Perception s01e04 Episode Script
Cipher
Hmm.
Check out this letter to the editor.
Apparently, you're not the only guy who thinks big media and big business are crushing the humanity out of humanity.
I'm gonna crush the humanity out of you if you don't stop talking.
No, seriously.
Sounds like you on one of your rants.
Listen to this.
"When you devote not even a single page to anything other than your" "slavishly fawning so-called 'news ', pandering to corporate advertisers," "you destroy all hope of tomorrow for honest, hardworking Americans".
"Wow! How intriguing, Max".
"Thank you for sharing something you thought would interest me".
"Oh, and thank you so much for the papaya".
"It's delicious".
Actually, it could use a little lime.
You know what? Get it yourself.
- I beg your pardon? - You heard me.
And as of right now, your assistant is officially on strike.
If this is about a raise, you might want to consider a slightly less melodramatic approach.
It's not about the money, Doc.
It's about the working conditions.
Okay, it's about you showing me a little common courtesy.
What are you.
.
Lewicki! All right, all right.
I'll read the damn letter.
Who are you? Oh, uh, I'm afraid my identity is classified, old boy.
You're a hallucination.
Whose assistance you'll require if you have any hope of cracking that code.
What code? Come now, old boy.
Surely you noticed the awkward syntax.
"Slavishly fawning so-called news"? Clearly the words have been twisted around some sort of hidden message.
- Holy sh.
.
- There's my boy.
It's steganography.
Hidden writing.
Look.
If you read every 10th word, look what you get.
"You'll be proud of me".
"Front-page news tomorrow.
One down, four to go".
"The butcher told me where to start".
It's how The French Resistance communicated with British Intelligence during World War II.
.
With messages in the newspaper, right where anybody could see.
French resistance? Wow.
Meanwhile, back on the plane of reality, some of us have work to do.
Think about it, Kate.
What ends up on the front page? - World news, politics.
.
- Or crime.
I'm guessing whoever wrote this is sending a message to an accomplice.
"One down, four to go".
.
That could be.
.
What? Banks to rob or victims to butcher.
Do you think that this might be you.
.
Making connections where possibly there aren't any? What are the chances of every 10th word in some random piece of text making this much sense? Or it could be something completely innocent.
Then why hide it in a code? Look at the guy's name.
.
James Smith.
It's got to be the most common name in America.
It's obviously an alias.
And why use an alias unless you're doing something illicit? All right, look, the letter probably came in via e-mail.
There might be some way to trace the I.
P.
But it could be from an Internet cafe in Singapore.
You're actually taking this seriously? I want to be there when you tell the boss that we're taking on a case that Dr.
Strange found with his secret decoder ring.
Moretti.
What? Okay, we'll be right there.
That was the CPD.
They need our help with a possible terrorist attack.
A lawyer downtown opened up a package and got sprayed in the face with Sarin.
Died before paramedics got there.
Of course, a lawyer, because the butcher told him where to start.
What the hell are you talking about? It's Shakespeare.
.
"Henry VI, part 2".
Dick the butcher says, "first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
A Sarin attack.
That sounds like front-page news to me.
Normally, I open Mr.
Scantlin's mail myself, but there was a box marked "personal".
And, he thought someone sent him a present, so he opened it himself.
And there was a pop, like a firecracker, and some kind of spray came out.
And he started twitching.
I tried to help him but.
.
There's nothing you could have done, Miss Benowitz.
Sarin is more toxic than cyanide.
Can you think of anybody who might have had a reason to do this? Tom was a mensch.
Everybody loved him.
But he was a trial lawyer.
He won a lot of cases.
I mean, the.
.
The losers weren't happy.
There is nothing on the package.
No prints, no return address.
All right, well, we'll talk to his friends, relatives, acquaintances, but I think we should start with his case files.
Farrington v.
Awakama Sushi.
Scantlin got Awakama for 7 mil for a single case of E.
Coli.
Here's something.
Miller v.
Klausner extermination.
Klausner was ordered to pay $70,000 in medical expenses, $1.
4 million punitive.
This could be our guy.
Why him out of all these cases? Sarin's a nerve Agent, but it was originally developed as a pesticide.
An exterminator would have everything he needed to mix up a batch, right on the shelf.
Yeah.
I hate Tom Scantlin.
I built my business from nothing.
Contracts with every school district in the County.
Not bad for a guy who never got past eighth grade, huh? And that S.
O.
B.
took it all away.
Actually, it was a jury of your peers who decided against you.
They decided wrong.
LBJ Elementary had roaches the size of chipmunks.
So my guys sprayed with a very reliable pesticide I imported from Mexico.
Which you had to do because it wasn't yet approved here in the U.
S.
They use that stuff like ketchup on fries South of the border, and no one's complaining.
Someone North of the border sure complained.
One kid cries sick, and his parents get a fast-talking lawyer who sues the crap out of me.
On the news, he made it sound like I deliberately set out to poison schoolchildren.
You know, it's funny that you should mention the news, because there was a letter to the editor in today's paper about how the media is stacked against the little guy.
You might find it interesting.
Go ahead.
Read it.
Sorry, I don't have my reading glasses.
Maybe you don't need to read it because you already know what it says because you wrote it.
What are you talking about? I don't write letters to the papers.
Listen, just because I hated Scantlin doesn't mean that I killed him.
Sorry to interrupt.
I wanted to offer Mr.
Klausner reading glasses.
Yeah, uh, I probably got a different prescription.
All right.
I think I understand what's going on.
Do.
.
Do you have Dyslexia, Mr.
Klausner? How did you.
.
It would help explain why a man as smart as you didn't make it past eighth grade, and why you don't want to read the letter.
It's nothing to be ashamed of.
It just means you're not our man.
Just because he's dyslexic doesn't mean he's innocent.
Probert, for him, words and letters swim around the page.
So, sadly, he avoids reading and writing altogether.
It's not like he suddenly woke up one morning and decided to start communicating by constructing elaborate codes buried inside letters to the editor.
So it's back to the needle-in-a-haystack strategy.
Actually, I've been thinking.
There may be a way to get the needle to come to us.
In his code, the killer says, "you'll be proud of me".
He's looking for approval.
If I write him back, tell him what a great job I think he's doing, maybe he'll talk to me.
You plan on making friends with this lunatic? We're peas in a pod.
"You think you have guts, but all I hear is whining and self-pity".
What are you trying to do, get him to Sarin-gas the whole city? I thought this was supposed to be a fan letter.
Have you considered requesting a new partner? You're just trying to get his attention, right? Exactly.
If he's as smart as I think he is, he'll see the hidden message.
Every 10 words, you said? "Great move".
"I wish I had your guts".
"Just one question".
"Out of all the lying, cheating lawyers, why that one?" "Your friend, kindred spirit".
"Kindred spirit".
I like that.
We should rush a copy of this to the paper so they can get it in tomorrow's edition.
Maybe we could bring it over there in a horse and buggy.
Is that supposed to be funny? Listen, papers have online editions.
I'm just gonna post this as a comment to the original letter, okay? Maybe he's not checking the comments.
Maybe he doesn't even own a computer.
You know, maybe he's like me.
Some people still like the feel of a newspaper in their hands.
What are you, a Luddite? The Luddites were onto something.
You know, studies have shown that people who spend too much time online lose the ability to identify simple emotions expressed in photographs of human faces.
