* R-E-S-C-U-E
Rescue Aid Society
Heads held high
Touch the sky
You mean everything to me
In a jam, in a scrape
And you think 'no escape'
Do not fear, we'll be here
Courageous are we
- Rescue Aid Society, Disney's Rescuers, 1977
"Fools!" Gideon hissed as he watched everyone, even the team pull out their flashlights and start yelling for Reid. "This is not a lost kid in the woods, this is a killer and his hostage. We need the element of surprise. Put those away. Ears only. Has everyone lost their God-damned minds?"
He breathed a sigh of relief as one by one the lights went off and the voices dropped to the occasional whisper. Now as long as they hadn't already screwed up, the night could still be salvaged. He was not going to give notification to Diana Reid any time soon and he was not going to bring Reid aboard the jet in a coffin. It was not going to happen and that was the end of it.
He walked through the moonlit graveyard, straining his ears for anything out of place when he heard it: the sounds of gardening. He did enough of it around his cabin to know the sounds. It was the sound of digging. He gulped. It was the digging of a grave - Reid's grave.
Don't think it! DON'T think it!
He tapped Hotch on the shoulder and inclined his head, not daring to breathe a word. If Hankel wasn't running then he probably hadn't heard yet. It was the first good sign all night - relatively speaking anyway.
Hotch nodded and motioned to the team to follow.
"Detective, have your men circle around the other side of him and search the grounds for Reid, but stay quiet and hidden. We'll handle Hankel. Go." Gideon truly believed that Reid was just a few feet away, but if not...if by some miracle Tobias had him restrained elsewhere, they were not going to waste time and miss the chance to save him.
The team slowly approached the trees nearest to Hankel, not unlike a hunter and his prey...except it was more like trying to avoid Bambi but shoot his mom right next to him. Okay, maybe that was a bad analogy, especially since they didn't know where Reid was.
"FBI! Freeze!"
"Drop the weapon!"
"Where's Dr. Reid?" the low growl in Gideon's voice should set off alarm bells in the hearts and minds of unsubs everywhere
The smile on Hankel's face was more than a little disconcerting. He was surrounded by law enforcement with half a dozen guns on him, and he was smiling. Hankle slowly lowered the shovel to the ground.
"Hands behind your head!" Morgan barked at him. Always the hot head. If Gideon knew Morgan he would pound the man's head into the ground if given the slightest excuse - that is if he felt he needed one.
The hands came up slowly, but so did….a gun. He must have hidden it in his pocket. "Take one step closer and I'll –"
"You'll what?" Morgan snarled, "Kill an innocent kid? He's not - " Morgan shut his mouth at the warning look Gideon was giving him. Why couldn't he just put the bastard's head on a stick.
"I would never hurt the innocent." That self-righteous tone was going to get him in trouble. It was making Morgan's blood boil - he wasn't alone in that sentiment.
"I'm Agent Gideon. What's your name, sir?" Gideon asked patiently, ignoring the eye rolls of his fellow agents. They didn't understand, sometimes aggression wasn't the key to success, not everyone could be intimidated into confession.
"Charles Hankel. What's it to you?"
"Well, you see, Charles, we need your help. Perhaps if you put the gun down..."
"Why would I want to help heathen sinners like yourself?"
"Because there's been a misunderstanding. We're looking for your son,Tobias. He had a run in with one of our agents back at your house. Now he's been missing, Tobias was the last one to see him. If you could answer a few questions and tell us where he is, it would greatly help us. It'll only take a little of your time."
"Are you saying my Tobias had anything to do with a kidnapping?"
"No, sir. Just routine questions. The smallest detail that he may have seen could help us find our agent. First of all, when did you last see your son? Is he around, can I talk to him? We are no threat to you, sir. Just put your gun down and let us talk like civilized men."
"Civilized, you say? Is that what you would call a civilized man? Do civilized men sit in their luxurious homes while their employees struggle for a living? Does a civilized woman betray her husband while he is away working for their food and shelter? Do civilized men let the sinners walk free while the innocent are slaughtered? Do civilized men profess to have a profound knowledge of the scriptures and then send their parents away in disgrace? They were not civilized."
Gideon visibly paled at the rant about sinners, ticking off in his mind the various sins of Hankel's victims, but that last one? He didn't know how Reid's mother had ended up in the sanitarium, but if he'd had her committed, if that last sin was Reid's - if he confessed - then he was good as dead. "I'm not talking about them, I don't even know who you are taking about," Gideon lied. "I'm talking about you and me. Two civilized men with grown sons who don't show us the respect we deserve. Your son, he does drugs, harms himself, harms the temple that is his body. You try to teach him, but he ignores you completely. I know what that's like. My Stephen is the same way." Sorry, Stephen. He was stretching the truth more than just a little.
"Funny, I'm not the coward. You can't face me like a man. You have to have your goon squad and a dozen guns in order to feel safe. I've got the Lord's Will on my side, that's better than any bullet proof vest you've got."
"All I am saying is 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone'."
