CM The future I see without you

"One group, one group, please answer when you hear it."

"One group received, found □□, no hostages, repeat, no hostages."

Reid frowned, the GPS location attached to the last text message was correct, but what about Maeve?

He couldn't figure it out, he lowered his head and turned on the phone, the text message clearly said: "You know the way."

Hotch glanced at the silent doctor, turned his head and calmly gave an order to the walkie-talkie: "Let's get started."

"One group received."

"Wait, Hotch," Reid said anxiously as soon as he grabbed Hotch's wrist, "Maeve hasn't been found yet, it's different from what was said in the text message, it's not right, just wait..."

"Agent, there is a situation here," before Reid finished speaking, a new situation came from the intercom, "Oh, my God, what is this? A gift box? Wait, this is, this is a coffin!"

The picture on the projection was shaky, but Reid could still clearly see the dark mass behind it. Under the dim light, the brown-black wood gave off a warm glow, and on the top was a huge pink-white bow, layered upon layer , probably made of the softest kind of satin, the slightest air flow can make it stretch softly, like a butterfly spreading its wings.

The edge of the wooden box is engraved with small and delicate patterns. When the camera got close, Reid saw that it was an iris with flowers and leaves intertwined.

"Hey, there's something on it." The camera flashes and flashes, the signal inside the building is not very good, the picture is intermittent, and even the hand slowly reaching for the card seems to be intermittent.

The temporarily occupied coffee shop was silent, and everyone held their breath in unison, trying to see clearly what was written on the card embedded in the bow.

Suddenly a coldness rushed straight from the soles of his feet to the sky, Reid shuddered, and suddenly woke up, cold sweat broke out from every pore on his skin, he picked up the walkie-talkie tremblingly, and shouted: "Don't move! Don't move!" That card!"

But he reacted too slowly, the moment the card was taken away, the numbers in the scarlet letters began to jump, and the siren made a harsh and sharp "beep beep" sound.

"Evacuate! Evacuate!" Hotch snatched the walkie-talkie from Reid's hand and shouted, "Plan Two, where are the people in Group Two?!"

"The second group is in place!"

"Hotch, that coffin!" Reid was stunned, turned around and rushed out, he finally knew what the sentence "You know the way" in the last text message meant.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to the believers, "You know where I am going, and you know the way."

It was God's will, he heard it at Emily's funeral, he heard it at Giden's funeral, but he didn't want to hear it a third time.

"Reid!" Morgan rushed away from the crowd, jumped up, grabbed Reid who was struggling, and said loudly, "You can't go in! □□..."

Before the words were finished, the sulfur bombs and bombs exploded on time. The roaring fire wind mixed with heavy sulfur powder soared into the sky, and the building made a low buzzing sound. Immediately afterwards, the wet glass windows shook more and more violently, and the fiery red tide resisted gravity. The outside of the building quickly diffused.

The crumbling 25-storey building almost collapsed with the next shock wave. The loud noise shook the back of the head and the well-trained FBI agents squatted screaming and covering their ears. Ten miles away from the center of the explosion The floor-to-ceiling windows of the coffee shop were instantly covered with dense cracks, and the ionization reaction blocked the communication with the outside world. All the instruments in the hall flashed red light together, and countless beeping alarms temporarily overwhelmed the screams of the outside crowd. .

After a short silence, Morgan straightened up. He patted Reid who was pressed under him. He was a little scared and shouted: "Reid, Reid, how are you?"

Reid raised his head in a daze, the brilliant pillar of fire that cut off the middle of the outside shone brightly on the foggy and rainy night, and his brain went blank.

"One group, one group, please answer." Hotch picked up the walkie-talkie from the ground and shouted.

But there was no answer.Only the hissing sound.

Reid took a deep breath, pushed Morgan standing in front of him almost desperately, and walked out.

"One group, one group received." The walkie-talkie rang suddenly, "We came out, carrying that coffin, one person was seriously injured, ambulance, we need an ambulance!"

**

There was a clear smell of sulfur in the air, and the violent sea breeze blew the leftover powder from the bomb/bomb to the land, but fortunately, it was diluted by thunderstorms, and this dose was not considered harmful to people.

