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gryfflepuffinthetardis · 6 months ago

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Valentía: Won't Get Fooled Again

Season One Masterlist

Compulsion

Plain Sight

Summary: The BAU heads to Zoe's second least favorite place in America—Florida to investigate a series of bombs that have been killing people and Gideon has to face the cause of his PTSD.

Warning: Bombs, Death, Spencer Reid just being a lovably awkward idiot in love, Zoe gets hit with a car

“She was not fragile like a flower. She was fragile like a bomb.”

There was a bombing in Palm Beach, Florida. Zoe had experience with bombs, she used to make them to blow up in the desert in Mexico, it was more educational purposes to familiarize herself with the making of a bomb for future purposes like this. She was always in the company of an adult in law enforcement.

The man had been retrieving a package when it blew up, he survived but apparently his badly injured his leg.

They were putting out pictures of the bomb fragment on the table.

"Pipe bombs." Zoe recognized.

"Packed in cardboard boxes." Morgan informed them

"Package bombs." Morgan said.

"Sent through the mail?" Gideon asked.

"The other picture in your hand is of the switch that ATF found. Same mechanism for both bombs, mercury-activated." Morgan said.

"What does that mean?" Elle asked.

"There are contacts to a detonator on either end of a bent tube full of mercury." Spencer said.

Elle was still confused.

"What it means is all you have to do is tilt the package to detonate it." Zoe explained.

"So they couldn't have been sent through the mail." Elle realized. "The bomber had to deliver them himself."

"Exactly."

"Strange way to commit an act of terrorism." Hotch said, "Why go to all this trouble to kill just a few people?"

"Maybe the UnSub's trying to say that no one is safe. It's been years since the anthrax mailings in 2001. Maybe they're trying to stir up that fear again." Zoe suggested, making brief eye contact with Alexander.

"But let's recommend not raising the terror alert level for now." Gideon suggested, "No reason to spread panic."

"We got news." JJ said, entering the room and she turned the television on, "This is just a local channel, but the coverage is everywhere now. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, you name it."

"So much for not spreading panic." Zoe deadpanned.

JJ raised the volume, and they heard what the reporter was saying about the last victim.

According to doctors, he's badly injured but in stable condition in the ICU. Now, neighbors say that they heard a blast at about 10:30 this morning, and police arrived shortly...

"If DHS doesn't raise the terror alert now, they'll look weak." Gideon said.

"Make sure Homeland Security knows that this is everywhere." Hotch said.

"Now police are investigating..." The reporter continued when there was an explosion in the background, making people scream in shock and panic.

"Whoa." JJ said.

"I just felt that... Are you... Are you all right? Is everyone all right?" The reporter was asking.

"Looks like we're going to Palm Beach." Hotch said. "Let's meet at the airstrip in twenty."

Mogan waited for Hotch and walked with him. "Hotch, listen, they're gonna be sending us bomb fragments by this afternoon. I'm the only one with an ATF background. So if you'd like me to stay behind and supervise the bomb profile. I'm on that."

"Morgan, you wouldn't be afraid to be out in the field with a bomber, now would you?"

"You know, maybe it's not the bomber that I'm worried about."

"I thought we were past all that." Hotch said.

"Hotch, Boston sent Gideon into a post-traumatic tailspin." Morgan said, "How do we know that won't happen again?

"Morgan, I'll tell you what. Why don't we concentrate on profiling the bomber and not Gideon?" Hotch said and walked off.

"Copy that." Morgan sighed.

"Also, you're not the only one with an ATF background. Zoe has one too." Alexander informed him, walking out of his office where Hotch and Morgan had been having their conversation outside of.

"How!? She's nineteen." Morgan shouted, gesturing at the nineteen-year-old genius.

"Oh, let the scaredy cat stay behind." Zoe's voice said, suddenly behind Morgan as if by magic, making Morgan jump. "Then he and Garcia can do their flirting here and away from us."

"Where the hell did you come from?"

———————————————————————————

Samuel Johnson wrote, "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble."

"Bombings occurred within three miles of each other." Hotch said as he passed out photos of the victims of the bombing to the remaining agents, now on the jet. "First victim was a seventy-four-year-old widow, Barbara Keller. Two hours after that, Clurman got hit in his driveway, and forty-five minutes later, well, we all saw that. Jill Swenson, thirty-four-year-old housewife who lived across the street from Clurman. Of the three, only Clurman survived."

"Is there any connection between the victims?" Spencer asked.

Hotch looked over at the twenty-three-year-old genius, "One. Clurman was a partner in a ten-million-dollar condo development deal in which Keller was an investor. And a few weeks ago, the whole deal went bust."

"Went bust how?" Elle asked.

"Geologists discovered that the land was on methane, the condos never got built, the land became worthless, and Clurman lost a lot of people a lot of money." Hotch explained.

"So maybe one of them was mad enough to take aim at Clurman." Spencer suggested

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Gideon said, "It's a little too early to theorize about motive."

