| “ | You are a fool if you think they're gonna put me in prison with all that I know. | ” |
— Hawks
| ||
Bruno Hawks is a former CIA Deputy Director of Operations, as well as a spy, cop killer, torturer, and budding serial killer who appeared in the Season One episode of Criminal Minds, "Secrets and Lies".
Background[]
Hawk's background is unspecified, although it is mentioned that he did military service with Gideon. His adult children are unaware of his profession as a CIA agent. Gideon also replies that he has spent his entire life striving for his father's approval and trying not to make the same mistakes that he did. At the time of the episode, he is the Deputy Director of Operations in the CIA's counterterrorism unit and has done extensive fieldwork in Europe and the Middle East. At some point during his career, he encountered Hassan Nadir, a Saudi diplomat who also funded terrorist organizations, and entered a kind of alliance with him. Nadir regularly abused his wife Aaliyah both physically and sexually. She made a deal with the CIA to become an informant in exchange for protection for her and her children. They faked her death by car accident. Later, Hawks informed Hassan of the truth. A CIA agent, John Summers, noticed the Agency had a mole and ordered a psych evaluation of the four senior agents who could be the mole. It was carried out by Gideon who later met Summers in a parking lot.
Secrets and Lies[]
Since Summers knew too much about Hawks' and Nadir's connection, they abduct and torture him for information on Aaliyah's whereabouts, but fail to extract any from him. Hawks snaps his neck and leaves the body there. The CIA later finds it and makes it look like a suicide by shotgun. Upon reading about the "suicide" in the newspaper, Gideon calls Hawks over to discuss it. He reveals the existence of a mole in the Agency and asks Gideon to help them find out who it is in order to find out exactly what he knows. Despite Hawks' initial disapproval, he calls in the rest of the BAU. They narrow it down to him and the agents Gina Sanchez, Kruger Spence, and Olivia Hopkins. After watching a recording of Summers' conversation with Gideon, they deduce that Aaliyah and her children are hidden in a shipping container. Meanwhile, Hawks kills Hopkins when she looks through his economics and plants evidence to implicate Spence, who is detained by the BAU. Nadir then finds Aaliyah and confronts her. When the CIA's thermal imaging satellite view finds Aaliyah, they have a helicopter prepared and send Morgan and Sanchez with it after Gideon clears her. When they arrive and hold up Nadir, he claims diplomatic immunity. Morgan points out that since the container hasn't gone through Customs, it is not technically U.S. soil, something Summers had planned in order to render Nadir's immunity useless.
Sanchez then holds her gun to Morgan's head and brings everyone out in the open. Calling Hawks, she requests orders. He orders her to kill him in order to save himself. When the visual feed is turned off, a number of gunshots are heard. Gideon confronts Hawks and exposes him as the mole. He points out that he has no proof with Nadir dead. It turns out that Sanchez has figured Hawks out and only fired into the air. When Hawks and the BAU learn this, Hawks hands his gun to Gideon and arrogantly claims that he won't be imprisoned because he has too much information. He then taunts Gideon by claiming the money he earned through his work with Nadir should be enough to retire him to a beach somewhere and suggests that the consequences of catching him would be much harder to live with than he thought before being taken away. Soon after, Gideon is seen reading a newspaper and putting it away, shocked. The headline claims that Hawks was killed in a car accident, leaving it uncertain whether the CIA had him killed and arranged his death or took him into protective custody and faked his death.
Modus Operandi[]
Hawks killed John Summers and Olivia Hopkins by snapping their necks. Summers was also tortured prior to being killed. Being in the CIA, he may have done more assassinations in the line of duty, but nothing specific about his job has been revealed.
Profile[]
The unsub has what the CIA classifies a Type A personality: overachieving, highly adaptable, well-educated, and practically unshakable. He is also fairly manipulative and has since long ago accepted that he or she will be executed if caught. Life means nothing to the unsub, not those of his/her colleagues or family, not even his/her own. He/she has most likely suffered some recent stressor which caused him/her to abandon his/her beliefs.
Gideon's profile of Hawks isn't completely correct, however: while Hawks was indeed fairly manipulative, for example, he did not believe he would be executed if he was caught, telling Gideon at one point, "You are a fool if you think they're gonna put me away with all I know." The part about life meaning nothing to Hawks (not even his own) did not seem to be correct either, as he surrendered his weapon peacefully when he was arrested, which isn't likely behavior from a man whose life meant nothing to him.
Real-Life Comparison[]
Bruno seems to have been heavily based from real-life spy Robert Hanssen - Both were United States government agents whom spied on behalf of a foreign official/agency and were the subject of a combined CIA-FBI probe that used criminal profiling to identify the mole. This probe initially zeroed in an innocent officer as the suspect, much like in the episode. Also, just like Hanssen, Hawks led the task force assembled to identify himself, and he was speculated to have betrayed his organization for ideological reasons but was determined in the end to have done it purely out of profit.
Known Victims[]
- 2006:
- April 28: Agent John Summers (tortured by him and Hassan before being killed)
- May 2:
- Agent Olivia Hopkins (broke her neck).
- Hassan Nadir (attempted; ordered Gina Sanchez to shoot him)
Notes[]
Hawks is very similar to Bill Haydon, a fictional British spy from John le Carré's novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Both were high-ranking members of their respective agencies, were presented as affable, were part of a restricted circle of suspects, and had a friendly relationship with an agent (Jason Gideon in the episode) who eventually uncovered them. Also, both eventually died because of their treason (Hawks' fate, however, remains uncertain). Haydon was in turn inspired by an infamous British Intelligence mole: Kim Philby.
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ He is officially classified as deceased from a car accident