she answered, her voice lined with a sense of knowing. She looked over at her partner. "It's not really going to be that easy, is it?"

"Only one way to find out. Let's see what happens next," Jonas nodded towards the guard again, who pressed play.

The paramedic hurried into the building as well.

"He's probably returning the phone," the guard supplied. "Anything found in the bus that doesn't belong is assumed to be the patient's—it's usually added to the rest of their effects."

Now Jonas and Jude exchanged glances again.

"Well," Jude gave a slight sigh. "I think it's time to visit Agent Jareau again."

"Oh, absolutely not." Candace Mellinger gave one small, definitive shake of her head, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared down the two agents standing before her.

Agent Shostakovich tried to reason with her, "Dr. Mellinger, please let us explain—"

"And please let me be very clear—no way in hell are you going anywhere near my patient." Her face was a stern as her tone, and they understood that there'd be no bargaining with her on this point. "The last time y'all showed up, she ended up in surgery—again. Granted, that wasn't entirely your fault, but I doubt that will make you welcome visitors in her book, and right now, my job is to keep Jennifer Jareau as calm and peaceful as possible."

"And our job is to find the monster responsible for putting Jennifer Jareau in that hospital bed in the first place," Judith Eden shot back. Her words hit their mark, because Dr. Mellinger hesitated, for just a second.

"I'm sorry, I can't," she shook her head again. "Number one, I can't let you speak to her, and number two, I can't just hand over her personal property without her consent—so either wait until she's recovered enough to have visitors, or come back with a warrant."

"Something the matter, Doc?" William LaMontagne appeared, his face etched with concern. Candy didn't have to glance at her watch to know it must be the next round of visiting hours for ICU—the man was a punctual as the clock itself, ready to hold his wife's hand for the next hour, regardless of whether she was awake or asleep or in some drugged state in-between. It was touching, actually, the kind of thing that made Candy think that maybe all those old fairy tales about true love weren't really so far-fetched after all.

Like any good cop, he'd marked the two FBI agents from the moment he'd rounded the corner of the hallway—and given Dr. Mellinger's aggressive stance and particularly unhappy facial expression, he'd gotten the feeling that whatever was happening, it wasn't a pleasant situation.

"These two want to look through Jennifer's things." She gave a curt nod back towards Jonas and Jude.

"Technically, we just want to know if there was an extra cellphone found in her effects," Judith Eden kept her voice gentle, non-combative. Whoever this man was, he had a personal connection to Agent Jareau, she could tell by the way Dr. Mellinger confided in him. "It's crucial to the investigation."

"And I've been trying to tell them that they can't talk to Jennifer about it—nor can I just give them her things," Candy added.

"Well, I'm her husband," Will held out his hands, as if settling the matter. "I can go through her effects and see if the extra cellphone in question is actually there. And if it is, then I will ask JJ what she wants to do about it."

It was as good as they were gonna get, Jonas realized. So he merely nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Mr. Jareau."

"It's LaMontagne," Will corrected easily. "And don't thank me yet. I don't see why she would have somebody else's phone with her, and even if she did, my wife isn't always the most accommodating to people who threaten the ones she loves."

By now, he'd figured out who they were, and how they were connected to the case against Reid—he saw no reason to pretend otherwise. Shoot straight, his father had always said. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

He didn't wait for a response. He merely moved forward, holding the door to the ICU open for Dr. Mellinger.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't want them upsetting Jennifer," Candy waited until the door was fully closed behind them before she spoke.

"I understand completely, Doc. And I appreciate it. I think we can both agree that she's had enough stress to last ten lifetimes."

The doctor hummed in agreement.

JJ was awake this time. She smiled slightly at the sight of her husband. "What, no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle balloons for me today?"

He grinned at the reference, pulling a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket. "Got something even better than that. A one-of-a-kind Henry LaMontagne original."

He unfolded the paper for her, holding it up so that she didn't have to move her head to see it.

"Aw," she gave a slight laugh. Stick figures paraded across the page, decked out in what appeared to be Halloween costumes.

"It's us three, plus Uncle Spence," Will explained. "Trick-or-treating—as the turtles, of course."

"Of course," she repeated warmly, still amused that her son was planning his Halloween outing eight months in advance. Always the planner, that boy.

"Where d'ya want me to put it?" Will looked around, to the flowers and balloons and cards that he and Henry had brought on previous visits.

"There, front and center," she pointed to a place on the countertop, and he obliged.

