Summary: Underground computer hackers are turning up missing, when one of their own is lost the BAU must find out why.
Categories: General Characters: Aaron 'Hotch' Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Dr. Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Penelope Garcia
Genres: Angst, Drama
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 4
Completed: Yes
Word count: 6872
Read: 32899
Published: Jul 13, 2008
Updated: Oct 12, 2008
1. Prologue by Pari
2. Chapter 1 by Pari
3. Chapter 2 by Pari
4. Chapter 3 by Pari
Morgan and Reid had been the last two people to enter the room, both throwing questioning stares at the others who were already seated.
“What’s going on?” Reid asked as he took his normal seat.
“Thank you all for coming in so late.” Hotchner said as he stood at the head of the table.
“Late, it’s 4 in the morning, I’d call this early.” Morgan grumbled.
“This is Mr. James Wilcox from the CIA. It seems we have a situation. I’ll let Mr. Wilcox fill you in.” Hotchner took his seat and the remaining man standing took over the meet.
“At 2000 hours yesterday a single department in the Pentagon came under attack.”
“What kind of attack?” J.J. asked as she tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ears.
“This department had files that we had stored there, files of well-known computer programmers, mainly those who have worked with the US Defense Department. These people worked in the department for development of weapons. Also, on the list were a few hackers, those we deemed ‘dangerous’.” Mr. Wilcox explained.
“Dangerous how?” Prentiss inquired as she pulled her hair into a ponytail.
“All of them had hacked into the Pentagon.” Mr. Wilcox stated.
“We probably need to bring Garcia in on this.” Reid suggested as he pulled off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt before placing them back on his face.
“Your Analyst Penelope Garcia was one of the hackers on the list and she has already been found.” Mr. Wilcox said. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to inform you, but her body was found a couple of hours ago floating in the Potomac River.”
“What? Hotch what the hell is he talking about?” Morgan asked as he stared at the man seated at the head of the table.
“I’m sorry Derek, I identified her body. It’s Garcia.” Aaron Hotchner said as Morgan bolted from his seat and then from the room. “J.J.”
“Yeah,” She replied as she fought hard to swallow back impending tears at the news that a dear friend and co-worker had been killed. She slowly stood from her seat and followed Morgan’s trek.
“You have reached the supreme genius, Penelope Garcia, not here right now. You know what to do.” BEEEEP.
“Damn it Garcia, pick up the phone girl.” He slammed his flip phone closed and then opened it and hit redial. J.J. had found him just where she had expected to, in Garcia’s office. She stood in the door silently watching the man before her as he frantically dial and then re-dial Garcia’s home phone and cell phone.
“Morgan,” She called to him softly.
“She’s not dead J.J.” He told her even though his teary, red eyes betrayed his confidence in the statement.
“Hotch said…”
“He’s wrong.” Morgan said. “Baby Girl, it’s me your chocholate Adonis and I need you. Please pick up the phone, please mama.” He spoke into his cell his voice cracked a little. “Please pick up.”
“Morgan we’re going to find the person who did this, we’re going to find them and make them pay. But you have to get your head in the game, we need you. Garcia needs you. We’re her voice now, we’re the only ones who can tell what happened to her.” J.J. spoke as her own tears spilled from her eyes. Morgan looked at her for a moment with cold, hard eyes and then he stormed by her and back out the office door.
“I want to see her,” He demanded as he re-entered the conference room.
“It’s not necessary, I’ve already…”
“I haven’t, and I want to see her, Hotch.” Morgan said as he stared Hotchner down.
“Fine, if Mr. Wilcox doesn’t have a problem with it.” Hotchner said.
“Not at all, I can take you all to our task force headqarters whenever you’re ready, her body’s stored there pending an autopsy. We’re hoping the body…”
“Her name is Penelope Garcia.” Morgan stated as he point a finger at Mr. Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox bowed his head a bit before he continued.
“We’re hoping that Ms. Garcia’s body will give some kind of clues as to who or what were dealing with.”
“Fine, Let’s go.” Hotchner spoke as he stood and lead the others out of the room.