"Then, where do we start?" Elle asked.

"From the beginning." Gideon said, "What do we know about bombers?"

"Mostly male, loners. History of criminal activity." Spencer listed and then info-dumped, "About fifty percent of all bombings are actually the product of vandalism."

"And more often than not, bombers end up accidentally blowing themselves up." Alexander said. "So the first suspects you always look for in a bombing case are the victims.

"Clurman was the only male. Losing a large business deal like that, it could be a powerful stressor." Elle said.

"Well, then there's the crime scene." Gideon said.

"Clurman's attack was different. Everyone else was hit at their doors but Clurman wasn't." Zoe said. "So there must've been something different about that one."

———————————————————————————

Zoe was wearing sunglasses again, sighing as they ducked under the police tape.

"What?" Spencer asked.

"I hate Florida. It's always so hot and I have a migraine again."

"Maybe it's your ADHD, migraines are more common in those with ADHD than in those without ADHD." Spencer suggested.

"Like my chemical imbalance wasn't enough." She sighed.

"Well, weather-related triggers such as dry air, high humidity, bright sunlight, air pressure, wind, extreme temperatures or sun glare can cause an imbalance of brain chemicals such as serotonin." Spencer said.

They arrived to the charred and dented car of Churman's, "Before Clurman passed out, what he told cops at the time was that he saw the package sitting on the stoop outside his kitchen door."

"Why didn't he take it in?" Elle asked.

Why didn't it go off until he got to his car?" Spencer asked, "It's like fifty feet away."

"Joe Reese, one of Clurman's investors, was here before the bomb went off. Cops have ruled him out as a suspect, but he said he saw Clurman get in the car with the package." Hotch said.

"So maybe Clurman wasn't receiving a bomb at all." Elle suggested. "Maybe he was on his way to delivering one."

"And he drops it or tilts it and it goes off by accident." Spencer continued.

"I don't know, seems... too easy." Zoe muttered.

"I'd like to talk to Clurman. In the meantime, let's get a warrant to search his house." Gideon said.

———————————————————————————

Gideon, Zoe, and Spencer went to the hospital to talk to Clurman, his leg had been amputated. Zoe had reluctantly lifted her sunglasses to rest on her hairline.

"Hi, Mister Clurman, I'm Doctor Zoe Valdez, M.D., I work with the BAU in the FBI, this is SSA Jason Gideon and Doctor Spencer Reid. We're here about the bombings including the one that injured you. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?" Zoe asked

Clurman agreed and Gideon asked, "Can you tell us about the package, Mister Clurman?"

"I thought I knew what it was. A pot for an orchid. I collect them. I ordered the pot through the mail." He explained.

"Why didn't you take it inside?" Gideon questioned.

"It was for my office. I was going there anyway. I thought I'd take it with me." Clurman explained. "That's the last thing I remember."

"You had an argument with Joe Reese. Do you remember that?" Gideon asked.

"Joe was there?" Clurman didn't seem to have any recollection of that.

"He was angry. He accused you of blowing him off." Gideon tried to jog his memory, but it didn't seem to work. "Any reason he'd want to hurt you?

"Joe? No. I mean, he's a confrontational guy. If he wanted to kill me, he'd just beat me to death.

"A lot of people were angry about that deal falling apart, and they were angry at you. I don't know, how does that make you feel?" Gideon asked, trying to gage Clurman's range of empathy.

"I felt awful. I thought those condos would make a lot of money for a lot of people, myself included. I thought that geologist was legit. He didn't even take samples. He scammed us. All those investors who lost their money. Barbara..." Clurman was showing

Barbara Keller?" Zoe asked.

"The first victim." Spencer clarified seemingly to some invisible audience.

"What about her?" Gideon asked.

"It's just such a shame. Such a nice lady, you know? It was such an easy sale. Sometimes I felt like I took advantage of her because she was old and lonely. Now she's dead." He groaned but then wasn't like the other groans of pain but this was an emotional pain, "I feel terrible." Then he suddenly said, "Ow!"

"What? What is it?" Zoe asked.

"My foot." He said and they all looked to his amputated, bandaged foot.

"Phantom pain." She whispered to the others and she went to the head of the bed to comfort him.

"I'll get you some help." Gideon said.

The nurses kicked Zoe out of the room and she rejoined Gideon and Spencer as Gideon spoke to Hotch, "This isn't our guy. His answers were coherent even while he was sedated. He's got a sense of humor, displays empathy.

"Not to mention he has a hobby unrelated to bomb-making." Spencer added.

"This is nothing like a typical bomber profile. Well, we'll see if the fragments match at the bomb scene, but I doubt they will."

———————————————————————————

Morgan had managed to reconstruct the bomb fragments and he sent pictures of the results.

"Morgan e-mailed these over." Hotch said, referring to the laptop. "The three on the left are the bombs from yesterday. The one on the right's from the evidence room at Quantico."

