Third Eye of the Storm

"I knew immediately something was terribly wrong, but you can know that and not allow the thought in your head, at the front of your head. It dances around at the back, where it can't be controlled."
~Sebastian Barry.

February 2015. Dumfries, Virginia.

The moment the phone rang, Judith Eden knew that it couldn't be good news.

Jessalyn Keller was curled up behind her in the hotel bed, shifting back slightly to slip Judith's cellphone out of her back pocket.

She answered without glancing at the caller ID. Jess always asked her why she did that, and she always replied that she preferred the surprise of whoever was on the other end. To Jessalyn, that was illogical, impractical, and a waste of time. To Jude, it kept her from worrying about things until they were truly worth worrying about.

However, she knew who it was—the only person who could be calling her now.

"SSA Eden."

"We've got a possible lead." To anyone who didn't know Jack Dawson, her team leader would sound calm and collected. But after so many years at his side, she'd learned to detect the slightest tremor in his tone, which belied his sense of dread and the adrenaline building in his veins.

Jude's mind suddenly snapped to a previous line of conversation with Jessalyn—just a few minutes earlier, they'd been discussing Jess' depression, how deeply it had hit. Jude had learned a long time ago that Jess catalogued her days according to color—blue for happy, grey for sad or depressive, black for the lowest and most emotionally dead points.

"What color?" She had asked.

"Grey. Dark grey."

"How dark?"

Jess had blinked, as if almost fearing the answer herself. "Almost black. Like the clouds during a tornado."

Even then, Judith Eden had felt a prickle of foreboding, though she'd stamped it down. Now, that prickle rippled into something bigger, something that couldn't be so easily caged.

There was a difference between superstition and intuition. Superstition was a pointless, illogical set of behaviors and beliefs with no possible ability to predict, alter, or otherwise influence the outcome of events. Intuition was the ability to read verbal and nonverbal cues to fully comprehend current behavior and predict future behavior. Using intuition, you could even influence the outcome of events still in motion, or even events that hadn't happened yet.

Judith Eden was a firm believer in intuition—truly, as an empath with a highly developed receptiveness to other people's behaviors and emotions, how could she not be? After all, people told the truth with their movements and their tone and even the way the skin at the corners of their eyes creased—and you can use those truths to discern which moments were lies, which statements were false or true or somewhere in-between (she'd learned that the hard way, too—there were in-betweens, stories that were false but believed to be true by their raconteurs, stories they told themselves over and over again until they'd washed their own brains into believing them with a ferocity that bordered on the psychotic).

Intuition was also using past data to interpret current and future situations—using a working knowledge of human behavior and all its eccentricities to determine how certain events were going to play out, regardless of how the players within the story changed. People liked to think they were all unique little snowflakes, but the truth was, they were generally very, very predictable.

Generally. Not always.

Based on results from previous events, perhaps with a dash of that fortuitously over-developed sense of intuition, Judith Eden had the very solid gut-feeling that this wasn't going to end well at all. On the ride back to Quantico, neither she nor Jess had spoken, both wrapped up in the same worried thoughts—though Jude told herself that the uneasiness was simply a lingering malaise from Tyler Harrison. It happened that way, sometimes, with unsolved cases—they made you feel off-balance, like you were losing your edge, like maybe this was it and you'd never be able to solve another case again. She just needed a few good, solid closes on a few more cases, and the apprehension would go away again (at least for a little while).

However, once she was back in the car—this time with Jack Dawson as they headed to Benjamin Fuller's address, her sense of not-rightness came bubbling up again.

Dawson was getting her up to speed on recent developments, "Apparently, Roza spoke to this guy yesterday—and O'Donnell had him interviewed, checked out, all that jazz, just like everybody else. No red flags."

Glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure their entourage of SWAT members and forensic collection agents were still in-tow, he continued, "He's not answering calls—we contacted his mother, who said she hadn't heard from him since yesterday. Apparently he called, let her know that he was safe, and that was about it. But she didn't think that was odd—she said he's not the type to talk about things."

