Boston PD Headquarters, Homicide Dept.
"What have we got so far?" Hotch asked, addressing the team. Prentiss and Reid had returned from the ME's office 5 minutes ago. Garcia was linked in via videoconference.
"First off, I've identified your potential dead Unsub. His name is Tom Hayes and he married Anna Nokes on June 2nd 2009 in Lewiston, Idaho. He was reported missing almost 4 years ago by his wife, his last known whereabouts being a popular sports bar close to his home. Local detectives followed up on a few leads but they were dead ends and the case went cold within 3 weeks. Oh…" Garcia stopped for a moment.
"What is it Baby Girl?" Morgan prompted.
"It's so sad, he left behind a 2 year old son and his wife was 6 months pregnant when he disappeared."
"Has the wife been informed?" Hotch asked.
"Yes, she is flying out to Boston as we speak to formally identify the body."
"Blake, I want you to be there for the identification; find out as much as you can about Tom Hayes, especially his behavior in the weeks before his disappearance. We need a better idea as to whether he was taken by force or whether he left of his own volition. What else have you got for us Garcia?"
"I cleared up the security footage from the Coastguard as best I could but facial recognition on our three bad guys was a bust. Never fear though, I have decrypted the microchip file that Reid sent me. It should be appearing on your tablets now."
Prentiss brought the file up on her screen and examined it. It was a small file, with only a few short lines of text, all in Russian.
призрак трейдеры
собственностью Бостонского Второй 2
черный:32
красный:0100111011111100011111
вознаграждение за возвращение: 20M
"It reads: 'Ghost traders. Property of Boston 2. Black, 32. Red, a long line of ones and zeros.' And 'Reward for return, 20M.'" She said. The entire team looked blank, even Reid.
Hotch frowned slightly and looked down, as though trying to remember something. He looked back up. "Isn't Ghost Traders a trading card game? Like Pokémon cards? Jack is always trying to get me to buy them at the gas station."
"10 points to Gryffindor." Garcia said brightly, "I did a quick search on the term 'Ghost Traders' and it did indeed lead me to a trading card website. However, what a children's game could possibly have to do with these murders, I have no idea."
Blake turned to Reid quickly, "Is the fourth line binary code?"
"No," Reid replied almost instantly, "The first eight digits would give a capital 'N' but the remaining digits aren't code. The final part of the fifth line is interesting though. 'Reward for return' would suggest a monetary value, in which case it would make sense that the 'M' be the Roman numeral for 1000, making 20M, $20,000. That's a fairly high 'reward'." He mused. "Then the question becomes, why such a high reward, offered by whom and for what purpose?"
"Looking at the text as a whole, is it possible we're looking at some kind of cult here? Take a step back for a moment. We have a dominant Unsub with at least two others who are entirely subservient to him and another who appears to be someone's 'property'. Two, perhaps three, of the Unsub’s have uniform tattoos, all with concealed meanings." Rossi said, buoyed slightly by the small consensus of nods from around the table.