"They're all identical." Spencer said. Made with steel reinforcement rods.

"Fuck." Zoe said, recognizing it from her study of the case.

"What?" Detective Morrison, the lead on the case, asked.

"Adrian Bale." Gideon said.

"Who?"

"He held our agents in a standoff in Boston earlier this year. He took out six agents and a hostage with one of his bombs." Hotch explained.

"So you're thinking he's behind this?" Elle asked.

"Possibly, but he's in prison." Spencer said as Gideon walked around them. Zoe watched him with her eyes. "He's got kind of a cult following, like Charles Manson. It could just be a copycat."

"There's one way to find out." Morrison said as Gideon drank some water, anxiously, "Let's put the screws to this guy.

"No, no, no. Bale's too smart." Gideon protested, calmly, "If we want information from him, we have to handle him carefully, and even then you have to assume that road will lead nowhere."

"You're saying the connection to Bale doesn't help us at all?" Morrison asked.

"No. I'm just saying let us handle Bale."

"Look, we just heard from local Texas P.D. You were right about Clurman's nephew." Morrison said, "He admitted the bomb stuff was his, which is great for the Clurmans but it leaves us with zero suspects. So what do you suggest my men do now?

"Proceed from the profile." Gideon said.

"I didn't know we had a profile." Morrison said.

"Zoe?" Gideon asked.

Zoe nodded and took her notebook from her satchel and handed it to Gideon, he looked it over and nodded in approval at Zoe.

———————————————————————————

Gideon started to give the profile to the officers, "When we're dealing with a bomber, we're talking about someone who's non-confrontational. If you bumped into him in a café, he'd apologize. Even if it wasn't his fault."

"We would classify this bomber as highly organized based on the meticulous design of his bombs. It means above-average intelligence. He probably has a skilled job, a trade. One that allows him to work alone. That's how he was able to make a sophisticated device without raising suspicion. Furniture maker, jeweler, et cetera."

"Background in explosives?" Morrison asked.

"No, not necessarily." Gideon aid, "You're thinking about a type who likes to blow things up. Gives them an emotional or sexual release. Death, secondary."

"Then what's this guy doing?" Another officer asked.

"Murdering." Gideon said, "Bombs? Just weapons. And these attacks, they are not random."

"Well, how do you know that?" Someone asked.

"By process of elimination." Hotch said.

"We know bombers fall into a discrete number of categories according to motive. There's the terrorist, whose aim is to spread fear. We'd expect him to strike in a populous area, like a subway. There's the politically motivated bomber. He makes a statement by choosing a symbolic target, like an abortion clinic. Then there's our UnSub. He made bombs designed to kill, and he chose his victims specifically by placing the bombs at their stoops." Hotch said, "That tells us he has a direct motive. Statistically, he bombs for profit or to conceal a crime. And it tells us how we're going to find him. Through the people he killed."

"Somewhere among the three victims there is a direct motive. Keep digging." Gideon said.

Gideon then told Hotch that it was

———————————————————————————

Hotch had attempted to tell Zoe to go with Spencer and Gideon to Boston but Gideon had declined, saying she was more use there. Zoe got the feeling he knew why she hated Boston so much. Before Spencer left for the jet, he approached Zoe with his hands deep in his pocket, looking as awkward as always.

"Hey, Zoe. I, uh, I went to the local pharmacy and got you some-some NSAIDs, that stands for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory..." Spencer licked his lips, awkwardly and then said, "You're a doctor, you already know that. This is, uh, ibuprofen, naproxen. I-I also got you this acetaminophen if those don't work for you, it's uh, Tylenol, or if you don't like that, I got you this Excedrin Migraine which contains aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffeine."

Zoe never interrupted him, she just watched him speak with a light in her eyes that she usually didn't have. Spencer loved it when he saw that. It made his heart skip a beat.

He awkwardly tried to hand her the multiple pill bottles before realizing it was too much and then awkwardly dropped them at the table she was sitting on.

"Oh! And I got you these sunglasses," He pulled out a pair of black framed sunglasses with green lenses that were actually quite her style, "studies say that green light is generally considered the most comfortable color for people prone to migraines. I've read a study that said green light is significantly less likely to trigger a headache than other colors during the interictal phase of migraines. While blue, red, amber, or white light have been found to increase migraine-related headache pain. But when we get home, I suggest you try FL-41 lenses which are rose-tinted lenses that filter out mostly blue light. Or I could-could help if-if you want..." He trailed off as Zoe offered him a rare smile that made his heart skip another beat and she put the sunglasses on and she ruffled her wavy locks.

"How do I look?" She asked, playfully.

"Beautiful." Spencer said automatically and then he stiffened, "I, uh, I gotta go... to Boston." Spencer did that nerdy run he did out of the room, booking it away from that social conversation.

“That boy is completely smitten with you.” JJ said, who had been watching.

Zoe scoffed, “Yeah, right.” It her head, Spencer could do so much better than her.

