Extreme Aggressor
Joseph Conrad said, 'The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.'
I sat silently at my desk, working my way slowly, but steadily through the stack of reports I had yet to complete. Like any other day when a case wasn't presented to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, I, along with the other members of my team worked on any unfinished files and reports. The daylight had begun to fade into a sunset and the majority of my teammates had left for the evening, but not me. I only had a couple of files left. At least, I did until a new case file fell on top of the one I was working on. I didn't look up but I knew the BAU's Communications Liaison, Jennifer Jareau, JJ, standing over me.
"Where?" I asked, not looking up from my report.
"Seattle. Four women. All of them are already dead, strangled. The fifth just went missing a few hours ago." JJ explained. I sighed, setting my pen down and closing the file. I grabbed the case file and my coat and, together, we left the bullpen and approached the elevators outside the BAU. I brushed a piece of dark brown hair out of my face and opened the file, skimming over the details, before pulling out my cell.
"I'll call Morgan, you call Hotch."
"Spence is on his way to get Gideon now." JJ said, whipping out her phone.
I glanced uncertainly over at my friend, "Are we sure he's ready to come back yet?"
"The higher-ups requested that he be back in the field. Hotch is gonna evaluate him as you go." The blonde replied as she pressed her own phone to her ear.
"Well then this is gonna be fun." Someone on the other end of the line picked up. Club music played in the background and the laughter of several women caught my ear.
"Miss me already, Maverick? You know, if you wanted to spend time with me you only needed to ask." I could hear the smug smirk on his face when he spoke to me.
"I told you not to call me that. I was a Marine, Morgan, I could snap you in half if I wanted to." I couldn't fight the small smile growing on my face.
"You tell me that everyday, Tess. But it's pretty clear to me that you like having me around." Derek Morgan quipped back.
"Only in your dreams, Hot Shot. I called 'cause we've got a case." Immediately, Morgan's tone changed, his smile was more than likely gone.
"Where?"
I sighed, "Seattle. Wheels up in 45, I think Hotch and Reid went to get Gideon. Brass wants him back in the field. It's a bad one, Morgan."
"I'll meet up with them, we'll meet you at the strip." He didn't seem confident about Gideon's return, but now wasn't the time to discuss it.
"Sounds good, see you there."
"Later, Maverick." Derek hung up before she had the chance to scold him again. I huffed as I tucked my cell away and threw on my all-weather coat.
"I hate it when he calls me that." I growled. JJ laughed.
"No you don't."
"What makes you say that, JJ?" I checked my watch, trying not to snap at my friend.
"You always smile when you yell at him for calling you Maverick."
"Kinda hard not to smile when he gives you that smolder. You can't tell me you haven't fallen prey to the flirtatious beast that is Derek Morgan." We both laughed, "And aside from that, he knows that I was a First Lieutenant. Marines reserve 'Maverick' for Master Gunnery Sergeants. He likes to mess with me."
JJ had dropped me off at the airstrip before returning to the BAU. She wasn't going with us on this one. On board the BAU jet, everyone gathered around where Gideon and Hotch sat, working through the case.
"His first victim was twenty-six year old, Melissa Kirsch. Stabbed and strangled-"
"Wait. Back up, back up." Derek said, confused, "He stabbed her, then strangled her to finish her off?"
"No. Other way around." I corrected. "Strangled, then stabbed."
"Why do we think he started using a belt with the second murder?" Morgan asked.
"Strangulation with one's bare hands is not as easy as one would think." Spencer explained, "He tried, probably found that it took too long-"
"So he stabbed her instead." Gideon finished.
"And realized it would take him hours to clean up the blood." Hotch spoke up for the first time.
"Next time, our boy's got a new method. The belt." Derek nodded in understanding.
"He's learning. Getting smarter and perfecting his scenario." I said as I flipped through the file.
"Becoming a better killer." Gideon said grimly.
The team landed in Seattle a few minutes later and immediately headed to the Seattle Field Office. Gideon led us, pushing his way past everyone who stood in his path. Derek and I walked in equal stride a safe distance from Gideon.
"You know he never stands with his back to a window." Morgan said quietly to me. I looked over at him with calculating eyes. We had stopped walking. Morgan's eyes never stopped following Gideon.
"Tess, when I was between him and a doorway, he asked me to move."
"Derek, it's hyper-vigilance. Not uncommon with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know a handful of Marines who are the same way." I explained to him, my expression turning dark.
"Just how much disorder are we talking about, Barkley?" Clearly, Morgan wasn't on board with Gideon's return.
