410 Chinese Box

Maybe now someone will tell me why I was being watched …

Summary: A member of Don’s team is held hostage in the FBI headquarters building.

Original air date: December 14, 2007 (US)

Written by: Ken Sanzel

Directed by: Dennis Smith

Opening numbers:

25: Years
500: Hours of video
2.4: Gigahertz
2: Player game


Family Concepts: (character development)

  • Liz is leaving Don’s team to go back to Narcotics
  • Megan and Larry are back together and planning to go back East together
  • David has an older sister (was not specific if this was Linda or another sister.)

Episode Quotes:

  • Charlie: If we were to stand here for several hours … [watching elevators]
    Alan: Saved by the bell!

 


Episode Synopsis:

A quiet morning at the FBI building ends when Ben Blakley, an FBI contractor crashes a security checkpoint and starts shooting.  He hits one FBI agent and takes a woman hostage in an open elevator car.  David and Megan are downstairs and David offers himself as a hostage if Blakely lets the woman go.  Blakely agrees.

An FBI SWAT team led by Tim King is called in and Don wants to make sure other options are tried before an assault on the elevator car is tried.  Don calls Blakely through the elevator system, but communication soon breaks down and Blakely cuts the camera feed in the car.  David starts talking to Blakely to find out what’s motivated his attack on the FBI building.  Blakely keeps saying the FBI  is following him and spying on him, he also says the agent in charge of this is Max Devane, the agent he shot in the lobby.

Megan and Liz go to the hospital to interview Devane and find out Blakely had been hired by Devane to help with an organized crime case.  Both walk out of the interview feeling like something else is going on and Megan decides it’s time to find out more about Ben.  She discovers he’s divorced and his only child died in a car accident seven years before.  According to his ex-wife, Blakely doesn’t do much other than his work and he’s always been paranoid about his privacy.

Megan and Liz go to Blakely’s loft and find evidence to support Ben’s claim he is being followed.  Don calls Blakely to tell him they know he’s telling the truth about the surveillance and to come out so they can figure out who’s behind it.  Blakely states the man behind it is Devane and he wants to know why.  He also doesn’t trust that Don will actually follow through with the investigation that the FBI will try to cover things up.

Charlie and Alan are at the FBI offices for a photo shoot set up by Charlie’s publicist.  Charlie says he can figure out who was following Blakely using inverse geometry.  Charlie also convinces Don he has to give the negotiation of the situation back to David.  Alan seeing the plans for the elevator system gives Don an idea on how to distract Blakely so the FBI SWAT team can move in.  The plan backfires however and David is shot, the bullet stopped by his bulletproof vest.

Megan and Liz find Jonas Grover another surveillance specialist and the man who has been following Blakely.  Grover says he was hired by one of the candidates for governor to find out who was spying on his campaign headquarters.  When confronted, Devane admits he had Blakely watch and record the rival candidate as he was about to retire from the FBI and had been hired by the current governor to assist with his reelection campaign.