The Mysteries Of Laura (2014) s02e08 Episode Script
The Mystery of the Ghost in the Machine
You did not.
I so did.
He was disgusting.
Now he's disgusting and bleeding.
I am so tweeting that.
A little change? - Ew.
- Go.
I don't think this is the street.
It is.
The review said you're on this super grim block and then you walk through a random door and suddenly you're rolling in hot guys and whiskey sours.
It's retro.
I have to hurl.
You're fine.
Good evening, Detective.
Dead young man here took three rounds to the torso.
One lodged in his shoulder, two to the abdomen.
So this guy was driving with multiple gunshot wounds? Indeed he was and yet the blood soaked interior of this otherwise quite choice Ferrari California does not contain any expended rounds.
No gunshots in the glass either.
Must have taken his lumps outside the car and then got in to try to escape.
We will process and forward the shoulder slug to ballistics, see if we can luck into a hit in the system.
As for your victim, cheap old phone but but no wallet or ID on his person, of course we will run prints and check for DNA.
It's a burner phone, can't trace calls or texts.
Did you adjust the seat? We did not.
Car is registered to William Davis.
I don't think this is William.
Enlighten me? The front seat isn't positioned for someone that tall.
Besides sports cars are usually driven by teeny guys compensating for their teeny Roger that.
Maybe we're looking at a botched carjacking.
Owner's packing heat, fires away, jacker takes the car anyway and runs.
Guy's dressed pretty slick for a violent crime.
More like he was out clubbing.
- No ID, no credit cards? - I don't have all the answers.
Let's try and figure out where he was driving from.
Well, based on the estimated blood loss, I'd say no farther than a mile or so.
Based on the car's GPS, I'd say Isn't this supposed to make your life easier? I was going to push that button next.
Exactly 1.
7 miles from here and we have an address.
Yeah, that Ferrari pulled up about an hour ago.
Douchebag expected me to let him leave it right out front like he Jeter or something I sent him to the garage like everybody else.
This the guy? Oh, hell, no! He's a dumpy, hairy, short white guy with glasses, a mini Seth Rogen.
- What'd I say! - Compensating.
Might also be packing a big-ass gun.
When did you last see this guy? Should still be in there.
Anyone else with him? No.
Solo.
Go on in.
I'll waive the cover.
Gee, thanks, man.
Straight ahead.
I think we found our mini Seth Rogen.
Hands up! Do us all a favor and stop dancing or whatever that is? Spread your legs, Travolta.
What is this? I didn't do anything.
Yeah? He's clean.
We heard you had a run in with a guy when you dropped off your car, Mr.
Davis? Bill! The bartender calls these gummy bears.
They're sweet like you.
You know him? We just met.
What about my car? Come find me after.
Caley! Great! So much for that! Wait, so she was buying you drinks? Shouldn't it be the other way round? She picked me up.
No offense.
But when someone like her picks up a guy like you, there's usually more to the story.
It happens.
- Ma'am? - Excuse me! Did you just see her just do that? What does she think she's doing? - I really got to go.
- No, ma'am! You can't What the hell! Who are you texting, Caley? __ Ricky.
You've got some 'splaining to do.
You are out of service for five minutes.
Clear everyone out.
Oh, go use the men's room.
They could double up.
Out! Wild guess.
Ricky is your partner in the auto theft business.
Spill it.
FYI, prison bathrooms don't have attendants or doors.
Have you never seen Orange Is the New Black? I'm not his partner.
He'd scout the garage waiting for a good mark, um, a single guy in a fancy car and when he got one, I'd follow the guy, lift his keys, get him sauced and hand the keys off to Ricky.
Ricky can't hotwire a car? What kind of thief is this guy? The car's worth way more with the key, that's why he needs me.
After the handoff, I'd stall the guy while Ricky delivers to a cooling spot.
Where the car's LoJack is deactivated.
Ricky said it's a victimless crime.
No one gets hurt except the insurance company.
Well, Ricky spoke too soon.
He's dead.
I knew something was up.
He's supposed to text me when he gets done.
We meet up.
I get paid.
But tonight it took too long.
What's Ricky's last name? I barely know the guy.
But I pick up my cut at his place.
Help me out, Ricky.
Does this seem like a car thief's apartment to you? No mail, no computer.
No TV even.
Who lives like this? Nothing but beer.
Isn't that a guy thing? No, no.
I mean nothing, like no ketchup, no Chinese takeout soy sauce.
Okay, this is weird.
Ricky's entire wardrobe is autumn.
No summer shorts or winter jackets.
This feels more like a temporary rental than someone's home.
Yeah.
It is kind of strange.
Ammo, professional grade gun oil.
He was trained around firearms.
This guy's some kind of ghost.
You hear something? More like feel something.
Deja vu.
What is it? What's in there? Our dead guy was an undercover cop.
Place reminded me of my crash pad back when I was undercover.
The instructors always taught all of us ghosts, "You've got to keep a badge on hand in case you have to identify yourself "when a bust goes down.
" Something that dangerous to your cover has got to be hidden.
That is when I learned that the sink trap is pretty much foolproof.
Your party girl Caley bought the victim's legend hook, line and sinker.
She had no idea he was on the job.
Well, someone did.
You don't just happen upon three bullets to the torso.
And all it takes is one slip up.
Is that what happened here? Ricky, whoever he is, slipped up? And by Ricky, we mean Detective John Campbell.
I just hung up from 1PP.
His handler is Lieutenant Monahan.
That was my guy.
I'll check in.
- What's up, man? - What's up, dog? Got a minute? Hey, look at that.
Prodigal son returned.
Good to see you, Lieutenant.
Hey, uh, sorry for the loss.
Campbell was a hell of a guy.
Maybe even a better operative than you.
Yeah, right.
Fat chance.
How many stints? This, uh, this is his second, but the first one was small time.
Money laundering and check cashing one off.
Bunch of yahoos.