"Morgan, it's been six months. These things don't disappear overnight. Believe me, they don't." I pointed out, without even realizing that I had revealed to him my own experiences.
"Tess..." Morgan reached out in an attempt to set a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I stepped out of reach and moved to the conference room where the others, along with the agents from the Field Office. I shrugged off my coat and set it on an empty chair. I had changed before getting on the plane, out of the blouse and dress pants combo that I typically wore in the office. Now, I was decked in a black polo shirt, dark pants and the combat boots I never left home without. On my right bicep, I had a new tattoo, a birch tree with a Celtic knot in the bark, celebrating my one year anniversary of work with the BAU.
"Morgan. Time to start." Hotch called him into the conference room and began to make introductions.
"This is Supervisory Special Agent Gideon, Special Agent Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes, our expert on psychotic and psychopathic crimes, Supervisory Special Agent Tess Barkley, Special Agent Reid-"
"Doctor Reid." Gideon corrected.
"Doctor Reid, our expert on, well, everything, and after two years of busting my butt in this office, I hope you all remember me." Hotch ended lightly, earning a few chuckles from the agents surrounding them.
"He's willing to travel with the body." The ASAC began.
"Then the vehicle he drives is big enough to conceal one." I replied, while I studied the photos of the previous victims with Gideon, "Probably something like a Ford Explorer. It'll have tinted windows."
"Explorers rate higher with women." Reid told me. I rolled my eyes, sometimes having a resident genius was more tedious than helpful.
"So? Not like it really matters." I shrugged, "Bundy drove a VW Bug."
"What about a Jeep Cherokee?" Morgan suggested.
"Jeeps are more masculine."
"We all know how an unsub feels about asserting his masculinity." Gideon said quietly.
"When did the Bureau become involved in this case?" Hotch asked the ASAC.
"After the fourth body was found. He dumped it out of state. On purpose?"
"Maybe." Gideon replied.
"If so, knowledge of law enforcement suggests a criminal record." Reid said, stepping away from the evidence board.
"Or he watches television." Derek said.
"Do you want a look at our suspect list?" One of the Seattle agents asked them. We all shook our heads simultaneously.
"We won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile. It keeps our perspective unbiased." Hotch explained, "When do we sit down with your task force?"
"Four o'clock."
"An accurate profile by four o'clock today?" Gideon grinned, "That's not a problem."
"Agent Gideon, where would you like to start?" One of the field agents asked.
"At the site of the last murder." He turned to the team, "Morgan and Barkley with me. Hotch and Reid-"
"We'll go speak to Heather Woodland's brother, David." Hotch said with a nod.
Morgan stood off to the side of the scene, talking with a Seattle cop, while Gideon and I examined the scene up close.
"He left nothing behind, Jason. Except his murder weapon, though I doubt we'll find prints on it." I said, looking around at the underside of the overpass we were standing under.
"He clipped her nails like the others. He wants them to fight back, but not enough to hurt him." Gideon turned to Morgan and called him over, "He left the belt around her neck!"
Morgan and the beat cop jogged over while Gideon continued to speak. "He's probably in his early twenties."
"What's your reasoning?" Morgan asked.
"Youthful arrogance." Gideon replied.
"He clothed the body before dumping it. A sign of remorse." I said, unsure.
"That's not consistent, Gideon." Derek eyed our superior cautiously, "Look at where we are. His opinion of women is pretty clear, don't you think? They're disposable. Why show remorse by taking the time to dress her, but then dump her here?"
Gideon pondered for a moment, his usually knowing eyes staring off into space.
"Did the ME report arrive at the Field Office yet for the fourth victim?"
"Yeah, about twenty minutes ago." I said, checking my watch.
"Good. Let's head back and take a look."
Hotch and Reid returned shortly before Morgan, Gideon and I did. Now, we all resided in the empty conference room, picking each other's brains for ideas. Morgan paced back and forth, after shedding his suit jacket and pulling a baseball from his go bag. He played catch with himself as he paced, while next to me, Spencer spun around in his swivel chair.
"Okay, then how about the fact that on one hand, we have paranoid psychosis, but the autopsy report said what?"
I flipped through the ME's report, but Reid didn't need it as he recited word for word, "'Adhesive residue shows he put layer after layer of duct tape over his victim's eyes.'"
"He knows he wants to kill them, but he still covers their eyes." Morgan stopped in front of where I was sitting, "C'mon, Tess. This is your area of expertise."