Jude gave a small hum. Withdrawn. That was part of the UNSUB description given by the BAU.

"He lives alone?" More of a clarification than an actual question—if Fuller's emergency contact was his mother, it was highly doubtful that he had a wife at home.

Dawson made a small noise of affirmation. "In the middle of nowhere, it looks like."

"Like John Curtis," the words slipped from Jude's mouth before she could stop them.

"I didn't say Replicator, you didn't say Replicator." Jack reminded her gently. And she understood—Scott O'Donnell, the Quantico SAC, had been adamant in his refusal to allow anyone to make comparisons between this new UNSUB and John Curtis, who was still fresh in the minds of the Bureau. The last thing they needed was a copycat.

Of course, it didn't change the fact that the deeper they got into the case, the more points of connection they'd found—the bomb was even sent by H.J. Raymond, an alias of Adam Worth, "the Napoleon of Crime", whose name Curtis had used during his taunting of the BAU.

Jack didn't mention the BAU—or the fact that Spencer Reid and David Rossi were currently still at the Academy, at his request. They'd confessed to an interesting point of connection to the case, and until that was properly sorted, Jack preferred to keep them as close by as possible. Jude was tangentially aware of this development, but he knew that her lack of questioning on the matter was simply her attempt to stay away and seem unbiased, even though everyone on the Flying Js knew that she definitely was, especially when it came to those two men. Jack was the one who'd asked her to leave, once he'd realized that this new information from Dr. Reid cast him in an unfavorable light—Jude had obeyed the order, and her continued silence on the matter was simply a continuation of her obedience.

Knowing Jude, said obedience wasn't going to last much longer. Still, he'd take the respite while he could—he had too much else on his plate to focus on things that hadn't happened yet.

Yet. Small word, such a damn kicker.

"What are the vitals on Agent Fuller?" Jude shifted focus back to safer ground.

"White male. Age 32—"

That part didn't fit the profile. He was supposed to be somewhere between 40 and 55.

"A bachelor's degree in chemistry or…some other kind of science."

"Any military?"

"Tried, but washed out."

"Hmm."

"Yeah."

Jack knew what she was thinking—it fit and it didn't fit the profile.

"On the short list for any kind of promotion?"

"Nope. And he never submitted for any kind of transfer that wasn't approved."

Another ripple of not-rightness simmered through Jude's veins. The motive, the motive, they were missing the motive, the most important part.

"Any recent personal losses?"

"None Roza found right off the bat—but she's still looking, so, who knows?"

Who knows, indeed.

Jack Dawson let Judith slightly readjust the shoulder strap on his Kevlar vest—he knew it was her little way of showing she cared, of silently saying for god's sake don't fucking die in there, 'kay, boss?

He merely offered a tight smile as he gave her upper arm a pat of reassurance. I'm not dying today, Jude, and I'm not letting you die, either.

She turned her attention to checking the clip of her Glock 23—it was a beauty, with a customized nickel-boron slide with a series of numbers etched along its barrel (her father's serial number from his time in the British Armed Forces). The gun made a smooth, light click as she pulled the slide back and released it, loading a bullet into the chamber. It was reassuring, the smooth efficiency of the weapon, the way it worked, just as it was meant to, her father's number a talisman that had kept her safe thus far. If she were the type to get a tattoo, she'd already have the number on her skin, a constant presence and a permanent commitment to his memory. However, she'd grown up with a next-door-neighbor who'd had a series of numbers tattooed on his arm, against his will—and for some reason, that had always kept her from ever getting one. Mr. Barowitz was long dead and gone, but she still worried about triggering dark memories for the remaining few who'd survived the same ordeal, or worse yet, lost loved ones to the atrocity of the Holocaust.

This one was of the rare occasions in which she truly did wish to be younger—she'd have tattoos and wouldn't give a damn what other people thought, she'd be open to anyone and everyone about her relationship with Jess, she'd take her lover to Giza and Angor Wat and scale mountains and kayak through jungles and spend every second reveling in the strength and ecstasy of youth.

