The Profiler

“There go your future undercover jobs,” Gabe joked, sounding calm as always, a hint of amusement in his tone.

Kyle resisted the urge to look over at his partner and roll his eyes. Hopefully someone on the FBI’s media team would stop that coverage from going anywhere, but undercover work wasn’t in his future, anyway. He planned to stay in HRT until they forced him to retire.

“I’ve got news on Jen’s car.” Greg’s voice suddenly came over Kyle’s radio and he pushed his hand over his earphone, although he could hear perfectly. The screams of the protesters seemed to fade into the background as his hands clenched his weapon too tightly.

If they’d found the car, did that mean they’d found Evelyn or Jen? Or, God forbid, a body?

“Evelyn’s cell phone was inside the SUV, but nothing else,” Greg said, his steady profiler voice giving nothing away, even though it was his closest friend in BAU who was missing. “The SUV was abandoned a couple hundred yards off the road. Someone was clearly trying to conceal it, and I doubt it was Jen or Evelyn.”

Someone from the Butler Compound had taken the SUV, probably hoping to hide the connection between the agents and the compound. Probably after they’d killed one of them. But which one?

“Mac!” Yankee yelled, and Kyle realized he’d stopped moving, that his teammates were still advancing toward the perimeter.

The Salt Lake City agents had brought in police barriers to halt the crowd, but several of them had been knocked over, and the agents and local cops had been pushed back twenty feet. The crowd was still swarming toward them.

“Where the hell is the negotiator?” Yankee demanded.

“We’ve got movement in the tower.” Wyatt’s voice came over the mic before anyone could reply about Adam’s whereabouts. “It’s not Butler, but the subject is armed. He can definitely see the protesters from there. A picture is coming at you,” he finished, and Kyle knew that last part was for the support staff in the tent, whose job it would be to try and identify the guy.

“I’m here!” a voice panted behind Kyle, and he recognized Adam an instant before the negotiator raised a bullhorn to his mouth and addressed the crowd. “We need you to move back behind the barricades. This is private land.”

“It’s not your land,” the protester closest to Kyle screamed. The Salt Lake City agents and the local cops moved backward, slipping behind the lines of HRT but staying close, some of them readying riot shields.

“Brothers!” They heard a new voice over a loudspeaker blaring from the compound. Ward Butler’s stones-on-a-grinder voice.

The crowd suddenly quieted, going still, their faces lifted toward the sound. “Thank you for showing your support today. We stand united against a tyrannical government. An illegitimate government!”

A cheer rose up from the crowd as Yankee looked back at Adam. “Get their attention.”

“We have a bigger problem,” Greg said over the mic.

“Where are you?” Yankee asked.

“Back at the tent. We identified the man in the tower. He’s small-time in the states’ rights movement, but he’s got a handful of arrests under his belt, and a very active blog.”

“And?” Yankee asked through his teeth.

“Unless Butler’s changed this guy’s tune drastically since his last blog post a month ago, he’s convinced the end times are coming. His blog is full of fictionalized accounts—Babylonians in the form of government agents storming the strongholds of the righteous and the battle to end it all. By his account, the FBI’s arrival is a sign of the apocalypse. That’s gotta be Butler’s view, too.”

Kyle glanced at his partner. If they stormed the compound, the cultists would fight to the death. And if there was a federal agent alive inside, she’d be dead as soon as that happened.

He looked back at the crowd, still waiting silently, anticipating Butler’s next words. If those words urged his followers to fight, could HRT hold them back? And even if they could, would it matter? Or would Butler begin his endgame?

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