This wasn't about that.
So you're thinking breaching the current op? I wouldn't be surprised.
Syndicate moves 20 million in luxury cars annually.
Campbell was close to nailing the key man moving the product overseas.
Manny Palca.
So what was the hold-up? Couldn't get close enough.
We've known for a while that Palca was the point, but we wanted John to get into the inner sanctum to find out the bigger players involved.
Any thoughts on what went wrong? Somebody made him.
But there's no way he burned himself.
Like I said he was too good.
I broke it to the family, so Understood.
We'll tread lightly, Lieutenant, but we've got to follow up.
When he was elected for undercover, my stomach sank.
I knew nothing was more dangerous.
But he was so proud, what could I say? Oh, God! Mrs.
Campbell, we're so sorry.
When was the last time you saw your son? Rachel's birthday.
Three weeks back.
Direct contact with family was forbidden during an assignment but for his little sister, he made an exception.
We'll be okay, baby.
We will.
Losing a child, a sibling, I can't think of anything worse.
Ever since my husband passed, John was our rock.
For Rachel especially.
She's had a rough month.
Bullying, time out of school, therapy.
Today was supposed to be her first day back.
Mrs.
Campbell, is it possible John broke his cover more recently in order to check up on Rachel? No visits, but last night he did message her a video which he'd do sometimes.
Moral support check in.
We will need to see that.
Hey, tough girl.
Just checking in on you.
Sorry it's been a few weeks since we talked.
Didn't even ask.
How'd the CAT scan go? Nailed it, like I said.
Completely routine.
Look at the interior.
He's inside the Ferrari.
It has to be within minutes of him being shot.
Billy found out John was delivering the car directly to the cooling spot for the first time.
So he's probably idling nearby waiting for his contact.
Don't let the idiots get you down, okay? I love you lots.
- I know I'm the idiot.
- No.
You are genius.
And how so? I know where he is and you do too.
Is that Serendipity? Home of frozen hot chocolate, i.
e.
the boys' favorite place on earth.
See? Being shamefully indulgent parents sometimes pays off.
- 60th between Second and Third.
- Mmm-hmm.
I'm willing to bet that there is a parking garage on that street that doubles as the cooling spot.
Upper east side, no one would question a stream of high end sports cars parking in the garage.
Billy and Meredith are combing Midtown.
They could use a hot chocolate break.
Okay.
This is the only commercial parking garage - within three blocks of Serendipity.
- I like our odds.
Oh, this is amazing.
You are officially a Mmm.
Look at this.
Don't usually see covered cars in a regular old garage.
Mmm-hmm.
- Shall we? - Yes.
Maserati, Porsche.
Hello, cooling spot.
Freeze! NYPD.
Drop your weapon! Hands out the car.
Both hands! Step out of the car.
Hands behind your head.
as the murder weapon.
Manny Palca, you're under arrest for the murder of Detective John Campbell aka Ricky.
Never heard of him.
No? We'll see about that.
Palca here won't admit that he knows Campbell but his cell phone admitted it for him.
We just cracked the password.
Who sent this to you? Just He may be our shooter, but whoever sent him Campbell's picture is just as much the killer.
Ballistics confirms it.
Manny Palca's gun fired the bullet that we pulled from John Campbell.
And forensics confirmed that gunshot residue found on Palca is consistent with time of death.
- We have our shooter.
- But not who texted Campbell's photo to Palca.
Murder by text? Then you won't like this.
TARU confirmed it's untraceable, from a GoPhone.
Texts can be anonymous but grudges not so much.
Whoever turned against Campbell had to leave a trail.
Get photos of every felon from from Palca's car theft ring and then round 'em up and bring 'em in.
That's worth a look, but given that we're talking about an internal police ID photo, I'd hate to think, but Possible that there is a breach within the NYPD.
- Ouchers.
- As I said, I hate to even go there.
But we have to.
So circle back to the handler, Billy's guy, and find out who had access to undercover personnel files.
Oh, I'd suggest we send somebody a little less respectful than Billy? Agreed.
Bring Laura.
Campbell got the usual protective treatment.
Which of course includes his photo being scrubbed from all the files when he went under.
Well, scrubbed or not, someone had access to that photo and used it to get Campbell killed.
Sir Are you implying an internal breach? The identities of undercovers are accessible to a grand total of three people, Me, the Chief of Detectives and the Police Commissioner himself.
A former captain of mine is serving 20 to life for murder, so you'll have to forgive us for not assuming someone is innocent just because they have a fancy job title.
Just a little housekeeping.
Can I assume, Lieutenant, that the three of you will make your devices available for inspection? We will.
And am I correct that the undercover files were stored digitally, stored on a secure network? Right there.
It's completely air-gapped.
Never even touches the web.
Even segmented from the rest of the NYPD internal network, not to mention all the files are encrypted.
Now, unless he was invisible or psychic, nobody could get in there.
Someone did get in which is why we need full transparency, access to your man from U.
N.
C.
L.
E.
computer.
I can't authorize that without clearance.
Find the flagpole with your superiors on it and start climbing.
Sir.
This system might be too isolated.
It's missing critical security patches and updates.
It's subtle, but it looks like a third party exploited one of the vulnerable services and installed remote access tools Okay, Bose.
You know I don't speak sexy tech genius.
Someone who wasn't supposed to be in Monahan's computer, remotely accessed it bypassing security.
- A hacker? - Yeah.
Okay.
How do you hack a computer that's not even on the Internet? However he or she got in, he scored encryption keys to unlock all the files on the server.
Without anyone knowing? Left almost no footprint.
Buried deep in log files.
It's easy to miss.
Hold on.
Doing triage till we forensically analyze the system, running updates, enabling two-factor authentication, back door is locked.
Okay, but do we know how much intel was grabbed already? Everything.
It's just a matter of how much time he had to digest the mountain of files.
Right.