I mean, computers may be the greatest technological advance of the last 100 years, but this whole Internet thing is.
.
Invaluable in making instantaneous contact at crucial times? He answered? What did he say? "Hey, kindred spirit.
Glad to know I'm not alone".
"You'll get your answer tomorrow when the next bastard gets his mail".
"But if you're as smart as I think you are, you can be there when it happens".
What the hell is that? It's another cipher.
He wants to make sure I'm the only one that gets the message.
Can you decipher it? That's a nasty one.
And it's only, what? Six hours before the morning post comes 'round.
Not sure if we can crack it in time.
No.
No.
No.
It's not a Vigenère sequence.
And it's not a polyalphabetic substitution, either.
What the hell is that? What difference does it make if it's not what it is? Traced the I.
P.
address the guy used to send the reply from.
Came up empty.
Code breakers at the NSA come up with anything? Nothing yet.
Well, then he better hurry up, because the Chicago postal workers are about to have their morning coffee! Yeah, do you not think I'm excruciatingly aware of that? I can't.
.
Don't.
.
I can't.
.
I can't do this with everybody hovering around me.
What are you doing here? Thought you could use a little bit of help.
Yeah, you've been a big help.
What fun is there playing a game if the other fellow hasn't got a sporting chance? You're talking in riddles.
I have enough of those.
I'm simply saying it wouldn't be cricket for this fellow to write a code without sending along at least a hint of how to crack it.
You think the killer hid a key within the code itself.
Well, if he had.
.
He'd likely open with it.
.
Wouldn't he? Look at the numbers, Pierce.
Look very closely at the numbers.
What is the relationship between the groups of figures? No.
144.
12.
Squares and their roots.
Well, that's got to mean something.
What? What? Square.
.
Square roots.
Squares.
N.
.
Not "root" like a potato.
A Route.
.
Like a highway! It's a Route cipher.
Squares and their roots.
.
The numbers were the tell.
Squares and their roots.
But the three stood apart, meaning you break each string of letters into three equal rows.
Then you just.
.
You just have to figure out the Route.
It could be up and down columns or in a spiral pattern.
.
Daniel, this is fantastic, but can you just tell me what it says? Here.
"You'd better hurry".
"First Monument Bank.
Call First Monument Bank, have them clear the building and warn their employees not to open any mail.
I'm gonna get an ambulance over there.
Tell them to bring Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride to treat for Sarin.
We're too late.
President of First Monument Bank opened a package 10 minutes ago.
He got blasted with Sarin.
His name's Russ Anderson.
He's on his way to the E.
R.
If I'd been 10 minutes faster, he would not be lying in there on life support.
Daniel, this is not your fault.
Okay, you didn't poison those men.
And we can still catch the guy who did this before he hits someone else.
Have you gotten a hold of Mr.
Anderson's wife? She's on a plane.
She'll be here in an hour.
I don't know if he'll last that long.
Can we talk to him? He's gone into a coma.
That doesn't necessarily mean we can't try to ask him some questions.
Mr.
Anderson, my name is Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
I'm so sorry about what's happened to you.
You've been poisoned.
The Doctors here are doing everything they can to help you.
Your wife is flying in from Colorado right now.
In the meantime, we need your help catching whoever it is that tried to kill you.
I'm gonna ask you a series of questions.
When you want to answer "yes," think about throwing a baseball.
And for "no," think about singing "Happy Birthday".
Do you understand? That's the cerebellum, the region of the brain responsible for hand-eye coordination.
He's thinking about throwing a baseball.
This is extraordinary.
So he's saying "yes".
Do you know who attacked you? That's the medial pre-frontal Cortex.
Where we store our memories of music.
He's thinking about singing "Happy Birthday".
So he's saying "no," he doesn't know who attacked him.
Do you know a lawyer named Thomas Scantlin? "Yes".
Do you know Mr.
Scantlin in a personal capacity? "No".
In a professional capacity? "Yes".
Mr.
Scantlin was attacked yesterday the same way you were.
Do you have any idea why? "Yes".
Mr.
Anderson, I'm gonna ask you to spell out that reason.
I'll run through the alphabet letter by letter.
.
And when I say a letter that's correct, I want you think about throwing that baseball.
Do you understand? Okay.
Here we go.
"A".
.
"D".
.
"E".
.
"E".
Got it.
"Da-foe".
"Dafoe".
I mean, it could be a last name.
Is that right, Mr.
Anderson? Is Dafoe somebody that you.
.
Code! Clear! Clear! His heart's stopped.
It's over.
Time of death, 10:47 P.
M.
Mr.
Dafoe, thank you for coming in.
Of course.
Yeah.
I just can't believe Russ Anderson's dead.
He had children.
Tom Scantlin, too.
You were friends? More business acquaintances, really.
A lunch or two a year and share a table at a charity event, that sort of thing.
We asked Mr.
Anderson if he had any idea why he and Mr.
Scantlin were targeted, and the only thing he could give us before he died was your name.
My name? Wait, you don't think I had something to do with.
.
No.
No.
The killer seems to have a grievance against powerful men.
Your being the C.
E.
O.
of a Global agricultural conglomerate certainly puts you in that club.
But the killer's also made it clear that he has three more victims on his list.
Oh, my God.
What we need to do now is determine what possibly connects the three of you so we can get a better idea of who this killer might be.
Well, Chicago's ultimately a small town.
We've done so much business together over the years.
Did any of that business screw somebody so badly that they'd want to see all three of you fat cats dead? I.
.
I'm sorry, who are you again? Sorry.
This is Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
He's a special consultant helping the FBI with this case.
He gets a little passionate sometimes.
What he's trying to ask is, could any of your dealings with Mr.
Scantlin or Anderson have possibly given anyone motive for murder? Well, Scantlin's firm drew up the I.
P.
O.
that we did last year, and a division of Anderson's bank handled the offering.
And what about that would have set someone off? We had to lay off 13 executives and about 250 low-level employees.
Sure, nothing like a little corporate downsizing to pump up the stock price.
Getting your fiscal house in order is standard before an I.
P.
O.
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? No, you can't.
All right, well, we're gonna need a list of those 263 employees, including the low-level ones.
Another needle in another haystack.
Meanwhile, the killer could be at The Post Office, dropping his next delivery down the mail slot.
I'll send him another fan letter.
Maybe he'll send me another clue.
Maybe this time I'll figure it out fast enough.
All right, I'll log back onto the thread.
Okay.
Uh, no code this time.
.
Just message.
Uh, "now I understand".
"You're downsizing the bastards the same way they downsized you".
"Who's next? Yours, kindred".
Okay.
It's sent.
Now we just got to hope that he's monitoring the thread.
I'm pretty sure he's monitoring.
Four.
.
Three.
.
Two.
.
"You're not as smart as I thought you were.
You don't understand me at all".
"I'm finished with you.
Goodbye".
Daniel, what are you doing here? Why aren't you helping Kate? I.
.
I couldn't.
.
I couldn't think in that place.
You know, I.
.
I had to talk to you.
How can I help? I thought I'd made a connection to the killer.
You know, but I.
.
I must have guessed wrong about his motive, and now.
.
Now he's cut me out.
Did you try contacting him again? Not until I have a better guess.
But if he's not angry about being downsized, what is it? You hear those sirens? It sounds like it's right next door.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
I work.
.
I work here.
