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“All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”
--Mycroft, “Sherlock”
The boy was laid out on his side, facing the open doorway. His eyes were still open, staring into oblivion forever. There were no obvious signs of trauma aside from the fact that he was dead.
The sound of gunfire peppering the air all around fell like the aftershocks of fireworks in the background. There were no fireworks going off that night in East London, here in this derelict old flat, the building taped off and waiting to be razed to the ground.
The gunfire was imaginary. The horror was real. Why he was here, Luke Alvez had yet to surmise.
They want to see if I can still function, I guess. Show me a dead little boy and see if I can deal. As if I didn’t see enough dead boys in Afghanistan. Great.
Nothing like the U.S. military when it comes to handling PTSD. Send us right back into the trenches to see if we get the shakes. If we don’t… send us back to the front lines, instead.
This little boy suffered, though. Right here in the heart of ‘civility’. He deserves someone’s effort to find out why.
“Sergeant Alvez?”
Alvez tore his eyes away from staring at the dead boy on the floor to face the agent from the international unit he now reported to from Interpol. He cleared his throat and tried to look unaffected even though he wanted to go outside and vomit.
“Yeah?” he grunted, leaning heavily on the cane that now served to bolster his strength against the injury that wouldn’t let him go.
The agent nodded over his shoulder out the door toward the waiting cadre of uniforms backlit by flashing lights and crime-scene tape. Alvez couldn’t believe how calm the scene was. He almost missed the flying missiles and drone fire overhead when he compared this horror with the horror of war. At least that kind of death wasn’t covered up by a facade of quiet. Aside from how little anyone reported on it from the outside.
“The consultant from Interpol is here, Sir. Inspector Lestrade wanted you to meet him,” the agent suggested when Luke Alvez seemed unwilling to tear himself away from staring at the dead boy’s body.
He took one last look at the position of the body. The eyes. The clear signs of distress before the boy took his last breath. Luke left the room and walked outside, limping as he went against the cane he hated with every fiber of his being.
He had no idea who it was the brass wanted to pair him with while he performed this stint for them as a ‘Ranger-liaison’ for Interpol.
All Luke Alvez knew was that he felt tired and beyond defeated when he emerged from the house where someone had murdered a teenage boy in the heart of London, one of four so far to be killed without so much as a smidgeon of a lead.
It was a cold night in London. He shivered against the damp chill, unused to such temperatures after years on end living in the desert. Whether it was Afghanistan or La Jolla, the weather was usually hot as balls wherever he was stationed, no matter the time of year. London felt more like the Bronx than anywhere he’d been assigned to live so far in his years of military service.
His shiver was apparently noticed by the man he’d been instructed to meet.
“Sergeant Alvez? Hi! Little bit colder here than it was in the desert, I guess, there’s an arctic blast coming in so I suggest a warmer jacket made of wool, you can find one in any number of shops nearby. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid--you don’t have to call me Doctor and I don’t shake hands but it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the tall, thin man approaching him rapidly said with a wave. Alvez barely had time to dodge out of the way before the man was charging back into the old apartment building, ducking under the crime scene tape.
He followed him back through the doorway after a few seconds spent wondering who the hell he was getting involved with.
The man named Dr. Spencer Reid did not approach the deathbed of the teenager like Alvez had.
There was no reverence granted to the site. No moment of sadness, no tipping of the chin that Alvez could see.
The man peered at the body of the boy closely like a scientist might inspect an insect, kneeling down on his knee. He kept his glove pinched between two fingers, not even on his hand fully while he tipped the body’s chin upward, exposing the livid red bruises Alvez knew were there but hadn’t seen himself. He only knew because he expected them to be there based on prior evidence.
“Ligature marks consistent with strangulation by shoelaces, the pattern suggests pressure was applied and released multiple times… sadistic but that’s not what killed him.”
The thing that killed him was still stuck in his arm, the needle jutting out from the plunger that would most likely be full of fentanyl. The supposed doctor refrained from touching that part of the murder. He didn’t even look at it long before sniffing and looking away.
“Just like the other victims. The unsub was rougher this time, though… it was more difficult for him to hold back and this boy fought back harder against the assault. Where’s the note?”