****
His mind had already decided that nothing was real and that everything he had been told were lies. So when he stood in the cold room, staring at the body on the table, it took a moment for his mind to register what he was seeing. It then took several more moments for his mind to comply with his feet, to allow him to move. He stood beside the table with his eyes closed, trying to force back the tears, hurt, and rage. He opened his eyes and reached out, when his hand touched the cold, hardened flesh of her arm he crumbled a bit, and a mournful moan escaped his lips.
“Oh baby girl,” He cried as he lifted his hand from her arm to stroke her blonde locks, which were still soft to the touch. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He continued to cry as he fell to his knees and buried his face against the sheet covering her midsection.
****
Hotchner entered the cold room and found two bodies, one lying in a prone position atop the examining table and another asleep in a chair in a far corner of the room. He hated to awaken the sleeping man, because he knew that he was probably exhausted from all his grief. They all were grieving this tragic loss, but none as much a Morgan. He knew that Morgan and Garcia had been very close, but they had a job to do. There were other people whose lives were at stake.
“Morgan,” He called out as he shook the sleeping man, who jumped up startled.
“What happened?” Morgan spoke out as he bolted upright in his seat. “Hotch?” He said as his eyes focused.
“We missed you in the morning meeting, did you sleep here all night?” Hotchner asked as he stared down at the man in concern.
“Uh…yeah,” Morgan answered as he stretched a bit and then looked to where the body still lied. “I…I just couldn’t leave her in here all alone.”
“So you risk your health. This is a big freezer Morgan, you could have gotten hypothermia or frostbite.”
“When I got cold I went out and warmed up in the corridor.” Morgan defended and then hastily changed the subject. “Are there any new leads?”
“No, we have three computer techs working on tracking all computer and cell phone activity of the other missing hackers.”
“Three and it’s taking this long? Hell Garcia…” Morgan quickly ended his statement as his eyes once again settled onto the body on the table.
“Yeah she was one of a kind,” Hotchner said as he placed a supportive hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Morgan, if you need time,”
“No! I don’t want to be taken off this case Hotch.” Morgan said with a hint of panic in his voice.
“I know you don’t, and we need you if we’re going to solve this and hopefully save the other missing hackers, but I need you focused.”
“This case will have my undivided attention Hotch, there should be no doubt about that.” Morgan replied slightly angry. Hotchner nodded his head.
“Then let’s get to work.”
****
“We just got another hit,” Mr. Wilcox said as he rushed into the conference room and turned the laptop Reid had before him, and began typing on it. Within a few seconds the screen before them became covered with numbers, ones and zeros.
“Another hack job?” Prentiss asked.
“Yes, this time it was an attack on one of the weapons program the defense department has been working on. Someone hack into the controls and tried to deploy the weapon.” Wilcox continued. “Luckily there were recent upgrades to counter act such an attack.”
“Were they able to get a trace on where the attackers are?” Hotchner asked.
“They were able to capture a transmission omitted during the attack, which they’re working to decipher, our own hackers say it could take a few hours.”
“So we’re just gonna sit around a wait?” Morgan asked, as his skin itched to do something.
“I don’t see any other alternative.” Hotchner replied and then turned to J.J. “Were you able to contact Garcia’s next of kin? So they can get Garcia’s affairs in order.”
“That would be me.” Morgan answered and all eye turned to him. “A couple of years back Pen asked me if I would be the executor of her will, since she’s not close with her brothers, and both of her parents are dead. I agreed, honestly in our line of work, being out there in the field, I never thought I’d out live her. Since we have some time I’d like to go to her place, start making some arrangements.” Hotchner only nodded in agreement.
“Want some company?” J.J. offered.
“No,” Morgan responded quickly. “Thanks, but I can do it on my own.” He said and then stood and walked out of the conference room.
“I’ll go,” Reid offered and Hotchner nodded, and Reid hurried out after Morgan.
Sometime Later
“Hey someone called for BAU to come down?” J.J. asked as she entered the morgue.