Kate? What the hell is going on? Let me know when you get it.
Okay, Daniel, listen.
It was Sarin again.
It was packed in a canister like the others with a charge to release the gas when the package was opened.
- Who opened it? - Nobody.
Looks like it was dropped and went off accidentally.
The victim was Kelly Owens.
She was working part-time in the faculty mail room.
Oh, that poor girl.
And her parents.
Well, obviously she wasn't the target.
Who was the package addressed to? Mailing label was incinerated in the explosion.
We don't know.
Actually, I'm pretty sure we do.
Our mad scientist here made the paper.
What? "Anonymous sources report that Dr.
Daniel Pierce of CLMU" "has been helping the FBI decipher the killer's coded messages".
He found out his kindred spirit's talking to the cops.
"Anonymous sources".
What, have you been blabbing to the press? Me? There's dozens of agents working on this case.
And if you think that I would jeopardize my career to get your name in the paper, you're crazier than I thought.
Listen, there will be an investigation into the leak.
What matters now is that you're in danger.
No, no, I don't buy it.
I don't buy it.
This guy's a methodical killer with an urgent agenda.
He's not gonna waste time on some detour just because he finds out I'm not his best friend.
We need to err on the side of caution.
I'm taking you home and having you guarded, all right? - What? - Come on.
No, no, I don't want some stranger lurking around my house.
Okay, fine.
It'll have to be someone who you already know.
You got cable? That package wasn't meant for me.
Daniel, maybe you don't want to accept it because then you'd have to take responsibility for what happened to that poor girl.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
I.
.
I responsible.
I mean, if I'd caught the killer already, that girl.
.
Sorry to interrupt.
Do you mind? Oh, I thought you were talking to someone.
What do you want? Mustard.
What? You know, Grey Poupon, yellow? I'm making a sandwich.
Lewicki! Yes.
Would you get the good Agent some mustard? Uh, I'm on strike, remember? Lewicki, I don't have time for this.
Then I suggest you say "please".
And I suggest you get the damn mustard.
Fine.
But not because you ordered me to.
.
Because I'm a nice person.
Right this way.
If the package wasn't for you, who was it for? I don't now.
Someone on campus who is somehow connected to Anderson, Scantlin, and Dafoe.
Well, let's take them one at a time.
What field is Dafoe in? He's a C.
E.
O.
.
Where the hell is my faculty directory? In here, under the gong.
Under the gong.
College of agriculture.
Arthur Wei.
.
Holds the distinguished Frederick James Dafoe professorship of genetic engineering.
Probert! Can I help you? I'm Dr.
Daniel Pierce, Department of Neuroscience.
This is Agent Probert of the FBI.
FBI? What's this about? This conversation is private.
I assume you heard about Kelly Owens, the girl who died on campus today? Yeah, it's terrible.
It should have been you.
- Excuse me? - You were the target.
What's your connection to Frederick Dafoe, apart from the fact that you hold a chair generously endowed by his foundation? What the hell is this? Look, either you talk to me, or I get that guy out there to phone his buddies at the Bureau, and then it's the handcuffs, the all-night interrogation, sweating in a damp cell until you finally break and spill it anyway.
All in all, I'd say your best bet is talking to me.
Now, what did you do for Frederick Dafoe that got you the endowed chair? I'm an agricultural geneticist.
I created a new strain of corn for his company.
Why would someone try to kill you for that? Look, while I was working on the gene.
.
I realized there was a possibility.
.
Of a troubling collateral effect.
What "collateral effect"? My strain of corn was genetically dominant.
If the seed blew into the neighboring farm.
It would wipe out the native corn and take over the other farmer's field.
I was trying to re-engineer the seed so it could achieve harmony with the other strains.
But Dafoe ordered me not to.
Why? At the time, I didn't know it, but once the gene spread to the neighboring farms, Dafoe started suing the farmers for selling his corn.
.
My corn.
.
To the consumer.
On what grounds? Copyright infringement.
He held the patent on the gene.
He sued them for selling a strain of corn that blew in on the wind? Are you kidding me? Look, they didn't realize they were growing it.
A lot of them went into foreclosure.
Oh.
Of course.
Let me guess.
.
Dafoe started buying up their farms on the cheap.
I went to Dafoe.
I told him if he doesn't drop the suits, I would inform the Department of Agriculture that he'd planned the whole thing.
Right, and then he offered you the endowed chair and maybe a little grant money as a kicker.
Look you're a scientist.
You know how hard it is to get funding.
.
Spare me that crap.
You took your 30 pieces of silver, and those farmers lost everything.
No, you don't understand.
No, I think I understand just fine.
.
Professor.
Kevin Lang, Cal Bowden, Ray Donaldson.
.
Any of these names mean anything to you, Mr.
Dafoe? Uh, no, I've never heard of them.
Of course not.
You got lawyers for that.
Lang, Bowden, and Donaldson were three of the farmers whose lives you ruined when you sued them for copyright infringement for unknowingly taking corn containing the Dafoe gene to market.
That gene was patented.
Yeah, and designed to obliterate every cornstalk in its path.
Scantlin handled the lawsuits, and then Anderson fast-tracked the farms to foreclosure, so you could snap up those properties for pennies on the dollar.
Yes, that's called good business.
U.
S.
Attorney's gonna call it conspiracy to commit fraud.
All right, listen, Sweetie, I'm not gonna say another word to you without a lawyer present.
That's fine.
But in the meantime.
.
The killer is still out there.
It's a pretty good bet that you are on his list.
So I suggest you tell us which of the farmers you ruined might be doing this.
Okay, there was an incident at the shareholders meeting.
A very angry man stormed into the room, yelling threats and obscenities, and he had to be escorted out.
I need a name.
I don't know.
Maybe my security people might have it.
Look.
.
Are you going to be able to keep me safe? Oh, yeah.
U.
S.
Marshals will protect you.
After all, we wouldn't want anything happening to you before you can start serving your sentence.
Got the name of the farmer that stormed the shareholder meeting and threatened Dafoe.
.
Paul Levasseur.
Great.
Let's go pick him up.
He's serving 8 to 10 in Stateville Prison.
Been there three months.
Not our guy.
But maybe he can tell us who is.
How do you figure that? Why did the killer put his message in a newspaper? Maybe because he was sending it to somebody whose letters get opened and read before they're delivered.
Someone in prison.
My great-great-grandfather homesteaded that land.
My family.
.
Farmed it for 100 years.
After the lawsuit, I tried other things to get by.
Sold tractors.
Dug ditches for the County.
Nothing stuck.
So you robbed a bank.
Just trying to keep my family above water.
Losing the farm, seeing me behind bars.
.
Broke my wife's heart.
She hung herself nine weeks ago.
I'm so sorry.
Listen, Mr.
Levasseur, we're here to talk to you about your son, Eddie.
The coded message in the newspaper.
.
He put that there for you, didn't he? "Front-page news".
Just like he said.
I tried to call him after I read about Scantlin.
But his phone was turned off.
You could have called the police.
I know I should have, but.
.
He was your boy.
You couldn't bear to turn him in.
After.
.
After this all went down, something in him broke.
But I swear to you, he's a good boy.
A brilliant boy.
Finished college in three years.
Couldn't wait to get started in on his PHD.
But he had to drop out after you lost the farm.
I couldn't send him a dime.
He's been teaching high-school math in Harvey.
