The Behavioral Analysis Unit, an elite team of FBI profilers, are tasked with examining the nation's most twisted criminal minds-anticipating their next moves before they strike again... Learn more about the Criminal Minds television series. First in a brand new series! The Behavioral Analysis Unit, an elite team of FBI profilers, are tasked with examining the nation's most twisted criminal minds-anticipating their next moves before they strike again... Learn more about the Criminal Minds television series. Chapter One Situated on the United States Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia, the FBI Academy—known by those who work, teach and train there as the Facility—sprawls over 385 woodland acres that provide the privacy and security required for the FBI's operational functions and training. At the Facility, the Behavioral Analysis Unit operates as part of the FBI's Training and Development Division, consulting with law enforcement across the nation on crimes requiring the skills of the BAU's top profilers. Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—broad-shouldered but slender, with black hair, brown eyes and the kind of chiseled features whose somber concern could be misread as unkind—hunkered over his desk. His suit coat, which almost never came off at work, was hung with precision over the back of his chair. As masculine as its occupant, the spacious office informed any visitor that this was a serious man not just successful at anything he attempted, but excelling at it. Witness three sets of mahogany shelves lining the wall behind his desk, home to numerous trophies for various skilled activities, including several for marksmanship. Note the wall opposite, arrayed with framed diplomas, citations, and the seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not to be trifled with, Agent Hotchner. Sharing the wall with the door was a picture window whose venetian blinds were kept slanted open so that Hotchner could monitor the sunken bullpen of the Behavioral Analysis Unit beyond. The wall opposite the door held three long, narrow columns of bulletproof glass charitably referred to as windows, although (short of an acetylene torch) they had no way to open, their sole function letting in light, which they performed well for the north side of the building with its limited sunshine. His normally grave mein approaching morose, Hotchner—not quite forty—was in a dark place, the kind that in throwing light upon only reveals further darkness: specifically, he was poring over statistics from thirty-seven school shootings in the United States and Canada over the last ten years. No such thing, he well knew, as an accurate school shooter profile. There was, of course, the media-driven image of the trench-coated loners a la Harris and Klebold in Columbine; but Hotchner knew the image was just that, a myth created by the perpetrators themselves and perpetuated by a media responsible only to ratings, not society. He was hoping to develop a more accurate profile in order to prevent future attacks. The task seemed impossible, but Hotchner had never backed down from a challenge, starting with the third-grade bully a certain kindergartner had stood up to in a school yard. Truth was, backing down, giving up, just wasn't in his DNA. He had lost battles; all warriors did—but he had never surrendered. One of the preliminary stats surprised him. Nineteen of the thirty-seven cases, over half, occurred in the spring, including the latest, just a few weeks ago when thirty-two college students and their killer perished at Virginia Tech. For those who felt a school shooter had to be an ostracized loner, the springtime shootings would just give them more…the word sprang to mind unbidden…ammunition. Spring shootings implied that students who had been bullied and ostracized, if only in their own minds, had taken the abuse for as long as they could, then snapped. As a seasoned FBI profiler, Hotchner knew some stressor would invariably emerge in any of these cases that could be labeled the proverbial "last straw'; but very few people really just "snapped.' Most of these actions were painstakingly planned. They took time, effort, focus and perseverance. In those shootings, the killers didn't just "snap'—premeditated murder, particularly on such a scale, did not imply someone out of control, rather in control, and seeking complete control over life and mostly death, turning twisted delusion into tragic reality. Hotchner was studying further stats when a knock at his door interrupted. Frankly relieved for a moment away from his grim work, he looked up. "Come in.' Special Agent Jennifer "JJ' Jareau entered. In her mid-twenties, Jareau looked especially young today, her blonde hair back in a loose ponytail, her blue eyes bright, her skin pale and fresh—she might have been a college student herself. But she was not—rather she was the BAU's local law enforcement liaison, as professional as her crisp black suit and white blo