TW: stabbing, swords, graphic descriptions of crime scenes, gore, sexual references, mention and usage of guns, mild language, police presence.
the fisher king, part two of three.
" a game without rules is war " - john fowles.
-
Elle had gotten coffee for herself, Derek, and Genevieve as the team, minus Reid and Garcia set up around the roundtable.
Genevieve had taken Derek's jumper, as she hadn't had a chance to get her hands on any other clothes, and Virginia was far too cold for her tank top and cargo pants.
"We clearly have a psychopath intent on drawing us into his game,"
"Playing with us," Gideon agreed.
"So, let's return the favour," Elle said snidely, pacing around the room.
"He kept telling us we repeatedly to save her. What her?" Derek asked, shaking his head.
"Items he sent must be some sort of clues," Gideon replied.
"Let's get them up on the board," Hotch suggested. JJ nodded and grabbed a whiteboard marker.
"I got a Nellie Fox baseball card from 1963 and a head in a box," Gideon started.
"I got a rare butterfly in a shadow box," JJ said, beginning to make a list on the board in her neat, curly handwriting.
"And repeated messages to 'save her'," Hotch added.
"I got the decapitated body of Gideon's head, and a nice visit from the Jamaican police," Elle said poisonously. Genevieve pursed her lips. She would not want to be this Unsub when Elle got her hands on him.
"Reid called from Nevada. He's on his way back with a skeleton key, and a note he got too,"
"And the guy who called me said 'the youngest one holds the key',"
"That's got to be Spencer,"
"Unsubs don't normally contact us this way. They taunt us, dare us to catch them, but they don't drag us into their fantasy," Derek said, taking a large swig of his coffee.
"Why not?" JJ asked.
"Because their delusions are sexual. Taunting us is a power play, but involving us like this? I honestly have no idea. I've never even heard of it before," Genevieve told her, turning her palms up in an 'I don't know' gesture.
"There's something else about the baseball card," Gideon said, prompting the team to turn to look at him. "Nellie Fox was one of the stars of the 1959 White Sox. I went to almost every game with my father that year. Fox was my hero... so is it a coincidence that he sends this to me, or does he know that this is how I feel about him?"
"I collected butterflies when I was a little girl," JJ piped up, before anybody could speculate further. "That's how I knew what butterfly was in the box,"
"So he knows us?" Derek asked.
"Maybe not. I got an anonymous call. There isn't much personal about that," Hotch shook his head.
"I got a police raid," Elle added.
"He did know where to find all of us, though. I think Derek's right," Genevieve said slowly.
"He got that from the Bureau computers," Garcia said quietly, walking in. Her posture made it seem like she was trying to seem as small as possible. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong than it already was. "Your locations are always in there so they can find you if they need you. And I checked the log. The hacker was definitely in the personnel folders. There were room numbers to the hotel in Jamaica, the address of Gideon's cabin... there's a lot of information in those databases,"
"Have you figured out how he was able to get into the Bureau's computers?" Hotch asked, rubbing his jaw. Garcia visibly gulped. She had been hoping he wouldn't ask that question.
"I- I'm still working on that," She bluffed. Everyone in the room caught the lie, but none of them said anything. Except Hotch.
"Garcia, if you know something-"
"No, it's um... It's just I- I was playing a game yesterday. An online game," She said meekly.
Genevieve sighed, knowing where this was going. She looked down at her hands, trying to spare poor Garcia the embarrassment of having to admit this in front of the whole team.
"A game?" Gideon asked, his words clipped. JJ fidgeted uncomfortably, and Derek scratched at his forehead.
"Not on the Bureau computers, sir. On my own, personal one," She said quickly.
"Oh, Garcia, no," Derek said, dropping his head into his hands. Genevieve and watched her sympathetically. She had messed up, there was no doubt about it, but there wasn't much point in berating her about it. What's done is done.
"I don't understand," Elle said, looking around at her colleagues, who were all looking incredibly awkward, except for Gideon and Hotch, who looked angry.
"Wireless internet," Derek said shortly.
"By wirelessly hooking into the Net here, to get online, the hacker could have gotten into my computer first, and I have far less protection on my own laptop," Garcia explained. JJ offered the computer whizz a comforting smile.
"And he could have gotten into the entire Bureau computer system this way?" Hotch asked, pressing a hand to his mouth.
"Yeah, it's possible, sir," She responded shakily.
"Playing a game?" Gideon asked, the anger evident in his quiet tone. "How could you be so stupid? Information, files, you have a responsibility,"
Genevieve opened her mouth to defend Garcia, but Derek elbowed her lightly in the ribs, telling her to keep quiet.
