Michael Hastings

"Take your time, Matt. I've been thinking about this for years..."

Michael Hastings was an abductor, international criminal, and the leader of a regime. He appeared in Season Nine of Criminal Minds.

Background
A 2002 summa cum laude graduate of the CIA Academy, Hastings was a senior operative who had worked his way up the ranks, going from analyst to elite field agent in operations mainly stationed in the Middle East, including "Dust Storm", "Foxhole", "Desert Tour", and "Sand Trap", due to him being fluent in Parsi, Urdu, and Pashto. In 2010, he was part of the team that included Jennifer Jareau, Mateo Cruz, then-FBI Section Chief Director Erin Strauss, and Tivon Askari in "Operation: Classified", which tracked down Osama bin Laden. However, he was a traitor alongside Askari and also a closet sadist, raping a woman whom Askari was torturing before the latter killed her. When Askari was exposed as a traitor, the two of them staged Hastings's death during an ambush on a convoy carrying them on April 24, 2011 and went into hiding, working with a regime. Eventually, in 2014, he, Askari, and several other members of the regime were assigned to retrieve codes that would access "Integrity", a database containing information relating to "Operation: Classified", which were intended to be sold to enemies of the U.S.; these codes were known only to JJ and Cruz, the only members of "Classified" that were still alive.

200
After members of the regime squad abduct JJ and Cruz in "200", Hastings presumably watches them being tortured from another room, and when JJ gives up her codes. Finally, when JJ realizes that there was a second traitor and it was Hastings, she demands that he show himself, which he does. He then takes over the interrogation process, taunting JJ about the baby she lost in Afghanistan before proceeding to slowly take off her clothes with the intention of raping her. This causes the beaten Cruz to cave in and surrender his codes. As the data about "Integrity" is being downloaded onto his cellphone, Hastings tries to flee as the rest of the BAU arrive and rescue JJ and Cruz. JJ personally confronts him at a rooftop and they briefly struggle before both fall off the roof. JJ is rescued by Prentiss, while Hastings is killed by the fall, which also destroys his cellphone, thus canceling the downloading.

Modus Operandi
Little about Hastings's M.O. is disclosed, other than he would brutally rape his known victims in order to help Askari get information from them before Askari would kill them. He later shot at the BAU with an M1911A1 pistol.

Profile
No profile of Hastings was made by the BAU, since they were focused on his partner Askari.

Known Victims

 * February 2011, Afghanistan: Nadia Mubari
 * 2014, Washington, D.C., U.S.:
 * January 23-24: Jennifer Jareau
 * January 24: Shot at the following, but missed:
 * Aaron Hotchner
 * Emily Prentiss
 * Spencer Reid
 * Derek Morgan
 * David Rossi
 * Alex Blake

Appearances

 * Season Nine
 * To Bear Witness
 * Strange Fruit
 * 200
 * Mr. & Mrs. Anderson
 * Angels
 * Season Ten
 * X