Against the pouring rain, Hotch pulled Reid back from rushing into the crowd. In a panic, he slammed the doctor into the black body of the Mercedes-Benz C2001, and the solid alloy made a buzzing sound.

"You're crazy!" HOtch reprimanded loudly, "You just ran out, what if that person is still here? You also said that he came for BAU, what if you confronted him ! You need to calm down!"

"How do you tell me to calm down!" Reid's neck was bulging, his eyes were bloodshot, he hissed, "Hotch, that person is here now! Didn't we analyze it with Rossi? Personality, he's not leaving, that guy is right here, looking at us in the crowd, Hotch, this is the closest we've ever been to him! How do you get me to calm down? I gotta get him!"

"Reid, this is the urban area, there are fifty or even a hundred people watching, how do you catch it?!" Morgan grabbed the doctor's arm and dragged him back into the coffee shop next to the building, which was full of people from all walks of life. None of Quantico's bomb squad and other colleagues who rushed over noticed the quarrel in the corner.

Morgan casually covered the doctor's head with a large clean and soft towel. The light in the room was dim, and he could clearly see drops of water falling on the floor tiles. It will disappear without a trace in the sultry air.

Hotch's phone started to vibrate again, he and Morgan looked at each other before turning away, Morgan sighed, and said to Reid who lowered his head and said, "Trust us? Kid, we will definitely catch him .”

Reid still didn't speak. After a long time, when the crowd of onlookers dispersed under the drive of the firefighters, and the patter of rain covered the whole world again, he slowly took the towel from his head and nodded.

"Agent Morgan?"

Morgan turned around. It was the chief of the Quantico Police Department, Augustine Rice. It had been a long time since he had encountered such a serious case. This middle-aged man looked a little nervous.

"What's wrong?" Morgan asked.

"The nearby traffic has been controlled by us, but this is Quantico. I don't have much time to control it. I can only monitor the main roads, but not trains or planes." Rice said helplessly Spread your hands and say.

"He's not leaving," Reid said.

"What?" Rice asked, not understanding.

"He won't go." Reid put the towel in his hand on the side table, picked up the coat on the back of the chair, and said, "Morgan, Rossi is right, he has learned, this show is not over for him won't leave."

He said the same thing, but looked terribly calm.

Morgan grabbed his arm subconsciously, worry in his eyes.

Reid smiled and said, "I'm calm and clear, Morgan, and I know what I'm doing."

Morgan stood still, and soon, the doctor's back disappeared into the hazy rainy night.

**

The center of the explosion was calm, and the 25-storey building was now a pile of ruins. The exposed red steel was quietly burning in the misty rain, and debris of unknown material floated in the sky, ignited by sulfur powder, like a dark sky. Liuying.

The building was surrounded by firefighters and FBI police cars, and the noisy media were blocked by armed police officers. The flashing lights were more dazzling than flames.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, Reid followed the guarding police officers into the lobby on the first floor of the building and walked towards the center of the explosion site.

This building was originally the most famous commercial hotel in the city center, and it was specially prepared for those dignitaries to stay. Therefore, Hotch took a lot of effort to vacate the building and the surrounding crowd, and he is still explaining to Strauss until now.

The hall that was full of people during the day was pitch black at the moment, and the heat from burning sulfur bombs floated in the air. The tomb-like atmosphere made Reid a little uncomfortable. He pulled his collar and saw the baseboard under the corner of the wall was still lit A few red lights, dim light intermittently shined in the corridor, different from the lights installed by the police, these lights are all low, not glaring, not eye-catching.

"These lights are specially used here to illuminate the paintings." A man next to him explained in a low voice.

"Painting?"

The man paused and said, "The walls around this hall were originally filled with Italian paintings from the [-]th century, almost all of which are peerless treasures, and these lights can slow down the fading of oil paintings."

"You are..." It was only then that Reid realized that the man beside him was special. When everyone was nervously putting on all the protective clothing, he was still wearing a rigorous three-piece suit, with his hair combed back meticulously, and his delicate sleeves. The buckle shone faintly in the dark.

"Bezu Fache, you are the person in charge of this hotel." The man straightened his sleeves, and his smooth black crocodile leather shoes stepped on the wet ashes, looking out of place, "The paintings decorated in our hotel are genuine masterpieces, and each one has someone Regular management and maintenance, real-time monitoring."

