Won't Get Fooled Again

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

The day always starts out normal before it all goes to hell. At least, in my life that's how it went. Today was a nice October day, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, and then Hotch walks into the bullpen and says, "There's been a bombing in Palm Beach, Florida."

He grabbed the remote to the bullpen TV and tuned it to a Palm Beach news station. I stood from my desk and joined Hotch where he stood.

"What's the vic's name?" I asked him quietly as other agents began to gather around the TV.

"Gil Clurman, his was the second bombing this morning. Both of the attacks were in residential neighborhoods in Palm Beach." Hotch explained. Silently, we both left the bullpen and headed to the War Room. The others weren't far behind us.

"Has Homeland Security been notified?" Gideon asked as he sped into the room.

"And ATF." Hotch reassured him, "In addition to a profile, they want a threat assessment."

"Is the media on to it?"

"Of course. JJ's keeping tabs on it." Hotch replied coolly.

"What do we know about the bombs?" I asked, not Hotch, but Morgan. He had told me when we first met that he had spent some time in the ATF after leaving the Chicago PD.

"ATF is sending pictures of the bomb fragments as they find them." He handed me a few of the photos that he had.

"Pipe bombs." I evaluated after looking at the larger pieces of the bombs. The pieces seemed familiar, like I had seen them before, but I couldn't place where.

"Packed in cardboard boxes."

"Package bombs sent through the mail?" Elle asked.

"No." Morgan said quickly, "The other picture you have, Tess, is of the switch that the ATF found. Same mechanism for both bombs, mercury-activated."

"What does that mean?" Elle asked.

"There are contacts to a detonator on either end of a bent tube full of mercury." Morgan explained, "If you tilt the package, the bomb goes off."

"So they couldn't be sent through the mail, the bomber had to hand deliver them himself." Reid concluded.

"Strange way to commit an act of terrorism." I observed, handing the photos back to Morgan.

"Why go to all this trouble just to kill a few people?" Elle questioned, snatching the photos from Morgan's grip.

"Since motive is still unclear, I recommend we avoid raising the terror alert. There seems to be no reason for inciting panic." I advised, folding my hands in my lap.

"Don't get so comfortable." JJ said as she practically ran into the room, "The story's gone international."

So much for not spreading panic. I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut and pinching the bridge of my nose. The sound of an explosion came from the TV in the bullpen, followed by some distant shouting from what I could only assume to be reporters and camera crews.

"If they don't raise the terror alert now, Homeland Security will look cowardly." Gideon said.

"Wheels up in twenty." Hotch stood and left, and to my surprise, Morgan jogged after him. They stopped and spoke for a minute, before they both came back into the War Room.

"Change in plan. Morgan and Barkley will stay here and piece together the bomb fragments that the ATF sends in. The rest of us will go to Palm Beach."

I exhaled heavily and closed my case file. Shame, I was looking forward to trudging through the humid Florida air looking for a bomber.

"You requested to stay behind, didn't you?" I asked as soon as the rest of the team left for the airport, JJ included.

Morgan shrugged, "I think we can do more good by figuring out how our UnSub put the bombs together. It'll give us a signature and just might lead us to our guy."

"Mmhmm," I gave him a look that told him clearly that I wasn't buying it, "And this doesn't have anything to do with Boston?"

He sighed, pulling my chair away from the table and dumping me out of it, forcing me to stand up, "Tess, Gideon went into a posttraumatic tail spin after Boston. Who's to say it won't happen again?"

"We have to trust that he can handle himself." I shrugged before heading back toward my desk. Might as well finish my reports before the bomb fragments arrive. Derek sat down at his desk a moment later, eyeing me carefully, then silently went back to his work.


A cardboard box was set in front of my face, causing me to look up. Garcia was standing over Morgan and I, looking back and forth between us.

"You guys have a package. Had a police escort all the way from Palm Beach."

I stood up and made to grab the box, but Morgan got to it first. He nodded in the direction of the War Room, he led and I followed quietly with Garcia.

"These are our bomb fragments. Now, we can finally start putting this bad boy together." Morgan explained to Penelope, who was still wondering what was in the box.

"Why bother?" I was having similar thoughts at the time, "Don't you look at the pieces for prints and stuff?"

"Garcia, what are you doing in the FBI?" Morgan asked with a smile and a laugh.

"I didn't get into med school." She replied. I couldn't hold back a small smile.

"Can't say I'm surprised." I muttered loud enough for only her to hear.

She shoved me playfully, "Ouch, that's what my father told me."

"All right, ladies, I'm gonna teach you something, so pay attention." Morgan garnered our attention as he pulled out a few pieces of the bomb.