I thought for a moment, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. "It doesn't fit the M.O. of a paranoid. He's a paranoid psychotic, but his behavior isn't paranoid. I've never seen anything like this before."
We continued to argue with each other, each of our ideas being contradicted by the pieces of the profile we had.
"That's enough. Let's tell them we're ready." Everyone looked up at Gideon in surprise. Without another word he took off to gather the troops.
"We're ready?" Morgan asked in a mix of anger and surprise, he looked from the door, to me and then to Reid, "You're both okay with this? We've got a woman who's only got a few hours left to live, an incomplete profile and a unit chief on the verge of a nervous breakdown."
"They don't call them nervous breakdowns anymore." Gideon had walked back into the room at just the right moment to grab something off the table, before walking back out.
"It's called a major depressive episode." Reid said.
"I know. We all know." Morgan snapped.
"Hey, relax, Hothead. It'll be fine." I told him calmly as agents began to file into the conference room. Morgan, Reid and I all shuffled over to the side of the room, joined quickly by Hotch. Gideon would take the lead on this one.
Once everyone was in the room, armed with pen and paper, Gideon began to deliver the profile.
"The unidentified subject is white and in his late twenties. He's someone you wouldn't notice at first. He's someone who would blend into any crowd. The violent nature of the crime suggests a previous criminal record; petty crimes, maybe auto theft. We've classified him as an organized killer... he's careful. Psychopathic as opposed to psychotic. He follows the news, has good hygiene. He's smart. And 'cause he's smart the only physical evidence you'll find is what he wants you to find. He's mobile, car in good condition, our guess, Jeep Cherokee, tinted windows. The murders have all involved rapes. But rape without penetration is a form of piquerism, and tells us that he's sexually inadequate. Psychiatric evaluations will show a history of paranoia stemming from a childhood trauma, death of a parent or family member. And now he feels persecuted and watched. Murder gives him a sense of power. Organized killers have a fascination with law enforcement. They will inject themselves into the investigation. They will even come forward as witnesses to see just how much the police really know. That makes them feel powerful, in control. Which is why I also think... in fact, I know... you have already interviewed him."
"Dad definitely hasn't lost his touch." I smirked. Next to me, Derek chuckled softly. The profile Jason had given was solid. It gave us a jumping off point, somewhere to start. And now, it was time to get down and dirty.
We combed through the Seattle PD's suspect list, comparing Gideon's profile to the people on the list until we finally found a match. Richard Slessman. We had an address, a suspect and now, we had Elle Greenaway. She was a young agent, but she was good at what she did. And it was no surprise to anyone on the BAU team that she wanted the open position at Quantico. She offered to draw Slessman out, which was easier than one may have thought. Everyone else waited in a house down the street while Elle led Slessman in, convincing him that she was housesitting for a neighbor.
The takedown was too easy, though. I could see the look in Slessman's eye, just like Gideon. He was hiding something. Hotch and Greenaway restrained him and brought him back to his house, while everyone else began to search the residence. We combed through every inch of the house, but Heather Woodland was nowhere to be found.
"There's no sign of the girl here." Reid shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, "We can arrest him with probable cause, but we won't be able to hold him."
"Slessman's been at the top of the suspect list since the start of the investigation." I pointed out. Gideon nodded in the direction of the old woman who had been living in the house.
"That the mother?"
"Grandmother." Elle stepped into the hallway where Gideon, Reid and I had gathered, "The mother died in a fire when he was thirteen. Probably not the first fire in his childhood."
We all shifted, moving upstairs to the second floor of the house.
"Before his Son of Sam murders, David Berkowitz set a multitude of fires." Reid said as he began to climb the stairs.
"Exactly how much is a multitude?" I jumped, Morgan had snuck up behind me and scared the living shit out of me when he spoke up, "Jumpy, Maverick?"
"Fuck off." I muttered under my breath.
"Whoa." He stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the stairs. He dramatically clutched at his heart, but his smirk gave him away, "Ouch. That hurt me, Barkley."
"Yeah, I can see your all torn up about it." I laughed, brushing past him and following Elle up to Richard Slessman's room, "Greenaway, right?"
"Elle." She introduced herself over her shoulder.
"Tess Barkley." I jabbed a thumb in Morgan's direction, "Derek Morgan. Hotch said you're an expert in sex offender cases. What can you tell us about our guy?"
"The last four murders show he's an anger-excitation rapist. He'll keep a victim for a couple of days. He probably videotapes them so he can relive the fantasy."
