“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.