“Yes, but I asked for Agent Morgan, he had insisted that we get these belongings to him, once they’d been processed.” The female coroner stated as she held out a plastic bag, which J.J. could see, contain Garcia’s clothes and jewelry.
“Ah, I can get those to Agent Morgan. He’s away right now trying to settle some of Penelope’s affairs.” J.J. replied.
Elsewhere
“I told you, you didn’t have to tag along Reid, I can take care of this myself.” Morgan stated as he and Reid stood in the doorway of the darkened apartment.
“I know but you don’t have to do it alone. Garcia was my friend too,” Morgan cut him a heated look and Reid hurriedly continued. “I know that you were closer to her than I was, but I still cared about her, and I want to get these guys just as much as you do.” Reid said and then turned on the light, illuminating the bright room, which was full of vibrant colors, and corky items many of which looked like 1970’s throwbacks. Morgan couldn’t help but smile as he looked around the studio apartment. “Babygirl,” He whispered as he moved further into the room, touching different items. Everywhere he looked Morgan saw Garcia, and his smile crumbled because it brought the reality that she was really gone.
Back in the Morgue
“I am really sorry for your loss. I especially feel sorry for Agent Morgan, he seemed devastated.”
“Yes, he and Penelope were very close,”
“And what about you, had you known her long?” The Coroner asked.
“A few years,”
“SO, you knew her before all the surgery?” The Coroner questioned as J.J. simply stared at her with a look of confusion. “I’m sorry I’m being nosy. I was just curious as to what she looked like before.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well she’s had plastic surgery, extensive surgery.” The Coroner spoke as she moved closer to the table where the body still laid. “Some of the scars are still healing see,” She pushed back the hair around the left ear and then flipped over the left ear. “See here, the scar starts here and runs along the top here, across the head, but that’s mostly hidden by the hair, but if you look closely you can still see it. The procedure is quite common for someone who’s had some reconstructive surgery.”
“How recent would you say this was done?” J.J. asked as she stared at the scarring in disbelief.
“I’d say 3 maybe 4 months, definitely no more than 6 months ago.” The Coroner replied.
“Thank you, keep this body here and don’t let anyone touch it until I get back.” J.J. said as she pulled out her cell phone and rushed from the room.
****
“Reid speaking,”
“Reid, hey it’s J.J., where you?”
“Uhm I’m still with Morgan at Garcia’s place, packing up her things.”
“Well I need you back here ASAP, I just got some new information and I need you to help me verify it.”
“Ok I’ll just get Morgan and…”
“No, just you. I don’t want Morgan to know about this until we know for sure.”
“Ok, but why?”
“Because it’s about Garcia. Reid there’s a chance she may not be dead.”
“Wha…wha…what?” Reid stuttered shocked by what he was hearing.
“Look just get here as soon as you can and I’ll explain everything.” With that J.J. hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Morgan’s voice pulled Reid back to their present surroundings.
“Uhm, I don’t know. I have to go. Sorry, I’ll try to hurry back.” Reid spoke as he moved to the door.
“Don’t worry about it. I already told you I could take care of this. Go handle your business.” Reid nodded and then left the apartment, leaving Morgan alone with his memories and the essences of Garcia everywhere.
*****
“She’s right there’s been major surgery done on her face.” Reid said as he leaned over the body, examining it closely. “And she’s had breast implants.”
“We should do a DNA test,” J.J. Stated. “We need to be 100% sure, for Morgan’s sake.”
“Well I can do that for you myself. I’ll expedite it and you should have the results this time tomorrow.” The Coroner volunteered. “But I’ll need some of the ‘real’ Garcia’s DNA.”
“I can get that. I told Morgan that I’d return to help him finish packing Garcia’s belongings. “I'll try to sneak out her toothbrush.” Reid replied.
