Discalimer: I don't own Criminal Minds
Chaos Theory
The first hours were chaos. Unfathomable, complete and utter chaos. Nothing could have prepared for this. No training, no warnings, not the signs weeks beforehand.
First, there were shootings, nothing unusual in one case, but dozens of police officers all over the country were shot while on duty. Nobody connected these cases with the coming ones.
Months ago Las Vegas was hit by a suicide bomber. The labs of the CSI were destroyed. People died on site and after the building partly collapsed. The leading investigators declared it was an act of vengeance of a gang, whose boss was imprisoned thanks to the work of the CSI lab.
6 weeks ago, a team leader of NCIS, working at their headquarters, received a letter. Upon opening it, it released anthrax. Thankfully a more common form, but with a short incubation time. After quarantining the whole building, tons of medical staff were rushed on site to treat the poisoned until the antidote arrived. After 8 hours of uncertainty it became clear that nobody would fall victim to the virus.
No one saw the bigger picture.
The event that would bring investigators to finally connect those incidences happened on this day, as at 12.30 pm there was a huge explosion in a café in Quantico.
It happened to be the café of Nancy MacQuain, a nice lady in her 40s. She had been running the café for years now and she thought of her working place as a safe one, seeing as it was located directly opposite the FBI headquarters and most of her costumers were Agents or staff working in said building. The lunch time was the busiest and she never had a chance to hear the small phone, hidden in the back of the café in a box between boxes of tuna cans in her storage room. The call triggered the bomb waiting in the box since it was delivered with the tuna cans the night before. Nancy was just giving Agent Smith his change for a grilled cheese sandwich when the bomb went off. 23 employees of the FBI, Nancy and her 3 staff members died instantly. With the arrival of the fire department the café was a burning hell and the ceiling crumbled, giving in to the pressure of the two stories above it. There were bodies in front of the café, alive and dead; people screaming and crying, with blood running all over them. The smoke of the fire spiralling high into the sky.
Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi was sitting in his office when it went off. He felt it right after he heard it, the vibrations going through the building and tingling in his spine. Jumping to his feet he rushed to the windows of his office, looking for the source of the noise. The flames and chaos on the other side of the street being the obvious reason. He stared at the scene in front of him, saw the chaos unfold until the power breakdown in his office snapped him out of his trance. Storming out of his office into the bullpen he watched as Agents shouted into their phones or rushed out of the building. Rossi scanned the room for members of his team, but found none.
'Well, we got the week off after the last case. None of us should be here.' he thought. After the events in Canada the higher ups deemed it a good idea to get the B.A.U. a well-deserved break. But Rossi couldn't just sit in his house and do nothing, so he went to the office a few hours ago to finish some paperwork and maybe get some pages of his new book done. He had seen Garcia near the break room when he arrived, so now he made his way to her office, hoping to find her there.
He found her rather fast, when she nearly crushed into him on her way to the stairwell.
"Garcia!" he shouted, making her snap her head in his direction. The IT-Girl looked at him with panic in her eyes.
"Rossi." she said as she took hold of his arm, trying to take him with her to the stairs. As he pulled her around to face him again, she looked ready to burst into tears.
"It's Nancy's!" she exclaimed, trying to move to the exit.
"I know, Garcia, I saw." Rossi tried to calm her down but wasn't able to.
Tears now drippled down Garcia's face. "Emily." She said before continuing upon seeing Rossis questioning face "She went to get us lunch! She went to get us lunch from Nancy's!"
Eyes widening, Rossi took Garcias arm and pulled her with him through the doors. They made their way outdoors, going in the direction of the noises. Garcia looked for Emily while trying to keep pace with Rossi in her pink high heels. Reaching the street they were greeted by the sight of destruction. People were stumbling through debris, screaming names or for help. The fireman still fought to extinguish the fire and get injured people out of immediate danger. Paramedics doing emergency patch ups and ushering people into one of the many ambulances. Passers-by and Agents streaming from headquarters were trying to help where they could.
Garcia spotted Emily Prentiss crouched next to a bleeding woman in the middle of the street surrounded by broken glass and debris. Crying in relief she motioned Rossi in Emily's direction before making her way to her colleague.