———————————————————————————

Zoe, Elle, Alexander, and Hotch were going through information about the victims when JJ entered, "How we doing?"

"Frustrated." Elle said. "I can't see why anyone would want to kill a little old lady who collects cats and coins."

"Unless somebody wanted the coins." Hotch said, "I spent a good chunk of my childhood looking for a 1944 penny worth thousands." JJ, Elle, and Zoe looked at him. "Yeah, so I was a little bit of a nerd. Is that so surprising?"

"No." Zoe deadpanned. "Are you going to give them to your kid?"

Hotch wasn't amused.

Then the phone rang and Hotch picked up, "Morgan?"

"Yeah. I just got the lab results from the powder residues on the bombs. Ammonia nitrate, potassium chloride and aluminum powder. Nobody uses that mixture, Hotch."

"Nobody but Bale." Hotch said.

"That's right. And the closer I look at these things, the more they're the same. Same weld patterns, same switch assembly, same thread sizing. It's weird, man. This guy's not building bombs, he's forging them. That's the other reason I'm calling you. Bale wrote addresses on his packages in block letters with blue ink. I'm thinking our guy's doing the same."

"Okay. I'll set up a press conference, make sure the public knows." JJ said.

"Thanks, Morgan." Hotch said and hung up and then his phone rang again.

"Someone's popular." Zoe teased.

"Just do your job." Hotch said and excused himself to talk to whoever was on the phone.

———————————————————————————

Soon after JJ's press conference, there was a call, saying a neighbor's daughter had picked up a package matching the description of the packages with the bombs. Zoe went to the scene with Hotch.

"The first thing we gotta do is get the mother out of there." Hotch told them, "I want you to bring Doctor Valdez with you to help comfort the mother and child."

"Okay."

"Got it."

Zoe was already ducking under the police tape and running to the mother and daughter.

"Hey, I'm Doctor Zoe Valdez with the FBI, but you can call me Zoe. What's your name, darling?"

"Em-Emily."

"Emily, that's lovely. One of my best friends are named Emily." Zoe said, "Emily, I need you to just keep holding on, okay?"

"But it's heavy." She cried.

"I know. I know, but you're doing such a good job.

"Hey, everything is going to be okay." The bomb squad officer, Dan Tracy said with a stand to even the package so it would tilt at all. "Just a few more minutes."

"Hear that? We're almost there." The mother told her daughter.

"It's heavy. I can't hold it." Emily cried.

"I know. Yes, you can!" Her mother said.

"You're gonna have to step back, ma'am." Zoe told her.

"I'm not leaving my daughter!" She cried.

"I understand..."

"No, you don't!" The mother shouted.

"I understand the undying need to protect someone," Zoe explained, keeping a calm and gentle yet assertive tone, "but right now, you need to trust me in order to get your daughter out of safety."

"I am not leaving." The mother told her.

"Okay now, sweetie. Don't move, okay? Don't move, sweetie. I'm going to come up and meet you." Tracy said, raising the stand's height to meet the bottom of the box.

"You're such a good girl." The mother said.

"You're doing so good, Emily." Zoe praised, "Just a few more seconds, okay?

"I can't. I can't. It's heavy."

"Yes, you can."

"You're doing great, sweetie." Tracy said.

"It's slipping." Emily cried.

"You're doing great. Hang on, hang on." The mother said.

"Emily, when I was younger, I was going through a tough time and my Aunt Ciara told me, you can do anything for ten seconds. I just need to hold on for ten more seconds." Zoe said. "Ten seconds at a time. Do you think you can do that? Ten seconds?"

"Almost there. Almost there." Tracy said.

The stand met the bottom of the package, "Okay, Emily, gently put it down."

Emily did so and stepped back, putting her hands to her mouth to cry.

"Come here, baby." The mother went to her daughter and picked her.

"This way." Zoe said, guiding the mother and daughter towards the police. "Right through here. You did so good, Emily. My friend, Emily would be so, so proud of you."

———————————————————————————

Emily and the mother were brought to the station and Emily was clinging to either her mother or Zoe until Zoe had to leave to do her work.

"Hey, Emily, this is Agent Jennifer Jarau, but you can call her JJ." Zoe introduced. "Your mother said you saw her on the TV, tell her how she saved you and your mother's life."

Then she made her escape, joining Hotch and Elle before Alexander could catch sight of her.

"Barbara Keller was having trouble ensuring some coins she'd bought. The insurance company thought they might be fake." Elle was telling Hotch.

"So the insurance company's blowing up annoying clients?" Hotch asked.

"What if someone sold her the fake coins?" Elle suggested, "She's on to him. He shuts her up."

"Were these coins valuable enough to kill over?" Hotch asked.

"She told the insurance company she thought they might be worth twelve-thousand dollars." Elle told him.

"All right. Do you have any idea who sold her the coins?"

"No. But she had an appointment with a coin dealer scheduled, I'm guessing to challenge the insurance company's appraisal. A guy named David Walker.

