What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust...

"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;

"They called me the hyacinth girl."

- Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

---T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland, 1922.

INTERLUDE

The park was surprisingly silent for a summer morning. No traffic rolled by on the surrounding streets, no children played in the fountain or ran through the park, no dogs frolicked in the dog run. It was virtually empty and the silence unnerved him. He had a niggling sensation of dread – something horrible must have happened to leave the park – and the city beyond it – so deserted. He was standing underneath the monument, staring up Fifth and it occurred to him that this is what it felt like to be the last person alive in the world. He was consumed by an overwhelming emptiness.

A piece of paper, crumpled and abandoned, scuttled across the street, drawn by a slight breeze. The sound of the scraping punctured the hush and sounded to him like nails on a chalkboard. At last, the balled paper came to a rest at his feet and he picked it up. He flattened it, but couldn't read what was written across it. The silence rushed in on him again as he struggled with the text and the sheer vastness of the void mobbed him. He felt compelled to enter the park, if anything to flee the stark reality of the urban wasteland around him.

Past the fountain and the monument, past the dog run, at the northwest entrance of the park was an open area, ringed by benches and chess boards. She was sitting alone at one of the boards, dressed all in white, the board set up for a game. She sat bolt upright, her back ramrod straight. Her eyes were vacant, staring across the walkway, but seeing nothing. He approached her and she looked up. Her expression was blank.

"I've been waiting for you," she said, her voice hollow.

He sat down across from her. She didn't blink as she watched him. Through the trees, the sunlight cast a dappled light over her face and her eyes moved in and out of the shadows and as a sudden gust, stronger than before, rustled the leaves.

"It's you," he replied. "I've been looking for you. But I didn't think I'd find you here." He was relieved, not only because she was here and he could stop looking for her, but because another human presence consoled him that he was not – as he feared – entirely alone.

"What did you expect? A red room? Would you like me to speak backwards to you? Whisper the name of the murderer in your ear? Ebyam htiw rouy citedie yromem, ll'uoy rebmemer ti nehw uoy ekaw pu."

He frowned down at the chess board. She was playing with the black chessmen so the first move was his.

"Why The Great Gatsby? You're a subjectivist. I saw your books: William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Arundahti Roy. They all write non-linear, fragmented narratives. You'd find the relative clarity and strait-forward approach of the Lost Generation sophomoric and overly simplistic."

She cocked her head at him. "What makes you think you know my reading habits?"

"I'm a profiler. It's my job."

"Then you tell me. Why The Great Gatsby?" She smiled enigmatically.

"Meyer Wolfsheim. Clearly that name's important to you. It's the only think you underlined in the entire book."

She fingered a bishop, rocking it back and forth along the edge of its base. "I think you're missing the forest for the trees." Her voice was even, detached and he felt a growing flush of emotion – an amalgam of panic and frustration.

"I don't even know what I'm looking for!"

He shook his head and stared down at the board once again. He reached out to move his pawn but she extended her hand and touched his to prevent him from playing. Her skin was cold, almost unnaturally so.

"Don't. It's a stalemate."

"I don't ever reach stalemate. I always win."

She pointed at the board. "Korchnoi – Karpov, 1978."

She stood to leave and as she moved past his seat, he grasped her wrist. She glanced down at him, and for the first time, a ghost of emotion passed across her face – pain.

"My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think," she murmured.

"I want to stay with you. Sit back down," he said.

But she was already shaking her head, pulling away. "I think we are in rats' alley, where the dead men lost their bones. You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing?"

"You're bleeding," he whispered.

She looked down and as she did a red stain began to blossom in the center of her shirt. She turned her head slightly, watching the blood ooze down her shirt and her pants. A few crimson drops plopped onto the chessboard. She raised her gaze to meet his eyes. "So are you."

Suddenly, she was gone, and he found himself gripping Tobias Hankel's wrist instead of hers. The scene shifted and he found himself back in that barn, tied to that chair.

Tobias held a syringe in his free hand and he now held it up, so he could see it. "I know you want it, all you have to do is say when."

Reid awoke with a start, adrenaline pumping through his veins.