Actually, he hasn't been there in over a month.
He hasn't been back to his apartment, either.
We need to find him before someone else dies.
Do you have any idea where he is? There's a.
.
There's a place he used to like to go to think.
On the back acreage of our old farm.
Look at this.
He knew we were coming.
"Hey, kindred, my life's an open book".
"When you crack this one, you'll know everything".
"But search your mind".
"Do you really want to stop me?" What is it with this guy? First he blows you off, then he leaves you another clue? He wants to avenge the injustice done to his Father and the other farmers, but he did not mean to kill an innocent college student, so maybe he's feeling guilty or conflicted.
Some part of him wants to get caught.
Let's give him what he wants.
"My life's an open book".
"Open book".
It's a book cipher.
Look, the numbers are in groups of three.
The first one corresponds to a page number in a particular book, the second one.
.
Second number to.
.
To a line on that page, and the third number to a word in that line.
You find the words, you put them together, you get your message.
- What book? - It could.
.
It could be any book in the world.
You're not listening, old boy.
He's telling you everything you need to know.
What do you mean? What are you talking about? I didn't say anything.
"Search your mind," Pierce.
I am.
I am.
It's not helping! Daniel, you all right? Yeah.
Don't.
.
Don't worry about me.
Okay? I'm f.
.
Fine.
Just don't worry about.
.
Me.
You need to take me home.
This is our key.
"The Mind: Knowing The Unknowable".
By Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
I love this book.
- But what do you.
.
- He's not saying "search your mind".
He's saying "search your mind".
- He means the title of your book.
- Yeah.
Go to page.
.
Second line, third word.
"Today".
Page 57.
"Family".
"Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
"Destroy the villain".
Who's he talking about? It's got to be Dafoe.
I mean, he's.
.
He's the main villain in this whole sordid story.
Dafoe is in protective custody.
How's the killer gonna destroy him there? There are a million ways to destroy someone whose only priority is profits.
I mean, you could take out their processing plants, or their warehouses or their grain elevators.
Yeah, it's a huge company.
We don't have the manpower to protect every one of his facilities.
But we can try.
Just get the boss on the phone.
A word with you, old chap? What do you want? "Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
Yeah.
So? Perhaps there's another code buried in the message itself.
Daniel, you don't have to listen to him.
Each letter represents a number.
You don't need his help.
Perhaps it's an address.
You've cracked the ciphers.
Now it's about cracking Eddie.
What do you mean? What did Dafoe do that really hurt him? Did he take away his farm, his livelihood.
.
Or something more important to him? I love you, Natalie Vincent.
I did it.
I.
.
I solved the riddle.
- I know what Eddie's doing.
- So do we.
Our agents found a truck bomb full of fertilizer just outside Dafoe headquarters.
What? No.
No, no, no.
That's a decoy.
Remember the original message.
.
"One down, four to go".
That makes five victims.
Now Eddie's telling us.
.
"Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
H.
.
His Father's in prison, his Mother took her own life, all because of Dafoe.
Three of the victims are dead.
Who are the last two? Dafoe's parents.
He's in there with the Dafoes.
Question is, what's he waiting for? He's waiting to talk to me.
Want to give this a try? No, it's got to be face-to-face.
Daniel, you're not going in there.
He told me how to find him.
He must have something to say to me.
All right, well, I'm going in with you.
And you're wearing a wire so SWAT can hear what's going on.
Look, if you can get him in front of a window, one of my snipers can take him out.
Uh, Eddie.
.
I'm Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
May I come in? Just him.
And if you or anyone else so much as rattles this doorknob, I press this button, and we all go up together.
Do you understand? - Daniel.
- I.
.
I can do it.
There's a way out of this, Eddie.
There's no other way out for me.
If you believe that.
.
Then why did you tell me where to find you? I mean, the puzzles were clever but.
.
You knew I'd be able to solve them.
Yeah.
I wanted you here.
.
Because you said you were my kindred spirit, and I wanted to believe that there was someone out there who understood me.
But you've been working for the cops the whole time.
You're gonna have to die with me.
Get him out of there right now! No, if we storm in there, he pushes the button.
Your guy's all on his own.
You know, I knew I was taking a risk when I came through that door but uh.
.
- I came anyway.
- Why? Because I am your kindred spirit.
- Bullshit.
- No, it's true.
Yeah, I'm working for the cops, but I believe in what you're fighting for, Eddie.
I hate lawyers, Eddie, and .
.
And.
.
And corporations and the way they screw over hardworking, honest people.
What Scantlin and Anderson and the rest of those bastards did to your family.
.
Is unforgivable.
It's.
.
It's evil.
I understand why you'd want to make them pay.
I do.
- But these people didn't do anything.
- Yes, they did.
They raised a monster.
They raised a son that has no conscience at all.
And your Father raised you, and you do have a conscience.
And that's the real reason that you brought me here, isn't it? Because deep down, you want me to stop you from - killing anyone else.
- You're wrong.
You started this, Eddie, because you wanted to make your Father proud of you.
He still can be.
Nobody else has to die.
You've already finished the job.
What are you talking about? Dafoe and Wei are going to jail.
You're lying.
No, I'm not.
Thanks to you, I figured out what they were doing to your Father and the other farmers.
The U.
S.
Attorney is gonna indict them.
There'll be lawsuits, Eddie.
Some of those farmers will get their land back.
It's too late for my Father and me.
Well, maybe you could still be together.
How? In hell? I'll talk to the U.
S.
Attorney about having you sentenced to Stateville.
I promise.
Now.
.
Why don't you put down that detonator and.
.
Let's walk out of here together.
If I go out there, the only cell they're gonna put me in is one on Death Row.
And I deserve to die.
I killed an innocent girl.
Yeah, and you can pay for that crime, Eddie, but not with your life.
There were mitigating circumstances.
You were traumatized by what Dafoe and his cabal did to your family, and I'll testify to that.
You lied to me before.
How do I know you're not lying to me now? I got the shot, Sir.
Take it.
Eddie, get away from that window! God! Why the hell did you do that, huh? Why didn't you just let them kill me? Because I meant what I said, Eddie.
Nobody else has to die.
I could still push this button.
Yeah, you can.
But I don't think you're going to.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
What the hell is going on? Hold your fire! Hold your fire! He's surrendering! He left the detonator inside! Go! Go! Go! Go! You did the right thing, Eddie.
Daniel! - Are you okay? - Yep.
You sure? Yeah.
That.
.
That could have gone a whole different way.
I knew you were crazy.
I didn't know you were that crazy.
Yeah.
Me neither.
What is a conscience? Is it something we can locate on an MRI? Studies have shown that people with damage to the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex are actually more willing to sacrifice a human life as long as they perceive that it's for some greater good.
But what about people who have no trouble sacrificing others to their own selfish ends? Is heartless cruelty our true nature? And empathy the aberration? My Grandmother used to say, "it's nice to be nice".
And that may be true.
Or are we better off spending every waking moment tending our own selfish needs? The good news is, it turns out there's an evolutionary advantage to simple human kindness.
We couldn't get through a cold paleolithic winter without a little cooperation.
Still, on some prehistoric level we're all lone hunters.
So it can feel dangerous to show any softness to other members of the tribe.
But if we manage to lay down our clubs and our sharpened rocks, answering the call of the altruistic imperative.
.
Can be its own reward.