The English inspector who followed Alvez and Reid back into the dank old apartment cleared his throat.“We didn’t find a note this time. Maybe he forgot to leave one. Do you think he’s devolving?”
Alvez watched Reid lean back and shake his head, the glove disappearing into his pocket.
“You’ve fully processed the scene?” Reid asked pointedly.
The inspector nodded enthusiastically. “Of course, Sir. The coroner is waiting to take him back for an autopsy, at your leisure.”
Dr. Reid nodded, grimacing but determined, blushing for some reason, too.
He blew out a breath, dug into his other pocket and pulled two fresh nitrile gloves over his hands fully. Then he forced the corpse’s stiff neck and head back, pried his tightly clenched mouth open and shoved his fingers down his throat.
“Hey, man, have some damn respect--”
Alvez let out an angry sound and lunged forward, grabbing the so-called Doctor’s shoulder to keep him from defiling the child’s body like that but Dr. Reid was already standing up with something wet clenched between two fingers.
“Relax, Sergeant--I didn’t want to do that anymore than you wanted to see it. I had to find the note.”
Reid pushed Alvez’s hand away from him gently but firmly, gesturing for one of the crime scene techs to open a fresh bag. He carefully unfolded the sodden notebook paper and slipped it into the plastic sleeve.
He didn’t appear to read it before he abruptly turned around and left the building.
Luke paused to ask the tech to let him check it out before he followed the only other American he’d met so far on this endlessly depressing assignment.
Four bodies down and he had read three so-called suicide notes written by every one of them claiming to be terrorists inspired to take down the ‘deep-state’.
This latest letter was full of misspellings, deranged accusations and conspiracy theories that made no sense. It ended with the boy who’d been murdered supposedly claiming allegiance to ‘anarchy’ before vowing to take his own life.
It was utterly ridiculous and without any basis in the reality of terroristic suicides. That was part of the reason he had been assigned here, aside from his injury.
Luke knew what a man looked like after taking his life for a cause he whole-heartedly believed in. Normally, they only ever found bits and pieces of a body in that scenario. And unfortunately, there was far more intentional collateral damage when someone killed themselves for ‘the cause’.
These boys, no matter how manipulated they may have been, these boys were not suicidal, much less terrorists. It was a dangerous ruse someone else might be close to getting away with and, more importantly--
“It’s our unsub,” Dr. Reid was saying to Inspector Lestrade when Luke made his way out of the apartment once more. He had waited behind to make sure the boy’s body was zipped up respectfully and his mouth was closed alongside his haunting eyes. He honed in on Reid’s no-nonsense stance when the skinny, tweed-clad man stood up against the much more intimidating figure cut by the Scotland Yard Inspector.
“They were all murdered by the same singular person. There’s no cause to assume anything else. Whoever is killing these boys, they’re doing it to mark a bullet point on their own personal manifesto. Allowing the media to hawk the story and make their inane assumptions is not helping, given the current political circumstances. If you keep letting them print whatever pops in their heads, it will only spur the killer to kill again.”
Inspector Lestrade shook his head angrily while the cameras flashed just beyond the weakly held perimeter and the body rolled out to the coroner’s van in full view.
“Those aren’t just political assumptions--every single victim has been an immigrant with legitimate familial ties to potential terrorist organizations, we cannot discount that and the media won’t allow us to ignore it--”
Alvez was ready to dive in with his own on-the-ground expertise as the child of immigrants and an American Army Ranger fresh from the front lines but apparently this Dr. Reid was ready to fight their corner himself--with words.
“I’m not saying you need to ignore it, Inspector, but you do need to ignore the Media while you investigate these crimes--because you’re missing the essential link and the link is, every one of these boys was born in the U.K., raised English, popular with their friends, their clubs, their teams--they never gave anyone the impression that they were consorting with terrorists and yet, they were brown boys in a sea of white and they were all found with hate-filled manifestos typed out so neat and tidy they may as well have been scripted by ISIS. You have to admit, it’s absurd--someone is targeting these boys and you need the media to warn them, not scare them.”
Said media encroached closer while Lestrade fumbled his way through another weak argument, leading them away from the frenzy.