"Oh," Garcia groaned, "It's like school."

I slid into my usual chair next to Morgan as he turned to face Garcia, "Look, how these things fit together can tell you how an UnSub think."

"You sound like Gideon." I commented while I pulled a larger fragment out of the box.

"Ok, ouch." Morgan said, a mix of surprise and mock hurt. Garcia laughed.

"However, as much as I hate to admit it, Garcia, Morgan's actually right." I admitted, snatching the fragments that Morgan had pulled out of the box earlier. I held up the pieces of pipe for Garcia to see.

"Bombs that are hand-made by the bomber have their own personal touch to them. The complexity of the bomb, the shrapnel it contains, things like this can help us determine the bomber's motive. These," I held up the fragments, "Were part of the bomb's cap. The bomber filled the pipe with powder and whatever shrapnel he wanted to use, and used a threaded PVC cap to seal it. But, the powder that he used was incredibly fine and incredibly easy to set off; if even one grain landed on the threads and screws on the cap, the bomb would ignite."

"He didn't have to use a powder that fine, he didn't have to use threaded caps, he didn't have to use a steel pipe, and it would have been a lot safer if he didn't. But the bomb wouldn't have been nearly as deadly." Morgan finished for me.

"So what does that tell you?" I asked Garcia.

"He's one sick puppy?" It was more of a question than an answer.

"One sick puppy who aims to kill. Not scare, not vandalize, not make a political statement, just kill." I said darkly.

"Well then, I will leave you two bomb enthusiasts to it, and return to my Tech Cave." Garcia said quickly before taking off to her hideout. Immediately, Morgan and I went to work piecing the bomb together quietly.

"Why did you want me to stay behind?" I asked suddenly, trying to make the time go by in conversation, "You could have easily done this by yourself."

"It's always nice to have an extra set of eyes with this kind of thing. Especially when they're as pretty as your baby blues." He said quietly, leaning into my shoulder.

I laughed loudly and pushed him away, "You're such a flirt, Derek."

"Don't deny it, Tess. You like it."

"Keep tellin' yourself that." I replied, with a roll of my eyes.


It took us about an hour to put together the majority of the pipe bomb. Now that it was almost complete, I was certain that I had seen the design before, but I still couldn't place where I had encountered it. Morgan was just staring at the bomb blankly, we had a few pieces that didn't seem to fit anywhere and he was trying to figure out how they were incorporated into the bomb.

"You know a watched bomb never assembles." I looked up to see Garcia wandering into the conference room, playing Tetris on her gaming console.

"We've got it down to the last few pieces. But Mr. ATF over here can't figure out where the last few pieces go." I jabbed a thumb in Morgan's direction, his eyes not leaving the remaining fragments.

"What's the big deal? You guys got most of it. I give you a B-plus." Garcia said happily.

"Tough crowd." I joked.

"The big deal is that it could be part of his signature." Morgan ignored out banter and chose to answer Garcia's initial question.

"Ooh, signature. Like a sign of the Zodiac kinda thing?" Garcia took a seat on Morgan's other side. He laughed at her example.

"Yeah, just like that."

"Hey, I was serious. I really wanted to learn that time." She swatted him on his broad shoulder.

"The signature is what gets these guys' motors running, it helps them get off." I explained, "It's a flourish, a certain type of pipe, a certain mixture of powders. Like how the Unabomber used wood in his bombs."

"So by putting these last pieces together, you think you'll find this guy's signature?"

"That's the plan." I said as I leaned back in my chair.

"Sometimes a design is unique, so when we put it back together, we can compare it to other exemplars in our evidence database and see if the bomb was built by somebody we've already come across." Morgan added.

Garcia grabbed a piece of wooden rod off the table and held it up near the top of the pipe, "What if there was another piece like this?"

"No, we tried that, it doesn't fit." Morgan sighed, shaking his head.

"No, it could have been part of a longer rod that fit through the top and ran all the way through. Tetris." Garcia suggested, sliding the piece of rod into the pipe. It all came back to me.

"Son of a bitch." I breathed, my eyes going wide.

"What? Did I mess something up?" Garcia asked worried.

"No, Garcia, actually you figured it out." I said, my voice shaking, "I know who made this bomb. He's serving life in federal prison for killing six FBI agents and one hostage in Boston six months ago."

Morgan's head snapped away from the bomb for the first time since we had sat down in the conference room, "Adrian Bale."


"Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?" Garcia asked frantically. Morgan had stepped out of the room to call Hotch, so Garcia and I sat there, just staring at the pipe bomb.

I nodded slowly, "There's only one person that uses a rod in his bombs like that and that's Bale. And I can guarantee you, once the lab results come back, the powder will consist of ammonium nitrate, potassium chloride and aluminum powder."

