Premeditated Chapter 17
On Saturday, December 4, Reid went to the zoo. He bypassed the Giant Panda Habitat, the Elephant Trails, and the Great Ape House, making a beeline instead for Lion/Tiger Hill farthest from the Connecticut Avenue entrance.
At the lion exhibit, he was thrilled to see all three adults on display together. Luke, the five-year-old male, lazed on a ledge, as his pride, six-year-old sisters named Naba and Shera, prowled the yard and rubbed their muzzles against the ground, upon which was scattered a light patchy dusting of snow. When the females looked up, Reid identified them by their whiskers. For each lion, the pattern of whiskers was unique. Whiskers were to lions as fingerprints were to humans. From her whiskers, Reid saw that the lioness closest to him was Shera. She yawned, baring her canines, as he wiggled his fingers in greeting. At his greeting, Naba strolled over from her position by the pines. She appraised him with her golden yellow eyes. He searched them for signs of discontentment. A constant worry of his was that the animals at the zoo were desperately unhappy, like Blanche DuBois before her mental breakdown and descent into madness. He loved animals, even the ones who didn't love him back, and he couldn't bear to think of them living unhappy lives in captivity. Every time he visited the zoo, he couldn't help feeling a smidgeon of guilt that he had come to gape and gawk at innocent animals who had been ripped from their natural habitats to breed incestuously with odious mates not of their own choosing, all because humans had murdered so many of their families and destroyed so much of their homes that they were among the last of their kinds left on Earth. Sometimes, Reid hated humans.
Today, however, his anxieties were relieved when Naba raised her large hairy four-padded paw at him. He could see that she was glowing with contentment. And why shouldn't she be? In September, she had given birth to three cubs, who were Luke's sixth, seventh, and eighth offspring, following the births, in August, of four cubs, Luke's second, third, fourth, and fifth offspring, by Shera. Luke's first offspring, a male singleton by Naba, had died, in May, of pneumonia caused by a straw seed from his bedding that had gotten lodged in his lung while he had been sleeping the 24 hours per day that lion cubs habitually slept. After the tragedy, the zookeepers had changed the cubs' bedding to eliminate seeds of any kind. Now, nearly seven months later, all seven cubs were hale and hearty. Recently, the cubs from the two litters had been introduced to their father, aunt, and siblings, marking an integral step in the progression of the pride. Having just learned of the latest developments in the feline family, Reid was delighted to discover that such a natural harmony existed in such an unnatural environment, in which the wonderful white stuff that had never been ogled, sniffed, or tasted by any of their African ancestors had become the playground of mothers and babies alike. Even Luke, Master of the Pride, had been observed to indulge every once in a catnap.
At the tiger exhibit, Reid pushed past the swarming children to commiserate with Soyono, the female Sumatran who was still picking herself up after the heartbreaking loss of her beloved mate. Six months ago, Rokan had died, at nineteen, as one of the oldest Sumatran tigers living in captivity. He had been a prolific breeder, fathering ten offspring in total, seven of them with Soyono. All seven cubs had survived babyhood, but only one, four-year-old Guntur, still remained at the National Zoo. The others had been sent away to other zoos and breeding facilities around the world to maintain genetic diversity within the rapidly declining tiger population. Reid wondered how mother and late father had felt about the disappearance of their precious babies. Here one second, gone the next, never to be seen again! Even with frozen blood lollipops to chomp down upon during the summers and heated humidified dens to snuggle up within during the winters, life at the zoo was no bed of roses. The only pleasure cruises were the frustratingly infrequent, occurring only once, twice, or thrice per nine lifetimes, but unroarably scintillating romps in the water whenever a loud boorish visitor leaned too far over the railing and fell into the moat. The cruise was even more pleasurable when the interloper was among the 60-70% of Americans who were overweight or obese.
