A/N: Sorry for the wait. Thanks to all those who've reviewed and to my beta, love you! Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.
Chapter 14 – Time
"What?" Elle asked in shock.
"We have a bomb on this campus," Emily explained surprisingly calmly.
Elle looked past her female peer and at the two males. "So the campuses that you guys were on are clear?"
Morgan nodded. "Yup, I thought that we were all good until I got the call from Em."
"Have you radioed Lincoln yet?"
Reid shook his head. "Ummm…no…." he answered awkwardly.
Emily and Morgan exchanged looks before Morgan spoke. "I think that we should handle this ourselves. We have enough agents here for a small SWAT team and M-4s in the SUVs."
"So what's going on exactly? Like, where's the bomb? Are there any suspects?" Elle asked confused.
"There are two, young, Middle Eastern males in the basement of the Chemistry Building, one of them with a bomb on his belt and the trigger in his hand. So are we doing this?" Emily asked nervously as she put her hand out in the middle of the circle formed by the four new friends.
Morgan nodded as he placed his hand on top of Emily's. "I'm in."
"Me too." Elle seconded Morgan's support by placing her hand on top of his. Reid quickly followed his romantic interest and joined the pile of hands.
Morgan nodded once again as he took a deep breath. "Okay, let's prep them," he said referring to the agents behind him.
Meanwhile…..
Lincoln was repeatedly drumming his fingers on the computer desk and it was beginning to irritate the computer whiz. "Something wrong sir?" Garcia asked trying to not sound annoyed.
"Gallaudet is the only one on the list to not to be declared clear, we haven't heard from them in almost 20 minutes, and no one is to be found on the campus surveillance we have setup."
Garcia decided to act on the young man's nervousness and picked up his two-way radio. "Hey Em, its Garcia."
"Oh hey Garcia," came the reply.
"Lincoln wants to know what's taking you guys so long." She told her upfront.
"We just have a couple of things left to take care of."
"Okay see ya soon. Over." She laughed loudly as she placed the two-way back on the desk. "I've always wanted to say that." Lincoln looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Everything's fine," she assured him.
"I hope you're right," he replied quietly.
--
Gideon glanced down at his watch and became worried, it was already 11:09 and nothing out of the ordinary had happened yet. He portrayed the image of a man who was paying attention to the address while all of his senses were focused on his surroundings, picking up on the slightest change in the air, noticing the shuffling of people in the crowd, and continuing to look for anyone out of place.
He made eye contact with Rossi across the street and gave him a discreet head shake. From his perspective, everything was fine but his greatest fear was that the chaos would come from the crowd.
And in the thick of the crowd was Jennifer Jareau. She made notes as if she were a real reporter but kept her guard up with quick glances behind her back. She briefly turned to her left and someone caught her attention. He was a gangly, Middle Eastern male in a crisp business suit. He looked like a professional from the neck down but his face told a different story. He was nervous, on edge, and incredibly young looking.
She turned back to the reporters that she had been talking to earlier and made a gesture to suggest that she was going to move more towards the middle of the crowd. She intentionally bumped into the Middle Eastern gentleman. "Oh I'm sorry," she apologized flustered.
He gave her a warm smile. "Itttt…its…fine," he replied awkwardly in a thin accent.
She returned his smile before she turned and walked away, she had accomplished her goal. When she had collided with him, his suit jacket had been pushed back just enough to confirm her suspicions. A gun was tucked into the side of his pants towards the back. She remained calm as she ducked her head down and spoke quietly into the small mic on her sleeve, "Hotch."
"Yeah JJ," he answered urgently.
"Can you see me?"
"Yeah."
"Did you see the tall, Middle Eastern man that I just smacked into?" She asked cautiously, remembering to keep her voice down.
"Yeah."
"He's packing."
"What?" Hotch asked loudly as he had been completely caught off guard.
"He's armed," she repeated.
"Okay JJ, stay calm and stay put until I say so, okay?" He spoke protectively.
She nodded to herself. "Okay."
As soon as he finished his conversation with JJ, Hotch turned to Agent English. "The Middle Eastern male almost in the middle of the crowd, he's armed."
"He has a great view of the podium," English observed through his scope.
"Emily was right, the shooter's coming from the crowd," Hotch said quietly to himself.
English grasped his radio and began to speak, "Street do you read me?"
