Chapter Text
Chapter 01
“Still planning to head to the library today?”
“If I have time. I’m going to the guild hall to register.”
“That’s…unexpected.”
“Something is coming.”
“Any hints?”
“No.”
---
“Spence! Spence!”
Spencer Reid looked up from his lazy perusal of the daily infobytes he subscribed to just to see Penelope Garcia heading his direction with determined excitement. He hastily took a gulp of his coffee while locking his computer screen, knowing he was going to need his full attention to deal with whatever his colleague was so energetic about. “What’s up, Garcia?”
Penelope reached Reid’s desk and leaned towards him conspiratorially, and whisper-shouted loud enough for anyone eavesdropping to hear easily enough, “I got a hit! Two of them!”
“You did? That’s great!” Reid exclaimed, immediately interested, more of his morning ennui leaving him with the promise of new information. “Wait. On what?”
“The Indiana case!” Penelope exclaimed, then straightened up and starting waving the hand that wasn’t holding her tablet. “Two entries updated in ViCAP yesterday pinged on my overnight searches.”
“The new set? Or the old?” Spencer asked as he turned back to his desk to open a drawer and reach for the relevant folder that held his notes about the serial rape/torture/murder cases. All the cases were going nowhere fast, expected in the old and cold cases and even more frustrating in the new ones, but maybe these hits would lead somewhere…
“The new set,” Penelope waved both arms with a huge grin. “And they’ve been listed as linked!”
Spencer blinked in surprise. He’d linked the two sets of crimes only a few months ago and he had thirteen cases to reference. And even then, the link was tenuous, more of a gut feeling and pattern recognition than any hard evidence. His team agreed with his assessment, however, and he’d had Garcia create parameters to add to her nightly search algorithms in hopes of catching any new victims. He’d never expected to get anything new out of ViCAP after their initial trawling. “Who has the cases?”
“NCIS,” Penelope answered with a sharp nod. “That’s the Navy’s agency.”
“NCIS? Hmmm.” Spencer considered that a moment. “A military component hasn’t been part of any of the other cases. If NCIS considered the cases in only a military context then that would explain why they never reached out to the FBI. Dates on the cases?”
“One from 2000 and one from 2005,” Garcia answered quickly. “Do you think they’d let me into their files to do analysis?”
“Not a chance,” Derek Morgan said with a snort as he paused behind Garcia, folders and coffee in hand. “Why do you want into NCIS’ files anyway?”
“I got two hits on Spence’s Indiana case!” Penelope exclaimed, always thrilled when one of her searches pulled information on cold cases.
Derek raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Oh, yeah?”
“2000 and 2005,” Penelope confirmed, waving her tablet. “You really don’t think they’d let me in? Just a little bit?”
“Not a chance,” Derek repeated with a headshake. “It’s going to take an official request to get anything at all. Come on. Let’s get to the conference room and we can sweettalk Hotch into politicking that for us. Might take a while depending on how well the hits match up.”
“Maybe he can fast-track it,” Spencer said as he gathered his own folders for the meeting. “Another victim is due any day.”
Derek grimaced but nodded and led the way to the conference room. Another victim was actually overdue and they still had nothing. They could only hope that the new cases Garcia had found held the key.
---
“Something is coming.”
“Today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Not fully. Not yet. Soon.”
“Any hints?”
“Something is coming full circle.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for anything historical then.”
---
Tony sighed and tossed his pen down on his desk then leaned back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyebrows. It didn’t do much for the aggravation headache starting to form. He needed a break.
“Problem, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked from his desk, his face still tilted down reading through his own pile of paper.
“I need a break,” Tony said with an irritated huff.
“Case really that bad?” Gibbs asked mildly, not looking up.
“The investigation was for shit, Gibbs,” Tony complained bitterly, starting a head massage. That helped.
“You willing to say that to the investigating agent’s face?” Gibbs asked, finally looking up and noting that his SFA really was well on his way to annoyed if he was ignoring his perfectly styled hair and resorting to a head massage in the middle of the day. His junior agents were eyeing DiNozzo warily. The man rarely swore at the office and it never meant anything good.
“You’d let me?” Tony asked hopefully, lowering his hands to look at his senior agent. He whined in disappointment at the look on Gibbs face. “You suck, Boss.”
“Take a walk, Tony, and get an early lunch,” Gibbs ordered. “Be back by 1:00.”
“I can’t eat this early, Boss!” Tony protested then sulked at the look he got. “Fine,” he muttered sullenly and starting packing up his desk.
“Take a drive to Norfolk instead,” Director Vance said as he came around the cubicles into the MCRT’s area.
Tony eyed the director. Vance had a neutral expression on his face but Tony could easily see lines and tension that belied that the man was vexed at something. Something involving his fine self, too, if the man’s order was anything to go by. “Norfolk?” he asked, honestly confused. Nothing they were doing involved the Norfolk office.
“You updated ViCAP recently on a couple murder victims,” Vance stated, lips pursing in a more overt display of displeasure. “Evidently those victims fit nicely into a larger FBI case and they want to review our evidence and investigation.”
Tony nodded warily. There had to be more. Vance looked more and more irritated as he spoke.
“I’ve already ordered everything retrieved,” Vance continued as he stared at Tony, now obviously unhappy. “You’ll go to Norfolk and pick up everything then head to Quantico for an initial meeting and review this afternoon and transfer chain of custody on the evidence. Expect to be there the remainder of the week at least. They apparently have another thirteen cases and they want the agent that linked those two cases to review their cases to provide another perspective.”
Ah. There it was. Tony knew he and Vance maintained a solid détente, but that didn’t mean Vance liked to see Tony given any special recognition or opportunity. Vance would much prefer to give those things to McGee, as much as that boggled Tony’s mind because there were a dozen agents, at least, that had better prospects, in his opinion. It would piss Tony off something fierce if Vance’s weird blind spot didn’t serve Tony’s own purposes so very well.
“Who will I be reporting to, Director?” Tony asked and watched Vance’s mouth tighten just that little bit in irritation. He never called the man sir and they both knew it was because Tony respected only the position and not Vance himself. Since Tony always used a respectful tone, Vance could do nothing.
“Aaron Hotchner.”