A/N: I AM SO SORRY! Shit hit the fan in a big way. Enjoy!
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She forced herself to take a deep breath, despite the screaming of her ribs and throbbing of her head. Blood dribbled out from her lips, the metallic taste pervading her mouth. She raised her head slightly, fighting to see beyond the blur that was the room around her. She focused her gaze on two rough blurs across the room, leaning together and talking quietly.
"Sir," a third person entered, anxiety in his voice,"we tailed them from the FBI building but lost them in back alleys."
"Lost them?" The first guy turned to the man, voice cold and harsh. Hold on, I know that voice. "How could you LOSE them?" He got up in the guy's face, towering over him.
"They-they had help, sir. A cop got ahold of them when they crashed into him."
"SHIT!" The first guy punched the wall. "I want them dead." He hissed, and began pacing like a wild animal. Penelope knew he would probably take out his rage on her, which made her wince in apprehension.
"We think we may know who was helping them, sir." The small guy piped up, still shaking with nerves.
"Caroline.." The first guy growled low. "Take her out. I want her dead. I want all of them dead."
"Sir, she's gone off the grid. All of her files have been erased." He replied. "We don't know where she is."
"Oh," the first guy said lowly. Even not being able to see, Penelope could tell a slow smile was spreading across his face. He looked at her with almost a carnal gaze, "I know how we can find out."
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"Anything good on there?" JJ peered over her shoulder. She watched her type furiously, eyebrows furrowing.
"A lot of good, actually. Looks like Hassan was making regular payments into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. And they weren't small either." Caroline replied. "I am trying to see if I can find the owner of the accounts, but it will take a while." She leaned back and stretched.
It had been several hours of fighting with firewalls. The others had decided to retire to a hotel across the street. JJ stayed behind to keep guard, since they didn't fully trust their friend quite yet. Caroline had been understanding, seeing as how they had almost been run off the road earlier in the day. Besides, the quiet was nice. It helped her focus.
She stood from the barstool and moved around the bar to grab a glass for water. After preparing a second one for JJ, she sat it in front of the girl, who looked oddly pale.
"You okay?" Caroline asked.
JJ's head jerked up, surprised. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired."
Caroline frowned at her, eyes searching for something in her face. She must have found what she was looking for, because she leaned back with a soft smile.
"How far along are you?"
The question was not what JJ was expecting. She leaned back, wide eyed, mouth open but no words coming out.
"How did you-"
"You've been looking like you have had to puke all day." Caroline shrugged. "I don't know why they call it 'morning sickness' if it hits at every single moment." Noticing JJ's still-surprised expression, she smirked and left the counter. She returned a moment later with a lollipop. "It helps."
"Thank you." JJ replied, taking it from her. "Look, can you keep this between us? They don't know."
"Of course." Caroline replied with a small smile. She returned her gaze back to her screen as it started beeping. "Huh."
"What?"
"Something interesting. The guy who murdered Abdul Hassan was never caught, so in the background, I was scanning security feeds. There was a block of time-two hours-where the footage was deleted."
"So someone covered their tracks?"
"Exactly, and we knew that, but-" her words faded as she began typing. "Whoever deleted that data did it without getting into the system directly, meaning they most likely patched themselves into the feed and then deleted it remotely. "
"Okay, so does that help us?" JJ asked.
"Hold on." Caroline began rummaging through the files on the drive. "Robert had a note in here. It had nothing but a time on it. Couldn't figure out what it was until now. Here it is-" She pulled it up and sure enough, a document appeared with nothing but a time code on it. "Let me see what this does." She found the timecode in the video, several months before Hassan's death.
"See anything?"
"Yeah.." Caroline froze, eyes wide. "That's Rajesh."
"You mean the-"
"Yeah. Give me a minute." Caroline was laser focused, typing like crazy. "I'm searching Rajesh's bank records, hold on." She paused. "I found it."
"Any deposits?"
"Yes, but not in his account. His father has one in Mumbai. The deposits match those that came out of Hassan's account and the dates that the money went out." She replied.
"I'll tell the others we may have a lead. If he has Penelope, where do you think he'd take her?" JJ pulled out her phone and dialed Hotch.
"One thing at a time." Caroline breathed.
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"You found something?" Hotch asked as they moved into the pub. They seemed to be in higher spirits than they were earlier.
"I think so." Caroline nodded, still focused on her laptop.
JJ filled them in on the first part.
"Now that we know that the money was going to Rajesh indirectly, I went back through the documents that Robert put on this flash drive, and I realized something interesting. Rajesh has only existed since about a year before he entered the United States."
"What's with all this disappearing identities crap?" Morgan seethed, placing his hands on his hips.
"I know, it's driving me nuts, but in this case, it helps us." Caroline sympathized. "I found a high school photo of a boy who looks like Rajesh down to a tee. Ran it through facial recognition just to be safe. His real name is Arjun, born in Mumbai. Looks like his entire family disappeared a year before they came to the States and entered with new identities."
"So how does he fit into all of this?" Emily asked.
"Arjun's father worked with Hassan before they left. They were partners." Caroline watched them process it individually. "He was forced to step down after they found out he was embezzling money. Most of it was recovered, except for a small portion. Just enough for an inheritance." She looked at JJ with a sigh.
"So, Arjun's father gets fired, they change their identities and move to the states and then, what? Arjun joins the task force because he thinks they are bringing down the man who accused his father? It's circumstantial, at best." Hotch replied with a frown.
Caroline leaned back, looking defeated. "I know. I've been searching for hours and I feel like I only dredged up more questions."
"Not necessarily. Think about it." Reid looked at Hotch, wishing their boss could read his mind. "It's a classic case of getting involved in the investigation."
"He's got a point, Hotch." Emily defended.
"Here's the other thing, the payments to Arjun started the day that our informant in Karachi was killed." Caroline finished. "I know it's not much, but I'm still sifting through data." She massaged the bridge of her nose.
"If he took Penelope," Caroline jerked up in surprise at Hotch's words, "why?"
"She was onto him." Reid replied. "Look so far, we have treated this as some super spy mission but it's so much simpler than that." His words were getting faster. "They believed there was an inside man and then there was the bombing. What were you looking into when they attacked?" He whipped around to look at Caroline.
"We hadn't gotten very deep when they pulled us out, just…employee records.." Her voice faded.
"Did he work for Hassan?" Rossi asked.
"I don't-Let me check." She typed for a moment and then looked up. "Yeah, he did. Low level janitor."
"Which means he had the access to get into the system and went completely unnoticed." Reid finished. He looked to Hotch, with an almost-pleading gaze.
"He could have deleted the security footage." JJ crossed her arms.
Hotch thought for a moment, brows furrowed. "Does Hassan have any property here in DC?"
"Let me look." She paused. "No, but he has a big ass boat currently parked in the Baltimore Harbor." She replied.
"Abandoned?" Hotch demanded.
"Yup." She replied standing up from her seat.
"Alright," He sighed heavily, "looks like we have him."
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A/N: I hope the cute little scene with JJ makes up for me not posting. I own nothing. Boomie out