So, other undercovers' real names, photos, addresses, names and info of the bad guys that they were or are embedded with, all that might be out there? Including yours.
Look, my files.
They are old and dusty.
No use to anyone anymore, all right? - Nothing to worry about here.
- All right.
You know, something doesn't make sense.
I know plenty of thugs who would kill to get a peek at undercover intel, but none of them are smart enough to hack a hack-proof computer.
This could be bigger than John Campbell.
Like someone who has a grudge against the NYPD.
In which case we may want to combine our efforts with 1PP.
It's not inconceivable that this hacker may strike again and if he does, the victim could be a past or a present undercover.
So Billy and a couple of hundred other cops in this city should be looking over their shoulder right about now.
Then we've got to get the word out immediately.
Bose, how long until we have something more concrete to go on? This hacker is good.
So good, I have nothing on his location.
Unless I track the original APT on Monahan's computer.
- Do it.
Tell me when you have something.
- Okay.
Captain, your printer's vomiting.
Whoa! It's a It's a bunch of emails.
It's none of my business, but from whom exactly? Just everybody.
Hair Plugs Hal is wife shopping on a Thai website? Didn't need to know that.
There's a Meredith and Billy chat that is not about work.
You did not need to see that.
Okay, a classified status memo on last month's sting at the music club! How much paper is in this thing? All of the printouts are Second Precinct files.
What the hell is going on? Son of a bitch! He's here.
He's in our system.
Our case data, personal info Everybody offline now! We're being hacked! Let's go! Shut down the main frame.
I repeat, we are being hacked.
Power down, people.
Wi-fi powering down! Any electronic devices need to be turned off now.
Phones, tablets, laptops, watches, if it's wired, it's retired.
You heard her, people.
Give it up.
The only way that we're going to duck this hacker is if we go analog.
Which means the only we're going to catch him is old school police work.
Have you been hoarding phone books? I need them to reach the top of the supply closet.
- And the top of the snack pantry.
- Whatever.
Cyber has to sweep the building.
Reboot the entire network.
Could be 24 hours.
Besides, isn't it late in Bangkok? Wait, Max, Max, 24 hours? We can't just put our feet up.
You need to find us an offsite secure war room.
Roger that.
Any other parameters? Feng Shui compliant? I'll figure it out.
What? I opened an email from my doctor on the precinct Internet.
Well, there's no printout of it.
I checked every page.
Then pulled the plug.
If it's in Santiani's printer queue and she plugs it back in, then I'm out of a job.
But you're all good now, right? The fact that I'm hiding my condition is enough for the brass to kick me to the curb.
Anyway, priorities.
Hacker first, my problem second.
- Your end folds first.
- No, not until you flip this over.
So.
1PP doesn't know the scope of the breach and the Chief's considering calling in the NSA.
Captain, the Feds swooping in could only slow us down.
The NYPD can handle an NYPD crisis.
Yes, I'm here.
Copy that.
Thank you.
Unless it's not an NYPD crisis.
That's the fourteenth command I've called.
No one else has been hacked.
So it's not a citywide problem, it's an us problem.
But, why target the Second? That appears to be my bad? When I removed the hacker's back door, It must have tipped him off that we knew about the breach.
I should have covered my tracks.
Yeah.
You should have.
Both professionally and personally.
Wow! That just happened.
And I thought meeting your mother was awkward.
I found us a war room, people.
Hey, Max.
How long do we have the place? Place is ours as long as we need.
Just had to put down a credit card to start a tab.
I used Santiani's.
Open bar! Okay, here we go.
"Back off or else.
" How does this threat make our hacker sound? - Impulsive.
- Maladjusted.
More importantly, afraid.
Afraid of being busted for hacking John Campbell to death.
And now he's hacking the Second because we're the ones investigating.
Thank you! Infotech says the attack did not originate anywhere else on the internal NYPD network, the hacker got us locally.
He didn't just walk into the precinct.
Maybe not, but if our guest network security wasn't recently updated, he could have hacked our wi-fi.
How? I could barely get one or two weak-ass bars in the hallway.
A signal booster could pick up our wi-fi 300 yards away.
- All right, let's go canvass.
- Easy, Soto.
The hacker stole undercover and Second Precinct files.
That makes you doubly vulnerable.
What am I going to do? Go into protective custody? This guy, he killed a cop! I'm not hiding.
Second Precinct includes Dollar store, the bodega that smells like feet, the pretentious coffee shop A perfect place to go undetected with a laptop.
- All right, I'm there.
- Not alone, you're not! Max, better go with them.
You know the drill.
Yeah, even more.
Yeah, she likes extra froth.
Case in point.
Nothing like a room full of self-absorbed wannabes.
Direct line of sight to the precinct equals least interference with the wi-fi signal.
Okay.
Clearest view, couple of power outlets, one for the laptop, one for the signal booster.
Heavy dose of lysol, staff probably just cleaned.
Low chance of DNA or fingerprints left behind.
Hmm.
She's been here a while.
Excuse me.
NYPD.
What can you tell us about whoever was sitting right here? The whoever was a moron.
I'm still stuck in Act I of this screenplay because he completely sapped my focus.
- Hint, hint.
- Wow! How about you spare 10 seconds and give us a description? White guy, twenties, scrawny, dark hair, glasses.
Took up a table for four just so he could plug in his laptop and some antenna contraption.
It's got to be our perp.
I'm going to check the cafe router.
See if he left a footprint.
I called him out for being a table hog so he buys four drinks an hour, puts three at the empty seats.
Passive aggressive much? Kind of like someone who comes to a coffee shop to be left alone? Hint, hint.
Corner table guy? What a surprise.
Ten drinks and no tip? Mmm.
Got a credit card slip? Security footage? He paid cash.
And no on the camera.
That many drinks, you must at least remember his name? Carl? And he kept ordering triple pump mocha chai lattes.
Argh! That alone calls for a manhunt.
Hmm.
Sounds good to me.
