𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔, spencer reid ¹

𝒙𝒙𝒗. saturday

jj's husband, will, was the cop who had come across the hostage situation at the bank and when jj caught up with the team, she embraced will in a hug. "you okay?"

"yeah." will answered. "it's definitely them. i only saw the king and the jack, but i figure the queen's inside, too."

"the media's calling them the face cards." hotch informed the group, "7 bank robberies in 7 months. they've killed one person at each robbery."

"MO?" rossi asked. hotch responded, "single gunshot wound. each of the victims has bled out."

"serial killers with a 30-day cooling-off period and we're only just hearing about this now?" emily questioned. "well, headquarters has always characterized them robbers first and killers second." hotch told her. "no one kills 7 people without serious psychopathic tendencies." spencer mentioned.

"i disagreed with the original assessment. i was overruled." hotch replied.

"so, why are we here now?" rossi asked him.

"because crisis negotiation is overseas."

"what more do we know about them?" olivia questioned. "they're organized, they're efficient. each strike lasts about 2 minutes." hotch answered.

derek suggested, "they gotta be scouting the banks in advance. why haven't we been able to I.D. them off of surveillance footage?"

as hotch answered, the team and will entered the mobile command center, where penelope sat in front of her laptop, "they hack the security feed and turn off the cameras, both during the initial canvass and during the robbery, until the masks come back on, and then we're allowed to watch."

they watched the security footage as one of the unsubs paced around in the bank and the other one tended to another partner who was previously shot when encountering will. "they're using the hostages as human shields." rossi acknowledged.

"this is the first time they've been interrupted. what went wrong?" jj questioned.

"it's a big bank. it's possible they weren't about to round everybody up before someone triggered an alarm." olivia stated.

"why haven't they cut the feed now that they've been cornered? letting us see inside gives up a tactical advantage. they gotta know that." derek pondered.

"they don't seem to care." hotch commented. "they're overconfident. arrogant, even." jj said. spencer voiced, "the face card masks add to their narcissism. their personas are the royalty of poker."

hotch started giving out orders, "jj, liv, reid, and prentiss, look at past robberies. that's gonna be our victimology. pull another analyst if you need to. . ." the four exited out the command center and drove back to the BAU as hotch continued giving out orders.

while looking through files upon files, they used kevin lynch as their technical analyst to substitute for penelope as she was still needed at the bank. "in 6 robberies no one's been able to build a sketch of the unsub before they put their masks on. these witness descriptions are all over the map." olivia told.

"probably because of the trauma suffered inside. they've been zig-zagging north and south, but in a relative straight pattern from Washington D. C." spencer read from his geographic profile.

"this is the largest bank they've hit. before today, it's just been small branches in rural communities." jj noted. "so today was always a part of their plan, but why the nation's capital? to make a statement?" prentiss guessed.