"I read you sir."
"The tall, young, Middle Eastern in the business suit in the middle of the crowd is armed and dangerous. Be prepared to take the head shot on my go."
"Copy that," Street replied.
After English's orders, Hotch contacted the member of the task force in the most danger. "JJ, when we have the order to take the head shot, I'll tell you to get down, okay?"
"Okay," she replied shakily.
Hotch looked through the scope of his own gun and silently noted how difficult a clean head shot would be. As if on cue, Street's voice came over English's two-way radio. "Sir, negative on the clear head shot."
"What?" English replied slightly surprised.
"No clear head shot sir. Over."
"Over," English responded. "God damn!" He cursed loudly to himself. He turned to Hotch and spoke, "Street doesn't have a clear head shot."
Meanwhile……
"Okay so what's the plan exactly?" Reid asked uneasily as he entered the Chemistry Building alongside Morgan.
"Be prepared to shoot," Morgan replied simply.
"What no talking them down?" He asked worriedly.
Morgan shook his head. "In my experience, they don't give you that option. So be prepared to shoot or run."
Reid swallowed nervously. "Okay."
Four experienced FBI agents armed with M-4s and covered in protective SWAT gear led the way down the stairs into the basement. They were followed closely by Reid and Morgan, behind them was Elle and Emily, and four other agents were bringing up the rear. They practically tiptoed down over the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. The group halted for the briefest moment as they heard distinct voices echoing throughout the solid concrete walls of the basement.
Morgan and Emily moved up and situated themselves between the leading agents while Reid fell back so that he was walking alongside Elle. They reached the end of the hallway where the only option was a left turn. Reid noted that the voices were very clear and loud now and although they were talking in Arabic, the two suspects sounded like they were arguing.
Emily mouthed, "One…two…three," to the two agents ahead of her and on three they rounded the corner and aimed their guns at the young terrorists. "FBI!" Emily yelled.
The two young men, who had been sitting on the cold, wet floor, jumped to their feet. They looked stunned; this was the last thing that they had expected. Neither of them spoke, instead they exchanged panicked looks.
"FBI! Hands up!" Morgan exclaimed, his eyes never leaving the taller man's torso where he wore a bomb as a belt.
After a moment or two, which felt like forever to those present, one of the young men replied in Arabic. Emily, having fully understood him, looked at him sincerely and responded quietly in his native language.
"What's she saying?" Elle asked Reid almost inaudibly.
The genius shook his head. "I don't know."
Emily spoke once again in Arabic and Morgan anxiously watched the young men's reaction. They got a fearful look in their eyes and violently shook their heads. He also saw the taller one's hand tighten around the remote trigger. The leader of the pair spoke in a menacing voice and Emily instantly turned on her heel and screamed, "Run!"
They did as told and sprinted around the corner and down the long hallway. They were at the top of the stairs when, Emily, the last one to retreat, spoke in a breathless voice. "Wait!"
Morgan turned around and looked at her like she was mentally unstable. "What do you mean wait?"
She took a moment to regain her breath before she responded with another question. "How far do you think we just ran?"
The other agents stared at her blankly while Reid simply answered the question, "That hallway is approximately 60 metres."
Emily nodded. "Yeah, enough time for a bomb to go off." She turned around and started to walk back down the stairs. "I'm going back."
"Em I'm not letting you, what if they're just waiting?" Morgan asked cautiously.
"No," she shook her head, "something's up."
She started to walk back down towards the corner when she felt a hand grasp her arm. When she turned around she saw that it was Morgan. "Fine but I'm going with you," he declared.
Emily gave him a warm smile before she looked up at Elle. "You guys wait outside."
The fellow brunette nodded before her, Reid, and the others resumed walking the route to the side entrance of the building.
Emily walked slowly back down the hallway with her gun held out in front of her and Morgan closely behind. When they stepped out in front of the corner, they saw that the young men were in the same exact position as they had left them. The only exception was that the remote trigger was crushed and lying between their feet. She glanced at Morgan and sighed, "It didn't go off."
"No, it didn't," the shorter man spoke quietly.
Morgan looked at him in shock for a second before he stared him down in an intimidating fashion. "Are there any other bombs?" The young men shook their heads. "Are there any other bombs?" Morgan repeated loudly.