It's 'cause you're 10.
Where are we? The unknown hacker definitely used this router.
Once I find a physical location matching the IP address, it'll lead us directly to him.
Any second now.
Max, you outdid yourself.
Knew I felt my ears burning.
It was either you or my new pomade.
So, what did you get from the cafe? Besides Laura's caffeine fix? Oh, nothing.
Hello, you got a lot.
Yeah, I did.
I did? Physical description.
Again please.
As per Billy and Meredith, our presumed hacker was a diminutive white male.
I'm guessing they didn't say diminutive? Twenties, with dark hair and glasses.
Profiling.
As old school as it gets.
Oh, he gave a name, Carl and his beverage of choice was a triple pump mocha chai latte.
Ugh! Barf! - It's a start.
- Let's hope Billy and Meredith can push the ball forward with the IP address lead.
NYPD.
Open up.
We have a warrant.
Allow me.
NYPD.
Put your hands in the air.
Hands up.
You're not pizza.
And you're not a twentyish white guy with dark hair.
Not anymore.
Anybody else in here? There's a cat somewhere.
We got played.
Let's figure out how.
Is this because I clicked on that porno mail? I didn't mean to.
We never do.
This is for sure the IP address the hacker used to dump the files.
Hacker? All I did was order a pizza.
The coupon says it's cheaper online.
So I tried.
Seemed to work once they helped me.
Was that help a chat button? I suppose.
I typed my words in a box, the customer service person typed back, told me how to click, where to click, even took over the mouse and controlled it for me.
And all the while, he used Seymour's computer as a proxy for the stolen files.
From the coffee shop to here.
Then forwarded to a third party IP that could be routed anywhere.
Oh, he just needed a mark to cover his tracks.
Seymour, what do you remember about your chat with customer service? His spelling was funny, I guess.
he spelled favorite with an "ou.
" I assumed he was from India or someplace.
You said "favorite.
" Favorite what? A TV show! You were talking pop culture with your customer service tech? He asked my name and I got cute with him.
I typed in Tiberius - And he knew that that was - Captain Kirk's middle name.
So we talked about Star Trek.
I said there were 79 episodes in the original.
He said 80.
And that I had to sub read, whatever that means, to get the facts right.
Feisty fellow! Probably stalling for time so he could finish relaying the files.
Hacker's a smart son of a bitch.
Working in customer service gives him plenty of innocent people to take advantage of.
Pizza site's live help is outsourced to a company called Chatterlink.
Headquarters are downtown.
All right, let's get over there.
Seymour, I'd forget that pizza coupon if I were you.
I'd call in the order, buddy.
Good luck.
File that under wishful thinking.
Of course the corporate suits get the swanky offices while the 2400 tech support employees work from home.
Yeah.
Scattered all over the damn city.
You like playing with guns? Devin? You know this guy? He's a drug boss I targeted back when I was undercover.
What? The hacker.
First he sends someone to kill John Campbell, now you Only took you five stops on the C train to track me down at the Chatterlink building.
Small world after all.
All right, Devin.
Who told you about me? The whole time I'm in the joint, I'm wondering if you made it out okay.
- And you put me in there.
- Listen.
Hold on a sec You sat down at my dinner table with my family.
I took you in.
Bailed your ass out.
Saved your life.
- And I returned all of that - But not a damn minute of it was real.
You were the one who always said the game was gonna get you killed.
I was the one who didn't let that happen.
That was real, D.
You don't get to call me that.
I did six years! While the rest of your boys did 15! All right.
Clearly, I was the one who made the mistake.
You are not the person I thought you were either.
So I hope you had a good time at Sing Sing, 'cause you're going back.
See you when you're 60.
Vernon.
Soto.
Whatever the hell your name is, there was a text.
Gave your name, precinct, with a photo of you in uniform.
We didn't recover a cell phone when we took you down.
Smashed it to pieces when I saw you in that uniform.
Any sense of who that text came from? I asked who the hell the sender was.
All he said was to call him Ziggy.
Ziggy.
Another gang member? Maybe a fan of the old comic strip? More likely another alias for our hacker.
Good news! We can at least start running manual checks on the Chatterlink customer service techs to see who duped old man Seymour.
Well, hold up there.
You can't go online.
Well, it's secure.
Compliments of TARU.
As long as I use anonymizing software to route my traffic, I'm invisible.
This won't be fast.
Got to go to the profile page for each individual employee.
We don't have that kind of time.
Well, there's no work around.
We don't have enough info on him to narrow him down.
You know what? Maybe we do.
Small white guy, twenties, dark hair, glasses, went by Carl when he ordered triple pump mocha chai latte.
By Ziggy when texting Billy's gunman.
Seymour thought he was Indian because of his unusual spelling.
He's white.
He doesn't have an accent.
Canadian? Uh, loves Star Trek.
Told Seymour to sub read about the number of episodes? Come on, smarty-pants.
There's no term that's not on your radar.
Oh, he probably meant subreddit.
Oh, I've heard of that.
Nerd forum? The nerd forum.
And if the hacker recommended a trekker subreddit? Hold on.
Here's his post.
"Humour me idiots.
" Humor spelled "our.
" "List the final Shatner-Nimoy instalment.
" Only one L? Well, that one's not Canadian.
It's just wrong.
User handle "tychobrahe2020.
" Like Tycho Brahe, the So our Star Trek loving hacker is also big into astronomy.
Carl.
Space guru Carl Sagan.
What? I watch Jeopardy.
Tychobrahe2020 is everywhere.
Youtube, Twitter, message boards, comments.
Aside from just a few mornings, he posts 24/7 and it's all trash talk.
Yeah, that's troll MO.
They rip strangers anonymously to make themselves feel better.
Look there! He's posting addresses.
Doxing.
Publicizing someone's private information and their documents.
Just like he did to John Campbell.
God! The things he says and does to these women, some are just girls.
Wait, go back.
Go back! I know her.
