akacinno's A/N: A longer chapter, but this is where things will get easier to understand folks. Thanks for hanging in here!

dieselwriter's A/N: Wow, is it Monday again already? Welcome! Welcome! I hope you are ready for some background info!

Chapter Three

Morgan was about four steps in front of Reid and Clarke as they strode to the cars they'd be driving to DC. He was marching quickly, anger in his posture, which was visible to Clarke even from behind.

"Level with me, Spencer," Clarke muttered, low enough that Derek could not hear. "On a scale of one to ten—how stressed is everyone about this case?"

"Not including Garcia…?" Reid trailed off, and Clarke looked ahead.

Garcia had two enormous pink and purple suitcases at the trunk of one of the SUV's. She struggled to pick up the lighter of the two and pushed with her back in attempts to shove the piece of luggage into the vehicle.

"Oh mother of pearl," she breathed, thrusting back against the bag. "Morgan, lend me a strong, capable hand."

Morgan, hardly breaking his pace, picked up the suitcase in one hand and hoisted it into the trunk, immediately followed by the other. He reached up for the handle and Penelope had to jump backwards so as to not be squashed by the door he slammed down with unneeded force.

"An eleven," Reid answered with a sigh and Clarke gave him a half-hearted smile.

"Reid, you and Rossi are with me," Hotch said, appearing behind them and Reid's eyes widened in surprise. Giving Clarke a look, he retreated after Hotch. Clarke, finding Garcia had already called shotgun, took the backseat.

Hotch appeared at Morgan's window just as Clarke shut her door. He rolled the window down and Hotchner handed him a file.

"You two have the task of informing Agent Clarke about the previous case," he said grimly. "We'll discuss the new one when we get there."

"Got it," Morgan spoke tightly and turned the key, the engine coming to life. "See you there."

"Drive safely," Hotch replied, equally as stiff and made his way back to the car.

"You aren't asleep, are you Megan?" Garcia asked, as she opened the folder Hotch had given them.

"No," Clarke retorted, her face red. "I swear, I fall asleep on the plane once and I will never hear the end of it."

"I don't think it's the falling asleep part that everyone's teasing you about," Garcia inserted slyly as Clarke's face burned an even darker shade of scarlet.

"This isn't a long drive," Morgan said seriously, pulling on to the highway. "Start the briefing."

Clarke saw Penelope's face fall and stared at Morgan's profile, knowing he was upset. She looked down at the folder in her lap and opened it. Clarke heard her let out a loaded sigh.

"This was some case," she said heavily. "Are you ready, Megan?"

Clarke nodded. She had been wondering about this case since her first day at the BAU. Now that it was finally here, she felt it a bit unnerving at having it all laid out in front of her.

"Starting from the beginning then," Garcia commenced and Clarke saw Morgan's hand tighten on the steering wheel. "November 30th we received the case from DC. Two victims shot from long distance, directly between the eyes."

She grimaced as she pulled out two photos and handed them back for Clarke's evaluation.

In one picture lay a man in a sheriff's uniform. There was a hole, the size a bit smaller than a dime, in his forehead, blood trickling down into his left unblinking eye. In the other image, a woman was on her side, her arm bent unnaturally behind her body. She too had the same wound in her head, blood splattered on her glasses.

"The man was a sheriff and the woman was a judge," Garcia explained as Morgan glanced up into the mirror, gauging Clarke's reaction. "They were both killed in parking lots as they were leaving work."

"I'm guessing there was no evidence?" Clarke murmured, giving the photos one last once-over before handing them back over to Garcia.

"Not one fingerprint," she said sadly. "Our UnSub hid himself well. Although there was no sign on the bodies of further torment to the victims, their credentials were stolen from them."

"Trophies," Clarke nodded her understanding and Garcia continued down the sheet.

"Upon sifting through their backgrounds," she informed. "I found no connection between the two victims other than the fact that they served as authority figures in their respective fields of work. And as I unearthed that small similarity, my beautiful team came up fruitful while they interviewed the families of the victims. They both had an insatiable hunger for their drug of choice: crack cocaine."

