Undercover Family

I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.

I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.

Chapter 35.

When 'Bob' and the kids arrive at the site, the kids see nothing but Aaron sees a warehouse style building attached to a family home façade. David is carrying Aaron and although he doesn't see where he is going, he is obeying the Unsub as to where to walk. He is told to stop, Aaron whispers to drop his mitten. The man takes the baby and puts the gun to his head. He opens an invisible door and the children enter into the dark foreboding tunnel that opens up. The walk about fifteen steps and get to a door which opens onto a catwalk that goes all around a deep pit in which there are little bodies spread out everywhere, mostly in sleeping bags, some awake walking around, some at the tables eating cereal or at the TV area. The children look around and see a circular stairway going down and the catwalk goes all around to a lighted office across the way.

Aaron looks down and sees many children and one FBI agent milling around the area, he decides to let the baby in him let his agent know that they are there. He screams and begins to cry while in the unsub's arms, he wiggles and struggles against him. The man puts his gun to the baby's head and says. "Shut up you little brat."

JJ reaches up and takes Aaron saying, "He's not a brat. He is just a hungry baby. He hasn't had his morning bottle yet." She jiggles the boss man in her arms while David takes the bottle out of the diaper bag and puts it in Aaron's mouth. He starts to drink hungrily.

Spencer and Emily also speak up, "I am hungry too."

The man growls and says to the children, "Walk down the steps and fix yourselves a bowl of cereal and get some juice. The two little children run down the steps, while the older ones stay put. JJ is holding Aaron with his bottle and David is not leaving either of them to this man. "You two also need to go downstairs" as he pulls Aaron from her arms. Aaron cries out from the pain in his arm of being pulled from her arms, he has the bottle in his other hand. The man settled Aaron into his arms and motions with the gun to the others to go downstairs, they look at Aaron, who sends a facial message to them to head downstairs. David leaves the diaper bag and follows JJ downstairs where they reunite with the others. The family members look up at the man holding the boss man, who walks around the cat walk carrying the baby and his diaper bag to the lighted office on the other side of the building.

Once he gets there, he places the baby into a playpen that he had purchased a few days earlier. (We know how much our boss man loves playpens.) He scuttles to the furthest corner and looks around at the man and then at the room with its refrigerator and large desk and a table with two chairs. There is a small range and microwave and near him is a door leading to a room that he cannot see into. There is order and control in this room. He then sees her sitting in a loveseat on the other wall. She looks at him with disdain and disgust, she doesn't like babies. He sucks his bottle and looks at her curiously. When the bottle is finished, he looks at the empty bottle and wishes there was more, he is still hungry. Usually he gets the bottle and then gets some solid food from momma. He looks again at the woman and scrunches his face to scream and cry. How soon can he really irritate this woman? She smiles disdainly.

"Go ahead and cry baby, I ain't giving you nothing." The man had left after putting Aaron in the playpen. When he comes back, it is to a screaming, crying baby and his woman just ignoring him. He looks at her and says, "Couldn't you at least give another bottle?"

"I don't do babies." He looks at her with disgust and goes to the diaper bag and takes out another bottle which he gives to Aaron; who grabs it and puts in his mouth. He thinks this man is not a psychopath, he cares for the children and it doesn't appear that any had been injured or abused from what he had seen. This does not make sense. The woman doesn't appear to be cruel to the children, just doesn't like babies. What is this scheme all about? Why did they take the children? He looks around and tries to determine where the generator for the device might be and then why he could see the house but nobody else could.

In the pit, the agents reunite and talk with Derek, who has let them know what he has learned while he has been in the pit. He has talked with the other kids and nobody has been abused or hurt in any way. They are fed regularly, sleep well and allowed to take baths and showers. They read, watch TV and play games. It's just that they are separated from their families. He doesn't know why they are there and no one else seems to know that as well. The agents then hear Hotch scream and cry upstairs and go to the stairway to run up to see him. They are stopped by a chain gate across at the top of the stair. Yelling out to Aaron, they get no answer, just the continually crying baby. After a while, the crying stops but they ask each other, "Why?", as they look up at the lighted office.

Meanwhile back at the house

Momma watches as the car takes away her children, screaming no and with a despairing heart; she turns to follow Penelope downstairs. Penelope has already started to look for the tracers of the agents. It seems that he has taken them to the site that they believe the other children are. In the meantime, the real Bob arrives and momma attacks him.

"Where are my children? What did you do to them?" He looks at her with complete surprise.