That's Rachel Campbell.
John's bullied little sister? The hacker could have been a cyberbully, maybe linked to why John was killed.
And Billy was just collateral damage for staying on his trail.
Let's hope "why" can link us to "who.
" - I'm going to find out.
- Okay.
This nightmare just won't go away.
I know this is painful, Mrs.
Campbell, But whoever attacked Rachel online could also be behind John's murder.
I'm sorry but I'd like you to go.
- Mrs.
Campbell, we just need Rachel - Please understand, she's only just getting better.
Rachel's put the past in the past.
We intend to keep it there.
Mom, it's okay.
If we can catch whoever killed John, I wanna do it.
Thank you, Rachel.
I just have a few questions.
This recent bullying, it started when you posted a video of yourself online singing? After I put it up someone spammed the comments, figured out my email and started sending me pictures of his, you know Got it.
And I emailed back to tell him that he was disgusting, but then he got mad.
Uh, he doxed me all over the web.
She got horrible messages flooding in every day.
Rape threats.
People posing as her late father.
And how did you put an end to it? I didn't.
John did.
He took my laptop for a little while and when he gave it back he said that the guy wouldn't bother me anymore.
And he didn't.
I never asked what he did.
It was over.
We are going to need access to your accounts.
John must have tracked the cyber texts back to our troll hacker.
Thinking like a big brother not a cop.
Whatever he did, the hacker wanted payback.
Just need to find the message John used to track the hacker down.
Okay, here we go.
Oh! Please don't get your boys cameras, ever.
- Look at his junk! - I just did.
It's underwhelming.
No not that junk.
The junk behind him.
Red plastic cups, piles of books, hot plate.
It's a dorm room.
Blue and gold.
Those are the colors of Hudson University.
Color scheme on the sweatshirt with the heron logo.
It's the school mascot.
We may not know who the hacker is, but now we know where.
We need to go teach someone a lesson.
It's like Grand Central Station with Birkenstocks.
How are we supposed to find this guy out here? The same way we found him online, only this time in real life.
Well, we narrowed down his character profile, but out here it's like finding a needle in a hipster haystack.
No, he's not out here.
He's in class.
And you know this how? The hacker posted all hours of the day except between 9:00 and 10:50 A.
M.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
- Classroom hours.
- Exactly! And that's where the course registry comes in.
Can you just be a little bit more discreet? I lifted that from the bookstore.
Of course you did.
Literature, foreign languages It's not just any class.
This has to be the course that the hacker cared about so much he wouldn't even go online during it.
We need to channel Tycho Brahe.
How about astronomy? History of science? No and no.
What about, uh, science fiction? That's an actual course? Oh, please.
In colleges these days, they'll teach you how to blow your nose if they think the kids will sign up.
English 421, the literature of Mars.
Oh, that class has Tycho Brahe written all over it.
Hamilton Building, Lecture Hall 2.
Up to the right.
Ziggy.
I'm willing to bet this guy's a fan of David Bowie.
Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars.
I don't love the hacker has a cool streak.
Well, even if he is in the class we still have to figure out how to pick him out.
The literature of Mars? How many dorks can be in that haystack? As you create your charts, comparing Wells to Asimov, Bradbury and beyond Big haystack.
Note how Mars serves as a twisted reflection of our Earth.
At times, a reminder of the worst within us.
May I help you? We are just touring campus.
Our son's a dork.
Uh, no offense.
Furthermore, one could posit We better be certain before we move in.
Carl, Ziggy, Tycho could be one text away from exposing another undercover.
about their societies at large at the time of their respective writings.
What social and political trends inform their fantasies of another planet and life? How do their personal lives and turmoils shine through? Ground control to Major Jake.
Cover me.
I'm going in.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Sorry.
Dry mouth emergency.
Oh! Triple pump mocha chai latte? This is a terrible order Carl.
Don't even think about it.
Hack's over.
It's a free country.
That girl was free to post herself singing and I was free to tell her what I thought.
Free to repeatedly send cruel and abusive messages to a vulnerable 15-year-old? What if I did? That gave her brother the right to beat on me? And he should have known every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
You come after a person like that, you're going to get what's coming to you.
John Campbell came after you for torturing his sister.
In return, you sentenced him to death.
You're right.
You're gonna get what's coming to you.
We thought we were looking for a psychopath or a criminal syndicate looking to take down the place.
Instead, it was just a boy.
A boy whose computer destroyed his sense of reality.
He clicked a mouse and took a life.
And he never saw, never felt the consequence.
He will now.
Hello, baby, mama's here.
Fancy, thanks.
So Infotech is sweeping all of Tycho's devices and putting in a new fireball to prevent any further hacking.
Oh, adorable.
It's firewall.
I knew that.
Anyway, we're out of the woods.
Are we? Santiani still has all of my emails to you.
Personal emails.
Guess that shoe still might drop.
Soto, Bose.
A word, please? Sound of shoe dropping.
Me first.
Before any hypothetical fallout occurs from any hypothetical secrets that may have been exposed.
Yeah.
Ain't nothing hypothetical about it.
To-ma-to, to-mah-to.
Can we first just acknowledge that we all have secrets and by we, I mean, you? The hack exposed a secret about me? No, but I have known a secret about you for months.
She's supposed to get bumped up to deputy inspector.
She picks out a new office, plans herself a party, gets loaded, tells half the precinct what she really thinks of them.
Then the promotion falls through.
Epic.
That's none of your concern.
Agreed, which is why I haven't told a soul all this time.
And I've only just started to like you.
Wait, I mean A little.
I'm touched.
Captain, I will never tell anyone because we watch out for each other here.
You might even say that we're a family, warts and all.
You still want to talk to Bose and Soto? I suppose I don't.
Eh, Detective.
You have any idea what happened to my printer? Nope.
Hmm.
When I said dinner date, I had something a little different in mind.
When you said forsaking all others till death do us part, I had something a little different in mind.
