Chapter 2- Our Lady of Esperanza
They pulled into the station house and Reid could smell pancakes from the car. He loved pancakes. His stomach betrayed him and growled so loudly Sophia turned and smirked as she said "Hope you like pancakes sausage and steak ranchero Dr. Reid." He was so embarrassed by the involuntary noise that he just smiled back; he noticed she didn't stop smiling at him. They entered the conference room with the rest of the team already chowing down. "Agent Segura, I like your style." Morgan said appreciatively of the spread that had been arranged with the pile of files of missing women.
"Agent Segura?" the same fresh faced uniform that had called her to the step last night was waiting for her when she came in. "Officer Barry, what's up?" She could tell by the look in his eyes that it was nothing short of terrible news. "Another woman was attacked last night; she's at Valley Medical right now." "She's alive?" she couldn't believe their good luck. "Why didn't you call me? A la chingada!" She burst into the conference room. "SSA Hotchner can I borrow your female agents? We have a live victim and we might be able to get more out of her if there aren't too many males present." Hotch looked at Reid and said "Take Reid with you too, he has a way with people." The whole team looked at Hotch like he'd lost his mind, including Reid. "Come on Dr. Reid I could use your expertise on victimology too."
JJ, Prentiss, Sophia and Reid all headed out to the suburban. Sophia jumped into the driver's seat, oblivious to JJ and Prentiss hatching a blot to sit in back together. "It's okay Reid, Emily and I will ride in back, take shotgun, so you and Sophie can figure out your strategy for the interview." JJ had an almost devilish grin on her face, she knew! How could she possibly know? He was being paranoid.
They all buckled in and soon were what can only be described as careening down the freeway toward Valley Medical which was a good 15 minutes away by freeway unless you were Sophie. As she hopped on 280 North, Sophie asked Reid "What are the important factors here, what is it we want to know? These women are by culture extremely private and by nature don't talk to the cops." Reid found himself staring at her again; she had an intensity to her that scared and intrigued him at the same time. "Well beyond a physical description, we'll need to know if he said anything, what did he smell like, what was she doing before she was attacked, does she know of anyone who would want to hurt her, we're going to have to know everything about her, I think it would be best if I stayed in the background and let you do the talking." He blushed in an almost school boy way when he breathed out the last sentence. Sophie nodded her head. "This guy is really starting to piss me off." Reid looked back at JJ and Emily and knew all three were thinking the same thing; Sophia Segura is not someone you want pissed at you.
Less than 8 harrowing break neck minutes later, Reid had checked his watch they were parking in the Valley Medical parking lot. "She's in ICU, it's through this door and upstairs. I gave strict instructions to not let her leave until we got here." Sophie charged up the walkway and to the large medical elevators. Reid could tell she was really taking this personally, he knew what it was like for an unsub to try and mess with your head by singling out an agent, he had been there.
The ICU was like so many others around the country, he wondered if they made them this uninviting on purpose, the air of trauma was everywhere. A nurse tried to stop them, Sophie took the lead, flashed her badge said something in Spanish to the woman and without a word she lead them to Esperanza Montega's room. Reid caught up with Sophie, "What did you say to her? She looks terrified." Reid whispered under his breath.
"I just let her know that obstruction of justice carries a ten year sentence." Sophie flashed him one of those smiles that made him feel like he was the only one in the room.
Esperanza was laying there in bed, surrounded by her husband and brother. "Seniora Montega?" Sophie approached the sick bed respectfully and quietly, her whole demeanor had changed into one of solemnity. "Pudemos a pregunta te…?" She never let Sophie finish. "Yes, Agent I can answer any of your questions. But I don't know how much help I'll be." The Mexican national spoke in quiet clipped but perfect English. Reid stepped out of the background. "Mrs. Montega, can you tell us anything about the man who did this to you? Did he say anything, or do you remember anyone hanging around before you got off work?"
"I remember I got off work late because we had so much to do, with the conference. The National Conference of Hispanic Women, this is the first time I'd been in charge, I remember leaving through the service entrance to get to my car, I park in the lot on that side. I felt someone walking behind me, but so many maintenance people get off at that time, I was worried about if my kids had eaten dinner. He had grabbed me before I knew what was going on. He was white, he had a shaved head. I didn't see him pull out the knife but I felt the sharp point, right after he stabbed me he said.." She was having a hard time concentrating. Tears started to well up in her eyes. To everyone's surprise Reid reached out and held her hand. "It's okay Mrs. Montega, what did he say?" She looked up at him; "He said, 'I'm just sending you back where you belong.' And then everything went dark. They told me that a security guard was making his rounds and saw me lying there while someone ran away, he stopped to help me, he knew CPR, if he had chased him I wouldn't be alive."