"So, maybe he can help us figure out who sold her the coins." Hotch said, "Take Zoe with you."

———————————————————————————

Zoe and Elle arrived to the Walker residence and met the wife of David Walker.

"Personally, I couldn't think of anything more boring than coins and old papers." She said as she walked the two female agents to her husband's shed. "Are either you single?"

"Yes." Elle said.

"Yes. I scare most people." Zoe said in a deadpan.

"I have a word of advice: don't marry the first guy that proposes. I wanted a pool table back there, but David insisted on making it his workshop."

"Ah, well, I don't think marriage is in the cards for me. Too many enemies." Zoe said.

"Enemies? You're so young."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

There was the sound of a car revving up.

"Oh, what's he up to now?"

"Well, it sounds like a car." Elle said as her phone rang and she reached for her phone. Elle fell back to answer her phone as Zoe continued to walk.

"I hope he's not committing suicide. I won't be able to collect life insurance." The wife said.

"Well, that's why I prefer motorcycles." Zoe deadpanned.

"Yeah?" She asked and then she called to Zoe, "Zoe!"

The garage door opened and the car started for them.

"Get out of the way!" Elle screamed.

Zoe pushed the wife out of the way and by instinct she lifted her leg and jumped, rolling on the hood while using her arms to protect the side of her head from smashing into the windshield, he kept driving before he spotted Zoe reaching for her gun to shoot him so he abruptly stopped and she was thrown off the car and out of his way on the grass at a roll. She immediately sat up as Elle started firing, Zoe shooting her gun as well.

———————————————————————————

Hotch had to stop Alexander from freaking out over the fact his daughter got hit by a car, despite this having been part of her training with Maze... to get hit by a car… over and over.

Zoe was being annoyed by the EMTs over her, insisting she go to the hospital.

"I am fine! How many times do I need to say it!?" She shouted, pushing them off her to walk over to Elle.

"You two okay?" Hotch asked.

"I'm fine, Zoe insists she's fine somehow. She pushed Mrs. Walker out of the way." Elle said.

"She would've broken a few bones. My mentor had 'getting hit by a car' as part of my training. Just got to take all the weight off the leg, jump and roll on to the hood and protect the head." Zoe shrugged off.

"You should see a doctor."

"I am a doctor."

"An unbiased doctor." Alexander scolded.

"I'll see one after the case." Zoe said, stubbornly, "A serial bomber is more important than my theoretical injury."

"Morrison's got a countywide search out for the car." Hotch said, "Uniforms are going to try to find out where his haunts are, and ATF should be here any minute." Hotch said. "You sure you're all right?"

"Mrs. Walker said her husband spent most of his time in the garage." Elle said as Zoe gave him a look.

"Let's check it out."

Zoe kicked the door in and walked in casually.

"We got the organized part right." Hotch said, looking around.

"What's this?" Elle asked.

There was a coin connected to a cable which was connected to a small electrical generator.

"I've seen this. It's for electroplating." Hotch said. "Look at the date on the coin." He turned the hook connected to the coin.

"It’s half gone." Zoe observed. "He was using this to build up the metal so he could change the dates on the coins."

"To increase the value." Elle said.

"Exactly.

"Like what he did with Barbara Keller's coins."

Zoe had joined Officer Worthy and called, "Look over here. Check this out."

There was a newspaper clipping of Bale with the headline: Bale Main Suspect in Bomb Making. "Bale" was circled with "the best" written under it.

"So this is why he chose to use Bale's design." Hotch said.

Zoe pulled a cloth off of what Walker had been working on. Coils, parts of pipes, metal rods.

Hotch looked up at another newspaper on the cork board, the one with Gideon, stating that six people had died.

"Make sure Morrison tells your officers that this guy is smart, dangerous, and he has absolutely nothing to lose." Hotch said.

———————————————————————————

Spencer had stayed behind to monitor Walker's mail, calls, and visitors so Gideon came back alone.

"You okay?" Gideon asked Zoe when he saw her, cue her giving him a deeply annoyed look since Alexander had been asking his daughter that every ten minutes.

"So far nothing from the search." Zoe sighed.

"What do we know about Walker?" Gideon asked.

He's a quiet career criminal. Spent four years in prison for a series of forged cheques when he was in his early twenties. He's now forty-six." Morrison told them. For the past eighteen years, he owned a store which sold coins, maps and historical documents. We raided the place as soon as you gave us Walker's name. Most of his inventory was fake. Forgeries valued in the millions."

"But the walls had started to close in on him. We talked to some of his clients, and he was in debt up to his ears and promising stuff he didn't have time to forge." Hotch said.

"Then Barbara Keller found out that the coins he had sold her were fake. She threatened to out him." Elle explained to Gideon.

And if she had, all of the forgeries would've been discovered. He would have done twenty years." Hotch explained.

