Saving: Protecting: One Direction *UNDER MASSIVE EDITING*

TWO

TWO

--JACK--

"FBI, open up!" I commanded, gun raised at the closed and locked wooden door. My team of three others stood solidly behind me, still as I was. SWAT stood all around the entrances to the house; windows, gaps, doors. If there was so much as a crack in the wall, the SWAT guys were on it. I counted slowly to five in my head, waiting for the door to open. It didn't.

I kicked the door open, and it banged off the walls, sending a shattering crash through the house. It had barely opened, and my team and I were in the house. The four of us spread out, going through the small cluttered and grimy rooms. A few member of SWAT followed each of us, being as silent and as stealthy as we were. "Clear!" I heard Michael shout from the kitchen, which was shortly followed by the other's okay's from the rest of the house. I, however, wasn't as easy to give the clear.

I revolved in a slow circle in the middle of the basement. Mountains of cardboard boxes were piled up around me, blocking out what little light could've come through the black windows. I lowered my gun, but by no means did I let my guard down. "Warns, he's not here," Will said, coming down the stairs, accompanied by the rest of our small team. Michael, Will, and Spencer came to join me in the middle of the room. Above us, SWAT and police alike stormed the house, looking for the evidence that we crucially needed.

I looked up at the faces of my team. They were all exhausted, physically and emotionally. We had been working this kidnapping case for nearly six months, and it always came back to the same thing. A cluttered, empty house with no man or the children he took. Then it was back to starting over. A new address, a new state, and even once, a new country. But there was something different this time. Despite the filth and clutter that had been in every house, there was even more of a mess this time. A random box laying in the middle of the floor, an upturned table, just one too many empty vodka bottles lying around.

"No, he's here," I whispered, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end as I mentioned it out loud. "Warner, we've checked the whole house. Every nook and cranny. He's gone," Spencer told me. I looked up at him, noticing the way his blonde-brown hair stood crazier than normal from when he had stressfully ran his fingers through it. He leaned heavily against a box, favoring his obviously sprained ankle, that he wouldn't allow us to have checked. "Spence, he's here. I can feel it."

He looked at me for a long moment, hazel eyes flickering between each of my unwavering brown ones. "I believe her." Logan and Will looked at each other and then nodded at me. "Alright, this guy knows we've been tracking him, and he know we found out where he's hiding and we're coming for him. But this time, he knows he has no chance of leaving before we get here," I said, walking around the dank basement.

"So he comes down to the basement. It's easily the most cluttered place in the house. There's more places to hide," Will said, running a hand through his shortly cropped copper colored hair. At his words, we all drew our guns again. "So where are you," I murmured, almost to myself. My team started going through the boxes, searching in a too-small place for someone who wasn't there. Think, Warner, I told myself. Think.

There was a large wooden bookshelf, pushed away in the corner of the room.

I practically ran over to it, running my fingers down the edges, where it met the wall. On the left side, my fingers connected with something hard and rough that poked out of the wall. A hinge. "Guys, I think I've found something," I called over to them, moving to the other side of the bookcase, away from the hinge. My team was over in seconds. "Get ready, I don't know what's going to behind here when I open this," I said to them.

They didn't have to ask what I was going to do, didn't have to ask. It was the relationship we all had; it was as though we could read all of each other's minds. I grabbed onto the edge of the shelf and pulled it back. "FBI, PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"Will shouted in his deep, booming voice. I jumped around to face the hole in the wall. There was our guy.

He was just as fat, grimy, and ugly as the first time I had seen his pictures. He saw me standing there and smiled. His teeth were entirely black. There were three filthy little kids, cowering in the back corner, tears streaming down their grubby little faces. Will and Michael moved in on him, forcing his hands behind his back, and shoving him vehemently against the wall. Spencer moved in to check the little kids. I, however, stayed exactly where I was, gun still point right between his eyes.

Something wasn't right.

Will and Michael roughly brought him out, obvious disgust etched on every line of their faces. The man hadn't stopped smiling. SWAT team members came down the stairs, hearing Will's shout, and trying to conceal their surprise as they rushed to help. A few of them grabbed at the man, while others went to Spencer and the kids. This was too simple. We had been profiling this guy for months. There was no way he would give up this easily.

"Are you sure you've got them all, sweetheart?" He asked in a voice as oily as his unwashed hair, as the SWAT team dragged him by. I didn't reply, but put my gun back into its holster. Will and Michael came over to me as other SWAT people carried the sobbing children out of the hole and back up the stairs. I didn't say anything. "Warns? What's wrong?" Spencer asked, as he too came back over to us.

"What if he hadn't escaped the houses like we had thought?" I began slowly. "What do you mean?" Michael asked, freezing in his attempt to retie his shoulder length black hair into a low ponytail. "What if he had been hiding the whole time? In places just like this?" I asked, gesturing to the hole behind the bookshelf. "Think about it. This man has abducted more than just three children..." His words to me echoed in his ears. "...what if he left some of them behind, in the other houses?"

I saw my own initial shock reflected on my team member's faces. They, too, knew that I was exactly right. "We knew before that he'd kill his victims... we'd just assumed that he hid the bodies too well," Spencer said, shaking his head. I couldn't dwell on the fact of dozens of dead bodies located in the places that we had been so sure were clean. "Right," I said in a crisp voice, masking my pain, "Michael, call the Director, tell her that we need police members at every single one of the houses that we visited in the last six months. Make sure they're told not to leave the houses without bodies. It's all we can do at this point to give those poor parents some closure." I shook my head, just upset we couldn't save them all. But with this job, that was basically impossible.

"On it, babe," Michael said, pulling his phone out and walking up the stairs. Will, Spencer, and I followed him, but slowly. "It feels good to finally have that scumbag caught," Will said, as we stepped out of the ranking house into the fresh summer air. The sun was shining without a cloud in the sky. A warm breeze blew, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We walked over to the big white SUVs we had used to drive here, talking idly about anything to take our minds off the case we'd just solved. As we walked, both the ambulances sped away with lights blaring, while a few more cop cars pulled in. Thank God the media didn't get attention of this yet, or we'd be dealing with a lot more than overexcited cops. The team didn't seem up for anything but getting in the car and starting the long journey home. The thoughts of the two week vacation I had been promised swirled around my mind in an almost suffocating fashion. Seems like vacation starts now.

"Well I don't know about you guys, but I plan on doing nothing for the next few weeks," Will said, yawning hugely. Spence and I nodded in agreement. "Shotgun," I called running around to the front. "No fair, you got shotgun on the way here!" Spencer whined, but made to go into the backseat, anyway.

"Jacqueline Warner?" A voice said behind me. I turned to find three big guys in suits standing importantly behind me. "Jack," I corrected automatically. The lead man held up a badge, identifying as one of the top advisors of the FBI. "I'm Agent Derek; these are Agents Carey from the CIA and Rogers from the MI5." I could feel my eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. MI5? The 'FBI of Britain'?

"Can I help you with something?" I asked, masking my confusion. "Yes, actually you can. We need you to come with us. You're being deployed to London, England within the hour. There's an international crisis and we need your help."