The whole room went silent. Sophie was having a hard time suppressing her rage; this guy knew how to push her buttons. JJ saw the effort Sophie was putting into her composure. "Mrs. Montega, we mean no disrespect but we have to know are you in this country illegally? Or are any of your family members here illegally? We only ask because this man seems to be targeting women who are undocumented workers working at hotels in the area."
JJ didn't know how this was going to be received but Esperanza Montega was used to this question like so many like her are. "My family came here to escape the poverty and corruption that runs rampant in Mexico City, we crossed the border in a truck filled with a hundred other people all packed in like sardines. We got to this country and worked the fields that grow your food, we took any job no matter how hard or dirty it was, we slept under bridges, in churches and shelters until we could afford a one room apartment. We sent our children to school, started paying taxes on our paychecks, and as soon as we found the La Raza community center we started applying for citizenship, taking the classes to learn English, after three years of saving we finally got our papers last year. I had been working at the hotel when I was promoted from maintenance to events planner." Sophie almost lost it, this son of a bitch had attacked someone who had done everything to try to make it right, a family who wanted nothing more than to come here and be productive members of society and he was pissed because they didn't arrive in this country on a ship named after a damn plant.
Reid brought Sophie out of her rosary of hatred for the man who'd done this. "Community center? They helped people get their citizenship there?" Reid said it more as a statement.
"Yes, they have an immigration attorney who volunteers there. He discounts the price for members of the community center." Mrs. Montega looked in the doorway, her sister had just arrived, she looked confused upon entering the room. Reid went on "Did you maybe know any of the other women, Maria Munoz, Helena Gomez or Maricella Lopez? Do any of those names sound familiar to you?" His mind was working over time, social network analysis equations were formulating, while he listened.
"There are so many of us that go through there Agent." Mrs. Montega turned to her sister, "Yolanda, are the kids with you?" the woman's face went sheet white. "They're not with you? They're not here?" Her sister now looked more panicked than ever. "What do you mean, que dices Dolores?" Mrs. Montega was now even more panic stricken than her sister. "A man came to the door, he had on a police mans uniform, he said he would take Veronica and Abel to the hospital, that I needed to wait at the house in case a detective came by to ask me questions. He said he would take them here." Dolores looked to the agents for confirmation and went even paler when none of them responded.
Reid grabbed his phone and called Hotch. "Did SJPD send a patrol car to pick up Esperanza Montega's kids?"
"Garcia just tracked down her address, no patrols have been sent yet. Why, what's going on Reid?" Hotch knew the calm panic of Spencer Reid too well.
"Someone picked up the kids a boy and girl from the aunt's house, someone in uniform, they told her to stay put, that a detective was on their way and they were taking the kids here to the hospital."
"I'll have SJPD send a squad car to the aunt's house, have Agent Segura relay the address to the locals." Hotch's heart dropped, now there were missing kids too.
Reid immediately dialed Garcia.
"You've reached the Oracle of truth, speak and be heard boy wonder."
"Garcia I need you to look into La Raza community center, see if the other victims had a connection to it, that's where the Montegas went for help when they got into the country maybe the other families did too. And also I'm going to need anyone in the past year who's been picked up for hate crime including vandalism. And Garcia, they may have abducted the victim's kids." He waited for while he heard the tell tale sounds of keys clicking.
"Kids, they took her kids? Why would they want to do that? I thought this was about a racial thing?" Garcia's voice quavered for a moment. "You will be interested to know that as ignorant as our Hitler worshipping skells are, they are nothing if not techno savvy. I figured out how they were invisible on camera, they used Stingray technology. But this isn't something you can get at Radioshack, this is military grade stuff. It's basically a laser that overwhelms the digital sensor in the camera; they're referred to as "dazzlers".
"Dazzlers? Could they be made by enhancing the magnification of a normal laser pointer?" Reid was worried; could they be dealing with something bigger here?
"That's why I love you Reid, always ahead of the curve. One skeeziod yearbook coming up, info was just sent to all your pda's., I've eliminated those already in prison, or arrested at the time of the murder and anyone not living in the area, down to 12 nasty racists. Hey Reid?"
"Yeah Garcia?"
She likes you, ya know." Garcia's smirk could be felt across the vast expanse of land that separated them. Without Reid saying a word in response she added "JJ says she's single and is like HUGE Star Trek fan, you might just have found your soul mate boy genius, Garcia out." She had hung up before he could stammer a denial.