"So he had to shut her up?" Gideon asked, "He planted all those bombs just to kill one little old lady?"

"Yeah, and to throw us off, he made it look like it was much bigger than it was." Zoe explained and then her eyes fell past them. "Oh my God." She went past them and they looked at what she had seen.

A man with a metal collar around his neck that Worthy was warning, "You hear me? I said stop now!"

"Please. Help me." He pleaded and he opened his jacket revealing a bomb attached to him.

Everyone took out their guns and pointed it at him but Zoe whose behavior remained worried for the person's life.

"Everyone, back! Now! We need bomb squad in here!" Morrison said.

"Please. It's not me." The man pleaded.

"Don't come any closer. Put your hands up and walk slowly back out." Morrison said.

The man held up his hands but said, his voice trembling, "I can't. He'll kill me."

"Who will?" Gideon asked.

"I don't know. He held a gun to me, put this on me. He said you'll know who he is." The man said.

"Well, what does he want?" Zoe asked.

"A helicopter, a passport." The man said and then he nodded to outside, "He's watching. Once he gets what he wants he's got instructions to defuse the bomb."

"Walker's close by." Gideon told Morrison.

"Let's get snipers around the perimeter." Morrison said.

"Hey, we understand, and we're not going to leave you." Gideon told the man, calmly.

"Please. Take it off." The man pleaded.

"Well, we need to figure out how the bomb's put together first." Zoe explained as Gideon got closer.

"Tracy, you're in." Morrison said and as the man whimpered in fear, Tracy took pictures of the bomb.

Zoe examined the bomb, there were two wires. Red and blue.

Zoe had excused herself to call Spencer and bring him up to speed on the situation.

"What's your opinion?"

"I haven't studied the bomb thoroughly."

"You said you used to make homemade IEDs so you could understand them, what do you think." Spencer said, he trusted her opinion.

"I think this is a sophisticated device. Most likely made by a master bomb maker which means any tampering could set it off. There are two wires. A red and a blue one. And there's a timer. We got about three hours left."

———————————————————————————

They isolated the civilian whose name turned out to be Chicu Reddy in a separate part of a backroom. Zoe exited the room with Reddy in it.

"We have a bead on Walker." Morrison said. "A sniper spotted him in his scope. He's sitting in an office building across the street. It looks like a storage room with a small window facing us."

"We could surprise him." Elle said.

"That's a good idea. If he feels cornered, he might give himself up." Hotch said.

"Why do you say that?" Morrison said.

"Because bombers are generally cowards. I'll take a team in, and we'll go in through the back of the building." Hotch said.

Hotch, Zoe, Alexander, and Elle approached the building Walker was in.

"This feels wrong to me." Zoe sighed.

"She's right. Why would Walker let himself be found so easily?" Elle said.

"He wants to be found." Hotch said.

"Why?" Elle asked.

"To negotiate."

"Yeah, but then we lose the element of surprise." Elle argued.

"Well, hopefully we catch him off-guard, and he gives himself up immediately." Alexander said.

"Yeah, hopefully." Zoe scoffed.

"If not, we take a hard line and make him feel like he's got no way out." Hotch said, they all stopped before entering the building, "Remember, we have to take him alive. Walker's the only who can defuse the necklace bomb."

"This still doesn't feel right." Zoe sighed.

"Everybody ready?"

"Yes, sir. Let's do it." An officer said.

"We're entering the building." Hotch said into the comm.

"Be careful. At the very least we know he's got a gun." Gideon said.

"Copy that."

They all had their guns out as they made their way toward Walker in a group.

"We're approaching the door now." Hotch said into the comm.

"Copy that." Gideon said.

They arrived at room 324-C with Zoe on one side and Hotch on the other. Hotch opened the door from beside the door. From what Zoe could see in the room, it looked like a storage room with a bunch of dated boxes.

"Just boxes." She mouthed.

"David Walker? Federal agents." Hotch said aloud. No response. Federal agents!" Still nothing.

"One... two..." He mouthed and on three they moved inside with their guns up.

Walked ducked when he saw them.

"Walker, freeze!" Hotch shouted.

"Okay. Please. Don't shoot." Walker said as Zoe moved further in the room, she was the deepest in the room.

"Show yourself. Show yourself!" Hotch said but Walker was too scared. Bombers are cowards. "I'll shoot up the whole room."

"Okay." Walker said, making himself taller so they could see him

"All right. Now, put your hands where I can see them." Hotch said.

"I can't do that."

"Then I'll shoot." Hotch said.

"My hand's on the remote. I told you what I want. The passport, the helicopter, the flight." Walker said.

"Walker, listen to me. You're at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list. I think you're smart enough to realize there's no way we're letting you go." Hotch said. "But here's my counter-offer, a chance to get out of here alive. All you have to do is give yourself up. Just slide the gun across the floor. You have until three. One."

"You wouldn't let the hostage die."

"You want to find out? Don't give yourself up." Hotch said. "Two."