I nodded, "And you're sure you're okay with Hotchner being in on the interview?"
"I'd like him to lead it, actually."
"Sounds good to me."
"Tess." Hotch and Gideon met myself and Morgan at the top of the stairs, "We're going to look in his garage, see what he's driving, you two go through Slessman's room and computer, Elle join Reid in the attic."
Derek followed a couple of Seattle cops into Slessman's room off the second floor hallway, I wasn't far behind. The cops went to work on the computer, while Morgan and I profiled the room itself. There were some books, a few posters on the wall and a mess of clothes on the floor.
"We're missin' something here." Morgan said, looking around, "This is a boy's room, not a man's."
"Any luck with the computer?" I asked as I scanned over the books Slessman kept on his headboard.
"Log in password." One of the beat cops handed his partner a piece of paper.
"No, no, wait!" Morgan reached out, trying to stop him from entering the password but it was too late.
"It's not turning back on."
"Yeah, and it won't. It was a false password." Morgan sighed in frustration. He shoved past the cops, effectively sending them out of the room. After a few minutes of fevered attempts, he finally got the computer to turn back on.
"Okay, here we go."
I joined him at Slessman's desk, playfully shoving him with my shoulder while I did, and saw a lock screen. A number six sat in the corner of the screen.
"We've got six chances before the hard drive gets wiped. There could be a journal, an email, something on this computer that'll tell us where Heather is. Do you think you can crack it, Morgan?"
He looked over at me in disbelief, "In six tries?"
"'Try again, fail again. Fail better.'" Gideon and Reid had entered the bedroom.
"Samuel Beckett isn't going to help us here." I said grimly.
"'Try not. Do or do not.'" Morgan quipped to Gideon, who looked at him in confusion.
"Yoda." Reid clarified.
"Didn't know you were a fan of Star Wars, Derek." I grinned as I began to flip through the pile of CDs on Slessman's desk.
"You kidding? I worshipped those movies as a kid." He replied, nudging me in the shoulder. Near the far wall, Gideon pulled a book from the bookshelf and stared at the cover.
"I wanna talk to him." He held up the book to show us the cover. It was one of his books. Gideon disappeared downstairs and didn't return. Morgan, Reid and I stayed in the house with Seattle PD while Elle, Hotch and Gideon returned to the Seattle Field Office. In the meantime, the boys and I wracked our brains to figure out possible passwords, but we came up empty.
"Call Garcia. Maybe she'll know what to do." I suggested to Morgan. He nodded and pulled out his phone, putting it on speaker.
"You've reached Penelope Garcia in the FBI's office of supreme genius."
"Hey, it's Morgan and Tess. Need you to work some magic for us. We got a program called Deadbolt Defense and a girl with a couple hours to live-"
"Then you've got a problem. Deadbolt's the number one password crack-resistant software out there. You're gonna have to get inside this guy's head to get the password." Garcia replied.
"I thought this was the office of supreme genius." I said, surprised. Normally, Garcia could do anything.
"Well, I'm sorry, my mighty Marine, but you've been redirected to the office of too friggin' bad."
"Alright, thanks anyway." The line went dead and Morgan sighed, "So she gets to give you a nickname but I don't?"
"That would be correct." I answered, before heading into the bathroom off of Slessman's room. The first thing I checked was his medicine cabinet. There was only one thing inside, a prescription for doxepine. "Derek! I think I got something."
I stepped back into the bedroom and tossed the bottle to him, "Doxepine. Slessman's an insomniac."
"Okay. My name is Richard Slessman and I have trouble sleeping." Morgan made his way over to the bed, where he lay down and continued to think out loud, "So, what do I do when I'm trying to fall asleep?"
I waited for him to answer his own question. In an instant, he shot up from the bed and began pulling CDs from the headboard.
"Guys, a little help!" He called out to the cops in the hall, "We're gonna go through every one of these CDs, scratches, wear and tear. I wanna know which CD he plays the most."
We spent over half an hour opening every CD Slessman had. Reid even jumped in to help. He and I sat on Slessman's bed, making small talk the entire time.
"Do you know why Gideon always introduces me as Dr. Reid?"
"Because everyone else looks at you and sees a kid and he wants them to you show you some respect." I looked over at him, "He did the same for me when I started out. Addressed me as Lieutenant Barkley for six months straight, after which Morgan started calling me Maverick."
"Thanks, Hotch." Morgan stepped back into the room after hanging up from his conversation with Hotch. "Charles Linder, Slessman's cellmate, he's dead."