"Corrupt authority figures," Clarke said raising her eyebrows.

"Dirty authority figures," Morgan corrected, anger in his voice as his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel again. Clarke had heard the term once before. Reid had said it reflexively while working on their last case, saying that a victim had a 'dirty record'. Its result had everyone avoiding eye contact and added a layer of tension to the conversation.

Garcia intercepted the uncomfortable silence that would have followed Morgan's resentment quickly.

"As your well-trained-for-profiling mind has probably already surmised," she said lightly to Clarke, contrasting Morgan's bitterness. "This UnSub had a background in military or law enforcement."

"Let me guess," Clarke tried, testing her knowledge. "The UnSub would have to be local, in order to get around the city to study his victims when they were most alone and vulnerable without being detected, cross-referenced those with military or law enforcement careers…and narrowed it by age, because only someone with time and experience in their field could have shot with such precision."

Garcia nodded.

"Very impressive. And very right, for the most part. I also cross-referenced that list with those involved in drug abuse."

"Ahh," Clarke acted wounded. "So close, but forgot the obvious. That's why you're the expert."

"Please," Morgan snapped. "Can we stay focused?"

Clarke's face reddened, feeling childish, but Garcia saved her from embarrassment.

"Relax, sweetness," she said casually. "We have time. Just drive."

He wasn't too thrilled being talked down, but he did not comment further.

"Where were we?" Garcia exhaled. "Oh, right. After I sent the finalized list over, they split up and interviewed sixteen suspects."

Clarke raised her eyebrows.

"That's a lot."

"We had a lot of help from the DC cops," Morgan interjected, his temper seemingly tempered for now. "They were one of the most helpful groups of men and women we've ever worked with. You'll see when we get there, although I'm sure they won't be pleased with why we're there."

"They took about ten suspects between their men," Garcia continued. "And our team split, sharing the remaining suspects. Upon interviewing though, each suspect was cleared. And on top of that disappointing conclusion, another man was killed. A colonel in the military."

"Jeez…," Clarke murmured, taking the new photo Penelope handed back. A man, obvious in his authority, was laying unmoving next to his shiny black BMW. He was slightly gray in his hair, sporting his camouflage uniform, surprise in his expression, and a dark bullet hole in between his large eyes.

Clarke looked to Garcia.

"He was a crack addict?"

Garcia shook her head, to Clarke's surprise.

"A druggie, yes, but not cocaine. His poison was meth."

"We didn't have much to go on," Morgan said as Clarke handed back the photo. "LDSKs are so rare that we only had the standard profile. They are always male, they either revisit the crime scene or take something from the victims, which our guy did."

"And they always contact the media," Garcia said and grimaced.

Clarke took the slight pause and looked between Garcia and Morgan's profiles.

"He didn't?"

"No," Morgan answered. "Our profile was wrong on a lot of things."

"We got extremely lucky though," Garcia said. "We opened up an anonymous tip hotline the same day the third victim was killed. Of course, you always got the paranoid housewife that thought their all-too-laid-back neighbor who liked to borrow their hedge clippers and not return them was the killer," she said matter-of-factly, which made the corners of Clarke's lips twitch upward. "However, we did receive a call from a man who thought he used to know the UnSub. The caller said that this guy, Carl Faison, was in his SWAT division and one of the best snipers that there ever was. And the youngest. He didn't appear in my initial search because of he was exceptionally younger than I expected, 25, and also because he got the Dishonorable Discharge by his SWAT leader Dante Sweathers. Sweathers was, and here's the kicker, a major drug addict."

"Vengeance," Morgan nodded, passing a slow-moving Volkswagen.

"So he killed any person of authority who reminded him of his SWAT leader," Clarke summarized. "Dirty authority figures."

Morgan's eyes narrowed in the rearview mirror on hearing that word.

"I did some research on Carl Faison," Garcia pushed forward. "He didn't stand a chance. Father left his abusive mother and of course she didn't even notice the classic signs of a serial killer in the making, and Faison had them all. He wet the bed, lit his shed in the backyard on fire, and killed his neighbor's dog."

Morgan hissed through his teeth and shook his head sadly.