True to her word a photo array of suspects was arriving in his inbox. He went back in to the hospital room hoping that this guy was in here, because if he wasn't they had no leads, no names and he had two kids and possibly more and Reid could only imagine (as much as he tried not to) the terrifying ordeal they were going through right now.
"Mrs. Montega can I show you some pictures and just tell me if the man who attacked you is in any of these, he may not be, if you don't recognize any of them, that's okay too." Reid having a PHD in mathematics knew that if you put six pictures in front of someone and asked them to pick out someone they recognized, they would statistically pick out someone who seemed familiar but whom they really didn't know, giving false positives about 12% of the time, this is what made eye witness testimony less than completely reliable.
Reid was just thinking of how much this woman had endured, a man had stabbed her and left her for dead and here she was, now tormented over the loss of her children. "Him, number 6, number 6! Those eyes, he had that scar above his eyebrow, a half moon shape, before I passed out I remember seeing him look down on me, and I remember thinking that someone must have punched him with a ring on a long time ago." She had not hesitated for a moment. "Does he have my children?" She looked desperately from one agent to another. "We don't know that for sure ma'am, but we are going to do everything to find them." Prentiss tried to reassure her.
Reid stepped out and called Garcia to relay the name, Daniel Blaine, "This skinhead is a three time loser, assault, vandalism, methamphetamine possession with intent to sell. He belongs to an "organization" which is code for gang that calls themselves "The Order of California White Knights. I've sent his last known to the team and the locals; they're on their way to pick him up." Reid walked back into the room.
"Mrs. Montega, this is my number, I'll call you as soon as I have any word on Abel and Victoria. We're going to get them back, estoy segura." Sophie meant it; she would find those kids no matter if she had to turn heaven and hell over. "I believe you mija, I do, just bring them back to me safe and sound." They left the hospital room and Sophie had to stop herself from punching the concrete wall, Reid could see how frustrated she was. "If we don't find those kids in the next 24 hours, we won't be brining them home safe, if ever. We need to put out an amber alert."
Sophie picked up her cell to make the call but Reid put his hand on hers, electricity flew through both their spines at the contact. "That might not be the best idea." She looked at him and opened her mouth to let out a long string of what would surely be Spanish curse words, but he headed her off "Just hear me out, if we put out the alert on Victoria and Abel, then the people who have her might panic and kill them just to avoid detection, it's hard traveling with kids, we don't have a vehicle make or model to BOLO and we don't know why the took them, I mean why take the kids? It doesn't make sense for a "street cleaner" personality." He said all this very fast because he knew at any moment her fury at this case would be turned on him, she would think he was being insensitive, but instead she surprised him and went from furious to pensive.
"This guy thinks he's actually doing the world a favor, he's a racist, he thinks he's cleaning house. He wouldn't take the kids; he wouldn't take the time, so either..." Reid finished her thought "He's being directed by someone else or has some interest in keeping them alive." JJ and Prentiss gave each other that "oh boy" look you give your friend when you know the two people in front of you are perfect for each other and neither one of them realizes or believes that the other could be interested. Reid's phone rang, "Hotch did they find Blaine?"
"He's in custody, and he's refusing to speak to anyone but Agent Segura. Although he has a more colorful name for her. I don't think she should go in alone, I want you to sit in on this one, just in case things get to heated in there, I want her to push his buttons and you figure out how to open the right doors from there. And Reid I don't think I need to tell you that he's our best shot at finding those kids." Sophie had made the most illegal u-turn in history, lights and siren blaring as the suburban's engine roared toward the station house.
Sophie didn't speak one word on the stressful drive back to the station house, Reid braved the silence once they arrived out front (Sophie hadn't bothered to park, she'd just jumped out.) "Dr. Segura, we need to come up with a plan, we have to figure this guy out." Reid looked at her feeling as though he was two inches tall when she looked at him even though he probably had a foot and half on the small woman. Sophie hadn't realized her hands were balled into fists since she jumped out of the SUV.
She turned to Reid, "You're absolutely right. We need a plan and I need to get my head on. I'm going to need your help on this one." As she said this she walked closer to him, she was so close now she was looking up at him. He could feel the warmth emanating off her body and wanted to reach out and hold her close to him, she was looking into him and he returned the favor, for the first time he saw a tiny flicker of fear behind her smoky gaze. Their silent exchange was interrupted; Hotch came down the front steps of the station house. "Agent Segura, we're ready to give the profile, you'll need it in there. Agent Reid will sit second chair in the interview; he can pick up on linguistic cues from Blaine, maybe figure out a key to his motivations here." Hotch looked at her and then at Reid. He flashed back to when he met Haley and smiled to himself as they both walked up the stairs neither one of them sure of what would happen next.