*****
He hadn’t known where to begin. He had started in her closet but found that he couldn’t remove anything from the racks and shelves filled with clothes and shoes. So he started in the kitchen, boxing up the pots and pans, and cleaned out the cabinets and refrigerator. He then moved into the living room where he intended to pack up the large library of movies Garcia had collected over the years. After a few moments of packing his eyes fell upon a disc marked ‘New Years ‘07’. He took out the disc and quickly popped it into the player, and then pushed play. The TV suddenly displayed festive imagery and sounds. Morgan chuckled as the camera zoomed in on an uncomfortable looking Reid who wore a party hat.
“Come on Reid, give us a smile.” A melodic voice filled the room and Morgan’s heart clutched in his chest. “Aren’t you happy this year is about to be over in about 3 minutes?”
“Not really, and according to the first known calendar, New Year’s is actually…”
“Give that brain a rest, pretty boy.” Morgan watched himself onscreen teasing Reid. “Get yourself a drink and a fine honey to help you ring in the New Year.”
“A…a fine honey?” Reid repeated baffled, as Morgan smiled and shook his head.
“Here,” Morgan watched himself move closer to the camera, which began to shake about. “You take the camera,” He instructed as he shoved it at Reid. After a few seconds of a shaky picture the camera became steady and was fixed on Morgan and a giggling Garcia. “See I have my drink,” He then tapped his cup with the one Garcia held. “And a ‘very’ fine honey to help me ring in the New Year in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Years!” Everyone screamed in unison. “Happy New Years, baby girl.” Morgan said as he tugged Garcia closer and captured her lips in a gentle kiss.
“Hey I’m back.” Reid announced as he came through the front door of Garcia’s apartment. Morgan quickly stopped the movie and wiped at his wet face before he turned to address Reid.
“I told you I got this. You didn’t have to come back. “Morgan said as he sniffled a bit.
“I know,” Reid, replied as he moved towards the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag and placed Garcia’s toothbrush in it. He then noticed her hairbrush on the vanity, and pulled out another bag and placed a few strands of Garcia’s hair inside the bag. He then exited the bathroom and found Morgan still seated on the couch where he was sorting through the mountain of DVDs. “Ah, well it looks like you’ve done most of it already so I guess you don’t need me after all. I should head back to headquarters and work on some leads, try to find the perps.” Reid said, stammering a bit a Morgan watched him curiously.
“Are there any new leads?” Morgan asked as he stood from the couch. Reid thought about telling him the truth about what he and J.J. had discovered, but then thought better of it. He knew J.J. was right when she said this would get Morgan’s hopes up. So they had to be 100% sure about Garcia before they told Morgan.
“No,” Reid lied. “But I’ll let you know as soon as we find anything.”
“Thanks man,” Morgan replied and Reid nodded and then left the apartment.
*****
“You guys made it just in time, looks like our unsubs have made contact,” Prentiss said as J.J. and Reid entered the conference room.
“Yeah, they call themselves the Melting Pot of America Coalition.” Rossi spoke out. “They’re apparently some radical group who plans to delete the lives of all Americans, by erasing all their history. Erase their credit history; destroy birth certificates, social security numbers, which nearly every state now has computerized, in essence making it as if we never existed. They feel that by doing so we as a nation can all be equals, regardless of your sex, color, creed, or nationality.”
“All the news channels have been playing a tape that was sent into them by this group,” Hotchner added.
“Well, they say they have specially trained people who will hack into all the financial institutes and Social Security and wipe them clean. On the videotape the person speaking wore a ski mask, but in the background we saw one of the missing hackers the CIA had on their list. Then about an hour after the tape was leaked to the press, that same hacker was found floating in the Potomac River.” Prentiss stated.
“Why go through the trouble of kidnapping these hackers and then turn right around and kill them? Why kill Garcia, according to her files she’s the best hacker the FBI and CIA has ever come across. She had to be valuable to these guys right?” Rossi asked trying to wrap his head around why Garcia had been murdered. Both J.J. and Reid threw each other a look, they had decided they wouldn’t tell anyone about the body in the morgue until they were certain, but now they both wondered if that was the right thing to do.
“Maybe they got what they needed from her and didn’t want any witnesses.” Prentiss suggested.