"Emily" Garcia said when crouching next to her. Said woman turned her head in the direction of the voice while pressing harder on the wound in the stomach of the woman before her. She caught sight of Garcia and Rossi next to her, before going back to the task at hand of stopping the blood pouring out beneath her hands.
"She's losing too much blood, I need something to stop it and where the hell are all those paramedics? She needs help!" Prentiss said, turning to look for a nearby medic.
Rossi stripped his jacket off and gave it to Prentiss to push down on the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding and stomped off to get help.
"What happened to you? You went to get lunch…but there was the explosion…and I thought you were here…but I hoped you weren't…and I didn't now…and…and…I'm so happy to see you're alive and ok" Garcia stuttered, tears again trying to make their way down her face.
Prentis looked at her with a small smile. "I was nearing the street when it happened, got knocked off my feet but I'm fine."
That moment Rossi arrived with two medics in tow who took over from Emily. The three of them stood by as the medics worked away and took the woman to a nearby ambulance. Garcia, Prentiss and Rossi tried to help more, but soon discovered that they couldn't do anything but stay out of the way of the fireman and paramedics.
They got Prentiss a fast check-up (nothing more than a concussion) and walked her to an officer to get her statement written down before heading back into headquarters. Garcia tried to call the rest of the team, but couldn't get through thanks to telephone lines being down, because Agents were either calling to tell people they were fine, or demanding answers nobody could give at this point, or receiving calls of family members, or citizens demanding answers. Rossi got Prentiss a bottle of water and sat her down in their briefing room. Garcia sat next to them, while still trying to get a hold of anyone of their team.
Half an hour later Aaron Hotchner rushed through the door, looking around he asked: "Everyone safe?" The three nods assured him enough while he sat down in a chair next to Rossi. "Anyone got a hold of the others or knows just what happened?"
"I still can't get through." Garcia answered "There was an explosion at Nancy's…" she trailed of.
"It's too early to say anything specific" Rossi took over "They are still trying to get to all the bodies inside."
"I heard in the news. Is everyone fine?" JJ said while coming inside the room. "I tried to call you and a few friends but you didn't answer and the ones I could reach didn't know what happened."
"Yes. Communications is more down than up and everyone probably knows as much as us: next to nothing" Prentiss said.
They were sitting in silence until Garcia let out a small sob. "Why now? Why here? Why today and why Nancy?"
"I wish I knew Babygirl" Morgan said, coming into the room, a look of concern on his face, Reid hot on his heels.
"Nancy's is definitely not your typically target of a bombing, but we are. If there was someone scouting out headquarters they would have noticed that Nancy's is highly frequented by employees of the FBI and the time – around 12:30pm, wasn't it? – is the high time for her café. While it should be nearly impossible to get a bomb inside headquarters it is – in comparison- easy to get a bomb inside a café such as Nancy's. Provided the UnSubs wanted to kill some Agents, which is highly possible, as most victims are those in this group." Reid fired off while taking a seat at the table.
"Was there any big case closed in the last few month that would provoke such a reaction towards this agency?" Hotch asked.
Reid thought about it a second before answering with a negative. Garcia typed away on a laptop and shook her head when it came up with nothing.
"If it's not because of a case, why would anyone attack the FBI? I don't see any message in the kind or place of the attack to point it towards a specific department or major case of the FBI. It freaking happened across the street! At lunchtime! There were all kinds of agents. It could have hit the director or the cleaning lady." Morgan said, bits of anger finding its way on his features.
"Morgan is right" Hotch said, "this hit too close to home to feel safe. I guess everyone is in on this case. JJ and Prentiss, call around other agencies and the higher ups and get us as much information as you can. Reid and Garcia, go through all closed and opened cases that could be the trigger for this; Rossi, ask anyone who's willing to help for their opinion on a possible terror act or if any groups have raised any flags lately; Morgan, go to the crime scene and get more on the bomb. I'll get clearance for our investigation from the director. Try not to step on anyone's toes. Don't forget we have not officially been invited on the case yet."
The team stood and started to move out of the room to get to their respective tasks.
A/N: Hello guys, thanks for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it, please R+R, I'm happy about every comment or criticism.
I have absolutly no idea how to continue with this, how it should end, anything. If you have any idea, please please please let me know.