"This man is a white supremacist through and through, he believes that people of mixed heritage are unworthy to live, he has no remorse for the murders he's committed, he is someone who gets off on degradation, which is why he rapes the women post mortem, which means he is also sexually inept, he must maintain complete control of his victims, he wants to control this interview, he knows we need to know where the children are and you can be absolutely sure, he will try to save his own skin." Morgan said all this with the distaste of someone who's been on the receiving end of racism one too many times.
"Dr. Reid, Just do me one favor?" Sophie looked at him pleadingly.
"Anything." He really meant it too.
"Just don't let me kill him, before he tells us where the kids are." She flashed him one of those disarming smiles. She walked toward the interrogation room. Morgan had sidled up to Reid. "Wow, that's one spicy lady."
"I like spicy." Reid was surprised at his own response.
"Should I tell her you're in the mood for Mexican tonight?"
"Shut up.' Reid walked into the room right behind Sophie.
"Mr. Blaine I believe you've been read your rights?" Sophie had decided to be cool and professional no matter what was said.
"Agent Segura, you people are always late but to keep me waiting this long? It's not very good policy, not if you want your little wet backs alive." He saw her face tense, he'd hit a nerve and liked it. "Mr. Blaine, you're being charged with assault, attempted murder, first degree murder, terrorism, and kidnapping, those all together mean one thing, a big needle in your arm. Believe me, if those kids die because you withheld information I will personally push the plunger myself." She walked behind Blaine, and leaned in close to his ear "I hear that if I do it just right, you'll twitch in agony, minutes will be an eternity." She more breathed the words into his ear than said them. This was Reid's cue.
"We know you didn't do this alone, give us the name of your employer, tell us where the kids are now and you avoid the death penalty. He's out there, you're in here, do you really want to go down for all of it?" Reid was trying to empathize with him.
"What's a nice white boy like you doing hanging out with low life half breed like her anyway?" He was staring Reid down.
"Abraham Herschel said that racism is man's gravest threat to man, the maximum hatred for minimum of reason. So what is your reason for hating anyone Mr. Blaine, what has been done to you?" Reid stared right back.
"Ha! Oh good show boys and girls, good show. When do you bring out the dog and pony show? I hate these mud people because they ruined our country, they over run our schools, they refuse to learn English, they end up on welfare and good hard working people have to pay for 'em. We can't get jobs because these people will work for pennies on the dollar, but the real reason I can't stand me a beaner, is because they have no pride, they're a broken people, the product of rape, hostile take over and slavery. I will tell you who I was working for, but I wanted to see this little greasers face when I told you. Antonio Barrerra hired me; he's the immigration lawyer that runs the La Raza community center. He said he had some problem clients and did I want to make a little money." He checked to see the effect this would have on Sophie.
"Antonio Barrera hired you to kill these women? Why?" She was so busy being outraged at his bigotry that she couldn't process that it was someone in their own community who had orchestrated this.
"He said they owed him money and he was going to collect one way or the other." Blaine just sat their and smirked at her, he had an artic stare. Sophie had given him the reaction he wanted. "Where are the kids? Why take them in the first place?" Sophie was sick to her stomach because her gut knew the answer.
"Well you see there's a big market for kids their age. Barrera hooked up with some Asian syndicate, figured he's make a profit off the little sewer rats too." He leaned back in his chair as Sophie and Reid exchanged worried glances. As they ran out the door, Reid kicked over his chair and didn't look back.
"We have a problem." Hotch looked more serious than usual if that was possible. Sophie and the BAU team caught a glimpse of the evening news, protestors and lots of them. Sophie didn't have to listen to the news caster because they were right outside the door; one side of the street was filled with supporters of Blaine, some of them that had signs which read "go back home wetbacks" and "get out". On the other side of the street a counter protest from San Jose State University students had messages like "we didn't cross the boarder, the border crossed us." And someone had one that said "Justice for Maria, Helena, and Maricella." Sophie looked around; this has just gotten much more intense. She didn't want to think about what this mob would do if it found out Barrera was behind this.
"Can you have your analyst back in Quantico see if she can find Barrera? I'm heading over to La Raza right now." She was on the war path, it was one thing for an ignorant race to attack a group of illegals, but why would Barrera do this to the people who depended on him? For money? Something just wasn't sitting right with her. She was walking out to the suburban thinking about how bad this all smelled, she heard it before she registered what it was ,three loud pops gun fire.