"Since when are you a doctor? Last I remember, you were no better than a tabloid journalist."
Tatum Katz had a rough start with the BAU. Her papparazzi-adjacent photographer being a suspect in one of their cases wasn't exactly a great first impress...
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fifty-two || "200" season 9, episode 14
"This is hopeless," Tate muttered as they searched through boxes and boxes of JJ's old case files that were in the closet right next to her current office. "We're going about this wrong."
"This had to be her foxhole. It was her office as liaison," Rossi said.
"But JJ wouldn't keep anything too far out of reach," Blake thought aloud. "Tate, is the furniture all the same from when you first moved in?"
"Uh... Yeah. Same cabinets, file drawers, desk--everything. I personalized the space, but- Why?" she questioned.
Alex led the other two agents back to Tate's office. She made her way behind the desk and started poking around until she found a metal safe stashed just below the bottom drawer of the desk.
"Well now I feel like an idiot," Tate muttered.
"Four digits," Alex reported. "Any ideas?"
"Henry's birthday is... November 12," Rossi guessed. They tried it to no avail.
"2008? The year she became a mom?" Tate tried. Alex punched in the numbers and sure enough, the safe cracked open. "Hell yeah. Less of an idiot. What'd we find?"
Rossi and Tate came to stand behind either of Alex's shoulders to get a closer look at the file she held in her grasp. Inside, most of the wording was blacked out save for a few lines, including (in all caps) the word "integrity."
Not knowing what it meant, Tate dialed Hotch to inform him of their findings hoping he would be able to drop the codename to someone during his trip to the State Department who could open some doors for them. She then texted the same codeword to Spencer. He and Garcia had snuck into the SCIF to unlock important archived files.
By cross-referencing the codeword with the beginning of their search, Garcia was able to find a collection of surveillance images of JJ in the Middle East alongside Cruz and Strauss. Kevin--back in Garcia's office with the team members who weren't searching through the SCIF--was able to identify the fourth person as a soldier named Michael Hastings. He died during an unnamed CIA operation, but the circumstances of his death led them to believe that he was killed by the same person who'd taken the surveillance images they were looking at.
Despite all of this research and all they'd uncovered, the State Department locked them out of their databases and escorted them out of the places they really weren't supposed to be in in the first place.
Tate immediately called Hotch to question their next moves. "We're locked out. Is State doing anything to find JJ and Cruz?"
"No," Hotch replied gruffly.
"So what are we gonna do?"
"Call in reinforcements."
Tate considered this for a moment, quickly catching on to Hotch's meaning. "Don't tease me, Hotch. You know I'd be all too pleased to make that call."