That was the part that sucked about getting older. You never realized how strong you'd been, how vibrant you were when you were younger. You didn't know until it was gone.

Then, of course, there was the seventeen-year difference in age between herself and Jess. She tried not to think about that too often—tried not to remember that while her life was ebbing, her lover's was still in its prime, that Jess would grow old and Jude most likely wouldn't be there to see it.

Why the hell was she thinking about all that now? Missed connections and wrong times and irreversible regrets?

What color?

Almost black. Like the clouds during a tornado.

Between the Harrison case and the lack of sleep from this current case, Judith Eden was going batty—and in the most morbid of ways.

Still. Despite her own inner chidings, she couldn't help but feel that it was all an omen.

They were a few yards from the house now—standing next to the lone mailbox on the edge of the gravel drive, everyone with guns ready, pointed downward as they watched and waited on the entry team.

Her eyes were focused on the unassuming white door (a white front door, really, who did that nowadays, it must be hell to keep clean and pristine looking), but she could sense people shifting closer to her, closer to the house, closer to the moment of truth and revelation.

To her left, someone slightly shorter than she—Chief Cruz. Over her right shoulder, someone taller—O'Donnell, filling the small space between her and Dawson. In her peripheral vision, they were little more than dark clumps at the edge of her frame. Heavy and weighted with brooding expectancy.

Almost black. Like the clouds during a tornado.

Storms and thoughts of mortality. Omens indeed, and all ill.

The door swung open under the force of the battering ram, as easily as if it were a merely slab of cardboard. The agents carrying the ram stepped back, and the SWAT team slipped forward—everyone was moving forward now.

Eden and Dawson easily moved behind the first two SWAT members, muscles taunt and eyes wary as they entered the house, whose warmth seemed overwhelming after the biting cold of the wind outside. Jude's Kevlar vest suddenly felt too tight, her windbreaker too clingy as her skin heated and her lungs strained for breath.

Forget the internal, Jude. Focus on the external.

External: a small hallway, so narrow that she had to shift back slightly to allow Dawson to go ahead of her (the SWAT members, in their heavier gear with their bigger guns, had to walk single file completely), which opened into a larger living room that swept back into a nicely-sized kitchen. The kitchen windows looked out into a dark wood, the right side of which was edged by the river.

Amidst the scene of cozy tranquility sat its polar opposite—bloody, gory chaos. She stopped short and Scott O'Donnell very nearly ran her over—though as soon as he saw what she was looking at, he immediately stood still as well.

O'Donnell let out his breath, something between an exhale of frustration and an actual word. Jude didn't have to understand the utterance to understand its meaning—they were too late, a source of frustration mingled with the tiniest smudge of relief in knowing that at least there wouldn't be a bloody last stand which may cost yet another agent's life.

Out of sheer habit, ingrained by years of entering scenes so remarkably similar to this one, Jude's dark eyes scanned the area, mentally cataloguing the general order of the room, the placement of items and the lay of the room itself. Once the house was secured and cleared, they'd have to go back out and let the forensic team take a crack at the place—however, Jude knew that the next few minutes would be chaos, and things could get messed around in the confusion. Someone could accidentally move an item, change the forensic analyst's reading of the scene, throw evidence into the incorrect light—it had happened before, several times. Hence her vigilance in making a mental map.

One large, antique television sat in the corner of the room—if it worked, it would have been due to a sheer overpowering determination to keep it alive by its owner, because it was easily fifty years old and Jude couldn't imagine how hard it would be to track down parts for it, much less ones that actually still worked. Next to the TV was an immaculate stack of newspapers, all as smooth as if they were fresh off the press. However, the ones near the bottom of the stack were yellowing with age—this collection had easily been building over a decade. She frowned slightly at the thought. Something didn't fit right with that image.