"No!" The tall man exclaimed. "There are no other bombs!" It was then that Morgan realized that although they spoke Arabic, their accents were very thin. They had definitely spent the majority of their young lives, if not all of it, in the United States.
"What about the sawdust? The homemade dynamite?" Morgan inquired.
"It was just a plan to throw you guys off," the shorter one replied meekly.
Emily caught Morgan's attention and nodded. "They're too scared not to be telling the truth."
Morgan nodded in agreement before he placed his gun back in its holster and grabbed his handcuffs. "Got me?"
"I got ya," Emily answered as her gun focused on the shorter young man while Morgan searched the taller one before cuffing him. She tossed Morgan her cuffs and he then proceeded to perform the same routine on the second suspect.
Once the two, young, failed terrorists were apprehended, they slowly made their way outside where Elle and Reid stood waiting nervously.
--
"What do you mean Street doesn't have a head shot?" Hotch asked urgently.
"He doesn't have a head shot," English replied inarticulately.
Hotch took a deep breath before he flicked on his two-way radio and spoke into it, "Gideon?"
His Unit Chief responded quickly, "Yeah, Hotch."
"We have a suspect in the crowd but no clear headshot," Hotch explained.
"Description."
"Tall, Middle Eastern male, business suit, middle of the crowd."
Gideon stood up on his toes and surveyed the crowd. He could not see their suspect. "Nothing."
"Okay Gideon. Over," Hotch ended the conversation disappointedly. He then relayed the same information to Rossi on the other side of the crowd but he could not see the suspect either.
He took another deep breath before he picked up the two-way once again. "JJ?"
"Yeah Hotch," she answered quietly.
"We don't have a clear shot at the suspect so we need another plan and I'm going to walk you through it."
"Okay," she replied trustingly.
"You're going to sneak up behind him, slowly draw your gun, and then take his. Do you think that you can do that?"
She nodded to herself. "Yeah I think so," she said shakily.
"Okay." Hotch said in a calming tone that put her at ease…well a little bit anyway.
JJ tentatively placed a hand on the butt of her gun that was tucked into the back of her dress pants as she stealthily approached the suspect from behind. She smoothly drew her gun and placed it firmly against his temple as she reached up under his suit jacket and took his firearm. "Don't move," she whispered.
Before he had a chance to overtake the petite blonde, two tall, strong looking men were at her side with drawn firearms. He slowly brought his hands to his head and gave them a look of surrender.
JJ let out a sigh of relief as Gideon and Rossi took the man off of her hands. Only then did she notice that very few people had noticed the confrontation. Except for a couple of curious people in close proximity, everyone else in the crowd was still paying close attention to the President's speech. They had accomplished their goal of avoiding mass panic.
--
When the task force agents finally met up at the Pentagon, they were greeted by a relieved Lincoln and Garcia, who gave each of her new friends a tight hug. The three suspects that they had brought in were led upstairs into separate, empty, conference rooms to be questioned on the whereabouts of their fellow cell members. Gideon, Hotch, and Rossi handled the interrogations with Lincoln while the younger agents hung out with Garcia.
"I can't believe you guys had a bomb!" The computer tech exclaimed in disbelief.
Emily laughed lightly, "Yeah, a faulty bomb."
Morgan laughed along with her. "Yeah, a faulty bomb that no one besides those who were there will ever know about."
"It's crazy how very few people know how close we came to an assassinated President and a destroyed university campus with thousands of causalities," Elle said quietly.
"I know," Reid agreed. "Its almost going to feel like it never even happened.
Morgan nodded in agreement also before he turned to JJ and smiled. "I heard that you saved the day."
Blush slowly crept across the blonde's face as she awkwardly tucked her hair behind her ear. "Well I wouldn't say that." When she talked to her boyfriend, he rambled on and on about how scooping another reporter was the greatest feeling in the world, when really he had no idea.
"Modest," Garcia teased.
The six young adults laughed together before they turned to cheerful conversation. Reid was right, it would feel like it never even happened, and that mood was already setting in. All of their hard work and weeks of planning, nervousness, grief, and anxiety were forgotten about. Garcia claimed that they were modern day superheroes who had saved the country, a title that they had laughed off. But right now, they were just friends having a carefree chat.
A/N: Hope you like the way I handled the dangerous situations. Please review! I plan on doing a few more chapters to clue everything up so I hope you'll stick with me. :)