At 2 PM, while the afternoon was still bright, Reid left the zoo. From the main parking lot near the entrance, he drove all the way around the northern perimeter before exiting the premises to head north on Beach Drive. Beach Drive was a scenic two-lane road that followed Rock Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, through Rock Creek Park, an urban nature reserve twice the size of Central Park in New York City. For most of its length, a walking trail paralleled the road. It was part of a system of trails that criss-crossed the area, connecting the woods and recreational facilities with the residential neighborhoods surrounding them. The park was popular with joggers, hikers, and nature lovers, even at this time of year, when the grounds had shed their lush green verdancy. What remained - bare-branched trees, half-frozen streams, snow-dusted earth - was at once forbidding and enticing, as were all natural environments at any time of year. During the summer, it was easy to get lost amidst the vegetation. A few exploratory steps off the trail, and every direction would look like every other. During the winter, there was the threat that the day would fade away. A few meditative moments on the footbridge, and the darkness and cold would set in. At any time of year, Rock Creek Park was a good place to kill people and dump their bodies.
As at the zoo, Reid bypassed the proximate points of interest to scout the locations north of the road bisecting the park. North of Military Road, the first potential location was a spur of the main trail that wound through the woods to reach a dead end at the creek. The spur was approximately 300 feet long, and the distal section that turned towards the water was boxed in by trees on either side. Even in winter, the leafless trees provided seclusion. The position of the spur, close to the road and trail, guaranteed a dependable flux of potential victims, from whom he could kill whomever he wanted. The only disadvantage was that the gunshots would be audible within an insufficiently deserted sphere of influence. Even in winter, there were bound to be people in the vicinity. Some of them were bound to hear the firing of the Glock. A motorist might drive by in a vehicle and stop, as he himself had done, or a jogger might pause in the midst of tying her shoelaces, or a ranger might look up from his survey of the trees. At home, Reid had spent the past two nights designing and constructing a custom-made sound suppressor, but he was not yet satisfied with the arrangement and orientation of the baffles within the can. What he was really trying to do was to prototype an ultimately superior firearms silencer that would slow the bullet to subsonic velocities and suppress the sound to sub-100-decibel noise levels, while, at the same time, distorting it out of recognition. As an ongoing engineering project, the suppressor was not yet ready for use, not even of a field testing nature. For the time being, Reid would have to compromise. He would have to settle for a sufficiently deserted location with a limited victim pool or a variegated selection of victims at the expense of optimal sequestration. He supposed that if he were going to compromise at all, then he might as well compromise further by acquiring a commercially available silencer to fit his semi-automatic pistol. Naturally, he wasn't going to buy one from a gun store in Maryland or Virginia, where the sale of silencers was legal to customers willing to submit an application to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Luckily for him, such accessories were available at work, but even so, he would have to conceal the acquisition, because everyone knew that he carried a revolver, and revolvers, unlike pistols, could not be silenced to any useful extent, as the propellant blast of the discharge escaped from a gap between the barrel and the cylinder rather than through the end of the barrel, where the silencer was attached.
On the drive north, the next stoppage station was a sizable parking lot just south of the point where the trail veered westwards, away from the road and the creek. Here, Reid had two options. First, he could follow the trail as it passed through the woods, parallel to a narrow tree-lined lane that exited Rock Creek Park towards Chevy Chase, Maryland. This area was extremely secluded. The lane was lightly travelled, especially during the early morning hours, and the trail was separated from the trees by a steep embankment. Along the trail, he could wait, all day if necessary, for a suitable victim to snatch, threaten, and force into the woods. In the woods, he could do whatever he wanted with the victim. Perhaps he could share some of his knowledge about the flora and fauna of the area. He could tell the victim about the 135 Eastern box turtles that roamed the woods, their movements constantly tracked by researchers via radio transmitters affixed to their mottled brown and orange carapaces. If the victim displayed a particular interest, then he could go on to explain that the Eastern box turtle was one species that should never be kept in captivity, because the gentle dainty reptiles lived only 30-50 years in captivity as opposed to 80 years in the wild. Else, he could shoot and kill the victim.
The second option was the creek itself, which lay only tens of feet off the beaten asphalt. While there were no official trails along the banks, the creek was easy to follow, and the water, though poor in quality, was enticingly cool and dip-worthy during the oppressively hot and humid DC summers. During the winter, the creek froze over, but the thin layer of ice on top was not strong enough to support the weight of the human body. Reid imagined himself perching on a large lichen-covered boulder on the near bank of the creek, rubbing his hands together and blowing on his fingers for warmth as he waited for a victim to approach. As along the trail, he could snatch, threaten, and force the victim into the woods. To enter the woods, they would have to cross the creek, so he and the victim would both experience the simple pleasure of wading through the water or sliding over and/or falling through the ice, the exact course of action contingent upon the meteorological trends for the week leading up to the Saturday or Sunday on which he committed the crime. Alternatively, he could wait on the far bank and aim his weapon from a distance. The victim would be a stranger who would be none the wiser that his aim, while significantly improved since aiming for a leg only to hit a head, remained not quite up to par. In this scenario, he would force the victim into the creek as he himself, if not warm, then dry, enjoyed the proceedings from afar, but not too far.