“Or maybe Garcia refused to help them.” Hotchner added. “Was there anything else?” Hotchner asked as he tried to direct the conversation back to the still missing hackers.
“Yeah there was actually.” Prentiss said as she moved to the laptop on the table. “Simultaneous with the transmission of the news broadcast there were break-ins at five of the local area banks, all done through electronic hacking. So far about 20 million has been stolen.”
“And you think the two are related?” J.J asked.
“We think it’s a bit too coincidental. Right as everyone’s focus is on this news broadcast there’s not one but five bank robberies, over 10 million dollars electronically transferred to untraceable off shore accounts.” Rossi answered. “I think the news feed was just a distraction.”
“We just got another hit,” Mr. Wilcox said as he rushed into the room and moved to the laptop, and began typing on it. Within a few seconds the screen before them became covered with symbols and numbers, ones and zeros. “Someone hacked the systems and the First National bank of Arlington. These symbols and numbers attacked all their systems and by the time they got everything back online about 50 million was missing from their accounts.”
“Looks like our radicals are nothing more than common thieves.” Prentiss said.
“We were right.” Reid spoke as he moved closer to the large screen against the wall. “It’s her.”
“Right about what Reid, and whose ‘her’?” Rossi asked as all eyes fell to the young man standing before them, who turned and looked to J.J.
“J.J. and I found something wrong with Garcia’s body.”
“Like what and why didn’t you tell us the instant you found something?” Hotchner asked as he glared from Reid to J.J.
“Reid wanted to, but I asked him to wait until we were sure about what we found.” J.J. jumped in.
“And exactly what did you find?” Morgan’s voice spoke out from the doorway as he entered the room.
“The coroner mentioned that Garcia had recently had some plastic surgery done.” J.J. continued.
“I was called in to confirm, and there has been a lot of work done to her face as well as breast implants.” Reid added.
“What? That doesn’t’ make any sense we would have noticed something like that and as far as I can recall Garcia hasn’t taken any vacation time for as long as I’ve known her.” Prentiss said. “Surgery like you’re describing would have had her out for weeks if not months.”
“We thought the same thing,” J.J. replied.
“So why didn’t you say something?” Morgan asked growing angry.
“We wanted to be sure, so I got some of Garcia’s DNA from her toothbrush and some strands of her hair, so the coroner could get DNA testing.” Reid defended. “But I’m pretty sure the results are going to come back that that body in the morgue isn’t Garcia.”
“How can you be so sure?” Rossi asked.
“Because I think Garcia’s telling us she’s alive.” Reid stated and then turned back to the screen. “These ones and zeros are binary numbers and each block of eight numbers represents one letter in the alphabet. There are groups of binary numbers at the ends of each line. If you’re looking at it straight across in congruent with the symbols they wouldn’t make sense. But if you just focus on the end, on just the numbers you can see a word. The 01010000.01100101 translates to P.E. Next there’s 01101110.01100101, which is N.E. Then there’s 01101100.01101111, and that’s L.O. Finally we have 01110000.01100101, P.E. If you put them all together you get P.E.N.E.L.O.P.E. And it’s repeated over and over again. Add this with what we discovered on the body, I’d say Garcia’s alive but someone went through a lot of trouble to make us think she wasn’t.”
"That's my girl." Morgan said and he couldn’t help but to chuckle at the idea that his ‘baby girl’ had sent them a cyber bread crumb.
“That’s a good thing, that tells us that she’s very valuable to them, and that can keep her safe.” Rossi said. “Now we just have to find her.”
“Actually,” Reid spoke out again as he continued to study the symbols and numbers on the screen. “I think Garcia’s provided us with that as well. These numbers here, 38277854, they’re not binary but I think they might be the longitude and latitude of where Garcia is being held, 38° 27' N 78° 54'W.”
“Where is that?” Morgan asked.
“Uhm,” Reid rushed to the computer and quickly pulled up and map and inputting the information. “According to this, it’s in Harrisonburg, Virginia.”