Check out this letter to the editor.
Apparently, you're not the only guy who thinks big media and big business are crushing the humanity out of humanity.
I'm gonna crush the humanity out of you if you don't stop talking.
No, seriously.
Sounds like you on one of your rants.
Listen to this.
"When you devote not even a single page to anything other than your" "slavishly fawning so-called 'news ', pandering to corporate advertisers," "you destroy all hope of tomorrow for honest, hardworking Americans".
"Wow! How intriguing, Max".
"Thank you for sharing something you thought would interest me".
"Oh, and thank you so much for the papaya".
"It's delicious".
Actually, it could use a little lime.
You know what? Get it yourself.
- I beg your pardon? - You heard me.
And as of right now, your assistant is officially on strike.
If this is about a raise, you might want to consider a slightly less melodramatic approach.
It's not about the money, Doc.
It's about the working conditions.
Okay, it's about you showing me a little common courtesy.
What are you.
.
Lewicki! All right, all right.
I'll read the damn letter.
Who are you? Oh, uh, I'm afraid my identity is classified, old boy.
You're a hallucination.
Whose assistance you'll require if you have any hope of cracking that code.
What code? Come now, old boy.
Surely you noticed the awkward syntax.
"Slavishly fawning so-called news"? Clearly the words have been twisted around some sort of hidden message.
- Holy sh.
.
- There's my boy.
It's steganography.
Hidden writing.
Look.
If you read every 10th word, look what you get.
"You'll be proud of me".
"Front-page news tomorrow.
One down, four to go".
"The butcher told me where to start".
It's how The French Resistance communicated with British Intelligence during World War II.
.
With messages in the newspaper, right where anybody could see.
French resistance? Wow.
Meanwhile, back on the plane of reality, some of us have work to do.
Think about it, Kate.
What ends up on the front page? - World news, politics.
.
- Or crime.
I'm guessing whoever wrote this is sending a message to an accomplice.
"One down, four to go".
.
That could be.
.
What? Banks to rob or victims to butcher.
Do you think that this might be you.
.
Making connections where possibly there aren't any? What are the chances of every 10th word in some random piece of text making this much sense? Or it could be something completely innocent.
Then why hide it in a code? Look at the guy's name.
.
James Smith.
It's got to be the most common name in America.
It's obviously an alias.
And why use an alias unless you're doing something illicit? All right, look, the letter probably came in via e-mail.
There might be some way to trace the I.
P.
But it could be from an Internet cafe in Singapore.
You're actually taking this seriously? I want to be there when you tell the boss that we're taking on a case that Dr.
Strange found with his secret decoder ring.
Moretti.
What? Okay, we'll be right there.
That was the CPD.
They need our help with a possible terrorist attack.
A lawyer downtown opened up a package and got sprayed in the face with Sarin.
Died before paramedics got there.
Of course, a lawyer, because the butcher told him where to start.
What the hell are you talking about? It's Shakespeare.
.
"Henry VI, part 2".
Dick the butcher says, "first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
A Sarin attack.
That sounds like front-page news to me.
Normally, I open Mr.
Scantlin's mail myself, but there was a box marked "personal".
And, he thought someone sent him a present, so he opened it himself.
And there was a pop, like a firecracker, and some kind of spray came out.
And he started twitching.
I tried to help him but.
.
There's nothing you could have done, Miss Benowitz.
Sarin is more toxic than cyanide.
Can you think of anybody who might have had a reason to do this? Tom was a mensch.
Everybody loved him.
But he was a trial lawyer.
He won a lot of cases.
I mean, the.
.
The losers weren't happy.
There is nothing on the package.
No prints, no return address.
All right, well, we'll talk to his friends, relatives, acquaintances, but I think we should start with his case files.
Farrington v.
Awakama Sushi.
Scantlin got Awakama for 7 mil for a single case of E.
Coli.
Here's something.
Miller v.
Klausner extermination.
Klausner was ordered to pay $70,000 in medical expenses, $1.
4 million punitive.
This could be our guy.
Why him out of all these cases? Sarin's a nerve Agent, but it was originally developed as a pesticide.
An exterminator would have everything he needed to mix up a batch, right on the shelf.
Yeah.
I hate Tom Scantlin.
I built my business from nothing.
Contracts with every school district in the County.
Not bad for a guy who never got past eighth grade, huh? And that S.
O.
B.
took it all away.
Actually, it was a jury of your peers who decided against you.
They decided wrong.
LBJ Elementary had roaches the size of chipmunks.
So my guys sprayed with a very reliable pesticide I imported from Mexico.
Which you had to do because it wasn't yet approved here in the U.
S.
They use that stuff like ketchup on fries South of the border, and no one's complaining.
Someone North of the border sure complained.
One kid cries sick, and his parents get a fast-talking lawyer who sues the crap out of me.
On the news, he made it sound like I deliberately set out to poison schoolchildren.
You know, it's funny that you should mention the news, because there was a letter to the editor in today's paper about how the media is stacked against the little guy.
You might find it interesting.
Go ahead.
Read it.
Sorry, I don't have my reading glasses.
Maybe you don't need to read it because you already know what it says because you wrote it.
What are you talking about? I don't write letters to the papers.
Listen, just because I hated Scantlin doesn't mean that I killed him.
Sorry to interrupt.
I wanted to offer Mr.
Klausner reading glasses.
Yeah, uh, I probably got a different prescription.
All right.
I think I understand what's going on.
Do.
.
Do you have Dyslexia, Mr.
Klausner? How did you.
.
It would help explain why a man as smart as you didn't make it past eighth grade, and why you don't want to read the letter.
It's nothing to be ashamed of.
It just means you're not our man.
Just because he's dyslexic doesn't mean he's innocent.
Probert, for him, words and letters swim around the page.
So, sadly, he avoids reading and writing altogether.
It's not like he suddenly woke up one morning and decided to start communicating by constructing elaborate codes buried inside letters to the editor.
So it's back to the needle-in-a-haystack strategy.
Actually, I've been thinking.
There may be a way to get the needle to come to us.
In his code, the killer says, "you'll be proud of me".
He's looking for approval.
If I write him back, tell him what a great job I think he's doing, maybe he'll talk to me.
You plan on making friends with this lunatic? We're peas in a pod.
"You think you have guts, but all I hear is whining and self-pity".
What are you trying to do, get him to Sarin-gas the whole city? I thought this was supposed to be a fan letter.
Have you considered requesting a new partner? You're just trying to get his attention, right? Exactly.
If he's as smart as I think he is, he'll see the hidden message.
Every 10 words, you said? "Great move".
"I wish I had your guts".
"Just one question".
"Out of all the lying, cheating lawyers, why that one?" "Your friend, kindred spirit".
"Kindred spirit".
I like that.
We should rush a copy of this to the paper so they can get it in tomorrow's edition.
Maybe we could bring it over there in a horse and buggy.
Is that supposed to be funny? Listen, papers have online editions.
I'm just gonna post this as a comment to the original letter, okay? Maybe he's not checking the comments.
Maybe he doesn't even own a computer.
You know, maybe he's like me.
Some people still like the feel of a newspaper in their hands.
What are you, a Luddite? The Luddites were onto something.
You know, studies have shown that people who spend too much time online lose the ability to identify simple emotions expressed in photographs of human faces.
I mean, computers may be the greatest technological advance of the last 100 years, but this whole Internet thing is.