With a contented anticipatory whistle, Reid turned right out of the parking lot back onto Beach Drive. He continued north, passing several similar parking lots and turnouts on the right side of the road. All were departure points for a hike along the creek, and each was a good spot to sit in the car with the windows open on the first warm day of spring. Reid imagined himself eating a stack of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches as he sat in the car. He visualized his hand holding a sandwich. He could smell the peanut butter as he brought the sandwich closer to his mouth. The peanut butter oozed slowly as his fingers squeezed the bread around it. He squeezed too hard, and a tiny sticky morsel, half peanut butter and half jelly, fell out onto his pant leg. He stuck out his finger to wipe it away, but jolted his hand upwards before he could touch it. Directly ahead, the road curved sharply to the east, so he wrenched the steering wheel to the right just before he could drive into oncoming traffic. He breathed a sigh of relief as he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel. He felt his heart, full of strength and energy, pounding away beneath his purple sweater. His mind rejoiced that it had snapped out of its reverie before its owner could plow his flimsy jalopy into the glinting metallic jaws of the muffler-less Hummer bearing down from the opposite side of the road. Within a few minutes, everything returned to normal. Realistically, Reid had no intention of sitting in the car in the parking lot, neither to eat a sandwich or to wait for a victim to drive up, park, and hike into the woods, so he could follow and attack from behind. After today, he wasn't going to drive his car within Rock Creek Park at all. He had legs. He could park elsewhere and walk. Rock Creek Park was big, but not that big. Besides, he could use the exercise. What better hobby could he have than that of hiking through the woods and appreciating the natural world that he understood, and as a result, loved all the more?
For the rest of the drive, Reid paid no attention to the scenery. Based on the map, he already knew that there was an ideal location at the northern end of the park, near the DC-Maryland border, where the trail ran through the middle of the woods. In this area, residents from the affluent neighborhoods outside the park often jogged and hiked on weekends. Reid wondered if, among the affluent residents, there had been a family of hippies who had planted the marijuana patches nearby. Two years ago, a researcher trying to track down an Eastern box turtle, Turtle Number 72, had stumbled upon a sunny clearing where four-and-a-half-foot-tall Cannabis plants flourished beneath a hole in the canopy opened by the felling of several large trees. Reid decided to take inspiration from the researcher. In this area, he would not actively look for victims to kill. Instead, he would look for marijuana patches or the wintertime remnants of such. While looking for marijuana patches, he would hopefully stumble upon desirable victims. If so, then he would shoot and kill them with his newly-acquired sound-suppressed Glock 17. Else, he would hike back to the affluent neighborhood in which he had parked his car, drive home, and fix himself a stack of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to eat.
By the time Reid exited the park, it was dark and cold. He drove home and fixed himself a stack of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to eat. While eating, he wondered if any of the rich people in the big houses had heard the unsuppressed 140-decibel gunshots.
The all-purpose supply closet down the hall from the BAU bullpen was exceedingly messy. On the shelves were undergrowths of dust bunnies from which loomed office supplies, computer accessories, and non-perishable food items. By mass, 80% of the food items consisted of a single substance. Reid was happy to see that the Coffee Shelf was fully stocked with Coffee. He grabbed a jar, wiped away the dust bunnies, and played the contents like a rattle as he lowered his gaze to the floor.
