That’s not the scariest part, it’s not the same product every time …
Summary: Over-the-counter medications have caused several seizures in the LA area over a two week period, Don’s team is called in to investigate the connection
Original air date: November 25, 2005 (US)
Written by: Ken Sanzel
Directed by: Jefery Levy
Opening numbers:
375,000: Medications
675: Billion dollars
4: Drugs
1: Manifesto
Family Concepts: (character development)
- Charlie drinks beer
- Colby is from Winchester, Idaho
- Edgerton was a sniper legend in Afghanistan
- Edgerton is an artist
- Larry loves to read
- Edgerton is the Bureau’s best tracker
- Larry and Megan have lunch together
- Alan: Another person might think that our educational system has failed you completely, Charlie.
- Charlie: It’s not like I can whip up a magic formula for every simple problem.
- Colby: As a law enforcement officer, I shouldn’t be this shocked at how many people shop lift.
- Colby: You don’t exactly mind if I don’t take your word for it.
- Charlie: You’re welcome to whatever scraps [of my brain] my brother leaves behind.
- Colby: [on Ian Edgerton] He’s the bastard son of Clint Eastwood and Yoda.
- Alan: I’ve been to your [Don’s] apartment. You don’t have enough floorspace period.
- Don: She [Megan] could also kick his ass, but he doesn’t know that.
The FBI has been called in to help with what looks like a wide-spread product tampering case; several over the counter medications have been the cause of stroke-like complications in otherwise healthy people. As Don’s team starts to dig into the case, however, they realize something else is going on, a pharmaceutical company that made the ingredient the medications injected with may be the target, not the public.
Both the company and the FBI and FDA agree to keep the case out of the press for the moment, that is fruitless however when the tamperer gives a ten part manifesto to a local free paper. Larry borrows Charlie’s copy of the manifesto and realizes the person who wrote it is a gifted chemist, what’s more intriguing is the tamperer sent the manifesto from Sibley, California a small mountain town that is recently famous for having a federal fugitive on the run for the past seven months, a man accused of killing a federal negotiator who was part of an investigation into tainted beef. The manifesto even mentions the fugitive, Bob McHugh, as another victim of Graybridge Pharmaceuticals, apparently the company knew their product was unsafe, but convinced the FDA to let them continue to produce it anyway.
Colby and David travel to Sibley to meet with the agents looking for McHugh and find Ian Edgerton has been called in to help with the search. Edgerton explains a little of McHugh’s history and also supplies David and Colby with a drawing of their tamperer. Megan is able to use the drawing and the fact the tamperer is a chemist to find a match in a fired Graybridge employee, Mark Braut. Security tapes from stores that sold tampered products show Braut entering and leaving several of the stores; they also show he was followed by a Bill Yardley, a security specialist hired by Graybridge. Before anyone can find Braut and talk to him, he is killed.
Don and Charlie head to Sibley to see if they can find McHugh. They find evidence McHugh has been back to his ranch several times, but when they try to talk to McHugh’s wife she is unwilling to cooperate. Megan does some checking into McHugh and finds he may be the last existing piece of evidence against Graybridge as he ate his own beef, the tainted antibiotic that infected his cattle is still in McHugh’s bloodstream. Don and Edgerton track McHugh to a hillside overlooking the local dump. Edgerton also finds Bill Yardley nearby with a rifle aimed at McHugh, when he refuses to lay down the gun and instead starts to fire, Edgerton kills Yardley.
McHugh hides in the dump that is also full of unused ordinance from military maneuvers. Megan just arrived from the LA office goes in to talk to McHugh. She explains about the tainted beef and that the FBI now knows McHugh didn’t shoot the negotiator either, McHugh had been set up by Yardley in the hopes he, McHugh would be killed in the fire-fight.