Alvez followed the pair over to a quiet corner, feeling more in line with this Dr. Reid than he thought possible after his shaky first impression.
“Listen--I have to toe a delicate line here, Dr. Reid. You know that. These kids are being labeled as terrorists because they fit the bill on looks and background alone--”
“Which is wrong,” Dr. Reid stated, his eyes glancing over to catch Alvez as he approached the tete-e-tete in the alley.
“Sure, yes, it is, probably, but the court of public opinion is strong. I can’t keep them from making assumptions when we honestly don’t have any other leads. And frankly, you, an American FBI agent banished from the BAU after that mess with the IRA--why should any of us give you the time of day when it comes to this investigation?”
Alvez cleared his throat and finally made himself known to this Inspector Lestrade.
He was there to do a job, after all. Whether or not he really wanted to do it… well. He was there. He followed orders and his orders were: report to Interpol, liaise with the FBI Special Agent on a series of potential international terrorism cases and then head home by Christmas for his annual leave.
Lestrade turned around, startled to find Luke Alvez looming there behind him with a tired but easy smile.
“Oh--hello--you are…?” Lestrade asked. Alvez dipped his head and held out his hand, the other still gripping his cane hard.
“Hey. Yeah, um, I guess introductions are important. I’m Sergeant Luke Alvez, 75th Regiment Army Rangers, Platoon 7. Just got reassigned to assist on your unit’s special cases last week, Interpol liaison. Someone told me Dr. Reid was my new partner?”
Dr. Reid grinned at him over Inspector Lestrade’s shoulder, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that their first meeting was being photographed by a dozen hungry London ragmag photographers in the background.
Luke struggled not to grin right back, the circumstances being what they were. Lester looked gobsmacked. He still held out a hand and Luke took it firmly for a good hearty American shake.
“Pleasure…” Lestrade seemed to be at a loss for words at the force of Alvez’s grip.
Luke cleared his throat, dropped the sweaty man’s hand and dove right in while the crime scene dwindled down around them.
“Yeah, I dunno about that but I do know something about terrorists. That kid doesn’t fit the bill. Fourteen years old, wearing brand new $400 Jordans, he was wearing cologne and pommade in his hair, if I had checked his pockets I can guarantee you he had condoms in his wallet and a cell phone with more emoticons than words in every text he’s ever sent. Aside from all that, he fought whoever killed him. Hard. He didn’t want to go, the petechiae in his eyes and the scratches all over his arms and throat are evidence enough. Finally--that note wasn’t written by anyone with any knowledge of the Arabic alphabet. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d bet the perp is English with only one language under his belt.”
Lestrade’s mouth fell open but he quickly sorted himself out to combat Luke’s brutal assessment that was so at odds with what he wanted to believe.
“Be that as it may from your immediate observations, Sergeant but-- ah, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to entertain the idea that these boys are all victims of the same criminal? They have no connection aside from their family ties to Syria, Iran, Gaza , Sudan -- ”
Luke wished he didn’t have to spell it out. Spencer Reid made sure he didn’t have to.
“The ties they have to their home countries doesn’t matter, Lestrade. They all died the same way: hours of torture followed by a brief strangulation and then--one quick shot to the heart by way of a needle. The unsub we’re looking for gets off on watching the life leave their eyes slowly. Strangling them isn’t enough; overdosing them takes every ounce of liberty away from them, reducing them to nothing, which is what he sees them as to begin with when they’re at their best. We’re looking for a racist, probably someone who keeps their sexuality closeted and is deeply religious in practice, on the outside at least.”
Lestrade’s phone was already ringing by the time Dr. Reid stopped speaking and turned around to face the old alley wall.
“Hello?”
Alvez watched Reid while Lestrade’s face turned whiter than ever beneath the harsh light of an old London street lamp. Reid still had his face turned away, one hand rubbing hard at his chin.
Lestrade cleared his throat harshly. “I see. I’m on my way.”
He hung up the call and already, they could all hear the frantic cries of the reporters from the cordoned off crime scene tape a hundred meters away. Everyone was leaving in a wild panic amidst a soft drone of sirens stirring up in the distance.
“There’s rioting on Piccadilly Circus. Protests, apparently. You two sons of bitches are lucky you’re not in the employ of the Queen directly tonight.”
