The Intelligence Control and Analysis Program

Chapter 12

October 23, 2005; 1:14 AM

Hotch looked at his watch for the hundredth time, shook his head, and let out a long, weary sigh. He leaned back in the stiff chair and let his head roll to the side, looking at the stack of case files sitting on top of outdated health magazines and some pamphlets on heart disease and diabetes. Briefly, he considered taking a look at the contents, but the idea was short-lived. As much as he hated it, there was nothing he could do but wait. All the interviews had been conducted, he had read all the files three times over, and the rest of the team was back at the BAU with even more information, scrambling to put the pieces together.

Hotch heaved a sigh and rubbed his face a few times, staring up at the florescent lights and trying to stay awake. He couldn't recall the last time he had been so burned out, and the incessant buzzing in his pocket was sawing through his very last nerve.

When Hotch was at work, he tried to be at work. That way, when he was at home, he could be at home. It worked fairly well, and with the ICAP investigation and everything going on with Spencer, it was maybe a little easier than it should have been to put his marital problems out of his head. Of course, he couldn't exactly ignore it when the divorce papers he had been served were at the bottom of his stack of case files and she kept calling over and over and—

Hotch grabbed his phone from its holder and flipped it open, pressing it to his ear with a lowly growled, "What, Haley?"

"Woah. Trouble in paradise?"

Hotch took a moment to process Rossi's voice, and then he let out a soft sigh, some of the tension melting out of his shoulders. "Dave... have you—" He cleared his throat. "Have you come up with anything?"

"We're still trying to get a warrant for the rest of the ICAP building. Strauss is talking to the Director right now, but it's genius rights against matters of national security. It's... difficult."

Hotch snorted and stretched his legs out in front of him, staring at them. "No kidding."

Rossi didn't say anything for a moment, but his voice eventually returned with a new topic. "How's the kid?"

Hotch shook his head, tired eyes perpetually glazed over. "I haven't heard anything. He's been in surgery for..." he glanced at his watch again and did some simple math, "...three and a half hours."

Rossi heaved a sigh of his own and, after another moment of silence, tried to get some more information. "What exactly happened?"

Hotch rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, Dave, it..." He shook his head with another sigh. "It all happened so fast. I only left the room for a couple minutes, maybe five." He sighed again, trying to quiet the voice in his head that said their situation was his own stupid fault. "Next thing I know, my right ear is ringing from the two gunshots fired less than twenty feet away."

Hotch looked down at his hands—at his sleeves, stained with blood, red and pink and messy—and blinked slowly.

"Aaron, you couldn't have known."

"But I could have." Hotch almost snapped the words, but he didn't quite have the energy to be angry with himself anymore. His voice softened, but his resolve didn't. "I should have."

"We had no idea they'd be this reckless." Rossi's voice wasn't hard or cold, but it wasn't uncertain, either. He was no less confident of his assertions than Hotch was of his. "They came out of left field."

"They don't have anything to lose anymore." Hotch crossed his legs at the ankles and continued to stare at them, bouncing his foot slightly. "So, what are they going to do next?"