The next thing Derek knew was the feel of a hand roughly shaking him awake. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes to try and clear the sleep from them as he stared up into Hotch's face. "Has there been movement?" he asked as he sat up.

"No, but I thought that you'd want to be with us again, as we wait for news from Garcia. It's been two hours."

"A lot can happen in two hours," he replied as they made their way back to the conference room. Rossi had his head cradled on his arms, a light snore coming from his mouth. His hand was clenched around his phone, as if he was expecting it to ring at any moment, and that that would wake him from his slumber. Reid was still poring over the information that they had already, and he gave the kid a small smile as he sank down into the chair next to him.

"This Curtis guy is seriously vindictive. I've been looking over the bad profile that he and Blake came up with in the Amerithrax debacle, and you can tell that he was planning something from the outset of this. I don't think that he deliberately tried to take Blake down with him, but her clearly didn't care that she ended up as collateral damage. When we find him, we're going to have to exercise extreme caution, because he's a loose cannon who will do anything to see his endgame come to fruition."

Derek nodded stiffly as he threaded his fingers together and rested his chin on them, staring at the table. He wanted to go back to sleep and wake up in their bed, his arms around his wife, holding her close to his chest. He knew that such magical thinking was pointless, and he let out a long sigh as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, unlocking it so that he could flip through the pictures he had of Erin. There were so many, and he smiled a little as he paused on a picture of Erin and Blake together. It was evident how close they had grown from when Blake had rejoined the BAU, and he stroked Erin's face lovingly.

"That's a great picture of them."

He looked up at Reid and nodded. "I think that Tabitha took this of them, since it's a candid. But it's probably one of my favourites of my wife. Because she looks so free here. What if we're too late?"

"I'm not going to allow you to sink into negative thinking. We're going to remain positive. We know this son of bitch likes to taunt others, and that will be his downfall." Hotch handed Derek a fresh cup of coffee before taking a seat at the table as well. "He's going to call, he's going to slip up, and when he does, we will find them and take him out."

Derek nodded and flipped through more pictures. He had just come to a beautiful picture of Erin and her children when Rossi's phone began to ring. The man came to wakefulness in a heartbeat, and looked at the display. "It's Erin."

Derek knew that he couldn't trust that it really was Erin, so he hurriedly called Garcia while Rossi answered his call. "Hey, you need to work your magic on this call that Rossi is getting from Erin's phone. Just in case."

"Of course, Sugar. At least we might have some movement." He made a soft sound of agreement as he put her on speakerphone, knowing that Rossi would do the same with his call. She was smart enough not to say anything as soon as she heard the voice on Rossi's phone, or at least, Derek hoped so. He knew that it was a risk to take, but he knew that it had to happen, in order to find where the rest of their team was.

"I'll bet that you were expecting to hear Erin's voice, Dave. Weren't you?"

Derek loathed the man's voice from the first syllable, but he sharply bit his tongue in order to keep a snide remark from passing through his lips. Erin's life depended on it. "Seeing as how this call is coming from her number, yes. I take it that I'm speaking to John Curtis?"

"Gold star for you. I'm surprised that you don't remember me, but then, you always did run with the alpha group in the BSU. Too bad that that star power didn't translate into being a better profiler. I mean, really, how stupid are you to allow them out of your sight? When you knew a predator was stalking two of them? And poor, pregnant, Agent Jareau, caught up as collateral damage in a war she had no idea was occurring. What will you tell her dear husband and son? Especially as it's only been a year since he almost died. My original plan was to get Erin drunk before I killed her, but the alcohol would have damaged the baby's development. Not that that truly matters, since she'll likely be dead alongside the others before you can find us."

"Oh, we will find you," Rossi growled out, and Derek nodded in agreement, feeling his blood start to boil at the idea of his Erin being stuck in the hands of that madman.

"Dave, Dave, Dave. You couldn't find me when I was parked outside Erin and Alex's homes. What makes you think you can track me down without any clue as to where I am currently?"

Rossi slapped the table, causing Curtis to laugh. "Because there's power in numbers, and while you might be smarter than one of us, you're not smarter than five of us put together!"

"Keep thinking that, Dave. Though I am truly sorry that two innocent victims will be caught up in this, since they didn't ask to be conceived in this moment in time." Before anyone could say another word, Curtis ended the call, and Derek punched his hand in frustration as he stared at the phones on the table.

"Did you get anything from that, Garcia?" Hotch asked, tension evident in his voice.

"He was masking the GPS again, but I was able to triangulate an approximate location for them based on how the call pinged off nearby towers. It's a five mile radius, but that's the best I can do at the…oh my god."

"Penelope? What is it?" Derek interjected, staring at his phone.

"I was just sent a picture that you all need to see. One of you, pull out your tablets and accept the transfer."