“Hot damn, I’ll assemble my best team together. We’ll get in there and grab those bastards before they even know what hit them.” Mr. Wilcox said as he hurried from the room.
“We need to take lead on this one Hotch we can’t let FBI Swat in there.” Morgan said and Hotchner's face grew grim. "Come on Hotch you know how those fools roll. They’re gonna go in there with guns blazing. Their goal is to get the bad guys I just want to get Garcia out safe and sound. Please man.”
“Fine, I’ll talk to Wilcox.”
“Thanks Hotch,” Morgan said as he began to rush from the room to go suit up for the mission.
“Oh and Morgan,” Hotchner called out to him and Morgan stopped just at the door, where he turned back to face Hotchner. “If you could grab the other hostages while you’re getting Garcia that would be good too.” Morgan threw his boss a smile.
“Right,” Morgan replied and then rushed from the room with the rest of the team right behind him.
Elsewhere
“Here you should eat something,” The man spoke softly as he set a tray of food that consisted of a sandwich, chips and a soda down on the table.
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” The woman seated at the table replied in a deflated tone. “Being kidnapped and held hostage tends to do that to me.”
“Look I’m sorry about all this really I am, but it’s for the greater good, society as we know is so screwed up. The rich keep getting richer the poor keep dying, and the middle-class take the tax brunt from both sides. Imagine if we all were the same, we all had the same amount of money, the same social class, and the best part no history whatsoever. Everyone could start over and on equal footing.” The man spoke excitedly as the woman simply stated at him dumbfound.
“You’re serious,” She threw finding it somewhat cute and reassuring that he did actually believe that’s what they were doing. “Look that’s not what we’re doing here, that may have been what you were told. But this is nothing but probably the biggest bank robbery ever.”
“No you’re wrong my brother and I have a mission. We’ve had nothing all of our lives, we watched our mom die because she didn’t have health insurance. Watched our dad put a bullet in his brain because when he asked the Government for help finding work all they gave him was a couple of vouchers for some food and clothes. We never asked for any handouts, we’ve always been willing to work for everything we got, but it wasn’t enough, it was never enough. This is freaking America, no one should go hungry, die because they're refused treatment, or be unemployed, and we’re going to make sure of it.”
“OK, if what you say is true then why are we only targeting banks? We’ve already stolen over 80 million dollars, why? What are you going to do with all that money? According to you in your new utopia we won’t need money.” She could tell by the way the younger man was looking at her perplexingly, he hadn’t been aware of what they were really doing. At that moment another man entered to room.
“Let’s go we have more work to do.” The man spoke from the doorway.
“Jake, we need to talk.” The younger man spoke.
“Not now Mikey, we have…”
“Yes, right now.” The younger man demanded as he rushed from the room. She could hear the two men arguing in the hallway, and she wondered if she should have just kept her mouth shut. It was obvious that the younger man was the weaker of the two, and he may not be able to handle his brother who was clearly running their operation, and where would that leave her.
“Morgan where are you?” She whispered.
“Agent Hotchner, this is Chief Winslow, with the Harrisonburg Sheriff’s Dept. he’s been kind enough to offer us all his resources, to help find these guys.”
“Thank you Chief,” Hotchner said as he shook the man’s hand. “We’ll need your expertise on this. Have there been any suspicious activities lately. Anyone been buying a lot of electronics, or has someone moved into town recently?”
“Yeah on both counts actually. Bob Jenkins runs the local electronics shop, he mentioned last week that some out-of-towners came through and bought over 10 thousand dollars worth of equipment from him, and even ordered an additional 20 thousand dollars worth of things that he had to special order for them. Bob said it took him several trips to deliver it all.”
“Did he mention where he delivered it to?” Morgan asked as he stood nearby.
“Yeah it was at the old mill factory that closed down a few years back. It’s just on the outskirts of town.” Chief Winslow stated.
“Sounds like the ideal place to set up their operation.” Rossi said and Hotchner nodded his head in agreement.
“Is there a way we could get the blue prints of that building, we need to know all the in and outs.” Prentiss asked.