"So what does this mean? Did Bale break out of prison?"

"No, he's in solitary at a maximum security facility. He has guards surrounding his cell twenty-four hours a day. It's impossible for him to escape. But he does have a cult following, kinda like Manson. Our UnSub is forging his bombs, almost like a copycat."

"Gideon is going to speak to Bale." Morgan had reentered the room, his expression dark. Garcia's handheld buzzed and she took off toward her Tech Cave without a second thought.

"Is that a good idea, considering what happened?" I asked.

"Probably not. But Hotch seemed okay with it." Morgan shrugged. I raised my arms and stretched in my chair, stiff from sitting all morning.

"Good enough for me. I'm gonna run to that Thai place around the corner, grab some lunch. Want anything?"

His expression lightened a bit, "Pad Thai sounds good to me."

"As you wish." I said with a flourish of hands, before walking out of the conference room.

"You're the best!" He shouted from the room.

"I know!" I shouted back.

I returned half an hour later with a bag of Thai food and a lighter wallet. I joined Garcia in the cafeteria and pulled out my order of spicy minced chicken. Just as Garcia and I were about to sink our teeth into our respective lunches, a stack of papers landed on the table between us. I glanced up to see Morgan standing over us with a smirk on his face.

"Ready to do some work?"

"Jackass." I growled.

"Why not? I've given up sleeping, might as well give up eating too." Garcia said monotone.

"Aw, poor babies," Morgan teased, taking a seat next to me, "Don't let your tears hit the paper."

I chuckled under my breath and handed Morgan his food.

"What are these?" I inquired, grabbing one of the papers off the top of the pile.

"Emails from Bale's secret account. Reid forwarded them to me. There all between him and our UnSub, guy named David Walker." Morgan explained as he divided the pile of papers between the three of us.

"So what are we looking for?" Garcia asked.

"Right now, this guy, Walker is in the wind. So we gotta look at him from every angle, see if we can figure out his next move."

"So if Walker got bomb-making tips from Bale, maybe he got tips on how to avoid the cops too." I clarified.

"It's almost like you read my mind, Barkley." Morgan grinned.


We returned to our desks, spending what felt like an eternity combing through every correspondence between Bale and Walker, until Morgan finally found something. We called Gideon right away.

"We've got an email Bale sent Walker two weeks ago. Listen to this, 'My only regret is giving myself up. And for what? To be stuck in a cage for the rest of my life. Don't make my mistake. If they catch you, don't let them keep you.'"

My guess is Gideon hung up immediately, because Morgan set his phone down almost as soon as he had finished speaking.

"Now what?" I asked him. I was out of ideas. He shrugged.

"Nothing else we can do. Except wait."

"I'm not gonna sit here and wait on Hotch's call." I declared, slamming my hands dramatically on my desk and standing up, "I'm going to O'Keefe's for a pint."

"It's three in the afternoon." Morgan pointed out.

"It's five o'clock somewhere." I shot back.

"Alright, then let's go, beautiful. First round's on me." He stood up and began to walk toward the elevators.

I laughed once under my breath and watched him walk away for a moment, a lopsided grin on my face, before jogging after him.

By the time Hotch called in, the bar had filled with off-duty cops and federal agents and we had switched from our first beer over to Fireball shots. I downed my third as Morgan ended his call.

"Walker's dead. Gideon and Hotch made a deal with Bale to save hostage, but he didn't pull through for them. He's back in solitary and the team is on their way back."

"Cowards." I sneered, "Bale, Walker, all of them. Nothin' but cowards."

"Hey," Morgan set his hand on mine, "Let it go, Tess. Bale's still in prison and that son of a bitch Walker is gone for good."

"Scarborough and Howlett were my best friends." I said after a moment of silence, staring hollowly at my empty shot glass, "We served in Kuwait together. They were my brother and sister. And Bale just... took them away."

Morgan's grip on my hand tightened, "Tess-"

"They were engaged, you know. It was like a match made in heaven; from day one, they just kinda clicked, you know," I was beginning to ramble, which meant only one thing: I was drunk, "And now they have empty graves next to each other in Arlington. I wish I had taken the shot I had on Bale. Gideon told me to stand down; I shouldn't have listened. Then, maybe, things would have been different."

"Tess," Morgan cut me off gently, linking our hands together and leaning toward me over the table, "You can't blame yourself for that day. Everyone made mistakes, you, Gideon, me. You need to let go of that anger."

I took a shaky breath and looked up at him, my expression steeled, "I don't think I can."

"Then let me help you."

'Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.' - Mother Theresa