"So that puts him out of the running for the second half of our team." I groaned, flopping back on the bed.
"Hotch is still working on getting Slessman to crack, Elle and Gideon are at Cascadia talking to the prison staff. How's it going with the CDs?"
"Not well. We've gone through dozens of them and none of them has the wear and tear from overuse." I replied.
"Actually, I've been thinking about that." Reid stood up and walked over to the computer, pulling a thin Philips head screwdriver from his pocket, "I think we may have missed the obvious."
He opened the CD slot in the side of the computer and pulled out a disk. It was Metallica.
"How'd you know?" I asked, shooting up from the bed and snatching the disk from his hand.
"It was the only empty case." Reid shrugged.
"Okay, so I'm an insomniac that listens to Metallica to fall asleep." Morgan concluded.
"Because that makes perfect sense." I muttered.
"What song would speak to me?"
Reid and I thought for a second, then simultaneously had the same idea, "Enter Sandman."
It worked. The computer held several porn files, most of them torture and BDSM, but that wasn't what we were looking for. We picked through everything the guy had until we found it. A livestream of where Heather Woodland was being held. She was bound and gagged, with layers of duct tape pressed over her eyes. Her hair was matted and messy and she was being held in a metal cage.
"I'll call Gideon." I pulled out my pone and speed dialed him. He picked up right away.
"What do you have?"
"Gideon, she's alive. Heather Woodland is alive."
"How do you know?"
"We're watching her right now. Slessman has a live video feed of her on his computer."
"We'll head there now, but we need a location."
I pulled the phone away from my ear, "Reid, anything you can see that could give us a location?"
Reid leaned in closer, squinting at the screen, "Actually, yes. Morgan can you line up the last twelve frames next to each other?"
"Yeah." A few keystrokes and a second of observation and Reid found it.
"Right there." He pointed at the light hanging from the ceiling of the room, "You see that? The lightbulb hanging from the wire?"
Morgan nodded, clearly confused, "Yeah, what about it?"
"It's shifting positions, like it's swaying, like the earth is tilting."
"Not the earth, Doc," Morgan realized, "The ocean."
"Gideon, she's on a boat." I said quickly, "Specific location unknown. We'll call Hotch and see if he can get it out of Slessman."
Gideon hung up, but I knew he would wait for Hotch's call. I dialed Hotch's number next and put him on speaker.
"Hotchner."
"Hotch, we got her. She's on a boat." Morgan said, not peeling his eyes off the screen.
"A boat? Where?"
"It's a pier or dock. He wouldn't be able to transmit the webcam image from the middle of the ocean."
"You're sure about this?" Hotch quietly asked for confirmation.
"It's the best we have, Hotch." I sighed, "Even if we're right, getting the exact location is all on you."
"What is it that Morgan always asks Garcia?"
Morgan chuckled, "To work me a little magic."
It was a shipyard. Allied shipyard to be specific. Gideon and Elle found Heather Woodland alive. Timothy Vogel, prison guard and our second UnSub, was dead on the scene when Morgan, Reid and I got there. Everyone else was okay, aside from the graze Gideon got on his arm from Vogel's terrible shot. I checked my watch, 03:54 am. We had been up all night, might as well stick it out. We spent the next several hours going through Vogel's 'torture chamber' and asking Heather Woodland questions about her kidnapping.
By the time daylight broke, crews were cleaning up the scene and Heather was on her way to the hospital. Hotch, Morgan and I watched as Gideon, now bandaged, started to walk the scene for a final time.
"So what kind of a report do they want on him?" Morgan asked.
"I'm guessin' it's whether or not he's fit to be a field agent or not." I shrugged, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat.
"You know, Haley and I were looking at a baby names book. Guess what Gideon means?"
"Mighty warrior." Reid said as he walked past us, "Appropriate."
"Literal translation from Hebrew text is 'he who cuts down'." I corrected with a smirk.
"So what are you gonna tell them?" Morgan asked Hotch.
"What would you say?" He countered.
Morgan sighed, "Gideon saved her life. That's good enough for me."
"We're all set over here!" One of the Seattle cops shouted from the boat, giving us the all clear. Morgan stood up from the barrel he was seated on and offered his arm to me. I shook my head, but smiled regardless and took it.
"Finally. If I go another hour without any sleep I may put someone halfway through the nearest concrete wall."
"Remind me to never get on your bad side, Tess." Derek grinned, as we walked to the SUVs arm in arm.
Nietzsche wrote, 'When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.'