Reid was slightly surprised. His eyes swept over the burnt wall, only to find that a tiny camera was placed on the top of the wall at a distance of [-] centimeters, and the scorched and exposed wires made crackling noises on the wet wall.

The brilliant picture frame showed a scorched black color. Those famous landscape paintings, still life paintings, and portraits of politicians in the man's mouth can each be sold for more than 200 million US dollars in the New York auction market, but now, it is like Old posters were thrown on the ground.

The man stepped on a Caravaggio painting indifferently, and walked in front of Reid, as if the ruins were still that luxurious hotel, and said: "These surveillance cameras were vandalized before the explosion, and the hotel was destroyed two hours ago. All the information has been submitted to your FBI. But these paintings are not important, Agent, please come here."

The man passed through two rows of guards with guns, and took Reid to the first floor, which was the starting point of the explosion and the most severely damaged place.

"This is the most valuable part of the entire hotel." The man said.

Reid stood outside the fence of the corridor on the first floor. From a distance, he could see the bright island in the middle illuminated by the spotlights hung by the police on portable light poles. In the center of the halo, the huge black solid wood The wooden box was placed there quietly, like a withered butterfly corpse under a microscope.

"Mr. Rossi asked someone to put it there, and all the exhibits are in their original positions before the explosion." Fache said, "The hotel can do its best to meet all the requirements of the FBI and the local police. We only have one requirement. .”

"what?"

Fache pushed through the scorched black fence through a white handkerchief, motioning for Reid to come in, he raised his chin slightly and pointed to the place where the wooden box was placed, and said: "This place was originally the hall where we held parties, and at the same time, many more valuable boxes were placed. Artwork, here," he pointed to the wooden box, said, "it was supposed to contain the last cello of Bloomberg, which is the most valuable piece of art in our director's collection, and we hope the police can help us Get it back."

Reid frowned, nodded slightly, the man smiled with satisfaction, and was about to turn around and leave.

Reid said suddenly: "Wait, Mr. Fache."

"Detective, is there anything else?"

"Oh no, I just wanted to ask, is there anything to do with the last name Sauniere?"

The man subconsciously tightened the white handkerchief in his hand, and his eyes lingered on the young agent's face for a long time with a look of scrutiny, before he said coldly, "This has nothing to do with you, Agent Reid."

After finishing speaking, he walked away quickly, and accidentally bumped into Rossi who was walking in while walking, and his hurried appearance caused Rossi to stop and look at his back for a long time.

"You know him?" Reid asked.

Rossi shook his head, he was suffocated by the thin air here, took off his black coat and put it in his arm, and said: "Emily said on the phone that Maeve is out of danger, she was injected with a large dose of anesthetics and muscle relaxants , Maybe I won’t wake up until tomorrow night.” He glanced at his watch and said, “Okay, tonight.”

Reid shook his head and said, "It's good that she's fine." Then he fell silent again.

Rossi shifted his gaze to the ceiling of the corridor. The range of lighting is not large. The dark space and the pungent smell of sulfur make people upset. The police officers who had been walking around to collect evidence had long Couldn't bear to go out, only him and Reid were left in the huge space.

"Looking at what?" Rossi asked.

Reid said lightly: "This hotel is very strange. Look, the pattern on the wall above."

Rossi narrowed his eyes, and could only make out the lines of some petals on the charred oak plank, if it was any thinner, he couldn't see clearly.

"That's an iris, Rossi," Reid explained.

Iris, Rossi suddenly thought of Louise, he asked puzzled: "What does this have to do with Jacques?"

"I don't know," Reid said softly, as he walked past a charred statue, "The placement of the exhibits here is also very strange, everything is almost in the direction of the wooden box as the center of the radial line. The display is completely different from the original exhibition hall, if viewed from a top view, all the exhibits form a complete five-pointed star."

"Pentagram? Devil worship?"

Realizing that his wording should have been more precise, Reid corrected: "Before religion, the pentagram was a symbol of nature worship. Early religions were based on the divine order of nature, for example, in the Greek According to historical records, they found that the trajectory of Venus in the sky every four years is exactly a regular pentagon. Out of awe, Venus and the pentagram became the perfect symbol of perfection and periodicity. But the symbol of a symbol The meaning is elastic, for example, in the early Roman Catholic Church, in order to eliminate paganism and convert people, there was a campaign to stigmatize pagan gods and goddesses, reinterpreting their sacred symbols as symbols of evil.