"You know your Bible. John 8:7." There was a noticeable change in the voice. It was not Charles's harsh tone, but one of apathy and honest sincerity.
"What is this a Sunday school quiz? Gideon, come on! Enough with the damn Bible already!" Two sets of eyes trained on him: one furious and one condescending. Okay so maybe insulting the Holy Book in front of a religious fanatic with a gun was a bad idea -especially when said fanatic was holding your injured buddy hostage.
"What I'm trying to say is that 'all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory'. My agent has sinned, I have sinned. We all have sinned but we are saved 'by Grace, not by works lest any man should boast.' It is God's grace that saves us and God alone who can give judgement for our sins."
"You calling me a sinner, heathen!?"
"I did not say that, Charles!"
"Charles? Do I look like Charles, you simpleton!?"
"Sorry, its dark, my eyes aren't what they used to be, Mr - I'm sorry I didn't get your name."
"Rafael."
"Rafael." Yes, let the cooler heads prevail. He had been hoping for Tobias, but this could still work. At least Rafael wasn't as rash as Charles. "What are you doing digging out here at night anyway?"
Rafael looked slightly confused, his eyes shifting slight to his right, a sick and satisfied smile appearing out of nowhere. "Got a funeral tomorrow morning, just out here to dig before the sun comes up."
"I'm sorry to hear that, who's funeral?"
Angels couldn't lie. Okay, so he wasn't an angel, not by any stretch of the imagination, but if the delusion held...Gideon doubted the Rafael personality would tell a lie. For the first time in his life, Gideon was on the verge of a confession he didn't want. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
"Did you kill Spencer Reid?"
"He was a sinner."
"You haven't proven that!" it was a new voice, high-pitched and terrified. The unsub's body language suddenly changed. His head was bowed and he was shaking
"He dishonored his mother! He sent her away." The voice of Charles was back, harsh and unforgiving.
"No," the terrified voice argued. "He said he sent her way because he couldn't help her. He loves her, he was getting help for her, that's not dishonor. Moses' mother sent him away to protect.. "
"Tobias, tell me where he is!"
But just as soon as Tobias appeared, he was gone.
"You think you know the Bible better than me boy?"
"WHERE IS HE?"
"Morgan!" it was the Hotchner warning tone, the only one Morgan ever listened to.
"Hotch, Reid's running out of time, man." If he's still alive. The use of the past tense was damning, but Morgan refused to believe it until he saw Reid's body with his own eyes.
"Hotch?" The sudden interest in that name, made the hairs on everyone's head stand up. "As in Aaron Hotchner?"
"Yes," Hotch answered before Gideon could open his mouth to lie for him. They all remembered Reid name Hotch under threat of death.
"For God's will!"
The shot rang out into the still night.
Followed by three more.
The air seemed to freeze as Hankel dropped the gun and Hotch stumbled backwards, clutching his stomach as he fell to the ground before anyone could catch him.
"I'm fine!" Aaron Hotchner insisted as he slowly sat up, disentangling himself from Morgan's support.
"You got shot, Hotch!"
"In the vest, I'm fine. Reid! Need to find..."
"Hotch, I hate to say it -"
"Hankel shot me because we are still 7. If we were a team of 6, he wouldn't need to kill me."
Morgan didn't need telling twice. He ran to Hankel, to find that Gideon was already there, throwing the gun out of the unsub's reach.
"He's alive."
"Tobias, if you're in there, tell me where Reid is!"
The blue eyes opened, regarding the men with a sense of panic. "Thomas...He's with Thomas -" His eyes rolled back and his body went limp. Tobias Hankel had won, at the cost of his life.
Gideon got to his feet, surveying the huge graveyard with a mixed sense of hope and dread. "Search the tombstones for the name Thomas. The closer to me the better."
"I've got a Thomas Smith!" one of the officers voices called out.
"Thomas Bradstone!"
"Okay, start digging! Hands only, if he's still got that knife in his back, you don't want to hit it!"
The digging commenced in a hurried frenzy, two groups. One at each grave.
J.J. got to her feet and began scanning the graveyard with her flashlight. Something wasn't right. Neither grave looked disrupted. There were no piles of dirt nearby. She started walking when her foot hit something that wasn't dirt or a rock. In fact it felt like...
She stopped in tracks and backed up and shone her flashlight to the ground.
Morgan watch Hotch dig with a frenzy he'd never seen in his unit chief before. This was hopeless, no one could survive without breathing for this long. Even if Reid has just been buried when they arrived, they'd been here for more than five...his depressing thoughts were cut off by the sound of a shrill scream. "J.J!"
The team abandoned their digging and ran to J.J. just a few yards away...next to the tomb of Thomas Parker.
She was staring at the ground. "J.J. what?"
"He's, He's..."
Morgan shone his flashlight at the ground. Barely visible beneath the dirt was a shallow grave...and a body covered mostly by the dirt except for barely visible light brown hair. His head was resting on his left arm...and a knife was protruding from his back. It was Reid.