"I got his address," Garcia said, frowning. "And his mother's address. The DC cops went to question her; we took his apartment."

The conversation suddenly took on a dark tone; the tension in Morgan's jaw could have broken a normal man's molars and Garcia's chin wrinkled with an effort to keep her composure.

"When the cops got to her home…," her voice wavered and Morgan glanced at her.

Looking back at the road, he sighed.

"They found her corpse, mutilated in the bathroom tub," he answered for her and Clarke shivered. "She had been dead for months and no one knew."

A slight pause followed that statement and Garcia pulled herself together.

"He wasn't at the apartment either, but they did find something else that was rather disturbing. Newspaper clippings and photos covered up a wall by his desk. Photos of his victims with large red X's crossing them off…."

"Newspaper articles on them, giving him information on where they worked and helped him plan where he could find them," Morgan said. "There was a sticky note on his desk on top of a million photos, all of the same guy. It wasn't someone we had seen before and we knew immediately that it was the next victim."

He took a steadying breath and Garcia put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing his back softly.

"Prentiss," he said and deliberately turned his head to see if he could get into the left lane. "She's from DC. She knew the place well. As soon as she saw the photos she recognized the building the potential victim was exiting: a law firm. She picked up the sticky note and it said the name of a hotel. We hurried to the law firm and saw that the photos had been taken from the hotel across the street."

Clarke couldn't believe how easily they had found the UnSub after they visited his apartment.

"We went up to the top floor," Morgan's voice darkened as he pulled off the highway. "Me, Rossi, Reid, Hotch, and Prentiss. We didn't know which room he'd be in, so we split up."

He paused, perhaps wanting Garcia to take over, but she couldn't tell this part of the story. It was clear in the way her hand was pressed over her mouth, staring determinedly out the window.

"Prentiss got to the right room," Morgan continued, but his voice hardened. "Faison was inside, facing the window with his gun set up on the stand, pointing to the firm and everything. When she told him to put his hands up and turn around, he obliged. Dynamite was strapped to his body."

Clarke's wide eyes turned to Garcia. She saw her reflection in the window and sadly realized tears falling down her cheeks steadily. She shook her head and turned back to Morgan.

"Hotch told me he could hear her talking to someone. He left the room he was searching and quickly moved to her room, when she slammed the door in his face."

There was an empty silence as Morgan paused to turn left.

"It was a mess. I had to dig Reid out of the debris."

Clarke's breath caught in her throat.

"He was in the room next to the explosion—"

"Wait," Clarke said, shocked. "The UnSub…died?"

Morgan glanced at her in his rearview mirror.

"He didn't survive that, if that's what you're asking. How could he?"

"But…" she was confused. "Garcia, you said he was back?"

Garcia looked at Morgan briefly.

"Let him finish," she said in a thick voice and Clarke too turned to Morgan.

"Yes, he died. Hotch had a few cracked ribs where the door from the room crushed him. Reid's left hand and wrist were both completely shattered. Prentiss…she, well…she barely survived."

"So, she's alive," Clarke breathed, relieved.

"She's still recovering," he answered. "She was practically dead when the medics arrived. They had to restart her heart twice on the way to the hospital. Had to give her over half the blood she lost in her body. Her legs were maimed…she's still in a wheelchair and the doctor's not sure if she'll ever walk again."

Garcia suddenly gave a rattling gasp, putting her face in her hands, and let out a sob. Morgan reached over, as she did to him, and gave a tight squeeze.

So that was the reason why Clarke was here. That was why she was on her way to DC now, and why she was even called to the BAU to begin with. Because an agent was…lost. Unable to work any longer. Sacrificing her quality of life for the job.

Clarke was rendered speechless.

"In the hospital," Morgan interrupted her thoughts. "Hotch was…guilt-ridden. You've noticed the overprotectiveness, yeah?"

Clarke nodded dumbly at him.

"Now you know why. He holds himself accountable—"

"That's crazy," Clarke said automatically. "There's no way that he could have stopped that from happening."