Oh.
Gut punch.
This is your dinner date.
Enjoy.
What do you want to do with that? Got to be a lot of secrets still queued up.
Hmm.
We plug it in, I'm guessing lot of dirt spills out.
Could make for an interesting night.
And you've got nothing to hide.
Medically or otherwise? I am an open book.
The hell you are.
I've had enough with secrets.
I so did.
He was disgusting.
Now he's disgusting and bleeding.
I am so tweeting that.
A little change? - Ew.
- Go.
I don't think this is the street.
It is.
The review said you're on this super grim block and then you walk through a random door and suddenly you're rolling in hot guys and whiskey sours.
It's retro.
I have to hurl.
You're fine.
Good evening, Detective.
Dead young man here took three rounds to the torso.
One lodged in his shoulder, two to the abdomen.
So this guy was driving with multiple gunshot wounds? Indeed he was and yet the blood soaked interior of this otherwise quite choice Ferrari California does not contain any expended rounds.
No gunshots in the glass either.
Must have taken his lumps outside the car and then got in to try to escape.
We will process and forward the shoulder slug to ballistics, see if we can luck into a hit in the system.
As for your victim, cheap old phone but but no wallet or ID on his person, of course we will run prints and check for DNA.
It's a burner phone, can't trace calls or texts.
Did you adjust the seat? We did not.
Car is registered to William Davis.
I don't think this is William.
Enlighten me? The front seat isn't positioned for someone that tall.
Besides sports cars are usually driven by teeny guys compensating for their teeny Roger that.
Maybe we're looking at a botched carjacking.
Owner's packing heat, fires away, jacker takes the car anyway and runs.
Guy's dressed pretty slick for a violent crime.
More like he was out clubbing.
- No ID, no credit cards? - I don't have all the answers.
Let's try and figure out where he was driving from.
Well, based on the estimated blood loss, I'd say no farther than a mile or so.
Based on the car's GPS, I'd say Isn't this supposed to make your life easier? I was going to push that button next.
Exactly 1.
7 miles from here and we have an address.
Yeah, that Ferrari pulled up about an hour ago.
Douchebag expected me to let him leave it right out front like he Jeter or something I sent him to the garage like everybody else.
This the guy? Oh, hell, no! He's a dumpy, hairy, short white guy with glasses, a mini Seth Rogen.
- What'd I say! - Compensating.
Might also be packing a big-ass gun.
When did you last see this guy? Should still be in there.
Anyone else with him? No.
Solo.
Go on in.
I'll waive the cover.
Gee, thanks, man.
Straight ahead.
I think we found our mini Seth Rogen.
Hands up! Do us all a favor and stop dancing or whatever that is? Spread your legs, Travolta.
What is this? I didn't do anything.
Yeah? He's clean.
We heard you had a run in with a guy when you dropped off your car, Mr.
Davis? Bill! The bartender calls these gummy bears.
They're sweet like you.
You know him? We just met.
What about my car? Come find me after.
Caley! Great! So much for that! Wait, so she was buying you drinks? Shouldn't it be the other way round? She picked me up.
No offense.
But when someone like her picks up a guy like you, there's usually more to the story.
It happens.
- Ma'am? - Excuse me! Did you just see her just do that? What does she think she's doing? - I really got to go.
- No, ma'am! You can't What the hell! Who are you texting, Caley? __ Ricky.
You've got some 'splaining to do.
You are out of service for five minutes.
Clear everyone out.
Oh, go use the men's room.
They could double up.
Out! Wild guess.
Ricky is your partner in the auto theft business.
Spill it.
FYI, prison bathrooms don't have attendants or doors.
Have you never seen Orange Is the New Black? I'm not his partner.
He'd scout the garage waiting for a good mark, um, a single guy in a fancy car and when he got one, I'd follow the guy, lift his keys, get him sauced and hand the keys off to Ricky.
Ricky can't hotwire a car? What kind of thief is this guy? The car's worth way more with the key, that's why he needs me.
After the handoff, I'd stall the guy while Ricky delivers to a cooling spot.
Where the car's LoJack is deactivated.
Ricky said it's a victimless crime.
No one gets hurt except the insurance company.
Well, Ricky spoke too soon.
He's dead.
I knew something was up.
He's supposed to text me when he gets done.
We meet up.
I get paid.
But tonight it took too long.
What's Ricky's last name? I barely know the guy.
But I pick up my cut at his place.
Help me out, Ricky.
Does this seem like a car thief's apartment to you? No mail, no computer.
No TV even.
Who lives like this? Nothing but beer.
Isn't that a guy thing? No, no.
I mean nothing, like no ketchup, no Chinese takeout soy sauce.
Okay, this is weird.
Ricky's entire wardrobe is autumn.
No summer shorts or winter jackets.
This feels more like a temporary rental than someone's home.
Yeah.
It is kind of strange.
Ammo, professional grade gun oil.
He was trained around firearms.
This guy's some kind of ghost.
You hear something? More like feel something.
Deja vu.
What is it? What's in there? Our dead guy was an undercover cop.
Place reminded me of my crash pad back when I was undercover.
The instructors always taught all of us ghosts, "You've got to keep a badge on hand in case you have to identify yourself "when a bust goes down.
" Something that dangerous to your cover has got to be hidden.
That is when I learned that the sink trap is pretty much foolproof.
Your party girl Caley bought the victim's legend hook, line and sinker.
She had no idea he was on the job.
Well, someone did.
You don't just happen upon three bullets to the torso.
And all it takes is one slip up.
Is that what happened here? Ricky, whoever he is, slipped up? And by Ricky, we mean Detective John Campbell.
I just hung up from 1PP.
His handler is Lieutenant Monahan.
That was my guy.
I'll check in.
- What's up, man? - What's up, dog? Got a minute? Hey, look at that.
Prodigal son returned.
Good to see you, Lieutenant.