.
Invaluable in making instantaneous contact at crucial times? He answered? What did he say? "Hey, kindred spirit.
Glad to know I'm not alone".
"You'll get your answer tomorrow when the next bastard gets his mail".
"But if you're as smart as I think you are, you can be there when it happens".
What the hell is that? It's another cipher.
He wants to make sure I'm the only one that gets the message.
Can you decipher it? That's a nasty one.
And it's only, what? Six hours before the morning post comes 'round.
Not sure if we can crack it in time.
No.
No.
No.
It's not a Vigenère sequence.
And it's not a polyalphabetic substitution, either.
What the hell is that? What difference does it make if it's not what it is? Traced the I.
P.
address the guy used to send the reply from.
Came up empty.
Code breakers at the NSA come up with anything? Nothing yet.
Well, then he better hurry up, because the Chicago postal workers are about to have their morning coffee! Yeah, do you not think I'm excruciatingly aware of that? I can't.
.
Don't.
.
I can't.
.
I can't do this with everybody hovering around me.
What are you doing here? Thought you could use a little bit of help.
Yeah, you've been a big help.
What fun is there playing a game if the other fellow hasn't got a sporting chance? You're talking in riddles.
I have enough of those.
I'm simply saying it wouldn't be cricket for this fellow to write a code without sending along at least a hint of how to crack it.
You think the killer hid a key within the code itself.
Well, if he had.
.
He'd likely open with it.
.
Wouldn't he? Look at the numbers, Pierce.
Look very closely at the numbers.
What is the relationship between the groups of figures? No.
144.
12.
Squares and their roots.
Well, that's got to mean something.
What? What? Square.
.
Square roots.
Squares.
N.
.
Not "root" like a potato.
A Route.
.
Like a highway! It's a Route cipher.
Squares and their roots.
.
The numbers were the tell.
Squares and their roots.
But the three stood apart, meaning you break each string of letters into three equal rows.
Then you just.
.
You just have to figure out the Route.
It could be up and down columns or in a spiral pattern.
.
Daniel, this is fantastic, but can you just tell me what it says? Here.
"You'd better hurry".
"First Monument Bank.
Call First Monument Bank, have them clear the building and warn their employees not to open any mail.
I'm gonna get an ambulance over there.
Tell them to bring Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride to treat for Sarin.
We're too late.
President of First Monument Bank opened a package 10 minutes ago.
He got blasted with Sarin.
His name's Russ Anderson.
He's on his way to the E.
R.
If I'd been 10 minutes faster, he would not be lying in there on life support.
Daniel, this is not your fault.
Okay, you didn't poison those men.
And we can still catch the guy who did this before he hits someone else.
Have you gotten a hold of Mr.
Anderson's wife? She's on a plane.
She'll be here in an hour.
I don't know if he'll last that long.
Can we talk to him? He's gone into a coma.
That doesn't necessarily mean we can't try to ask him some questions.
Mr.
Anderson, my name is Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
I'm so sorry about what's happened to you.
You've been poisoned.
The Doctors here are doing everything they can to help you.
Your wife is flying in from Colorado right now.
In the meantime, we need your help catching whoever it is that tried to kill you.
I'm gonna ask you a series of questions.
When you want to answer "yes," think about throwing a baseball.
And for "no," think about singing "Happy Birthday".
Do you understand? That's the cerebellum, the region of the brain responsible for hand-eye coordination.
He's thinking about throwing a baseball.
This is extraordinary.
So he's saying "yes".
Do you know who attacked you? That's the medial pre-frontal Cortex.
Where we store our memories of music.
He's thinking about singing "Happy Birthday".
So he's saying "no," he doesn't know who attacked him.
Do you know a lawyer named Thomas Scantlin? "Yes".
Do you know Mr.
Scantlin in a personal capacity? "No".
In a professional capacity? "Yes".
Mr.
Scantlin was attacked yesterday the same way you were.
Do you have any idea why? "Yes".
Mr.
Anderson, I'm gonna ask you to spell out that reason.
I'll run through the alphabet letter by letter.
.
And when I say a letter that's correct, I want you think about throwing that baseball.
Do you understand? Okay.
Here we go.
"A".
.
"D".
.
"E".
.
"E".
Got it.
"Da-foe".
"Dafoe".
I mean, it could be a last name.
Is that right, Mr.
Anderson? Is Dafoe somebody that you.
.
Code! Clear! Clear! His heart's stopped.
It's over.
Time of death, 10:47 P.
M.
Mr.
Dafoe, thank you for coming in.
Of course.
Yeah.
I just can't believe Russ Anderson's dead.
He had children.
Tom Scantlin, too.
You were friends? More business acquaintances, really.
A lunch or two a year and share a table at a charity event, that sort of thing.
We asked Mr.
Anderson if he had any idea why he and Mr.
Scantlin were targeted, and the only thing he could give us before he died was your name.
My name? Wait, you don't think I had something to do with.
.
No.
No.
The killer seems to have a grievance against powerful men.
Your being the C.
E.
O.
of a Global agricultural conglomerate certainly puts you in that club.
But the killer's also made it clear that he has three more victims on his list.
Oh, my God.
What we need to do now is determine what possibly connects the three of you so we can get a better idea of who this killer might be.
Well, Chicago's ultimately a small town.
We've done so much business together over the years.
Did any of that business screw somebody so badly that they'd want to see all three of you fat cats dead? I.
.
I'm sorry, who are you again? Sorry.
This is Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
He's a special consultant helping the FBI with this case.
He gets a little passionate sometimes.
What he's trying to ask is, could any of your dealings with Mr.
Scantlin or Anderson have possibly given anyone motive for murder? Well, Scantlin's firm drew up the I.
P.
O.
that we did last year, and a division of Anderson's bank handled the offering.
And what about that would have set someone off? We had to lay off 13 executives and about 250 low-level employees.
Sure, nothing like a little corporate downsizing to pump up the stock price.
Getting your fiscal house in order is standard before an I.
P.
O.
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right? No, you can't.
All right, well, we're gonna need a list of those 263 employees, including the low-level ones.
Another needle in another haystack.
Meanwhile, the killer could be at The Post Office, dropping his next delivery down the mail slot.
I'll send him another fan letter.
Maybe he'll send me another clue.
Maybe this time I'll figure it out fast enough.
All right, I'll log back onto the thread.
Okay.
Uh, no code this time.
.
Just message.
Uh, "now I understand".
"You're downsizing the bastards the same way they downsized you".
"Who's next? Yours, kindred".
Okay.
It's sent.
Now we just got to hope that he's monitoring the thread.
I'm pretty sure he's monitoring.
Four.
.
Three.
.
Two.
.
"You're not as smart as I thought you were.
You don't understand me at all".
"I'm finished with you.
Goodbye".
Daniel, what are you doing here? Why aren't you helping Kate? I.
.
I couldn't.
.
I couldn't think in that place.
You know, I.
.
I had to talk to you.
How can I help? I thought I'd made a connection to the killer.
You know, but I.
.
I must have guessed wrong about his motive, and now.
.
Now he's cut me out.
Did you try contacting him again? Not until I have a better guess.
But if he's not angry about being downsized, what is it? You hear those sirens? It sounds like it's right next door.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
I work.
.
I work here.
Kate? What the hell is going on? Let me know when you get it.
Okay, Daniel, listen.