“I can do you one better, I know a secret way in through the sewers. It’ll take you right into the basement of the building that is if it hasn’t caved in. The reason the mill closed was to due to foundation safety issues.”
“We’ll take our chances,” Morgan declared anxious to get moving.
“Let’s get to work people.” Hotchner said as they all moved out.
*****
The two men had been out in the hall arguing well over an hour, and their voices seemed to get louder and louder until finally a gun shot rang out and silenced everything. Garcia jumped from the seat she had been sitting in and stared with fright fill eyes towards the door. The door suddenly swung open and a very angry man rushed in.
“You bitch,” He growled as he stalked towards her, she only had a split second to raise her arms before the man started raining down blows, punching her repeatedly and then kicking her once she fell to the floor. “You made me kill him. You made me kill my little brother because you put those ideas in his head. You,” Kick. “Fucking,” Kick. “Whore!” He didn’t stop until one of his accomplices rushed in after hearing the commotion. He pulled the angry man off of Garcia, who still lay on the floor beside her broken glasses moaning in pain and spitting up blood. She sat up and silently cried as she fearfully watched the angry man who paced about the room while the other man tried to calm him. The angry man then rushed back to where Garcia sat on the floor, and pressed his gun against her temple. Garcia squeaked as she closed her eyes and sobbed harder. “I should fucking kill you,”
“Come on man you know we need her, she’s the best hacker out of the lot of them. We’ve only got one more bank job to do, and then you can do whatever you want with her.” The other man said as he again pulled the angry man off of Garcia.
“Fine, when we finish this we’re all gonna have a good ole time with you Princess, the boys have been gagging for some ass for weeks now and since you’re the only ass around, I guess you’re it. When we’ve had our fun and our fill of you, then I’m gonna put a bullet right between your eyes.” He then pressed the nozzle of his gun against her forehead to emphasize his point.
“Come on man I need you to help me load the equipment since we’re now short a man.” The men then left the room locking the door behind them. Once she was sure they had left Garcia allowed her fears to overtake her as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head against it and openly cried.
*****
It had taken them 45 minutes to maneuver through the sewers, before they finally reached the entrance to the basement of the building. When they entered Morgan took the lead.
“You all know what our hostages look like, they’re friendly’s. We don’t shoot the friendly’s, especially the beautiful blonde one, got it,” The other men geared up in tactical suits nodded their understandings. “Everybody else is fair game.”
“This isn’t a shoot to kill mission agent,” Hotchner spoke up deciding to take over the lead, since it seemed that Morgan was out for blood. “We want to capture and detain the perps, if we can. That’s an order.” He said this looking directly at Morgan, who gave a curt nod. “Let’s go.”
Hotchner said leading the way up the stairs and out into a corridor. Hotchner used hand signals to send his orders and the men went into groups of threes down the four different corridors. Their plan was to move in fast and hard, so Swat quickly deployed several M84 stun grenades. Hotchner and Rossi quickly found the control room and secured it, while Reid and Prentiss found the holding cells of several of the hostages, freeing them. Morgan made his way to the only door at the end of his corridor, he peeped through the small glass window on the door, and his heart soared at the sight before him. He tried to open the door but found it locked, so he aimed his gun and shot the knob at an angle, causing it to fall off. Garcia jumped a bit at the sound of the gun, and then covered her ears with both her hands while squeezing her eyes tightly shut, as she buried her face against her knees and rocked back and forth. She resolved that the angry man had come back to make good on his earlier promise.
“Penelope,” Morgan called to her softly as he kneeled in front of her, but she didn’t respond she just kept squeezing her eyes shut and continued to rock. “Hey babygirl,” He coaxed as he reached out and touched her arm she stilled in her movements and slowly raised her head to look at him. Morgan was taken aback at the sight of her bruised and slightly swollen face, and he couldn’t stop the tears of joy that rolled from his eyes at seeing her alive and well.
“Are you real?” Her meek voice spoke to him.
“Yeah baby, I’m real and I’ve come to get you out of here.” Morgan replied as he stroked her hair and gave her a smile.
