The Crack in The Code - Recap

The episode begins at a Museum, where a tour guide is training new recruits. With her back turned to a Lincoln statue; she observes a look of horror and disgust, on the faces of the recruits looking her way. She turns around, and sees a blood smeared and mutilated remains of a skeleton at the foot of the Lincoln statue, and the cryptic message “Where is the rest of me” written in blood, on the statue. Bones and agent Booth are shown driving down to the scene of crime, whilst discussing her pregnancy. At the scene of crime, Dr. Hodgins informs Bones that it’s about two days ago, that the victim whose skeleton it is, must have died. Based on the how the killer has placed the remains of the vertebrae; Bones assumes the killer is trying to send out a message.

Back at the forensics lab, Bones finds out that the victim was a 20 year old Caucasian girl. It’s also discovered that the vertebra has been sown back together, with human gut being used as a twine, and also that the blood on the skeletal remains isn’t of the victim, but five other people. Dr Sweets and Agent Booth discuss the motivations of the killer. Agent Booth receives a call, informing him that one of the guys in the exterminator crew at the museum has a felony record. At the forensic lab, Dr Hodgins along with his assistant; mulls over the sections of the vertebrae that have been sown together by the killer. In an interrogation room, Agent Booth accompanied by Dr. Sweets questions the guy from the exterminator crew, the guy confesses to there being a blind spot in the CCTV camera coverage, which is used by him to smoke.

This convinces Agent Booth and Dr. Sweets of the fact that the killer must have taken advantage of this very blind spot, to evade detection. Back at the lab Dr Saroyan is shocked to see the results of the DNA tests; all the five victims, whose blood was on the skeletal remains, were FBI agents from the DC field office. Back at the FBI office, a newspaper reporter sniffs around trying to gather more information regarding the present case, as he tries to pry out more information out of Caroline; it’s discovered that he is privy to all the intimate details of the case. Agent Booth walks in and questions the reporter about his source; the reporter remains adamant and doesn’t divulge his source, and is thus driven out by Booth. Caroline is worried that there might be a leak, and warns Agent Booth “you gotta solve this thing fast, or the whole thing might turn out to be your fault”. At a restaurant, Dr Sweets tries to convince Bones to not go in the field, owing to her condition; Bones decides to pay heed to his advice. Back at the lab Dr Hodgins, is trying to unravel the message being sent out; based on the thirteen different sections of the vertebrae sown together by the killer. Back at the FBI office Agent Booth shows Caroline a peppermint box found at the crime scene, inside the box is an electronic circuit that the killer used to disable the security cameras.

Caroline instructs Agent Booth to pull out the files of every geek that the FBI has investigated, in the past few years. Back at the lab, Bones mulls over the marks of injury on the sections of the vertebrae. Back at the FBI office Agent Booth is informed by Dr Sweets, that as per Caroline’s instructions he had gone over the relevant files, and has narrowed down a suspect, his name is Christopher Pelant a hacker with a really high IQ, who has in the past defaced government websites and has been convicted by the FBI on multiple charges; there is only one problem, Christopher Pelant is under house arrest with his every move monitored by an electronic police tag, clamped to his foot. Agent Booth and Dr Sweets go over to Pelant’s house and question him; he informs them that he isn’t a killer but a ‘hactivist’, whose aim is to expose corruption within the government; in the meanwhile Agent Booth receives a call confirming the fact that Pelant is clean, as he never left his house. Back at the lab, Dr Hodgins and Angela discover, that the numbers corresponding to the sections of the vertebrae are, numbers of a zip code, a phone prefix of the Justice Department, and a part of an address. By feeding the information into a computer, they manage to zero in on a location. Based on the information given by Dr Hodgins, Agent Booth and Dr Sweets raid the government facility, and based on the details, Agent Booth opens one particular file cabinet; where the remaining body parts of the victim are discovered, answering the cryptic question posed by the killer.

In the cabinet, Booth and Sweets find files of criminals who have turned FBI informants, and thus haven’t been prosecuted, despite some of the crimes being rather heinous. Back at the lab, Bones, Hodgins and Bray are baffled by signs of injury, both on the inside and the outside of the victims, vertebral bones. Back at the FBI office Caroline is flustered, seeing on television the reporter she had spoken to earlier; what surprises her even more is his knowledge of the FBI files discovered by Agent Booth, Dr Sweets after going through the FBI files, zeroes in on Daniel Cassudo involved in fraud. They decide to meet one of his victims, Sophia Berman whose father was defrauded of his pension fund by Cassudo and had consequently committed suicide. Back at the lab Dr Hodgins detonates a small explosive, inside the mouth of a human replica, in order to determine if such a thing could actually scar the bone of the vertebrae, from the inside. Agent Booth and Dr Sweets meet Sophia Berman at her office; she tells them how she saw her father commit suicide thanks to the FBI not prosecuting Cassudo.

Berman also tells them that she was approached by a Sympathetic report, a few days after the incident. In the meanwhile, Booth receives a call from Angela telling him that the victim has been identified as Inger Johansson. Booth and Sweets pay a visit to the victim’s neighborhood. There, in a Jacuzzi near her house, they find a pool of blood with the rest of the victim’s organs strewn in, and on a nearby wall written in blood, is the message “This won’t stop”. Caroline instructs Booth to bring in the reporter Ezra Krane for questioning. Back at the lab, while Angela and Bray are investigating the possible causes of the internal injury on a computer simulation, a part of the lab catches fire.

Booth has the reporter Kane brought in for questioning. Booth accuses Kane of knowing a bit too much about the murder and the surrounding incidents, and thinks he is a suspect; especially since the reporter time and again has declined to give away his source. Back at the lab it’s discovered that a computer virus written in a bone of the victim caused a system overload when it was scanned by Angela, resulting in the lab fire; a fractal pattern in the bone was used; it turns out that the killer wanted to send out the message that he doesn’t need a computer to do his job. It is also discovered that the victim was killed by a bang stick, causing the injury on the inside of the vertebral bones. Soon after, a man’s body is found hanging from a flag-pole in a park with his face completely destroyed and just like the previous victim, this man too has been murdered with a bang stick, an identification recovered from the body reveals that it’s the reporter Ezra Krane. Angela tells Dr Saroyan that she strongly suspects Christopher Pelant, she suspects that, as the killer is nothing short of a genius, for him to get past an electronic tag clamped to his foot wouldn’t at all be difficult.

In the meanwhile, Caroline informs Saroyan that thanks to a complex procedural glitch, the body of the reporter is on its way to being cremated. Pelant is brought in for questioning, and obviously denies everything, reminding Booth and Sweets of the electronic clamp on his leg. The next few scenes show Pelant who is actually the killer, meticulously carrying out his operations, with scenes showing his modus operandi. The episode ends with Agent Booth bringing Bone into the house he has chosen for them to move into. Bone loves the house, and the both of them end up discussing their future in the house together. The episode ends.

Written By David Sibert

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