Reid turned around from his avid stare at the wall, rolling his eyes at Lestrade’s panic.
“We are lucky on that front, yes. I guess we still have the United States government to answer to, though. On that note, Alvez, we should probably get going, it’ll take us a bit to get through the traffic and I don’t want to keep the landlady up too late before we check in.”
“Landlady?” Luke asked the man striding away purposefully down the alley and to the left. He glanced over to watch Inspector Lestrade get swallowed by a sea of reporters before disappearing into a flashing police car.
He really had no idea what Dr. Reid was talking about but the man was his assigned partner and he had been there longer; maybe they had some sort of flat arrangement worked out somewhere he wasn’t aware of. Whatever the case, Luke had nowhere else to be aside from the miserable hotel room he’d occupied for the last week while he adjusted to his new assignment and waited to be assigned a partner.
Apparently, his partner knew more than he did.
“Landlady, yeah, she’s great, I’ve met her already--it’ll be nice to get out of the hotel finally, I have so much stuff I’ve bought since I’ve been here and it’s all sitting in a storage shed. Ah, hey, HEY!”
He watched Spencer Reid aggressively flag down what must have been the only unoccupied cab in London, opening the door and sliding right in without looking back. Luke was lucky he managed to get in before the somewhat crazed man pulled the car door shut.
“Damn dude, you have to slow down--where are we going?” Luke asked, breathless and still shaken from the body of the boy he’d just seen. Reid looked like he’d already forgotten the entire crime scene as he gazed out through the window in the gridlocked traffic of downtown London.
“I wish I could say 221B Baker Street but, sadly, the address was already taken,” Reid said in a rush while Luke was still trying to fold his unruly leg up without crying out in pain. “Um, if you can get us to 4497 East Lyon, that’ll be close enough.”
The cabbie grunted at them both and then promptly shut the plastic divider between the front and the back.
Luke took a few seconds to collect himself, sitting there a seat away from this stranger he’d barely met who he was apparently supposed to live AND work with.
His body ached like it always did. His knee more than anything; getting shot in the leg doesn’t just leave you, even months after everything was deemed “okay” by the Army surgeons.
He was tired. He was cold. He only had what he carried with him at all times, a small back pack with one change of clothes, his mess kit and toiletries, a cell phone and his wallet.
Luke Alvez was ready for any kind of change at any time… it didn’t make it easy when he had to make the change in the moment without any kind of advance warning.
He took a few deep breaths when the cab finally started moving faster than the inching crawl of the last ten minutes. The man he was with had been moving nonstop, his foot tapping against the wheel well, fingers dancing along the windowsill, his ass was basically bouncing because he couldn’t sit still , apparently. It wasn’t long before his mouth started moving, too.
“I’m so ready to get settled in here, you know? You’ve been here in London what, six days, fourteen hours, give or take?”
Luke tried to answer but Reid didn’t give him the chance before he started speaking again.
“I’ve been here seventeen days, three hours and fourteen minutes. I was told you’d be here to join this taskforce with Interpol a week ago but I guess your knee injury won out; I get it, getting shot in the leg sucks, I’ll have to show you my screws sometime when it won’t be an indecent exposure charge--oh, look! The Tower of London! Did you know the Tower of London was home to London’s very first Zoo? Can you imagine elephants and kangaroos hanging out in one of the world’s most bona fide haunted places…” Reid laughed and waved at the looming tourist trap along the motorway while Alvez just leaned back and tried not to feel sick from how crazily the cabbie was driving. And he was used to pilots jackrabbiting him through combat on black hawk helicopters.
Reid didn’t feel any such aversion to the cab driver’s tactics as they left the highway and started winding down tight little streets that would be illegal in the states. He just… kept talking. Luke was actually distracted from feeling sick and tired by the time they pulled up to a derelict street corner with almost no traffic, surrounded on all sides by buildings that looked like they might have been through the Blitz and were just forgotten about until now.
“....the Romans really did a number on London before the Empire crumbled but you have to hand it to them, they did help with the sewage problem, at least for a little while--”
“That’ll be 25$ flat, boys,” the driver interrupted.