It was Sarin again.
It was packed in a canister like the others with a charge to release the gas when the package was opened.
- Who opened it? - Nobody.
Looks like it was dropped and went off accidentally.
The victim was Kelly Owens.
She was working part-time in the faculty mail room.
Oh, that poor girl.
And her parents.
Well, obviously she wasn't the target.
Who was the package addressed to? Mailing label was incinerated in the explosion.
We don't know.
Actually, I'm pretty sure we do.
Our mad scientist here made the paper.
What? "Anonymous sources report that Dr.
Daniel Pierce of CLMU" "has been helping the FBI decipher the killer's coded messages".
He found out his kindred spirit's talking to the cops.
"Anonymous sources".
What, have you been blabbing to the press? Me? There's dozens of agents working on this case.
And if you think that I would jeopardize my career to get your name in the paper, you're crazier than I thought.
Listen, there will be an investigation into the leak.
What matters now is that you're in danger.
No, no, I don't buy it.
I don't buy it.
This guy's a methodical killer with an urgent agenda.
He's not gonna waste time on some detour just because he finds out I'm not his best friend.
We need to err on the side of caution.
I'm taking you home and having you guarded, all right? - What? - Come on.
No, no, I don't want some stranger lurking around my house.
Okay, fine.
It'll have to be someone who you already know.
You got cable? That package wasn't meant for me.
Daniel, maybe you don't want to accept it because then you'd have to take responsibility for what happened to that poor girl.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
I.
.
I responsible.
I mean, if I'd caught the killer already, that girl.
.
Sorry to interrupt.
Do you mind? Oh, I thought you were talking to someone.
What do you want? Mustard.
What? You know, Grey Poupon, yellow? I'm making a sandwich.
Lewicki! Yes.
Would you get the good Agent some mustard? Uh, I'm on strike, remember? Lewicki, I don't have time for this.
Then I suggest you say "please".
And I suggest you get the damn mustard.
Fine.
But not because you ordered me to.
.
Because I'm a nice person.
Right this way.
If the package wasn't for you, who was it for? I don't now.
Someone on campus who is somehow connected to Anderson, Scantlin, and Dafoe.
Well, let's take them one at a time.
What field is Dafoe in? He's a C.
E.
O.
.
Where the hell is my faculty directory? In here, under the gong.
Under the gong.
College of agriculture.
Arthur Wei.
.
Holds the distinguished Frederick James Dafoe professorship of genetic engineering.
Probert! Can I help you? I'm Dr.
Daniel Pierce, Department of Neuroscience.
This is Agent Probert of the FBI.
FBI? What's this about? This conversation is private.
I assume you heard about Kelly Owens, the girl who died on campus today? Yeah, it's terrible.
It should have been you.
- Excuse me? - You were the target.
What's your connection to Frederick Dafoe, apart from the fact that you hold a chair generously endowed by his foundation? What the hell is this? Look, either you talk to me, or I get that guy out there to phone his buddies at the Bureau, and then it's the handcuffs, the all-night interrogation, sweating in a damp cell until you finally break and spill it anyway.
All in all, I'd say your best bet is talking to me.
Now, what did you do for Frederick Dafoe that got you the endowed chair? I'm an agricultural geneticist.
I created a new strain of corn for his company.
Why would someone try to kill you for that? Look, while I was working on the gene.
.
I realized there was a possibility.
.
Of a troubling collateral effect.
What "collateral effect"? My strain of corn was genetically dominant.
If the seed blew into the neighboring farm.
It would wipe out the native corn and take over the other farmer's field.
I was trying to re-engineer the seed so it could achieve harmony with the other strains.
But Dafoe ordered me not to.
Why? At the time, I didn't know it, but once the gene spread to the neighboring farms, Dafoe started suing the farmers for selling his corn.
.
My corn.
.
To the consumer.
On what grounds? Copyright infringement.
He held the patent on the gene.
He sued them for selling a strain of corn that blew in on the wind? Are you kidding me? Look, they didn't realize they were growing it.
A lot of them went into foreclosure.
Oh.
Of course.
Let me guess.
.
Dafoe started buying up their farms on the cheap.
I went to Dafoe.
I told him if he doesn't drop the suits, I would inform the Department of Agriculture that he'd planned the whole thing.
Right, and then he offered you the endowed chair and maybe a little grant money as a kicker.
Look you're a scientist.
You know how hard it is to get funding.
.
Spare me that crap.
You took your 30 pieces of silver, and those farmers lost everything.
No, you don't understand.
No, I think I understand just fine.
.
Professor.
Kevin Lang, Cal Bowden, Ray Donaldson.
.
Any of these names mean anything to you, Mr.
Dafoe? Uh, no, I've never heard of them.
Of course not.
You got lawyers for that.
Lang, Bowden, and Donaldson were three of the farmers whose lives you ruined when you sued them for copyright infringement for unknowingly taking corn containing the Dafoe gene to market.
That gene was patented.
Yeah, and designed to obliterate every cornstalk in its path.
Scantlin handled the lawsuits, and then Anderson fast-tracked the farms to foreclosure, so you could snap up those properties for pennies on the dollar.
Yes, that's called good business.
U.
S.
Attorney's gonna call it conspiracy to commit fraud.
All right, listen, Sweetie, I'm not gonna say another word to you without a lawyer present.
That's fine.
But in the meantime.
.
The killer is still out there.
It's a pretty good bet that you are on his list.
So I suggest you tell us which of the farmers you ruined might be doing this.
Okay, there was an incident at the shareholders meeting.
A very angry man stormed into the room, yelling threats and obscenities, and he had to be escorted out.
I need a name.
I don't know.
Maybe my security people might have it.
Look.
.
Are you going to be able to keep me safe? Oh, yeah.
U.
S.
Marshals will protect you.
After all, we wouldn't want anything happening to you before you can start serving your sentence.
Got the name of the farmer that stormed the shareholder meeting and threatened Dafoe.
.
Paul Levasseur.
Great.
Let's go pick him up.
He's serving 8 to 10 in Stateville Prison.
Been there three months.
Not our guy.
But maybe he can tell us who is.
How do you figure that? Why did the killer put his message in a newspaper? Maybe because he was sending it to somebody whose letters get opened and read before they're delivered.
Someone in prison.
My great-great-grandfather homesteaded that land.
My family.
.
Farmed it for 100 years.
After the lawsuit, I tried other things to get by.
Sold tractors.
Dug ditches for the County.
Nothing stuck.
So you robbed a bank.
Just trying to keep my family above water.
Losing the farm, seeing me behind bars.
.
Broke my wife's heart.
She hung herself nine weeks ago.
I'm so sorry.
Listen, Mr.
Levasseur, we're here to talk to you about your son, Eddie.
The coded message in the newspaper.
.
He put that there for you, didn't he? "Front-page news".
Just like he said.
I tried to call him after I read about Scantlin.
But his phone was turned off.
You could have called the police.
I know I should have, but.
.
He was your boy.
You couldn't bear to turn him in.
After.
.
After this all went down, something in him broke.
But I swear to you, he's a good boy.
A brilliant boy.
Finished college in three years.
Couldn't wait to get started in on his PHD.
But he had to drop out after you lost the farm.
I couldn't send him a dime.
He's been teaching high-school math in Harvey.
Actually, he hasn't been there in over a month.
He hasn't been back to his apartment, either.