On the floor sat stacks of cardboard boxes holding various unwanted items that had been dumped away to collect dust out of sight, out of mind. In one box, parts of kitchen appliances lay scattered in the interstitial spaces between whole kitchen appliances. Reid spotted a Coffeemaker, probably broken, sitting at the bottom of the box. He considered adopting it, repairing it, and setting it up in his office to feed his uncontrollable needs with superior ease and convenience. Compared to his desk in the bullpen, his office was scores of steps farther from the Coffeemaker in the kitchen. It was a pain to walk up and down the stairs every time he wanted Coffee. Several times, he had sloshed burning hot liquid onto his hands as he had bounced his way up the stairs. Besides the physical inconvenience of the journey, each extra step was an additional disruption to mental flow. Already, he had considered purchasing a Coffeemaker for his office, but he would much rather rescue the old broken one. He liked old things, broken and whole. He hated the idea of the Coffeemaker languishing unloved at the bottom of the box when it could have enjoyed a second chance at living in his office. He decided to save the rescue operation for another day. Right now, he had more urgent concerns.
Next to the appliance box sat the gun boxes. The gun boxes held all manner of handgun parts, both the disembodied external components such as barrels, grips, hammers, and triggers, and the pins, springs, bearings, and catches that composed the invisible internal components that were most susceptible to random and untimely malfunction. There were ammunition, both cartridges and magazines, and accessories, including optics (sights, lights, and lasers), holsters (ankle, hip, and shoulder), and loaders (speed and magazine). Rolling around at the bottom of one box were several suppressors that fit different versions of Glock pistols. Agents of the FBI, unlike those of the CIA, used suppressors not to carry out political assassinations, but to protect their ears in enclosed spaces, within which 140-decibel gunshots were harmful to human hearing. Reid stuffed one specimen, a seven-inch-long model that fit both the Glock 17 and its compact sibling, the Glock 19, into his messenger bag, along with a set of holsters, just before Garcia snuck up on him from behind.
"Boo!" Garcia poked him in the back as he bent over the boxes.
"Augh!" Reid yelped in startled surprise.
"Whatcha doin', Sweet Genius?" Garcia giggled.
"Coff...Coffee," Reid held out the jar and shook it like a rattle.
"Ah, of course," Garcia shook her head knowingly. "Coffee at all times of day and night. So what brings you here to consume your $50 per week worth of coffee at 9 PM on a Saturday night?"
"The next case," Reid answered, backing out of the closet, closing the door, and waiting for the electronic keypad to beep itself locked. "I'm having trouble deciding which of two cases we should take next."
"Are either of them close to home?" Garcia asked.
"No, North Carolina and Georgia," Reid replied. "I don't think I should be picking cases based on location, Garcia."
"I know, I know," Garcia sighed as she led the way through the bullpen, up the stairs, and into his office. "But it could help you break a tie, you know. I like to have my babies close to home whenever possible. You should keep that in mind for the future. For now, is there any way I can help? Maybe you can run the cases by me, and I can...Ick, ugh, no!" she covered her eyes as she spotted the crime scene photos spread out all over the desk.
"Sorry, Garcia!" Reid turned over the photos in a flurry of fingers and papers. "Actually, I would like to run them by someone, and since you're the only one here..." he trailed off, slightly embarrassed to ask for an already offered favor.
"I'm all ears," Garcia moved around the desk to sit in the chair. "Go on, Genius, dazzle me!" she immediately regretted her choice of words, "Go on, Genius, disgust me!"
"OK," Reid cleared the desk to sit on it. "As I said, the two cases are in North Carolina and Georgia. Both are homicide cases involving women and children. In the North Carolina case, an UnSub has been abducting pregnant women from quiet suburban neighborhoods, driving them out to the countryside, shooting and killing them, and dumping their bodies on the sides of small secluded roads. So far, there have been six crimes, all involving victims abducted from three cities - Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill - known collectively as the Research Triangle for the high tech and biotech companies in the area or as the Triangle in reference to the three universities that dominate the region - Duke, NC State, and UNC."
"March Madness," Garcia nodded in recognition.
"March Madness?" Reid inquired, his curiosity piqued by the mention of madness.
"College basketball," Garcia replied.
"Oh," Reid instantly lost interest. "Anyway, I would normally have chosen this case, because the crimes are recent and ongoing, but there's something about the other case that I can't quite get out of my head."
"Details, details," Garcia waved her hands impatiently.