"I know, sir. I'm so sorry," The blonde said, tears pooling up in her eyes. "But I found him," She offered up, as Gideon turned his back on her to turn his hands through his hair frustratedly. The entire team perked up at this.
"The hacker - I know his name. It's Giles. Frank Giles," She said hurriedly. "He lives in Arlington, Virginia. Four miles from here,"
+++
"Clear!" Genevieve yelled, after she finished her sweep of the living room.
"Door!" Elle called, gesturing to the double doors that sectioned off the living room from the rest of the apartment. Derek got there first, and positioned two SWAT agents around the doors.
"Frank Giles? FBI!" He shouted out.
"Come on out, Giles!" Elle said, standing beside Genevieve, readied to run in.
Genevieve and Derek nodded to each other, and each pushed one door. As they swung open, Elle made her way into the room first, with the other two on her flanks.
They all froze as they took in the scene before them.
A rusty metal bed had been pushed into the centre of the room, and on it, lay Frank Giles, stripped down to his underwear. A large sword, probably the height of a small eight-year-old, had been plunged into Giles' chest. And, like the crime scene of Marty Harris, there was a message painted onto the walls in blood.
Here thy quest doth truly begin.
+++
"ID checks out. This is Frank Giles," Elle said, looking down at the mugshot Garcia had sent.
"There are thousands on dollars in this bag," Genevieve said, rifling through the duffel of cash on the dresser.
"So, our Unsub promised Giles money to take Harris to Jamaica and kill him. And then the Unsub killed Giles," Hotch talked through their timeline.
"Yeah, but he paid him first," Derek said, pouting as he tried to make sense, and walking over to the money that Genevieve was still going through. "To leave all of this, he's well-funded,"
"He said these were unrepentant, bad men. Are we looking for some kind of vigilante?" Hotch guessed.
"I don't think so. Vigilantes don't typically display the psychopathy we've been seeing so far. And their goal is to avenge. He's not going to avenge much by involving us in the fantasy. If he was a vigilante, he'd be doing his best to keep up away from him, to stop us from compromising his mission," Genevieve disagreed.
"The bodies are nothing but a way to get us interested," Gideon assented. "They're game pieces. The killing is secondary,"
"Well, this guy likes to write things in blood on walls," Elle murmured, approaching the wall to inspect it a little closer.
"All kinds of cult and demonic significance to that," Derek added, building on her thoughts.
"Thy? Doth? Quest? Thy quest doth truly begin. I mean, why start phrasing things like this now?" She asked.
"All the other messages were in Modern English," Hotch said.
"Maybe this is the first one the Unsub actually wrote?" Derek suggested.
"So, we're looking for Shakespeare?" Elle asked, unimpressed.
"Maybe-" Genevieve started to say, but her train of thought was interrupted by Gina, one of the crime techs.
"Hey, guys?" She asked unsurely. Their attention all turned to her. "There's something written on the blade,"
Hotch crouched down to read the etchings.
"To learn of what next should be done, leave the blade till the hour be none," He read out.
"Hour be none?" Derek asked as he, Genevieve, and Elle all crowded around to get a look at the message.
"What is this, Cinderella? Is something just going to magically transform at midnight?" Genevieve asked scrutinously.
"No... but maybe..." Hotch's voice trailed off for a second. "Elle, move for a second. Just to your left," He said, looking up to her. "The bed's in the centre of the room, which isn't by chance. And maybe, the light from here casts a shadow and points to something,"
"Forget Cinderella. This is straight out of an Indiana Jones movie," Elle scoffed.
"Hour be none. That's midnight, last I checked. What kind of light are we going to be getting then?" Genevieve gestured around the room.
"Hour be none," Derek repeated, rubbing the back of his head in thought.
"Three pm," A familiar voice. They all looked up as Spencer walked in, his hands shoved into his pockets and a wry smile on his face. "Hey, guys. Garcia told me where to find you,"
"Three pm?" Gideon asked dubiously.
"It's medieval. The days used to be broken into hourly intervals - the canonical hours of the breviary. Prime, six am. Terce, nine am. Sext, twelve pm. None, three pm, and vespers, six pm," He said, scratching his forearm absent-mindedly.
Elle, Genevieve, and Derek all exchanged bemused looks. Of course, Spencer would look around for all of five seconds, and suddenly have the answer.
"Reid, do not ever go away again," Elle said, smiling at him fondly.
"Medieval. That's why the language changed," Gideon realised, all business.