Her eyes scanned across a wall with a painting of some pastel pastoral scene, then to the large opening that led to the kitchen. The living room floor was blanketed in a heavy carpet, rustic and welcoming but not too worn, and a smaller circular rug made an island out of the upright arm chair, which currently contained what was formerly Special Agent Benjamin Fuller. The chair was older, but in solid condition. She ignored the head wound, focused on everything around it—the pristine creases of his slacks, the near-spotlessness of his shirt (marred by the blood, of course), the easy relaxed splay of his feet, the handgun just on the other side of the chair. Her eyes moved onward, to the two large bookcases against the wall, with an antique oak credenza in-between. The bookcases were filled with outdated encyclopedias, their hunter green with gold detailing giving the room an odd sense of austerity despite the woodsy feel of the rest of the cabin.

The SWAT team rambled back through, having cleared the other side of the house, where presumably the bedrooms were. She saw the lone sheet of paper just as they shifted past to the kitchen. She moved closer, keeping her movements slow and steady so as not to stir the paper, which still trembled precariously at the edge of the credenza, where the breeze created by the heavy and hurried passing of the SWAT team had swept it, already disturbing the crime scene in a minute-yet-important way (see, this was why she took stock as soon as she could—because anything, no matter how slight or unintentional, could upset and distort the scene).

She leaned forward slightly, squinting to read the small, scratchy handwriting. It appeared to be a note of some kind. Given the circumstances, a suicide note.

It was only a matter of time...

"All clear!" The SWAT team leader called out, his booming voice filling the weighted silence so suddenly that Jude jumped slightly at the intrusion.

"C'mon." Dawson was at her side, his hand lightly on her elbow. "We gotta get forensics in here as quickly as possible."

She nodded, her mind still playing over the note's opening line.

It was only a matter of time.

What color?

Grey. Dark grey.

How dark?

Almost black. Like the clouds during a tornado.

In less than ten minutes, Adelaide Macaraeg had taken over the scene as lead forensic investigator—everyone in the house was suited up (the analysts with full masks and jumpsuits, the rest of the agents with just gloves and booties to keep from bringing in other contaminants), and the team of analysts from Quantico were already busily documenting the scene and unpacking their evidence collection kits while Macaraeg was doing the preliminary analysis of Agent Fuller's corpse. By the slight lift of his thick eyebrows, Jude could tell that Jack Dawson was impressed by Mac's efficiency—she was brusque without being rude, and clinical without being too removed. She understood that time was of the essence and she made sure not to waste a single second.

Jack Dawson couldn't say that he was entirely surprised when Mac announced that Fuller's death wasn't a suicide. It just made sense, in a way that couldn't be explained. It didn't help the case, but it fit.

It fit with the fact that Benjamin Fuller didn't match the UNSUB profile—in some ways, he did, but in some ways, some very important ways, he didn't. Jude had been just as doubtful on the ride over to Fuller's house.

He needed to know who Fuller was, and how he connected to it all. Jude had pointed out earlier that innocent men generally didn't kill themselves in the wake of an attack like this—and innocent men didn't get murdered in their homes after an attack like this, either.

Dawson headed down the hallway—he easily found Fuller's study, and within a few minutes, the pieces of the BAU's profile slipped back into place. His hesitancy began to fade as each new discovery brought the life and personality of Benjamin Fuller back into alignment with the BAU's portrait of the UNSUB.

Then, of course, Jude found the hidden stash of notebooks, tucked away in carved-out copies of children's books—a stark anomaly in Fuller's nonfiction, technical-manual filled study.

Judith was seated on the floor, obviously settled in for what promised to be a long haul. She handed Dawson a notebook as well, though he remained standing.

Jack flipped through a few pages, skimming—though for what, he wasn't sure.

Then he saw it. A name he knew, in a place it should never be.

Met with Agent Reid again. I voiced my concerns to him, which he quickly allayed—he is a man of uncommon strength, completely unwavering in his determination to finish this task…

"God dammit to hell," the words slipped out like a sigh, a futile wish that died long before it had a chance to live.

Jude's head snapped upwards, dark brows shooting downward in an expression of confusion and concern.

Wordlessly, Jack handed her the notebook.

He figured she got just about as far into the paragraph as he did—she stopped, took half a breath, held it, released it, then turned her face back up to him again.