"In the Georgia case, the crimes started in early July," Reid continued. "There were a total of seven, all in the Atlanta area, each targeting a single mother with a single small child. All the children were two- or three-year-old boys. The victims were shot and killed in their homes in the middle of the night. In five cases, the bodies of the mothers and children were found together on the floors of the master bedrooms. In two cases, the bodies of the mothers were found, but the bodies of the children were missing. That's the part that's bothering me. I can't quite let go of the possibility that the children may still be alive. What if they are? If so, then we'd better take this case to find them, even though the last crime occurred in September, and the case is quickly going cold. And I know, I know...It's extremely unlikely for children to survive abduction for any length of time beyond 24 to 48 hours, so the cards are stacked against us...and them."
"But there's always a chance that they're still alive," Garcia said. "I'm not a profiler, but even I can tell that the UnSub broke away from his M.O. in two of the seven crimes. Maybe he didn't kill the kids, for whatever reason, probably for a reason as crazy as the one that caused him to start killing in the first place. Maybe he took them with him when he fled the scene. Maybe he kept them alive all these months. Remember that case with the boy nicknamed Peter, the one who was abducted when he was one year old to be raised and sold to pedophiles online? What if that's what's going on here? What if the UnSub is keeping the kids alive because they fit into some creepy sicko's deviant fantasies? Some of these pervs are looking for the smallest children, even newborns, to prey on. If there's any chance that the kids are still alive, then we've gotta...But then, there's that case in the Triangle with the pregnant women. An UnSub is killing mothers and children there too! It just so happens that the poor babies haven't even been born yet! I can see why you're having trouble picking a case. I don't know what I'd do if I were you."
"In the Triangle, the last crime occurred this past Tuesday," Reid said.
"The same day you guys got back from Niagara Falls," Garcia commented.
"Yeah," Reid said softly. "The crimes started in late October. Six crimes, twelve victims, two for the price of one."
"So these cases are pretty much equally heinous," Garcia said. "In both cases, twelve victims have been killed. In one, there are two missing children, status unknown, but the crimes appear to have stopped. In the other, the crimes might go on forever and ever if we don't hunt down the UnSub right away."
"Exactly," Reid nodded.
"If Hotch were here, then he'd be able to tell you which case to pick," Garcia said.
"If Hotch were here, then I'd be able to tell him which case I picked," Reid said.
"Huh?" Garcia frowned. "I thought you were having trouble deciding?"
"Not exactly," Reid shook his head. "I know which case I should pick. That's the North Carolina case. Better to stop an UnSub who's still killing than to go on a wild goose chase for victims who are most likely dead."
"But you can't help thinking what if," Garcia nodded in understanding. "What if the kids are still alive? What if the BAU taking or not taking their case is the difference between life or death for them? As we speak, their case is going colder and colder. We're their last hope, if they've got any hope left at all."
"Yeah," Reid sighed. "Actually, to tell you the truth, I've pretty much settled on the North Carolina case. I just needed to air out the other one too, just to get it off my chest, and as a sanity check. Now that I've told you about it, everything's clearer, and I'm sure I'm making the right decision. First, we've got to hunt down the UnSub who's still killing. Then, we can consider the other UnSub. If he's kept the kids alive for this long, then maybe he'll keep them alive for a little while longer. If not, then we're too late anyway. It is what it is. Thanks for listening, Garcia."
"Aww, no problem, Sweet Genius," Garcia patted him on the leg. "I'm always happy to listen, even to tales of kidnapping and murder, as long as you don't try to show me any of the crime scene photos. Even without your eidetic memory, those pictures get stuck in my head for a very long time. Every time I see one, it gets burned onto my retinas for weeks!"
"I know what you mean," Reid said. "There's a neurological explanation for why that is, for why gory pictures get stuck in your head forever while you can't remember what you ate for lunch on any given day. The brain preferentially records information that induces an emotional response. Emotional arousal is associated with enhanced encoding, which is the processing and combining of incoming stimuli to generate a single coherent experience, then construct, that can be stored in the physical structures of the brain. Compared to neutral stimuli, arousing stimuli are more likely to be retained over time via long-term potentiation."
"Ohh, arousal!" Garcia wiggled her eyebrows in a lecherous manner.
"You're more likely to remember the lion or tiger that tried to eat you than the cheeseburger that you tried to eat," Reid summarized, ignoring Garcia's comments as had long ago become a habit of his.
"Because it's more arousing?" Garcia continued. "But what about the people watching the nature documentary of the lions and tigers trying to eat you? What if they were eating really delicious bacon cheeseburgers at the same time? Which stimuli would be more arousing for them?"