We need to find him before someone else dies.
Do you have any idea where he is? There's a.
.
There's a place he used to like to go to think.
On the back acreage of our old farm.
Look at this.
He knew we were coming.
"Hey, kindred, my life's an open book".
"When you crack this one, you'll know everything".
"But search your mind".
"Do you really want to stop me?" What is it with this guy? First he blows you off, then he leaves you another clue? He wants to avenge the injustice done to his Father and the other farmers, but he did not mean to kill an innocent college student, so maybe he's feeling guilty or conflicted.
Some part of him wants to get caught.
Let's give him what he wants.
"My life's an open book".
"Open book".
It's a book cipher.
Look, the numbers are in groups of three.
The first one corresponds to a page number in a particular book, the second one.
.
Second number to.
.
To a line on that page, and the third number to a word in that line.
You find the words, you put them together, you get your message.
- What book? - It could.
.
It could be any book in the world.
You're not listening, old boy.
He's telling you everything you need to know.
What do you mean? What are you talking about? I didn't say anything.
"Search your mind," Pierce.
I am.
I am.
It's not helping! Daniel, you all right? Yeah.
Don't.
.
Don't worry about me.
Okay? I'm f.
.
Fine.
Just don't worry about.
.
Me.
You need to take me home.
This is our key.
"The Mind: Knowing The Unknowable".
By Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
I love this book.
- But what do you.
.
- He's not saying "search your mind".
He's saying "search your mind".
- He means the title of your book.
- Yeah.
Go to page.
.
Second line, third word.
"Today".
Page 57.
"Family".
"Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
"Destroy the villain".
Who's he talking about? It's got to be Dafoe.
I mean, he's.
.
He's the main villain in this whole sordid story.
Dafoe is in protective custody.
How's the killer gonna destroy him there? There are a million ways to destroy someone whose only priority is profits.
I mean, you could take out their processing plants, or their warehouses or their grain elevators.
Yeah, it's a huge company.
We don't have the manpower to protect every one of his facilities.
But we can try.
Just get the boss on the phone.
A word with you, old chap? What do you want? "Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
Yeah.
So? Perhaps there's another code buried in the message itself.
Daniel, you don't have to listen to him.
Each letter represents a number.
You don't need his help.
Perhaps it's an address.
You've cracked the ciphers.
Now it's about cracking Eddie.
What do you mean? What did Dafoe do that really hurt him? Did he take away his farm, his livelihood.
.
Or something more important to him? I love you, Natalie Vincent.
I did it.
I.
.
I solved the riddle.
- I know what Eddie's doing.
- So do we.
Our agents found a truck bomb full of fertilizer just outside Dafoe headquarters.
What? No.
No, no, no.
That's a decoy.
Remember the original message.
.
"One down, four to go".
That makes five victims.
Now Eddie's telling us.
.
"Today I destroy the villain the same way the villain destroyed my family".
H.
.
His Father's in prison, his Mother took her own life, all because of Dafoe.
Three of the victims are dead.
Who are the last two? Dafoe's parents.
He's in there with the Dafoes.
Question is, what's he waiting for? He's waiting to talk to me.
Want to give this a try? No, it's got to be face-to-face.
Daniel, you're not going in there.
He told me how to find him.
He must have something to say to me.
All right, well, I'm going in with you.
And you're wearing a wire so SWAT can hear what's going on.
Look, if you can get him in front of a window, one of my snipers can take him out.
Uh, Eddie.
.
I'm Dr.
Daniel Pierce.
May I come in? Just him.
And if you or anyone else so much as rattles this doorknob, I press this button, and we all go up together.
Do you understand? - Daniel.
- I.
.
I can do it.
There's a way out of this, Eddie.
There's no other way out for me.
If you believe that.
.
Then why did you tell me where to find you? I mean, the puzzles were clever but.
.
You knew I'd be able to solve them.
Yeah.
I wanted you here.
.
Because you said you were my kindred spirit, and I wanted to believe that there was someone out there who understood me.
But you've been working for the cops the whole time.
You're gonna have to die with me.
Get him out of there right now! No, if we storm in there, he pushes the button.
Your guy's all on his own.
You know, I knew I was taking a risk when I came through that door but uh.
.
- I came anyway.
- Why? Because I am your kindred spirit.
- Bullshit.
- No, it's true.
Yeah, I'm working for the cops, but I believe in what you're fighting for, Eddie.
I hate lawyers, Eddie, and .
.
And.
.
And corporations and the way they screw over hardworking, honest people.
What Scantlin and Anderson and the rest of those bastards did to your family.
.
Is unforgivable.
It's.
.
It's evil.
I understand why you'd want to make them pay.
I do.
- But these people didn't do anything.
- Yes, they did.
They raised a monster.
They raised a son that has no conscience at all.
And your Father raised you, and you do have a conscience.
And that's the real reason that you brought me here, isn't it? Because deep down, you want me to stop you from - killing anyone else.
- You're wrong.
You started this, Eddie, because you wanted to make your Father proud of you.
He still can be.
Nobody else has to die.
You've already finished the job.
What are you talking about? Dafoe and Wei are going to jail.
You're lying.
No, I'm not.
Thanks to you, I figured out what they were doing to your Father and the other farmers.
The U.
S.
Attorney is gonna indict them.
There'll be lawsuits, Eddie.
Some of those farmers will get their land back.
It's too late for my Father and me.
Well, maybe you could still be together.
How? In hell? I'll talk to the U.
S.
Attorney about having you sentenced to Stateville.
I promise.
Now.
.
Why don't you put down that detonator and.
.
Let's walk out of here together.
If I go out there, the only cell they're gonna put me in is one on Death Row.
And I deserve to die.
I killed an innocent girl.
Yeah, and you can pay for that crime, Eddie, but not with your life.
There were mitigating circumstances.
You were traumatized by what Dafoe and his cabal did to your family, and I'll testify to that.
You lied to me before.
How do I know you're not lying to me now? I got the shot, Sir.
Take it.
Eddie, get away from that window! God! Why the hell did you do that, huh? Why didn't you just let them kill me? Because I meant what I said, Eddie.
Nobody else has to die.
I could still push this button.
Yeah, you can.
But I don't think you're going to.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
What the hell is going on? Hold your fire! Hold your fire! He's surrendering! He left the detonator inside! Go! Go! Go! Go! You did the right thing, Eddie.
Daniel! - Are you okay? - Yep.
You sure? Yeah.
That.
.
That could have gone a whole different way.
I knew you were crazy.
I didn't know you were that crazy.
Yeah.
Me neither.
What is a conscience? Is it something we can locate on an MRI? Studies have shown that people with damage to the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex are actually more willing to sacrifice a human life as long as they perceive that it's for some greater good.
But what about people who have no trouble sacrificing others to their own selfish ends? Is heartless cruelty our true nature? And empathy the aberration? My Grandmother used to say, "it's nice to be nice".
And that may be true.
Or are we better off spending every waking moment tending our own selfish needs? The good news is, it turns out there's an evolutionary advantage to simple human kindness.
We couldn't get through a cold paleolithic winter without a little cooperation.
Still, on some prehistoric level we're all lone hunters.
So it can feel dangerous to show any softness to other members of the tribe.
But if we manage to lay down our clubs and our sharpened rocks, answering the call of the altruistic imperative.
.
Can be its own reward.