(04) Dialing Secrets
JJ: Ready with the trap and trace?
GARCIA (over the phone): With the awesome power I have in this room all I need is 15 seconds on the phone to nail this skeevy perv.
JJ: 15 seconds?
GARCIA: If that.
JJ(on the television): I can now announce that our office has assisted in making an arrest in connection with the investigation. That's really all I can say at this time.
JJ(on the phone with Garcia): We're still waiting, Garcia.
ELLE: God, I hate waiting like this.
SPENCER: Do you think it's weird that I knew that ballad?
ELLE: I don't know how it is that you know half the things you know but I'm glad you do.
“ Do you think it's why I never managed to get a date? ” Spencer said to Prentiss while they were sitting together at one of the desks in the station, little secluded from the rest of the team.
“ You ever ask anyone out? ” Prentiss asked while looking at him with traces of pity.
“ No. ” he answered with a small, secretive smile.
“ That's why you can't get a date. ” she said and smiled at him now looking like he’s thinking of all situations where he could’ve gotten a date.
Line 6, Penelope. Line 6.
UNSUB (on the phone): You stupid, incompetent sons of b*tches! I don't make mistakes! I am death! You hear me?! I am death! You'll see now. Tomorrow, mark my words, you will see. And while I'm taking her, I'm gonna be thinking of you. (He hangs up.)
JJ: Anything?
GARCIA (to herself): Are you kidding me?
GARCIA (to others over the phone): I don't know how this is possible because there was definitely enough time for me to get a location but I got nothing. I got absolutely nothing.
GARCIA: Let me work on this.
JJ (to others): She said she got nothing.
MORGAN: Nothing?
HOTCH: We missed him?
Chief of the police department walks off talking with an officer from before. Team turns around to each other, looking helplessly, not knowing what now.
I knew that I had to think of something to help the team. To help these women. It’s not like I don’t have an idea, I just don’t like that idea that much. I don’t like it at all, actually. I hate that idea. But, Garcia has nothing, Hotch has nothing, Morgan is also quiet. Just looking around not knowing what to do. Every one of us was sure this was going to work. But it didn’t.
So I spoke up,
“I might know a way to track him.” As soon as I said that, as I expected, all eyes were on me.
“What do you mean?” Elle asked me. Morgan is looking at me like I fell off the moon and Gideon like I'm a riddle he's trying to solve. But at least JJ looks relieved.
“Reid, are you positive this will work?” Hotch asks me calmly, but in his eyes I can see that he's close to begging.
“I can try.” I really hate giving them false hope but I'm not sure if they will be able to pick up the phone, so I tell them that.
“What do you mean, you're not sure if he's going to be able to pick up the phone? This is a life and death man! And who are you talking about anyway?”, Morgan said almost angrily.
I know this is hard for him, cases like this usually are, but he's getting angry at me when I'm trying to help. I get his where his frustrations are coming from but you don't see me almost yelling at one person who's trying to do something and help find this son of a b*tch.
“They’re busy, Morgan. We’re not the only ones working”
“Working? Reid it’s Sunday. It’s almost midnight.” Morgan said, confused now more than ever.
“Ignoring that for now, Reid, you think they could help us if you get hold of them?”, Hotch said, looking at me and not at his phone anymore.
“Most definitely. I just need to call them”, “Do it. Call Garcia and do it through her.” Hotch said while walking off to inform the police chief of the news.
“Here pretty boy, Garcia’s on the line waiting for you.” Morgan said while putting the phone on speaker and back in the middle of the table.
“Thanks”, I said knowing that he did that to shorten the time that would take me to tell them what I found out but also because he and the girls were curious about my ‘contact’.
“Garcia?”
“Hey 187. I’m all yours.”
“I’m going to give you a number to call. It’s a secure line and you’ll have to call it twice because nobody will pick up the first time.” I said while typing on my phone, “I sent you the number.”
“Calling right now!”