"Of course," he agreed. "Try reasoning with him; it's impossible. He was unable to see past the fact that he was just across the hall. Prentiss asked to speak with him when she woke up in the hospital. She told him that she wasn't angry with him, or even regretful that she was the one to get to the room first. She was actually happy, if you can fathom that, that she was the one that found him and not any of us."

"She's amazing," Garcia sniffed, running her finger under her eyes to fix her running eyeliner.

"She sounds amazing," Clarke confirmed her admiration.

Morgan nodded.

"She told Hotch that she had something important to tell him," he sighed. "Faison was some sort of a…protégé…of someone. Faison had told Prentiss that his 'Master' knew we'd come and had prepared him."

"With dynamite," Garcia laughed harshly.

"I guess the 'Master' couldn't have cared less about what happened to him," he said. "And his protégé was obviously brainwashed. He died for his master. And now," he said, turning into the DC police department parking lot. "We're back where we started. With this 'Master'."

Washington DC Police Department
April 23rd

It was brutally hot as they exited their SUVs. Clarke immediately tied up her hair as to not be ridiculed by the team when it inevitably expanded. There was already a large sweat spot on the back of Morgan's black tee shirt.

"Aaron Hotchner!" came a cheerful voice as everyone pulled out their sunglasses.

The team looked up in surprise at the approaching man.

Clarke thought the man reminded her of a professor she had had back in college. He had an all-over even tan that anyone would die for, sparkling green eyes, a blindingly white smile, and perfectly tousled sandy-blonde hair. However, contrasting the professor, Clarke took an immediate liking to this man.

He reached out a hand with a Rolex watch strapped around his wrist to their Unit Chief.

"It's just a pleasure to see you again," he said with a nod.

Hotch gave an unexpected smile.

"Paige," he returned and turned to his team. "Thomas, you remember Agents Morgan, Rossi, Dr. Reid. This is our newest addition, Agent Megan Clarke, and our Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia. This is Chief of Police Thomas Paige everybody."

"Agent Clarke," he acknowledged with a sunny smile and shook her hand.

"Sir," she said and offered a similar grin. He was a natural Casanova, although he seemed oblivious to it.

"Now that's a show stopping dress!" he said, turning to Garcia. "And it's a wonderful color on you, Miss Garcia."

Penelope smiled back at him and nodded coyly.

"Thank you muchly," she said.

He exhaled and put his hands on his hips.

"So, shall we go inside? Or would you all like third degree sunburns?"

Rossi and Clarke gave a small laugh.

"Actually, we'd have to stand here for an hour or so for just first degree burns. It wouldn't even be possible-"

"Reid?" Hotchner interrupted.

"What?" he asked and then looked around at everyone's blank expressions. Paige was the first to laugh.

"Just a joke there, sport," he said, unperturbed by Reid's cluelessness, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go inside."

Clarke poked Reid with her elbow and Reid gave a questioning frown down at her. She nodded meaningfully and Reid, realizing he had taken the remark too seriously, gave an apologetic grin at her and followed Paige inside.

They entered the gloriously cool entrance and pursued after the Chief of Police until they had entered the room they'd be using.

There was a circular table in the middle, and two rectangular tables against the walls on either side of the center. Garcia immediately took the desk that pressed against the window, placing her giant purse on it.

"Sorry for the cramped space," Paige apologized, frowning around the medium sized room. "It's the largest one we can offer that isn't filled with junk, but it has a cork board for you all to use. I know you like to have one."

"It's perfect, Paige, thank you," Hotchner assured and everyone began to set up—Morgan organizing files from the Carl Faison case, Garcia booting up two laptops at once, Rossi pinning mug shots of the victims on the cork board, and Reid and Clarke glancing over Rossi's shoulders to peak at the pictures. "We'd like to discuss the differences and similarities between this and the last case to confirm or dispel the theory of the same UnSub."

Paige nodded, his cheerful expression disappearing.

"It's going to be a highly emotional case for my team, but I can't imagine what it's like for you all. If there's anything you need, please do not hesitate at all to ask."

"Thanks, Paige," their boss said. "Your hospitality is always appreciated."

Everyone settled down and opened the files of their current case. The faces of Alexander Boyd and Robert Wheeler stared back up at them.