"Everything this guy does is a clue," Hotch said, still staring at the blade.
"Okay, but guys, it's 4:35, right now. We can't just wait until three tomorrow," Derek said, pulling them all back to the problem at hand.
"We can block the window out," Spencer said, pulling the curtains shut. He turned to Gina. "Do you have a spotlight in your car?"
"Uh... yeah, I should," She said, getting up, and leaving to get it.
"Thanks, Gina,"
+++
"Morgan, follow the light, as I move it higher," Spencer said, after they had set up their mock 'three pm'.
"And do what?" He asked, as Genevieve helped him move the dresser out of the way of the wall which the sword cast a shadow on.
"Tap," Hotch said.
Derek ran his hands up and down the wall, knocking every now and then, before he settled on a spot.
"It's hollow," He said, rapping on the wall with his knuckles.
"Indiana Jones who?" Elle asked, chuckling darkly.
"It feels like the wallpaper's been replaced," Derek said.
"Tear it open,"
Derek went to his belt, and pulled out a small penknife, and poked it through the wallpaper. He tried to trace out a rectangle with the blade, but it gave way. He ditched the knife, and stuck his hands into the small hole, and tore away some of the paper.
"It's a box," He said, looking to Hotch.
"Take it out," He ordered.
"Wait, what, you think it's safe?" Spencer asked, suddenly a little nervous.
"What, you think it's a bomb?" Hotch asked skeptically.
"No, it's safe. He wouldn't go through all this effort just to blow us up," Genevieve told him.
"If that's what he wanted, we've all been standing here, like fifteen minutes. He's had his chance," Derek agreed, taking the box out, and placing it on the dresser.
"Wait, what the hell?" Genevieve frowned, walking over to the box, pulling on a pair of rubber evidence gloves.
"What is it?" Gideon asked, looking at her as she took it from Derek and examined it.
"It's my music box. My dad got it for me when I was a little girl I... I thought it was gone. I left it at the house when... when I left for the military," She said, looking up at Spencer. "Well, actually, I don't know if it's mine, but it's an exact copy. This must be my gift,"
"Mum kept all the stuff you left behind," Spencer said softly, smiling at her as she held the box with the warm feeling of nostalgia tugging at her heartstrings. "She donated some of it, and took the rest when she moved into the institution. She keeps the box on her dresser,"
"Can you open it?" Gideon asked before Genevieve could say anything in response. She tried to pry it open, but it was locked shut.
"It's locked,"
"Want me to break it?" Derek offered.
"No," She snapped, holding it close to her chest protectively, and glaring at him. "Um... there was a key for it. It was black and old-timey,"
"Like this, right?" Spencer asked, pulling a skeleton key out of his pocket.
"The youngest holds the key," Gideon quoted.
"Yeah," She said, smiling and taking it from him. She slipped the key into the lock, and as it clicked, she twisted it, and lifted the lid.
Whimsical music started tinkling as soon as she opened it.
"Schubert. The Trout Quintet. Genevieve, is this your box?" Gideon asked. She gasped as she pulled out a small plastic bag with two colourful beaded bracelets. They both had rainbow plastic beads of all shapes and sizes, and in the middle, had white lettered beads. One read Jenny, and the other Spence.
"Yeah," She exhaled, picking up the plastic bag and showing it to them. "Yeah, it's mine," She and Spencer exchanged a significant look at the sight of the bracelets but didn't say anything, not wanting to get off track.
"What else is in there?" Derek asked as she continued to root through the contents of the box. There was a note, scrawled in a print that matched the blood on the wall.
"Never would it be night, but always clear day, to any man's sight," She read out. Everyone shrugged, as no one recognised it.
"That was worth it," Elle commented dryly.
"Hang on... I used to hide the jewellery for my... my belly button piercing in the lining of the box, where my dad wouldn't find it, even if he looked," Genevieve said.
"You had a belly button piercing?" Derek asked, a shocked grin on his face.
"Focus," Gideon reminded them, as she opened her mouth to retort. She pulled on the corner of the velvet lining, and peeled the material off, revealing a CD, and a lock of blonde hair, bound with a rubber band.
"Thy Quest," Derek looked at what was written on the CD, while Elle carefully placed the hair in an evidence bag.
+++
"As you can see, she is quite beautiful. And in distress," The video played on, capturing a traumatised-looking blonde girl struggling against the walls of the cage she had been locked in. The feed cut to a shadowy figure, sitting in the darkness.
