So many scientists
The car door slams behind Hotch. He looks over at Morgan who is talking to a frantic Garcia on the phone. He heads up to the steps without Morgan. He knocks on the door. It’s a nice little farm house, quiet. Creaking comes from inside the house; an elderly man cracks open the door. Hotch flashes his badge and the old man opens the door. John Zieglar’s face is lined with worry and suspicion. He adjusts the wire frames sliding down his nose.
“Dr. Zieglar, we’re investigating a couple of homicides in the area,” Morgan begins. “We want to know if you would be willing to answer a few questions about Vietnam.”
He sighs and grabs his hat off it’s hook. Morgan helps him down the stairs, leading to the car in the driveway. He groans as he gets into the back of the vehicle. They drive in silence; the countryside flies by them. It’s a nice place excluding the current assassin on the loose. The young deputy from before leads Morgan and Zieglar to the only interrogation room in the building. Morgan takes point with Reid next to him.
“You want to know about the mole,” Zieglar states. “We were a group of the brightest scientists the government could get their hands on. No one has bigger egos than young biochemists who think they’re God. It wouldn’t have been hard to stroke one of their egos and get them talking.”
“You don’t think there was a mole?” Morgan asks.
“Depends on how you define mole, kid. We weren’t soldiers; we were scientists with ambitions not loyalties.”
“What were you working on?”
Zieglar gives him a very pointed look, “The work doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s what happened to the work that does.”
“Dr. Zieglar, how do you know the work doesn’t have anything to do with it?” Reid questions.
“Because we never succeeded,” Zieglar debates with himself for a second before continuing. “The government wanted some old World War II technology reverse engineered. They brought me in because my father assisted in the creation of the technology.”
Morgan crosses the room, “If the technology never succeeded, why is someone killing your mates?”
Zieglar shrugs, “They’re cleaning house; kill all of us and you won’t be able to tell who the mole is.”
“You never stopped working on the project,” Reid states. “That’s what the man is after.”
Zieglar looks at the two men; his face neutral. Reid flies out of the room. They have to search Ziegar’s house. If whatever they were working falls into the wrong hands who knows what could happen. The unsub could be there already; the house is empty. Hotch hands Reid the keys to a SUV and sends Prentiss with him.
The house is a mess: papers thrown everywhere, cushions gutted. Someone has ransacked the place. Reid steps carefully over an overturned lamp. If he was a former military scientist continuing his work, where would he put his notes? He’d hide them to prevent anyone else from seeing them, but where? The bookcase has already been searched through, so not there. Reid gives himself a moment to scan the room. It’s an old house. The walls are stained yellow from cigarette smoke except for the far wall; it’s recently been painted. He knocks gently on the wall.
“You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?” Prentiss asks. “Suggesting the Winter Soldier is behind all this.”
Reid hums, not paying attention to Prentiss. The wall hollows out right around the left corner. He takes out a small knife and begins cutting it open. Inside is a small stack of composite notebooks; they’re old and curling at the corners. On the front cover are written the initials A.Z. Reid flips the top one open; the writing is completely in German.
“Come take a look at this,” Reid calls. “Der Gottmacher.”
Prentiss takes a notebook from Reid, “The God-maker. AZ? These must be Zieglar’s father.”
“No, look there’s no genitive case and the use of generalizations. Zieglar’s father was from Sachsen; I think a Swiss wrote this.”
Heading back to the police station, Reid pulls out his phone to dial Garcia. They need to get more information about who this A.Z. is. It takes a couple of seconds for a frantic Garcia to answer in a huff. She doesn’t offer a fun greeting.
“Garcia, I need you to look up the initials AZ in relation to Swiss scientists.”
She grumbles to herself about if the Strategic Division gets in her way one more time she will go full psycho. “Alright, boy genius, one Swiss scientist coming up,” Her screen goes blank. “I’m going to have to call you back.”
Reid and Prentiss pull into the police station. The rest of the team is standing in a circle, arms crossed, looking very firm. It doesn’t take a profiler to see that something is wrong. Rossi gestures towards the notebooks and asks about them. Reid relays what they know from them.
Prentiss narrows her eyes at the team, “This isn’t just about the notebooks.”
“Orders from above, we’re to transfer Zieglar to Quantico,” Rossi explains.
Marshal Wilkins walks up to the group, “Seems to be a lot of “orders from above” going around. Hopefully yours goes better than ours.”
At approximately 7:15 p.m., two FBI cars pull out of the station heading in two opposite directions. Agent Hotchner drives the first heading West and JJ takes the second one heading East. A couple minutes later a squad car pulls out containing Morgan, Wilkins, and Zieglar.