"There's only two wires to cut, Walker." Zoe said.

"Okay. Okay." Walker said and placed his gun down and slid it to Zoe who bent down and grabbed it. "I'm coming out. Don't shoot."

What is he doing?

"Now walk slowly towards me." Hotch said, "Let me see your hands, Walker."

"What is he doing?" Zoe muttered, trying to get a better angle to see what he was doing.

"Get out of there now! Now!" Gideon's voice shouted.

"Go, go! Everybody, out!" Hotch shouted.

"But he has the plans to save the hostage!" Zoe protested.

Alexander grabbed his daughter and pulled her back and through the door, just escaping the blast.

Alexander had thrown himself at Zoe, so they both fell and he was on top of his daughter, shielding her but the blast didn’t reach them, the rubble from the blast didn’t even reach them.

Zoe had been positioned in a spot that she saw the

———————————————————————————

They had only had one option left. To talk to Adrian Bale.

Zoe's gut said to cut the blue based off the blue ink but she couldn't be certain and she didn't put the man's life on the possibility she was right.

Zoe stood against the wall as they spoke to Bale. He looked at her the moment he entered the room.

"Who's she? I didn't see her before."

"I transferred to the BAU shortly after you killed six of their agents." Zoe said. "Sit, please." She forced herself to smile but maintained a slight glare in her eyes at him for what he did to Gideon.

"You look familiar."

"Don't talk to her." Hotch said, he was sitting across from Bale while Gideon stood.

"We'll start with a transfer." Gideon said, pacing as Zoe stared unblinking and as stoic as Hotch at Bale with a hint of rage in her amber-brown eyes. "You're in a high-security facility now. We can get you medium."

"No. I want out of prison. A mental facility." Bale negotiated, finally looking away from Zoe.

"You are not mentally ill. You have a homicidal triad, you committed multiple accounts of animal cruelty, fire setting, and enuresis since the age of five.

"Enur-what-is?" Bale asked.

"It's the medical term for involuntary loss of urine while sleeping." She explained. "You come from a broken home, your mom left when you were seven and your dad was a firefighter who was rarely home and when he was, he would drink which may have ignited your disregard for authority. A broken home doesn't necessarily indicate a sociopath, but it is possible that when your mother left, you realized how little personal attachments people could have even to their own child. You misbehaved frequently in school, you were aggressive and violent to other students with no remorse for harming them and poor behavior control. You're a classic sociopath. That being said, you only have a few traits of having antisocial personality disorder but not enough to definitely diagnose you as having it. It is possible to be a sociopath and not have antisocial personality disorder just as it is possible to have antisocial personality disorder and feel empathy for someone.” Zoe said this with casualness.

Bale realized that Zoe was smarter than she looked. A young woman, younger than it seemed an FBI agent should be, with long dark brown wavy hair with green and purple streaks in it, on her nose, she had a pair of black sunglasses with green lenses on. She was wearing a shirt with a Sherlock Holmes quote, “To a great mind, nothing is little” under a black denim jacket, a rare day she wasn’t wearing a leather jacket, a black and white plaid skirt, black tights, and black boots. She looked nothing like what an FBI agent should be but clearly had the intellect above the average one.

"What she means is you're asking for something we wouldn't give a bank robber." Hotch said. "There are minimum-security facilities..."

"I don't care." Bale cut him off, "I want to be able to talk to people who aren't prisoners. I want to have access to people, things, the world. I want to connect again."

That's kind of why they were in this bombing mess in the first place.

"All right." Gideon conceded.

"One more thing, without which there is no deal." Bale said.

"What is it?" Gideon asked.

"I want you to confess. I want you to admit that I beat you in Boston, that I outsmarted you." Bale said and Zoe's nails dug into her skin, not only because of Bale's arrogance but because at how much it reminded her of that one UnSub from Boston. "I want you to apologize to the families of those six victims you got killed. And I want it all in writing."

"Jason, that's enough." Hotch said, standing up.

There was a hint of a look on Zoe's face, somewhat of disgust but also like she thought Bale was a pathetic, sad, little man, so desperate for a feeling of power.

"If I do this, you'll tell me how to defuse the bomb?" Gideon asked.

"Only if you do this." Bale said like that hadn't already been clear.

"How do I know you won't lie to me?" Gideon asked.

"It's all in writing, Agent Gideon. If my client refuses to give you the information, or if he gives you information he knows to be untruthful, the deal is void." Bale's lawyer said.

"Doesn't mean he still won't do it." Zoe told her.

Gideon wrote it down on a yellowed piece of notebook paper and then put the pen down.

"I wanna hear it." Bale said.

Gideon looked down at the piece of paper and started to read, "There was a hostage situation, and...

"No. Don't read it. Say it." Bale demanded.

Zoe studied Bale without emotion. Bale was the kind of bomber who got an emotional release from the bombing and the kills. He was impotent but he got off on even little bouts of control and manipulation. He had spent nearly seven months in prison with no sense of relief and he was milking it for all that it was worth.