"Garcia!" Reid buried his face in his hands in a show of exasperation. "Lions and tigers would never try to eat me at the same time, because lions and tigers do not inhabit overlapping ecosystems, not even at the zoo."
"Ohh, the zoo! Speaking of the zoo, I've been trying to get Kevin to go there with me for the longest time now," Garcia complained. "He doesn't want to go, because he's afraid of screaming swarming children, but I want to go see the pandas. You know how much I love pandas, especially the babies. I didn't even get to see little Tai Shan before we sent him off to China. I hope he's found a good mate there. I hear you can visit the panda reserve in China, and for a hefty price, hold a giant panda on your lap for a few minutes a pop. It just sits there like a giant stuffed animal! If I ever go to China, that's going to be my first stop."
"Did you know that in order to avoid habituating young pandas to human contact, the researchers at the Wolong Nature Reserve have started wearing panda costumes when handling the babies? The costumes are quite realistic, and the babies can't tell the differece between pandas and people in panda costumes. I don't know if people can tell the difference either. I did a double take when I first saw the photos."
"Fursuits, eh?" Garcia considered with a fascinated smile on her face. "I wonder how Kevin...Hey, Reid, what time is it?"
"Half past nine," Reid answered, checking his watch and breathing a sigh of relief that he was never going to find out the nature of the association between Kevin Lynch and panda fursuits. "What are you doing here anyway? It's Saturday night. Don't people have better things to do on Saturday nights?"
"Kevin and I went out to dinner near Georgetown, and we were just heading home when he remembered that he had to check over some code and send it off to his boss," Garcia explained. "He's been working on a program to hack the authentication protocols of all the major telecom companies, so we can access the cell phone records of their customers without having to issue warrants showing probable cause. I've been helping him with a couple of the sticky areas."
"Um, is that...That's not legal, is it?" Reid frowned and squinted.
"Of course not!" Garcia replied brightly. "It's only a teeny-tiny step down from warrantless wiretapping, but think of it this way. It's going to help us track down UnSubs, so it's not completely evil, right? It's just Big Brother looking out for the Greater Good!"
"Ohh...Hmm..." Reid took out his cell phone and turned it off.
"Oh, come on, Sweet Genius, like you've got anything to hide!" Garcia teased. "But then, you never know..." she reconsidered. "It's always the quiet ones who are the most deadly. Are you leading a double life, Reid? Ohhhhhhh! Have you got a secret girlfriend? A secret wife? A mail order bride? A harem? Love children?"
"Garcia," Reid mumbled in complaint.
"OK, OK, I'll leave you alone for now," Garcia stood up and walked to the doorway. "I go! Off to resume my hot date! I wonder what's taking Kevin so long. Maybe he ran into problems with the code. Uh oh, I'd better go help him fix it before his head explodes. He's got a condition that I call 'Code Rage', after 'Road Rage'. Whenever a chunk of code fails to compile on the first try, his face turns bright red, and his eyes bulge out of their sockets, and his forehead pulsates like his brain is going to blow up behind it. It's a very serious condition, but not exactly uncommon among those of us who code for a living. It's dangerous for both sufferers and caretakers."
"Well, you'd better go take care of that then," Reid smiled a little. "I'm going to go home and get some sleep," he yawned and picked up his messenger bag. "See you on Monday, Garcia. You know where we're going," he waved, turned off the lights, and closed the door. "Georgia," he muttered to himself.
On the floor in the bedroom, Reid laid out the items that he needed for his upcoming trip.
First, the clothing that would make him look like a normal person.
Gray T-Shirt with orange raglan sleeves, old and faded, snug around the shoulders, a reminder of an ill-conceived attempt to recapture a sliver of his younger childhood. In college, at Caltech, he had played very briefly on an intramural baseball team, the kind that was never expected to win a game or even to play past the fifth inning mercy rule, the kind on which the players were dumped into the shower, fully clothed in their self-made silk-screened uniforms, to be washed some sense into in the event that they pulled a "Tonya Harding" to beat a team of Little Leaguers from a Dickensian orphanage where the pale sickly children subsisted on onions and gruel. One time, he had accidentally hit a baseball that had been soft-tossed to him, and due to the superluminal shock waves generated by the tear in the spacetime continuum, he had sprained his ankle, painfully and with a pop, while crossing home plate to run to first base. That had been the end of his tenure on the nerdily yet profanely named "Buckyballs", for which he had continued rooting on the sidelines amongst shopping carts crammed with bottles of store-bought and homemade alcoholic beverages, without which the game was neither worth watching for the spectators or worth playing for the players.