"Now please, listen closely, for there is one rule that must be followed. The one rule is: only the members of your team may participate in this quest. Jason Gideon, Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Genevieve Taylor, Elle Greenaway, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, and Penelope Garcia," Everyone's breath hitched in their throat as surveillance photos of each member of the team popped up.
"A quest must be completed in the proper way, or it isn't a quest, is it? That's it. One rule. Simple. Now, you will be receiving an item soon, that will hold the final clue you will need to finish the quest. You will find that you will also need a book which has inspired many an adventure like mine. Believe me when I tell you that I truly hope to see you all soon. It will mean a successful end to this adventure for all of us,"
And just like that, the feed went black.
"This guy's got pictures of us?" Elle asked angrily.
"What do we do now?"
"Well, the lock of hair's being analysed for DNA, hopefully, we get a hit," Hotch said.
"I'll get Video to enhance the shots of the girl," JJ said, taking the CD out of the player, and walking off.
"Let's get the clues up on the board," Hotch told them.
"Wait, we're going to play his game?" Elle asked disbelievingly.
"That girl's life depends on it, I don't think we get a choice," Genevieve shook her head. As they debated, Gideon stormed out of the room wordlessly. They all stopped talking to watch him go.
"You guys keep working, I'll be right back," Hotch said, following him out.
+++
Hotch came back ten minutes later with an A3 piece of paper filled with numbers, saying it had been delivered to Hayley, his wife, by an anonymous delivery guy. There were several numbers, all grouped into sets of three, a dot separating the numbers within a set, and spaces separating the sets from one another. Genevive pinned it up onto the board as Elle sighed deeply
"My eyes are so heavy, I can barely see it," She said, rubbing her face.
"I think it's a coded message, of some sort," Spencer said, staring at the paper intently. "The Unsub said we needed a book, didn't he?"
"Yup. A book that 'inspired many an adventure'," Derek quoted, rolling his eyes.
"That's it. It's a book code. Each set of numbers represent a particular word. For instance," He pointed to a random set of numbers in the middle of the page. "Page 118, line 30, word 3. We need to figure out what the words are and fill in the blanks,"
"There are millions of books in the world. How the hell are we meant to find the right one?" Genevieve asked, looking at the young genius.
"I... don't know, and to make things even harder, it has to be the exact same edition, of the exact same book that he used," He said, looking genuinely stumped. Derek closed his eyes in anger. He was restless - they all were. They had about a million different ideas to pursue, but no clear way of knowing where to start.
"I got a DNA hit on the lock of hair. Rebecca Bryant. She's been missing out of Boston for two years," JJ said, walking in, and handing Elle a piece of paper.
"Two years?" She repeated, taking a brief glance at the paper before showing it to the rest of the group. It was a picture of a young blonde girl. The video was grainy, and it was an old picture, but it was definitely the same girl.
"Guys, how are we supposed to which book this code was copied out of," Derek asked, leaning his head against the wall beside him.
"I have no idea," Spencer said, gnawing on the inside of his cheek, as JJ pinned the photo of Rebecca onto the board.
+++
Gideon had called JJ out to hold a press conference, much to the confusion to the rest of them, but no one criticised him. When he was this edgy, it was best to leave him to his own devices. Elle had fallen asleep, and no one had the heart to wake her up, as she hadn't slept since the flight to Jamaica. So now, it was just Genevieve, Derek, Spencer pouring over all the evidence.
"How's it going?" Hotch asked as he walked into the room.
"The answer has to be in here somewhere," Spencer said determinedly.
"Yeah? Let me know when you find it," Genevieve said, dropping the stack of crime scene photos she had been staring at dejectedly.
"Elle?" Hotch gently shook her awake, ignoring Genevieve's snide remark.
"I'm up," She said, abruptly sitting upright.
"I'm sending you home," He said, as she pulled the hair that had fallen into her mouth back, and away from her face.
"No," She moaned. "I'm fine,"
"We aren't getting anywhere, babe. Go have a shower, freshen up," Genevieve urged the auburn-haired woman.
"We won't do anything without you, I promise," Hotch said, extending his hand to pull her to her feet.
"We're not any closer than we were half an hour ago. Seriously, get out of here," Derek agreed.
"But-"
"It's an order," Hotch cut across her, smirking slightly as she sighed, and picked up her stuff. Genevieve waved to her as she was lead out of the conference room.
As soon as the door clicked shut, she dropped her head onto the table and sighed loudly. There was something that was bothering her, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. She felt Derek pat her on the back comfortingly as he sat back in his chair. They were just going in circles, and they needed their big break, and soon.
Little did they know, it was coming. And it had an axe to grind.