Rossi nodded, saying: "It is common in chaotic times that a new force will replace existing symbols and degrade them for a long time in an attempt to erase their meaning completely."

"So those who don't know much about symbols usually stubbornly understand a symbol as the meaning they first came into contact with." Reid lifted the lid of the wooden box, and the silk ribbon yellowed by sulfur turned into ashes at the touch of a fragile, empty space The box was full of eerie coldness, Reid said, "He placed the coffin in the center of the pentagram and lit a fire, Rossi, this is a sacrifice."

Rossi fell silent. This sensitive and rare technique reminded him of the first imitation case that BAU encountered shortly after Jacques came in. The 25-year-old girl imitated the Zodiac Killer and killed eight black-haired boys. The body was cremated and its ashes were mailed to the next victim in a white envelope.

On the white envelope was a five-pointed star drawn with blood.

In the end, the girl was shot in the head by Jacques and died on the spot when she resisted. In addition, a large number of books related to religious symbols, photos and clothes of the boys were found in the room where the girl lived. Everyone didn’t think about anything else, so they declared The case is over.

"Esther Rantzen has a brother." Reid murmured.

Rossi frowned and retorted: "His brother has been recuperating in New Zealand because of asthma, and the medical diagnosis Garcia found at the time proved that he was not capable of doing these things."

"What if someone was helping him behind the scenes?" Reid said. Be cautious, investigate the victim in detail before each attack, and pay attention to every detail to achieve the effect of hitting a hit."

"Yes, those photos and newspaper clippings confirmed our profile results." Rossi nodded. "That's why Mueller suspects Black Jafferson's return."

"But what if there is another person? That Black Jafferson may just play the role of protecting Jacques behind the scenes. He wants to remove Jacques from this case, but does not prevent another person from retaliating against BAU, or promotes all of this. Reid showed Rossi the strange text message and said, "We were struggling with what the road was referring to at first, Rossi, do you remember what the pastor said at Giden's funeral?"

He went on to say: "Chapter 14 of the Gospel of John is usually used by pastors as a funeral speech. In this chapter, Jesus said where I am going. You know the way. Thomas asked, Lord, we do not know you. Where are you going, how do you know the way?"

Rossi continued lightly: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can go to the Father except through me."

The cold text completely lost the compassion of Jesus, and what Rossi saw was arrogance and perverted desire to control.

"Jacques' bottle of wine, the photo that was cut out, the text message that was sent to me today..." Reid had to accept an extremely absurd fact, he said, "Maybe he came back a long time ago, has been around us, even more than us I had to notice these cases earlier, so I pushed behind them."

Rossi's cell phone vibrated suddenly, he clicked on it, and Morgan's voice echoed in the confined space: "Rossi, the card has been scanned."

"What's written on it?"

Morgan suddenly fell silent, and the heavy and rapid breathing made Reid's heart sink a little bit. After a long time, it seemed that he finally thought of a way to describe it. Morgan said: "The front is looking forward to meeting you, and the back, After that, to Aaron."

Rossi was taken aback, he reacted quickly, and asked: "Jack, where is Jack?"

Morgan turned the steering wheel swiftly around the black Mercedes in front of him, and said loudly: "At his aunt's house, Hotch left him there today, and Hotch and I are on our way there, the phone there can't get through, come here quickly .”

Rossi hung up the phone and walked out quickly. When Reid was about to go out, he stopped suddenly and said, "Why did he choose this hotel?"

"What?" Rossi paused for a moment and asked.

"I said why did he choose this hotel?" Reid repeated his question again.

Rossi was in a hurry, grabbed Reid's coat and walked out, saying, "This is not the point now. We have to hurry up!"

Reid turned his head and glanced at the dim corridor again. The dark wooden box was emitting a gloomy dim light under the lamp. For some reason, Jacques who was standing in the bright light when he left suddenly appeared in his mind.

Wait, he thought, wait, wait, when it's over, nothing in this world will bother you anymore, Jacques, wait for me.