Then he quietly went over to the chair in the corner of the room, where JJ's shoes and clothes had been tucked into a plastic bag.

"What're you doing?" she asked, her mouth turning downward in confusion as she watched her husband rummage through the bag.

"Well I'll be damned." He pulled his hand out of the bag, holding up two cellphones. "This one's yours…but whose is the other one?"

"I…don't know." Her voice was filled with confusion. "Maybe the paramedics accidentally put one of the other survivor's phone with me, thinking it was mine? We all got pretty thrown around in the crash."

He didn't tell her that two agents were outside, looking for this phone in particular. Instead, he simply asked, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Turn it on."

He tried. "Can't. Battery's dead."

"Did you have a charger in your car?"

"I do, but it won't fit this type of phone." Hazarding his next question, he asked, "Should I turn it over to the authorities?"

God help him, his wife was too smart sometimes. He saw the moment she clicked the puzzle pieces together.

"How'd you know to look for it, Will?"

"I didn't. I was just looking."

"But why? Why were you suddenly concerned with what was in my personal effects?"

The jig, as they say, was up. Denial would only further upset his wife, and the whole purpose of him finding the phone instead of having the agents come in with a warrant was to prevent upsetting JJ.

"Look," he gave a heavy sigh. "There are some agents out there who somehow knew that you had someone else's phone with you. It's pretty obvious that they somehow think it's connected to the case—"

"Let me see it," she held out her right hand, since her left was still bandaged. He gave her the phone, watching as she silently inspected it.

"This is Spence's phone," she pronounced.

"How do you know?"

"See here? That crack on the side? He dropped it down a flight of stairs last week. I remember teasing him about needing a new phone, and he was complaining that he'd just gotten this one figured out, so he didn't want a new one." Now she turned her scrutiny back to her husband. "Why do they want Spence's phone?"

"I don't know, JJ." A lie, pure and simple. Well, he didn't know for certain, but he could hazard a guess, seeing as Reid was currently being held as a suspect.

"Spence obviously doesn't know I have it—he would have asked for it yesterday," JJ pointed out. After a slight pause, she asked, "Did he mention anything about it this morning, when he stopped by?"

Ah, yes, another lie that Will had told—earlier, when he'd visited her, he'd told his wife that the entire team had been at the hospital, checking in on her progress and wishing her well.

"If he did, I missed it," Will rubbed the back of his neck. "Lack of sleep makes me less than sharp, ya know."

Her expression softened at the admission. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Lord knows, you aren't here because you want to be."

She grinned again at that statement—they both knew that much was true.

"Still," she set the phone in her lap, reaching for him again. He came to her side, easily slipping his hand into hers. "I know this hasn't been easy for you, and I'm sorry. Henry, my mom, all the other fallout from this case—you've got so much to handle, and I'm sorry that I can't help you more."

"Rest and recuperate—nothing in this world could help me more than having you back," he assured her, leaning forward to give her a light kiss.

"You're just saying that because you want my mom to hurry up and leave," she informed him drolly. He laughed in response.

"Sandy's an absolute angel."

"We are still taking about Sandy Jareau, right? My mother?"

"Hey, she raised a helluva woman, whom I happen to love like crazy. For that, I'll always be grateful."

"Laying it on a bit thick there, Mr. LaMontagne."

"You know me, babe—all or nothing."

She was shining now, her face filled with a smile and her eyes dancing—even bruised and bandaged, she was beautiful.

"Now," he scooped the phone out of her lap, holding it up for inspection. "Can I turn this over to the investigators?"

"I guess. But I want to make sure that Hotch knows what's going on. And Spence needs to know we found his phone."

It took everything Will had to keep his voice calm and nonchalant. "Oh, I'm pretty sure the other agents will let 'em know."

The Washington Daily Editorial Offices. Washington, D.C.

Karl Miramontz frowned as he glanced up at the clock on the wall for what had to be the twentieth time that morning—he didn't exactly keep a running mental tab on his coworkers, but he knew that this was late, for Linnea.

She still hadn't arrived. And he hadn't heard from her since yesterday afternoon, when she'd slipped out of the building to avoid the FBI agents and to meet with John Adams.

This didn't feel right. He called her cellphone, but there was no answer. He sent a text, then busied himself by knocking out a few fact-check requests that some of the other journalists had given him. After another half-hour had passed, he couldn't ignore the bad feeling growing in his veins.

He found Linnea Charles' home phone number in the personnel files, and gave it a call.

A man answered, "Hello?"