"What are you gonna do, boss?"

"The only thing I can, Jude." He pulled out his phone, but didn't use it. Instead, he sat down on the floor next to her. They continued their respective readings.

After a pause, Jude spoke, her voice halting tentatively, "Should I—do you want us to start keeping track of how many times Reid is mentioned in these books?"

"You found one, too." It wasn't a question—honestly, Jude wouldn't have asked her question if she didn't have a reason.

She made a small noise of affirmation, a regretful thing that she tried to cage in the back of her throat, as if she didn't want to confirm his statement at all. Not that he blamed her—he was already feeling sick, and he didn't have nearly the same emotional attachment to the young doctor as his colleague did.

Dawson turned another page—a slight shift in the notebook made him pause. Gingerly, he moved it again. Another shift, and this time, the edge of an envelope slipped from the back pages of the notebook. He gently slid it out of its resting place, opening the notebook to the section where it had been hidden.

Inside was a sheet of paper—nice, thick, the kind of stationary that you didn't just grab on the card aisle at your local shopping center. It had been folded and opened and refolded many times, judging by the worn creases.

"That isn't Fuller's handwriting," Jude commented quietly—by now, Dawson's discovery had piqued her interest and she was leaning over to get a better look.

"No, it isn't." Dawson felt another stone drop in his gut. "But I can tell you whose it looks like."

He didn't look up, but he could feel Jude's eyes flicker from the paper to his face. "How do you know?"

She didn't ask who. She knew.

"Because," Dawson sighed again. "After the eleventh-hour confession about Dr. Reid's connection to Linnea Donovan, through Maeve, I had O'Donnell pull his file. It contained after-action reports written in Dr. Reid's own hand—apparently, the man hates using computers and refuses to type out his reports. He hand-writes them instead, and then somebody scans them into the system, like a PDF. I read a few of 'em, just trying to get an idea of who he really was."

"And?" There was the old Jude again, bated breath and hopeful lilt, despite the overwhelming evidence. Dawson knew that she was asking about Dawson's decision on Reid's character, but he found himself at a loss to answer. So instead, he stuck to the things he did know.

"And I would swear on a stack of bibles that this is his handwriting."

Jude ducked her head at the pronouncement, focusing on the note itself instead. "It's a list of addresses, I think—these look like streets and house numbers, with the area code. No cities, no states."

Dawson had his phone out again, typing an address into his search engine.

"First one is a beauty supply store…in Pennsylvania." His face scrunched in confusion.

"Long way to go for a bottle of conditioner," Jude commented dryly. Then she sat back suddenly, "Shit."

"What?"

"Yesterday. When Jonas and I went over to the bomb site—with Rossi and Reid. Dr. Reid was explaining to us that TATP takes time to make. He mentioned that if the UNSUB wanted a higher concentrate of acetone, he'd go to a beauty salon."

That stone in Jack Dawson's gut tripled in size. He quickly went through the remaining addresses—all beauty supply stores or hardware stores.

"This is a list—of places to buy the ingredients for our bomb."

Even though Jude had suspected as much, her anticipation did nothing to soften the blow—the breath still left her lungs as quickly as if she'd been punched just below the ribs, her shoulders rounding inward in deflation.

The scuffling of shoes encased in forensic booties against the pine wood floor alerted them to the impending arrival of Scott O'Donnell, who appeared in the doorway, only looking momentarily confused and then worried at the sight of all the notebooks in the study.

"What didja find?" He asked, his tone and demeanor penduluming between anticipation and dread.

Dawson slowly rose to his feet again, holding out a hand to help Jude up as well. "I think we need to find Chief Cruz first—this circle needs to stay small and this story needs to be told only once."

Jude's fingers tightened around his as she pulled herself onto her feet—more of a silent warning than an actual clutch for stability. He understood. Because like Jude, his mind kept repeating one refrain.

It was only a matter of time…it was only a matter of time…it was only a matter of time.

"I've got a secret for you….Something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible...and something wonderful."
~Neal Shusterman.