“Thanks.” I said while sighing to myself, knowing that this will either help us greatly or just leave us with no hope to go on now that the team knows that there is someone who could help us.
“Oh, here we go Pretty Boy!”
“Black here”, the whole team quiets down as they hear raspiness to the person's voice, as if it was still adjusting to being awake.
“Z? It’s Spencer. You okay?”, I said and leaned closer to the phone. *Z is read as [zee]*
Everybody was surprised as Reid made his voice softer, and more calm. It was weird hearing the always calculated Doctor Reid talk like this. The voice on the phone was quiet for a few seconds and then spoke up with a British accent which surprised the team but they were even more surprised by the thing that the voice said:
“ I’m fine. Having a fun night at work, love. You on your way home? ”
JJ’s eyes widened. Morgan shot me a ‘ what the hell?’ look.
“Not yet. Listen, I’ve got the whole team here. You’re on speaker . ”
“ Alright, what’s up? ”, I looked up from the phone just to see Hotch was still standing with me actively while the rest of the team pretended to be looking through some files and not listening to my conversation.
“I’ve got Hotch here with me and Garcia is on the line, others are pretending that they’re not eavesdropping.” as I said that last thing Hotch looks at me strangely and I can see the rest of my team being confused but I can’t say more while knowing that I’m not really allowed.
“ I know, I know, don’t worry about it. What do you guys need? ” I looked up and Hotch nodded at me.
“We need to track a phone call.”
“ Spencer, that's so easy even you could do it with your eyes closed. ” the voice interrupted.
“The call ended about 15 minutes ago, lasted longer than 20 seconds but our technical analyst was unable to track it. Reid said you could help.” Gideon jumped in, surprising everyone.
Silence. Then—
“ That’s… ”, the voice pauses for a few seconds, “ ...concerning. Spence told me she can do impossible with computers. ”
“Flattering,” Garcia muttered, “but also, who are you?”
Hotch cut her off. “Garcia, focus.”
“Right. Sorry, sir. Anyhow, I couldn’t get a fix on the call because it was routed through 25 different substations. I don’t know what to do now but I’m willing to learn.
“Right. I see. Um… there’s not much you can do now that the call ended.”
Something twisted in my stomach.
“Z, please. He’s raping and killing women. We don’t know who he is or who’s next. I know you have a way.”
A sharp inhale. Then—
“ I can’t. ” The voice said and everybody’s faces fell.
“Z concentrate please. He raped and killed women. We don’t know who he is or who is going to be next. I know you have a way, please.” I didn’t care that I was begging them over the phone or in front of the team. We needed help.
“ Spencer… ”, the voice now, besides tired, sounded almost defeated.
“You and I both know what happened was not your fault, and don’t think that we won’t talk about this when I get back, but right now I need you to…” , he was interrupted one again by the voice
“Fury’s going to kill me when he finds out.” The voice dropped. “ Then I’ll rise from the dead and haunt you ‘til the end of your pathetic little life.”
“ Um, Spence? They hang up ” Garcia’s voice cut the silence that fell over the team.
JJ turned to me, furious. “You can’t just share case information with civilians—”
“They’re not civilians, are they?” Hotch’s voice was quiet. Knowing.
I met his gaze. “I can’t say, Hotch.”
Hotch held my stare for a moment, then simply nodded.
“What now? That was useless, we just lost time!”, Morgan said, frustrated.
“It was not useless, just give ‘em a minute. You can’t expect a solution in the same second.”
“Of course I can, we’re the FBI. What could possibly be more important than finding a murderer?!”
“Morgan stop fighting Reid on this, he said his contact will help if they can…”
“ Sir, I hate to interrupt you but Reid’s secret friend is calling back. ” Garcia said and patched them through immediately.
“Look love, I suddenly found myself in a small predicament, so my time is limited… give me a sec”, there was shuffling and what sounded like fighting over the phone, as I put my head in my hands just knowing how many questions the team will have. “Alright. Garcia, listen carefully. You still have the unique code from that call?”