"Hello, this is Karl Miramontz, from The Daily. May I speak to Linnea?"

"She's not in right now."

"Any idea where she might be?"

"Didn't she tell you guys?"

You guys obviously meant the entire office.

"Well, she didn't tell me—I'm just the paper's researcher. I just had some facts and figures that she'd requested for her latest article." It was a lie, but Karl had no qualms about telling it. "She told me to call her as soon as I got them, but she's not answering her cell."

The man on the other end hesitated, then finally answered, "She's up at her grandmother's old house, outside the city. She does that, when she's writing a big piece on a deadline—holes up, cuts off contact."

"Cuts off contact? When was the last time you spoke to her?"

"Spoke, as in physically exchanged words? Yesterday afternoon. She called me to say that was her plan, but she had a few errands to run first. But we've been texting most of the morning. Perhaps you should just try that—whenever she gets into her writing space, she really doesn't take phone calls at all. Not even from me, and I'm her husband."

"Will do, sir. Thanks for your help." Karl didn't mention that he'd already tried texting Linnea. He also didn't mention that none of this felt right.

He tried one more text, and waited. Almost an hour passed with no response. He checked with their editor, who hadn't been aware of any plan of Linnea's to hole up on a writing spree (something he would have known, if it had been true—Linnea Donovan Charles often did disappear to knock out an article in solitude, but she was always very good about making sure everyone knew where she was). He went back to her desk in the bullpen, still in the same state of disarray as it had been when she'd left the previous afternoon. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was really paying attention to him, Karl began sifting through her desk, not looking for anything in particular, but regarding each item as a potential clue.

Her laptop stared back at him from the bottom drawer.

How was she holed up writing an article without her laptop?

He quickly logged into her computer (he shouldn't, but he'd memorized every person's login information—some hacker habits never truly die), and found her cloud drive. It was the paper's policy for journalists to back up their work to their own personal cloud, allowing them to access and continue their work from anywhere in the world.

Linnea hadn't edited any of the items in her cloud in over twenty-four hours.

Wherever she was, and whatever she was doing, Karl Miramontz was certain that she wasn't at her grandmother's house writing. Yesterday, she'd been dodging Federal Agents and today she'd gone MIA. That was never a good combination.

Time to call John Adams—the last person Linnea was supposed to have had contact with.

Adams was quick to help. "She told me that someone might call—I'm assuming she meant you."

"Perhaps. Did she say why she thought I would call?"

"I think you know why," Adams returned, not unkindly. "This is a dangerous business she's found herself in, and it never hurts to be overly cautious. Are you saying that she's missing?"

"No, not at all," Karl lied, again as quickly and easily as breathing. "She's just holed up on a writing spree, and annoying the life out of me by not responding. I've got a few questions to ask her, in order to clarify a source she's quoting in her article—and she can't finish writing her article until I fully vet the source, so looks like we're in a catch-22 until she deigns to return my call."

Adams gave a hum of understanding. Karl continued, "She didn't…leave any contact information with you, did she?"

John Adams wasn't a dull man. And he didn't pretend to be, either. "I get the feeling that there's more to this than you're telling me, Mr. Miramontz. But I know Linny isn't a fool, and if she's trusted you with this information, it means she thinks you are an honorable human being."

The implication wasn't lost on Karl—don't disappoint me by proving otherwise, son.

"She simply gave me a name and a number. She said if anything happened, this was the person to contact." There was a light sigh on the other end of the line, as if Mr. Adams still wasn't entirely convinced he should give out this information, but felt as if he had no choice.

Karl jotted down the name and number—it was a D.C. area code, which meant its owner had to be local. After thanking John Adams again and hanging up, Karl quickly looked into the contact—one Jordan Strauss, living in Vienna, Virginia. A young woman, attractive, apparently very active in the historical community, currently employed at the Women's History Museum in D.C.

What kind of connection could she possibly have to a bombing at the FBI?

Karl decided it was time to find out.

"If you see someone in trouble, you should help them."
~Veronica Roth.

*Author's Note: Fun fact—the incident between Alex Blake and her plagiarizing student is based on a true story. I have a friend who is a history professor. She once had her class write a short essay on "The King's Great Matter" (basically Henry VIII's inability to produce a legitimate male heir and his desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, for those who aren't familiar with that section of Western Civ). One student simply copied and pasted…a review that my friend had written of the book "The Other Boleyn Girl". Her biggest complaint was that the student obviously hadn't checked the byline of the review to realize its author.*