Hotch was the first one to set his on the table, doing as she said. Derek felt all the blood drain from his face as he saw his wife and their other teammates tied to chairs in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Each had a gag in their mouth, and it looked like there was blood dribbling down the side of Blake's mouth. "I am going to kill that son of a bitch as soon as I lay hands on him. If he hurts one more hair on Erin's head, I will make certain his death is slow. If she loses my baby, they'll never be able to find the pieces of his body."

Derek slowly turned his head to stare down the older man, feeling a wave of fury wash over his body at those words. "Our son is no longer your baby. You lost all claims to that right when you told her to get an abortion. I know that you're remorseful about saying that, but remorse doesn't change the fact that you said them and deeply wounded Erin. You have had no part in Erin's pregnancy; you've not held her hair back as she deals with the nausea; you haven't heard her doctor tell you that if you don't reduce her stress levels, you could lose both of them. I have, because I chose to step up to the plate and take care of her and the baby. I've pledged to do my best for them, so if anyone is going to take care of John fucking Curtis, it's going to be me."

"And as your supervisor, I am going to pretend that I didn't hear either of you speak about premeditated murder of a wanted fugitive. We need to do this as cleanly as possible, as there is so much at stake here. Our first, and most important, goal is to rescue our team members and then we can make certain Curtis is brought to justice. We need to take him in alive, so that there's no hint about revenge or retaliation. Do I make myself clear?"

Hotch stared at both of them in turn until they nodded, and then he cleared his throat before enlarging the picture on the women. "What are you looking for Hotch?"

"Something that will give us a clue as to where they are. We have to help Garcia narrow down that radius because that's too much ground to cover, and he's already had four hours with them."

Derek nodded as he pulled out his own tablet, calling up the picture and zooming in on another part of the picture. "It almost looks like they're in a basement. Look, there's a set of three windows at the top of the wall, and you only see that feature in basement rooms. I know that that probably won't give you too much to work with, Baby Girl, but can that narrow things down at all?"

"I can do property searches in the radius, to see how many places have a basement. And I can run the picture through my analyzer to try and get a feel for how large the room is. That will also help to narrow things down. I've sent the current radius to your phones, as it looks like the outer limit is about two hours away from your current location. If you want to start driving now, we can update you as you go. Anderson and Kevin have dropped everything to help me, and the Director has said that if you want the backup, Red Cell is on standby."

"We're going to be fine, I think, as long as we get support from the local leos. Too much FBI presence might set Curtis off, and that's the last thing we want. There is one thing that you could do to help us."

"And that is?"

"Have someone from the local field office gather our things from the hotel and bring them to Beth's apartment. No matter which way things go, we're going to have agents in hospital, and the less chaos there is surrounding everything else, the better."

"Understood, Sir. I'll have Kevin get right on that. Is there anything else that we can do for you?"

"Pray, Kitten. I don't want this to end in tragedy for us."

"I have been doing that every hour, on the hour, sir. Stay safe out there, and happy hunting."

Penelope disconnected the call, and that seemed to be the catalyst for everyone to get in motion. Derek quickly packed up his bag, slinging the strap over his shoulder as he bounced on the balls of his feet while watching the others also get ready. It only took five minutes, but it felt so much longer, which he knew was a result of his worry and anxiety. He could only imagine what his wife was feeling, and he had to blink back tears.

"We're going to find them," Hotch said lowly as he rested his hand on Derek's shoulder. He nodded, seeing the fire in Hotch's eyes. "I am not about to have another of my team lose the woman they love."

"I know. I just, I don't think I can make the choice, if Erin is injured, between saving her or the baby. I need to do my best for them."

"I also understand that. Haley and I had to make a choice like that once, and she had to be the one to have the final say, I couldn't make the choice," Hotch said as they made their way out to the waiting SUV. "Would it make you feel more in control if you were the one to drive?"

"I think so, yes."

"Then here you go. I'll ride shotgun and keep the line to Garcia open so that she can guide us once we get closer to the border." Derek nodded as he took the keys from Hotch's hand and went to the driver's side, climbing behind the wheel before tossing his bag into the back seat between Reid and Rossi. "All right, we are going in as quiet as possible. When we reach the place where our team is being held, we're going to leave the vehicle in a secluded space and put on our vests. No questions. We are not going in without backup from the local leos, and we are not going to run in there half-cocked. We need to keep our wits about us, because that is the only way that our colleagues come out of this alive. Do I make myself clear?"

"As water," Rossi muttered, while he and Reid nodded in response. "All right, head out, Morgan. We'll need to stop on the way for something to eat or coffee or something to keep us alert. I'll cover it."

He gave the older man a nod before pulling out into traffic, turning on lights and sirens to get him out of the City as he followed Garcia's coordinates to the boundary of where his wife might be located.