Red flannel sweatshirt, soft and comfortable, a souvenier from a high school field trip to Hoover Dam, one that he had never worn before, because he had purchased it in an adult size not for his then Cannabis-plant-tall self.
Baggy cargo pants bearing tens of pockets to store the various conflagrating and deflagrating tools and materials that he had carried on trips into the Southern California desert. After graduating from college, he had continued to go on pyro trips with his friends from Ricketts House. During his second year of graduate school, after completing his Ph.D. in mathematics and before committing his mother to a mental institution, he had turned the same age as the college freshmen, but they had all looked up to him as "Dr. Spencer Reid, Caltech & Ricketts House Alum, Math 1 & Chem 1 TA, Four-Time Winner of the Dabney House Drag Competition, and Grand Master of Pyrotechnics", more commonly known as "Spender", after the character in "The Martian Chronicles" who had shot and killed six of his crewmates shortly after the Fourth Expedition had touched down on Mars. Those years after college, during which he had been one of the few courageous grad students not afraid to associate with the terrifying undergrads, not even with those psychotic pyromaniacs from that house of Satan worshippers amongst whom he had cavorted since the age of twelve, had held the only times in his life when he had ever felt like a big brother. While they had lasted, the feelings had been nice.
Hiking boots and wool socks, accompaniments to the cargo pants, survivors of many youthful adventures, for which the only motive was to see if one could and the only intent was that one wanted to.
Coat, hat, scarf, gloves, responsible wintertime accoutrements of his adult life, in which "The Mad Scientist" and "The Absent-Minded Professor" had switched sides on the exaggeration-attenuation seesaw.
Second, the accessories.
Hip holster, concealment version, perfect for hiding a handgun beneath his coat. Hand-held GPS, receiver, not transmitter. Cell phone, off. Water bottle, empty, but fillable with water from the tap or drinking fountain. Snacks, chocolate and jerky, energy-rich bang-for-the-buck exemplars of the critical food groups. Gum, because no coffee all day.
Third, the weapons.
The revolvers, Smith & Wesson .357 (Government Issue), Colt .38 (Government Issue), Colt .38 (Not). The pistols, Glock 19 (Government Issue), Glock 17 (Yes And No), Evolution-9 Suppressor (Sure, Why Not?).
From the lineup of weapons, Reid selected the Glock 17. He attached the suppressor to the pistol. With the suppressor, the noise of the gunshots would be attenuated by approximately 30 decibels, from 140 to 110 decibels. On the logarithmic decibel scale, the attenuation represented a thousand-fold decrease in intensity and an eight-fold decrease in loudness compared to the noise of the seventeen practice rounds that he had fired, earlier today, into the tree trunks near the northern boundary of Rock Creek Park.
He stood up to look over the items on the floor. With his bare foot, he nudged the accessories, one by one, next to the pile of clothing. Bending over, he laid the pistol on top. He gathered up the other weapons and placed them in the cabinet of the nightstand. Satisfied that all was ready for a Sunday walk in the park, he turned off the lights, crawled into bed, and curled up under the covers.
In bed, he fell asleep within minutes. Before he fell asleep, he made a mental checklist of everyone he would not shoot and kill if he stumbled upon them in the woods.
First, children and animals.
Second, his family at work. Hotch, Hotch's son Jack, Hotch's brother Sean, Hotch's ex-sister-in-law Jessica. Rossi, Rossi's three ex-wives (whoever they were). Morgan, Morgan's mother Fran, Morgan's two sisters Desiree and Sarah. Prentiss, Prentiss's mother Elizabeth, Prentiss's father (whoever he was). Garcia, Garcia's boyfriend Kevin, Garcia's four brothers (whoever they were). Dearly departed Elle. Dearly departed Gideon, Gideon's son Stephen, Gideon's ex-wife (whoever she was), Gideon's current lady friend (whoever she was). Dearest departed JJ, JJ's son Henry, JJ's husband Will.
Third, his family. Mom. And Dad.
Master Post