Rossi started.

"This UnSub is taking the victims' lives as they leave for work," he said, putting a fist in front of his mouth and staring down at the pictures with tight eyes. "Headshots, just like the previous case. Only Carl Faison took the shot in between the eyes every time. This guy's taking any headshot he can get."

"He's less skilled than the previous UnSub," Clarke spoke up and Morgan shot a glance at her.

"He cares less about taking the life," Hotch said crossing his arms. "But he has to take the headshot…that's important."

"Why's that?" Clarke wondered.

"It's essential to the 'Master'," Reid said. He was sitting with the file balancing on one leg, his hand propped his head up on the table. "He either can't kill or doesn't want to dirty his hands, so he has his protégé and this other man do it for him, but it must be by his means. They have to take the headshot and take the credentials off the bodies."

"So what are we talking?" Clarke asked, looking at Hotch. "Another protégé? There was a four month period between Faison's death and now. With that time frame, it wouldn't be impossible for him to train or…teach another student, would it?"

"No, not impossible," Reid agreed, lacing his fingers together under his chin. "In order for this 'Master' to effectively convince his students to do his bidding, they'd have to have some sort of emotional scarring. Missing parental figure, no one to look up to, a huge tragedy in their past; something that'd make them take to the 'Master'," Reid looked to Hotch who watched, absorbing this new point of view. "And people with that sort of background that have jobs usually are in military or law enforcement."

"But if our UnSub does have law enforcement background, why is he incapable of taking the shot like Carl Faison?" Rossi asked.

Reid shrugged slightly.

"Maybe the new protégé's not as skilled with a weapon?" he suggested and Hotch exhaled, uncrossing his arms.

"Something's not right with that," he said, shaking his head vaguely. "If the 'Master' went through the effort and risk of acquiring a new student, wouldn't he look for a man who was already an excellent marksman?"

"He couldn't get a hold of a skilled man who could be convinced to kill," Paige proposed and Clarke began to disagree.

"He has to commit to one student," she said and all eyes went to her. "If he would've tried to go for someone who was a great shot, but couldn't persuade them to follow his directions and kill, that person would have contacted the authorities. If he tried with more than one student, we would have heard about it before the murders even started."

"So he just settled with a less-skilled student who he knew would be as subservient as Carl Faison was?" Garcia asked, but Rossi differed.

"This guy doesn't settle," Rossi said shaking his head, like Hotch.

"A hit man," Morgan interrupted, speaking for the first time since they arrived. Everyone glanced toward him. "Hotch, it makes sense. He's not as skilled as Carl Faison because he doesn't have the law enforcement background. He takes the only headshot he can and takes the credentials for the 'Master'. And the Master wouldn't have had to brainwash him, just offer him cash."

As Morgan spoke, everyone began to nod. It made sense, unlike the previous idea.

"Garcia," Hotch called.

"Sir?"

"Can you find anything on hit men?"

Garcia squinted and scrunched her mouth up.

"I can look for recently released men from prison, look for suspicious arrests. But sir, 'hit man' doesn't exactly appear in employment history."

"Perhaps not," Paige said with a short laugh.

"Alright," Hotch concluded, snapping his file shut. "Dave, I'd like you and Garcia to stay here and finish setting up. Morgan, you and Reid will visit Boyd's crime scene and Clarke, you're with me for the newest crime scene."

Hotch then turned on his heel and began heading out the door. Clarke was left wide-eyed and slightly intimidated, staring out the door after her boss as Reid and Morgan both followed him out.

"Hey kid," Rossi called.

Clarke looked up at him and Reid, hesitating in his stride, glanced back as well before continuing uneasily after realizing he was talking to Clarke.

"Time to go," Rossi prompted and Clarke jumped up. Nodding jerkily, she stood and trailed after her boss, leaving behind a smiling Rossi.

akacinno's A/N: LOVE Thomas Paige! : )

dieselwriter's A/N: The amount of editing this chapter required...urgh! I'm so sick of the word 'Master' now... Hope this chapter came out as clean and tidy (if not LONG!) as we wanted! Until next Monday then! ;)