Hey, uh, sorry for the loss.
Campbell was a hell of a guy.
Maybe even a better operative than you.
Yeah, right.
Fat chance.
How many stints? This, uh, this is his second, but the first one was small time.
Money laundering and check cashing one off.
Bunch of yahoos.
This wasn't about that.
So you're thinking breaching the current op? I wouldn't be surprised.
Syndicate moves 20 million in luxury cars annually.
Campbell was close to nailing the key man moving the product overseas.
Manny Palca.
So what was the hold-up? Couldn't get close enough.
We've known for a while that Palca was the point, but we wanted John to get into the inner sanctum to find out the bigger players involved.
Any thoughts on what went wrong? Somebody made him.
But there's no way he burned himself.
Like I said he was too good.
I broke it to the family, so Understood.
We'll tread lightly, Lieutenant, but we've got to follow up.
When he was elected for undercover, my stomach sank.
I knew nothing was more dangerous.
But he was so proud, what could I say? Oh, God! Mrs.
Campbell, we're so sorry.
When was the last time you saw your son? Rachel's birthday.
Three weeks back.
Direct contact with family was forbidden during an assignment but for his little sister, he made an exception.
We'll be okay, baby.
We will.
Losing a child, a sibling, I can't think of anything worse.
Ever since my husband passed, John was our rock.
For Rachel especially.
She's had a rough month.
Bullying, time out of school, therapy.
Today was supposed to be her first day back.
Mrs.
Campbell, is it possible John broke his cover more recently in order to check up on Rachel? No visits, but last night he did message her a video which he'd do sometimes.
Moral support check in.
We will need to see that.
Hey, tough girl.
Just checking in on you.
Sorry it's been a few weeks since we talked.
Didn't even ask.
How'd the CAT scan go? Nailed it, like I said.
Completely routine.
Look at the interior.
He's inside the Ferrari.
It has to be within minutes of him being shot.
Billy found out John was delivering the car directly to the cooling spot for the first time.
So he's probably idling nearby waiting for his contact.
Don't let the idiots get you down, okay? I love you lots.
- I know I'm the idiot.
- No.
You are genius.
And how so? I know where he is and you do too.
Is that Serendipity? Home of frozen hot chocolate, i.
e.
the boys' favorite place on earth.
See? Being shamefully indulgent parents sometimes pays off.
- 60th between Second and Third.
- Mmm-hmm.
I'm willing to bet that there is a parking garage on that street that doubles as the cooling spot.
Upper east side, no one would question a stream of high end sports cars parking in the garage.
Billy and Meredith are combing Midtown.
They could use a hot chocolate break.
Okay.
This is the only commercial parking garage - within three blocks of Serendipity.
- I like our odds.
Oh, this is amazing.
You are officially a Mmm.
Look at this.
Don't usually see covered cars in a regular old garage.
Mmm-hmm.
- Shall we? - Yes.
Maserati, Porsche.
Hello, cooling spot.
Freeze! NYPD.
Drop your weapon! Hands out the car.
Both hands! Step out of the car.
Hands behind your head.
as the murder weapon.
Manny Palca, you're under arrest for the murder of Detective John Campbell aka Ricky.
Never heard of him.
No? We'll see about that.
Palca here won't admit that he knows Campbell but his cell phone admitted it for him.
We just cracked the password.
Who sent this to you? Just He may be our shooter, but whoever sent him Campbell's picture is just as much the killer.
Ballistics confirms it.
Manny Palca's gun fired the bullet that we pulled from John Campbell.
And forensics confirmed that gunshot residue found on Palca is consistent with time of death.
- We have our shooter.
- But not who texted Campbell's photo to Palca.
Murder by text? Then you won't like this.
TARU confirmed it's untraceable, from a GoPhone.
Texts can be anonymous but grudges not so much.
Whoever turned against Campbell had to leave a trail.
Get photos of every felon from from Palca's car theft ring and then round 'em up and bring 'em in.
That's worth a look, but given that we're talking about an internal police ID photo, I'd hate to think, but Possible that there is a breach within the NYPD.
- Ouchers.
- As I said, I hate to even go there.
But we have to.
So circle back to the handler, Billy's guy, and find out who had access to undercover personnel files.
Oh, I'd suggest we send somebody a little less respectful than Billy? Agreed.
Bring Laura.
Campbell got the usual protective treatment.
Which of course includes his photo being scrubbed from all the files when he went under.
Well, scrubbed or not, someone had access to that photo and used it to get Campbell killed.
Sir Are you implying an internal breach? The identities of undercovers are accessible to a grand total of three people, Me, the Chief of Detectives and the Police Commissioner himself.
A former captain of mine is serving 20 to life for murder, so you'll have to forgive us for not assuming someone is innocent just because they have a fancy job title.
Just a little housekeeping.
Can I assume, Lieutenant, that the three of you will make your devices available for inspection? We will.
And am I correct that the undercover files were stored digitally, stored on a secure network? Right there.
It's completely air-gapped.
Never even touches the web.
Even segmented from the rest of the NYPD internal network, not to mention all the files are encrypted.
Now, unless he was invisible or psychic, nobody could get in there.
Someone did get in which is why we need full transparency, access to your man from U.
N.
C.
L.
E.
computer.
I can't authorize that without clearance.
Find the flagpole with your superiors on it and start climbing.
Sir.
This system might be too isolated.
It's missing critical security patches and updates.
It's subtle, but it looks like a third party exploited one of the vulnerable services and installed remote access tools Okay, Bose.
You know I don't speak sexy tech genius.
Someone who wasn't supposed to be in Monahan's computer, remotely accessed it bypassing security.
- A hacker? - Yeah.
Okay.
How do you hack a computer that's not even on the Internet? However he or she got in, he scored encryption keys to unlock all the files on the server.
Without anyone knowing? Left almost no footprint.
Buried deep in log files.
It's easy to miss.
Hold on.
