They have a long and proud history of experimenting on prisoners …
Summary: The death of a senator leads the FBI to investigate a prisoner early-release program with ties to the CIA.
Original air date: November 24, 2006 (US)
Written by: Ken Sanzel
Directed by: Oz Scott
Opening numbers:
45: Years
712: Subjects
3: Handguns
911
Family Concepts: (character development)
- Megan speaks and reads French. She learned the language while dating a hockey player.
- Larry was made a backup payload specialist to Johannas Igby for a ISS mission to study cosmic background microwaves in September 2006. When Igby can’t make the mission due to conflicts, Larry is moved up to prime specialist and will be on the shuttle flight scheduled for December 7, 2006. The mission will last six months.
- Alan is in Oakland consulting on a waterfront renovation project
- Charlie and Larry have known each other for fifteen years
- Colby plays chess
- Larry is a recipient of the American Astronomical Society’s Newton Lacey Pierce Award
- Larry: I believe this is my copy of the Quartery Review of Cosmology …
Charlie: Yeah, it is.
Larry: Why are we engaged in combat over it? - Megan: Death from a gunshot wound to the head.
Colby: We needed an autopsy to tell us that? - Don: As file sharing goes, we’re off to a bad start.
- Charlie: No one likes to hear I told you so.
- Colby: A=B=C=D. It’s like one of Charlie’s equations. I can’t believe I just said that.
- Larry: Were I in a less ebulliant frame of mind I might well just bop you in the nose.
- Colby: David, apologize to the man for saving his life.
- Charlie: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Colby: No.
An anonymous tip leads Don’s team to the Quincy Hotel where California State Senator Martin Tallman is giving a speech. The tip claims a man with a gun is going to kill the senator. Don, David and Colby are at the hotel while Megan is at the FBI offices and Charlie and Amita are at CalSci watching the ballroom through a satellite link. Charlie and Megan are able to figure out who in the ballroom is going to kill the senator but before David and Colby can stop him, the suspect opens fire and kills Tallman, then commits suicide.
Looking into the gunman Colby and Megan find evidence the man, Min, was taking speed and also getting a monthly check from the US Army. Don also gets a visit from an Agent Raymond with the CIA who tells Don about experiments using political prisoners as sleeper assassins and offers co-operation. David discovers the gun used to kill the senator was one of three bought in Nevada through a straw purchase and the FBI sets out to find the other guns.
Larry drops a bombshell of his own when he announces he is leaving CalSci for a NASA mission to the International Space Station to study cosmic background microwaves and their affect on NSA satellites. Charlie doesn’t believe Larry will go through with the mission, Megan is very supportive and proud of him.
Before the FBI can make much headway finding the guns from Nevada, a second man, a psychologist named Davis, is killed; this time however the gunman does not succeed in killing himself, and walks away from the scene. Fingerprints found on the gun identify Carlos Costavo, a Cuban refugee, as the shooter. Colby and David track down Carlos who tells them a man named Marcus found him claiming to be a doctor following up on the treatment he, Carlos, received through experiments while in Chino State Prison.
Through research into who accessed Freedom of Information Act records and recognition software, Charlie and Colby are able to identify Lawrence Dryden and the man who is “Marcus”. Don arrests Dryden who claims he is turning the men used in the experiments back on the people who used them as a way to shed light on what the experimental programs are really doing to people. He states the last death he has planned will be so big no one will be able to cover things up any more.
Charlie is able to work out a probable target and shooter. The FBI gets the target into protective custody and David and Colby go looking for the shooter, a man named Gates. They don’t find him, however Don does, in the Army colonel’s house. Gates refuses to put down the gun and before he can shoot the colonel, Don shoots Gates, killing him. Don’s team is set to continue the investigation when Agent Raymond informs them the issue is now a matter of national security and the FBI is off the case.