1 | 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐄 ⭃ Spencer Reid

19.2

Gideon smiled, his eyes crinkling around the edges. "American."

"I often forget that in your culture you put your country first and you God last."

"You don't consider yourself Egyptian as well as Muslim?"

Jind Allah hummed under his breath. "Hmm. Egyptian. In two minutes, you know more about me than those thugs found out in two months."

Both Caroline and Spencer glanced back at Emily, who had a small smile on her face. She could tell the fact she figured out something about the unsub before the CIA pleased her a little. She didn't blame her.

"They and I have very, very different motives and methodologies," Gideon said smoothly.

"And yet your country relies on them to protect you from us." There was a hint of malice in the unsub's voice, the way his lips pulled back over his teeth slightly. Disgust.

"Sometimes they're their own worst enemy."

"I suppose. Who is your worst enemy, Agent Gideon?"

"It's not a who. It's a what," he replied. "Ignorance."

Jind Allah's face opened a little more, almost as he was surprised by his answer. "You're a very honest man."

"And you? Must have become a Hafez by what, age ten?"

"Nine."

"Any person with the discipline and dedication to memorize the entire Qu'ran by the age of nine must have a very serious reason to choose a life of violence."

The unsub gave a little shrug of his shoulders, his head tilting to the side as if he had grown bored of the conversation. "Perhaps."

Gideon slowly stood from his chair. Jind Allah blinked once—surprise, disbelief—before saying, "Are we through already?"

Her superior shook his head. "No, not at all. The sun is about to set." He pointed to the left wall of the interrogation room. "Mecca's in that direction. I'll have a prayer rug and water bowl sent in."

With that, Gideon stepped outside.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"You...inquired about my childhood earlier," Jind Allah said to Gideon as he set his bottle of water on the floor at his feet. At some point after his prayer, their superior had allowed the chains on his wrist to be taken off. "I will tell you...that it was a happy one."

Caroline rubbed the side of her head, trying to soothe the tender ache throbbing there. They had lost a couple of hours for Jind Allah's prayer. During that time, Garcia and JJ had found a message from the cell picked up from satellite monitoring that alluded to a bomb at a location in Allendale. The last call she got from Hotch was an hour ago and he and Morgan had been on-route before the call had ended.

Hopefully, something will turn up there. If not, she wasn't sure how much they were going to get out of Jind Allah. She had spent hours cataloging every move he made—every blink, every shift in his chair—for behavior tells but it was all useless information if she didn't have something to apple it to. He hadn't given them anything of substance yet.

"Until," Jind Alla continued, "one day a bomb fell out of the sky and leveled the bazaar that I was in with my family. I was only eight."

"He's opening up about himself," Prentiss noted.

"Maybe," Caroline murmured, her phone already in hand. "We need to verify what he's saying, though."