Zoe could see right through him. With each sentence Bale said, she grew more confident in which wire they had to cut.

"There was a hostage situation. I negotiated with Bale. He agreed to give himself up. He came out of the warehouse peacefully. I gave the okay to send six of my agents in and, and they never came out. It was a mistake. It was my mistake. I was... I was outfoxed by Mister Bale. By you. I sincerely regret having made the decision to send those agents in that day. And I sincerely regret and apologize to the families of all those who died that day."

"Four more minutes." Zoe said, the look in her eyes fully icy now like she could beat Bale without compunction.

———————————————————————————

They all stood outside the glass room where Reddy was drenched in sweat from stress and Tracy wore a full bomb suit.

"Okay. I've isolated the wires connected to the actual device. We've got one shot at this. It's either the blue wire or the red wire." Tracy said.

Definitely the blue. Zoe knew for certain but she knew if she answered before Bale, his defeat wouldn't be as satisfying.

"Which do we cut, Bale? Red or blue?" Gideon asked.

Bale inhaled and said, "Red."

"Blue." Zoe said when Bale was barely done talking.

"You know if you're lying and this thing goes boom, you get nothing, right?

"Yes.

"It's the blue." Zoe said.

"I said it's the red." Bale said, irritatedly.

"If we cut the red, it's over?" Gideon said

You get to spend your time in a cushy asylum, bushes, trees, visits, nurses, and we get this man out of here alive." Gideon said.

I don't see how I could be any clearer. You're going to believe some child over me? I masterminded the bomb." Bale scoffed, trying to belittle Zoe's credibility, unaware that Gideon's trust in Zoe's opinion had been solidified since she was three and she accurately profiled him and Rossi.

Zoe didn't give him the slightest hint that she had heard him as if he wasn't even worth being acknowledged. He wasn't.

"Seventeen seconds." Tracy said.

"Red wire, right?" Gideon gave Bale one last chance to come clean and get the deal.

"Yes." Bale said.

"No." Zoe said over him. "Blue."

"Cut the blue." Gideon said and Bale and Hotch looked at him.

"Are you sure?" Tracy asked.

"Do it."

Tracy cut the blue wire and the timer stopped on the number three.

"All right. Shouldn't take long to cut this thing off now."

Zoe finally looked at Bale with a somewhat condescending look like, did you really think you could fool me?

Hotch aggressively grabbed Bale and pulled him out of the room and into the conference room.

Zoe entered the bombproof room, closing the door behind her and she crouched by Reddy's side, "You should be already now. I recommend you get a check up at the hospital after the amount of stress you went through today but you should be fine."

"Thank you. Thank you." Reddy was repeating in relief.

She exited the room as Elle asked them both, How'd you know?"

"He told me. He said given the opportunity to press that button, he'd have no choice. All I did was take his word for it."

"Blue ink." Zoe said.

"What?"

"The packages were brown with blue block letters, I knew that from the start but I couldn't place Mister Reddy's life over what I thought. The more Bale spoke, the more I knew he was desperate for some kind of relief, that's the kind of bomber he is. He got off on the idea that he was smarter than Gideon. He's not, but he's an arrogant sociopath who never did anything good with his life. He got off on the fact that he made us make a deal with him. His mom left him, giving him a slight resentment of women, not quite enough to call him a misogynist but he clearly didn't take well to me being smarter than him." Zoe explained, calmly. "I think I'll have a chat with him."

———————————————————————————

Zoe sat across from Bale in the conference room, not speaking, refusing to be the first to speak.

"How'd you know?" He asked, breaking the silence.

"Did you do research on Gideon?"

"Of course."

"Then the reason I look so familiar is because my mother was Zelena Valdez." Bale only now realized the similarities between Gideon's late co-founder of the BAU and this nineteen-year-old girl in front of him. The soft curves of her face, the olive skin tone, similar shade of hair. "My name is Xiomara Noble-Valdez. I am the daughter of BAU co-founders, Alexander Noble and Zelena Valdez. I was born twelve after my mother died from several axe wounds to the chest. Alexander Noble is my father and he along with David Rossi and Jason Gideon raised me. You thought that you could make Gideon doubt his trust in my instinct but he's trusted my mind since I was a toddler. Every agent makes a mistake or a choice. Sometimes there are no good choices but you still have to make one. You didn't outsmart Gideon, he made a bad choice. You are not smarter than Jason Gideon and you sure as hell are not smarter than me."

———————————————————————————

Gideon walked Bale back to his cell as the prisoners heckled Bale as he walked past and Bale stepped back into his cell.

"Despite the fact you lied to us and your deal is void, I made sure to tell all your friends here how extremely willing you were to give up information on your fellow inmates." Gideon told him with a smile on his face. "You're a rare bird, Adrian. I can't tell you how much pleasure I get just knowing I put you in this little, tiny cage. You might even call it an emotional release."

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