"What do mean? I didn't take the children anywhere. I just arrived." She looks at him with disbelief.

"You did not just arrive. You came and said hello to me in the kitchen and I told you to go wake up the children and bring Aaron down to me for breakfast."

"That wasn't me."

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? I saw you and I talked to you. It was no ghost or anything. It was you."

"No, it wasn't. Calm down Rebecca and let's think this through clearly. Okay? You say that I arrived when?"

"About 20 minutes ago."

"It could not have been me. I was at McDonalds buying coffee. You don't make coffee so I bought some before I came. Here is the receipt with the time on it." He hands her a McDonald's receipt which does have the time on it. She looks at the receipt and furls her brow in consternation because she knows what she saw, doesn't she? Watching her, he is confused about her reactions. "Okay, now tell me what has happened?" She looks up at him.

"Someone who looked just like you arrived just walked in and I was in the kitchen starting breakfast. None of the children were up yet, even Aaron hadn't called for me. I invited him for breakfast, he said sounds good and I asked him to go upstairs and get the children. I said to be down in fifteen minutes, so I wasn't worried for that time period. I thought they were safe with you." She begins to sob and wrings her hands, trying not to create a fist with them. Bob takes the woman in his arms and tries to calm her down.

"I told you to disassociate yourself from them. You didn't listen, did you?" She looks at him in disbelief at the fact that he would bring that up now when her children are missing.

"Disassociate myself, yes, you told me to do that and I told you not to worry about that. I expected one child to be taken, not all of them."

"I understand your anger and frustration right now, but it is not going to get them back. If we assume it's the unsub, then obviously he has the other illusion device and made himself look like me. That actually could explain how he got the children. If he can make himself look like anybody, then he…"

"Then he could make himself look like somebody the child knew and since he's a male, it would have to be a male. I never thought of that; I was able to change Derek's looks to make look more similar to the other children. I never considered that he would be changing his appearance in that way. For he would have to change each time he took a child to someone different. That takes a lot of research to know who these people are. He's been watching the people here for a long time and we don't know his actual face then. Because he could be anybody."

Penelope then speaks up, "But we know who he actually is, the brother of the guy who stole your device. Hotch had me look for the address and the blueprints of the house, so we now know where the door of the building is. The guy who stole your device left everything to his brother, including that and if he learned how to use it. Then he is our unsub."

"I'm calling in the swat team and agents. We will get those children back, all fifty of them."

"Only forty-four are actually children. The other six are my agents," says momma. "Bob, don't ever tell me to disassociate again, I know what my agent children are. But I do my best to remain in my role of being an overprotective mommy." She heads upstairs to get a bag of clothes and things for her children.

Back at the Site

The man has started to collect the children and had them pack up all of the sleeping bags and bottles of water were stacked together, he had them put on their coats and jackets if they have one. Then had them each take a sleeping bag and a bottle of water and walk upstairs. He has them stand on the catwalk next to the wall. Our agents are following his orders along with the children but are worried about Aaron. They finally see him in the office, he looked okay at least. He has not yet noticed them on the catwalk.

The man comes in to the office and picks up Aaron and puts him in the other room and closes the door. He folds the play pen and picks up the diaper bag with the pen and goes out to the catwalk. He walks outside with the items. He tells the woman to begin to bring the children out, beginning with the four year olds. The children are led out and encouraged to get into a school bus. There is a seat for each child.

Meanwhile Aaron is in the other room walking around and seeing what is in there. He sees a double bed in the center of the room and there is a dresser and a small closet along one wall. Along the other side is a wall of buttons, switches and monitors. It appears to be using a lot of energy and is keeping track of it. The agent looks around and begins to read and notice the output and input of the machine. He notices about four feet from the ground, a fair way over his head, there is a switch that says off. He is curious as to what it will turn off. Looking around he tries to find something that he can stand on and sees an ottoman which he pulls and pushes over to the area and climbs up on. He is now able to touch the switch. He flips it to the other side and is disappointed when it seems nothing has changed. He jumps off the ottoman and goes over to the small desk in the corner and climbs on the chair there. He starts to look at what is there and notices a map that appears to have a path mapped out. There is a note as well, he sees an address and finding a blank piece of paper and pen, he writes it down. He hears a noise coming from the other room and jumps down. He sticks the paper he wrote on in the trash can next to the desk and runs to the door. The man enters the room.

"Well little one, it is time to go." He picks the baby up and takes him to the other room where he changes his diaper. Man and child leave the room and go toward the bus outside.