GARCIA: “Yeah.”
“Good. Forget the usual trace. Instead, find the top three cell providers in the area. Use the call’s signature to force a cross-reference on their live networks. That will ping his exact location—IF he’s still using the phone.”
GARCIA: “Wait, wait, wait. You want me to hijack their internal systems?”
“I want you to borrow them.”
Garcia was silent for a beat.
Then—
“Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Gimme a sec.”
Morgan blinked. “Did… did they just teach Garcia how to hack a phone company?”
I ignored him. “Z, what if he ditched the phone?”
Z sighed. “Then you’re out of luck, love.”
I clenched my jaw. “Z, please. He’s killing women. We need this.”
A long pause.
Then, quietly—
“Spencer… you know what happened last time.”
The team watched me sharply.
I kept my voice firm. “This is different.”
Another pause. Then—
“Fine. Sending you a backdoor code. Garcia, apply it when you cross-reference. It’ll force a callback signal, even if the phone is off.”
GARCIA: “Oh my God. This is brilliant.”
A noise—muffled, distant.
Then—
Gunfire.
Two shots. A string of curses.
The team stiffened.
JJ: “Uh… did we just hear gunfire?”
“I’ll see you at home Spence, hafta go now” The line went dead.
Silence.
GARCIA (softly): “They hung up.”
Morgan stared at me. “Reid, what the hell just happened?”
Hotch exhaled. “Not now. Garcia, did it work?”
Garcia was quiet. Then—
“I GOT HIM!”
The room snapped into action.
“I’m sorry, are we going to ignore what just happened?”, Morgan said while looking around the team incredulously. The team? Hotch just looked at him sharply and went back to work, Gideon sat down and was just staring at me weirdly while JJ and Elle were looking at me and others trying to figure out what just happened or why was Hotch so disconcerned.
“Boy Genius, when you get back home I want to meet this person. That was amazing! Please. Please. Pretty please with ice cream on top. I’m doing puppy eyes just so you know.” Garcia begged jokingly over the phone, but I knew she was not completely joking. And just putting those two in a room together with any sort of computer would make it a national risk.
“I’ll see what I can do Garcia but I’m not promising anything. It all depends on when we get back home and their state.” I said and asked if anyone wanted a coffee refill before going to the hall.
“Seriously Hotch, are we actually going to ignore the fact that Pretty Boy has contacts that he can’t even say the name of. Somebody was shot Hotch!” Morgan said while silently freaking out.
“I mean, I worked for Interpol and even I don’t have those types of contacts Hotch.”
“And the familiarity is also concerning as we have never heard him talk about anyone.”
“Hello? Are we not going to comment on ‘Are you on your way back home’ or, I don’t know, the ‘love’ nickname” JJ said while having a weird look on her face and a not really subtle jealousy every profiler in the room could see in her eyes.
“Now was that enough time for you all to gossip?”, I said while entering the room with a new cup of coffee.
“Reid, do you want to talk to someone about this?”, Hotch asked me.
“I’m… alright?”
“Pretty boy, it’s obvious that you care about them and we just heard them getting shot at.”
Morgan folded his arms. “Okay. Now can we talk about this? Who is this person?”
Prentiss nodded. “And why do they call you love?”
JJ, looking suspiciously jealous, muttered, “And ‘are you on your way home?’ Home where?”
I sipped my coffee, ignoring them.
Hotch watched me carefully. “Reid, do you want to talk about it?”
I hesitated for a second there. “No, not really.”
Morgan huffed. “Seriously? That’s it?”
I just smiled as Hotch nodded at me and told others to leave it.
As I predicted, after the case everybody was dead tired so nobody mentioned it again, and after that they just somehow forgot about it. Or purposely decided that it was not worth mentioning when I said that I can’t say anything even if I wanted to.