“What took you so long?” She asked as fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she gently swatted at his chest.
“I’m sorry sweetness I promise you I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to if you want, ok. But right now I’m gonna get you home.” Morgan declared as he grasped both of her arms and pulled her up from the floor.
“Oww, oww.” She whined out in pain and he quickly released her arms.
“You ok?” Morgan asked in concern.
“It’s nothing I just want to go.” Garcia said as she leaned against him and allowed him to lead her out to their awaiting team, who had already captured all the bad guys and freed the hostages.
*****
“You sure he was the leader?” Wilcox asked from his spot near the door, while Garcia stood staring through the two-way glass at the man she had termed ‘the angry man’. Morgan stood at her side, reassuringly rubbing her back. She nodded her head and Wilcox immediately left the room to finish his reports. Garcia remained rooted in her spot seemingly fixated on the man on the other side of the glass. Even though the glass between them was at least 20 inches thick she was still scared of him.
“Don’t worry he can’t hurt you,” Morgan said as if reading her mind, as he wrapped his arms around her. She sighed and rested her head back against his chest.
“Oh I know he hits like a girl anyway. But his kick is pretty fierce, broke my arm.” She threw out with a smile intending to make a joke to lighten the mood, but regretted it when she looked up and saw the look on Morgan’s face.
“I’ll be right back.” He said as he extracted his arms from around her waist.
“Morgan, don’t. Look I’m fine, see?” She waved her slinged arm like a chicken. He simply reached out a hand and cupped her face, while stroking his thumb across her cheek.
“Wait here I’ll be right back.” He then left the room only to reappear a few seconds later in the room on the other side of the glass.
“What the fuck do you want now?” Asked the man who sat at the metal table with his hands cuffed through the metal ring attached to the table. Morgan didn’t answer with words he just threw a quick body shot to the man’s ribs. Garcia flinched as a loud crack seeped through the wall. Morgan then left the room, leaving the man gasping for air in such pain that he couldn’t even cry out for help. Morgan reentered the tiny room where Garcia still stood watching the man through the glass.
“What did you do to him?” She asked as she continued watching the man in awe.
“Broke some of his ribs, it’ll be a few hours before the pain will subside enough for him to tell anyone. By then he’ll be back at county.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Well he shouldn’t have hurt my babygirl.” Morgan replied and she smiled at him sweetly.
“Oh I meant to ask you earlier, were you guys able to find ‘Jane Doe’s’ family?” Garcia asked her look and tone turning serious.
“No, the plastic surgery those guys had done was too extensive. The coroner said there was no way for them to find out what she may have looked like before, same goes for the John Doe we found. These guys went through a lot of trouble to try and make us believe you were dead. We figured they wanted us to eventually stop looking for you, so they can continue using you.”
“God, Morgan that woman died because of me,”
“No, don’t you start having those kinds of thoughts. She died because of that scumbag in there.” Morgan said as he pointed at the mirror.
“I want to give her a proper burial, I’ll pay for it. That’s the least I can do for her.” Morgan simply nodded. “Did she really look just like me?”
“Yeah, I thought I’d lost you, and it made me realize how important you really are to me.” He confessed.
“I already knew how important I am to you sugar,” Garcia said as she reached up as patted his cheek.
“Yeah well I guess I didn’t know, but now I do,” He replied as he covered her hand with his, keeping it pressed to his cheek. “You are my heart, my conscious, my very best friend.” Garcia’s heart swelled with each word and tears filled her eyes. “Woman you are the single most important person in my life. You mean the world to me and I’d be lost without you.”
“Ditto,” She replied through quivering lips, unable to speak because she was so choked up and touched by his words.
“Now let’s get you home and get you in bed, the doctor said he wanted you to take a couple of weeks off. So I’ve taken some of my vacation time and I’m gonna make sure you rest. I’ll be at your beckon call, so I don’t want you to lift a finger.”
“Honey you had me at ‘let’s get you in bed.’” She said with a sly smile, which Morgan matched with one of his own as they headed out.
The End
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.