Doing triage till we forensically analyze the system, running updates, enabling two-factor authentication, back door is locked.
Okay, but do we know how much intel was grabbed already? Everything.
It's just a matter of how much time he had to digest the mountain of files.
Right.
So, other undercovers' real names, photos, addresses, names and info of the bad guys that they were or are embedded with, all that might be out there? Including yours.
Look, my files.
They are old and dusty.
No use to anyone anymore, all right? - Nothing to worry about here.
- All right.
You know, something doesn't make sense.
I know plenty of thugs who would kill to get a peek at undercover intel, but none of them are smart enough to hack a hack-proof computer.
This could be bigger than John Campbell.
Like someone who has a grudge against the NYPD.
In which case we may want to combine our efforts with 1PP.
It's not inconceivable that this hacker may strike again and if he does, the victim could be a past or a present undercover.
So Billy and a couple of hundred other cops in this city should be looking over their shoulder right about now.
Then we've got to get the word out immediately.
Bose, how long until we have something more concrete to go on? This hacker is good.
So good, I have nothing on his location.
Unless I track the original APT on Monahan's computer.
- Do it.
Tell me when you have something.
- Okay.
Captain, your printer's vomiting.
Whoa! It's a It's a bunch of emails.
It's none of my business, but from whom exactly? Just everybody.
Hair Plugs Hal is wife shopping on a Thai website? Didn't need to know that.
There's a Meredith and Billy chat that is not about work.
You did not need to see that.
Okay, a classified status memo on last month's sting at the music club! How much paper is in this thing? All of the printouts are Second Precinct files.
What the hell is going on? Son of a bitch! He's here.
He's in our system.
Our case data, personal info Everybody offline now! We're being hacked! Let's go! Shut down the main frame.
I repeat, we are being hacked.
Power down, people.
Wi-fi powering down! Any electronic devices need to be turned off now.
Phones, tablets, laptops, watches, if it's wired, it's retired.
You heard her, people.
Give it up.
The only way that we're going to duck this hacker is if we go analog.
Which means the only we're going to catch him is old school police work.
Have you been hoarding phone books? I need them to reach the top of the supply closet.
- And the top of the snack pantry.
- Whatever.
Cyber has to sweep the building.
Reboot the entire network.
Could be 24 hours.
Besides, isn't it late in Bangkok? Wait, Max, Max, 24 hours? We can't just put our feet up.
You need to find us an offsite secure war room.
Roger that.
Any other parameters? Feng Shui compliant? I'll figure it out.
What? I opened an email from my doctor on the precinct Internet.
Well, there's no printout of it.
I checked every page.
Then pulled the plug.
If it's in Santiani's printer queue and she plugs it back in, then I'm out of a job.
But you're all good now, right? The fact that I'm hiding my condition is enough for the brass to kick me to the curb.
Anyway, priorities.
Hacker first, my problem second.
- Your end folds first.
- No, not until you flip this over.
So.
1PP doesn't know the scope of the breach and the Chief's considering calling in the NSA.
Captain, the Feds swooping in could only slow us down.
The NYPD can handle an NYPD crisis.
Yes, I'm here.
Copy that.
Thank you.
Unless it's not an NYPD crisis.
That's the fourteenth command I've called.
No one else has been hacked.
So it's not a citywide problem, it's an us problem.
But, why target the Second? That appears to be my bad? When I removed the hacker's back door, It must have tipped him off that we knew about the breach.
I should have covered my tracks.
Yeah.
You should have.
Both professionally and personally.
Wow! That just happened.
And I thought meeting your mother was awkward.
I found us a war room, people.
Hey, Max.
How long do we have the place? Place is ours as long as we need.
Just had to put down a credit card to start a tab.
I used Santiani's.
Open bar! Okay, here we go.
"Back off or else.
" How does this threat make our hacker sound? - Impulsive.
- Maladjusted.
More importantly, afraid.
Afraid of being busted for hacking John Campbell to death.
And now he's hacking the Second because we're the ones investigating.
Thank you! Infotech says the attack did not originate anywhere else on the internal NYPD network, the hacker got us locally.
He didn't just walk into the precinct.
Maybe not, but if our guest network security wasn't recently updated, he could have hacked our wi-fi.
How? I could barely get one or two weak-ass bars in the hallway.
A signal booster could pick up our wi-fi 300 yards away.
- All right, let's go canvass.
- Easy, Soto.
The hacker stole undercover and Second Precinct files.
That makes you doubly vulnerable.
What am I going to do? Go into protective custody? This guy, he killed a cop! I'm not hiding.
Second Precinct includes Dollar store, the bodega that smells like feet, the pretentious coffee shop A perfect place to go undetected with a laptop.
- All right, I'm there.
- Not alone, you're not! Max, better go with them.
You know the drill.
Yeah, even more.
Yeah, she likes extra froth.
Case in point.
Nothing like a room full of self-absorbed wannabes.
Direct line of sight to the precinct equals least interference with the wi-fi signal.
Okay.
Clearest view, couple of power outlets, one for the laptop, one for the signal booster.
Heavy dose of lysol, staff probably just cleaned.
Low chance of DNA or fingerprints left behind.
Hmm.
She's been here a while.
Excuse me.
NYPD.
What can you tell us about whoever was sitting right here? The whoever was a moron.
I'm still stuck in Act I of this screenplay because he completely sapped my focus.
- Hint, hint.
- Wow! How about you spare 10 seconds and give us a description? White guy, twenties, scrawny, dark hair, glasses.
Took up a table for four just so he could plug in his laptop and some antenna contraption.
It's got to be our perp.
I'm going to check the cafe router.
See if he left a footprint.
I called him out for being a table hog so he buys four drinks an hour, puts three at the empty seats.
Passive aggressive much? Kind of like someone who comes to a coffee shop to be left alone? Hint, hint.
Corner table guy? What a surprise.
Ten drinks and no tip? Mmm.
Got a credit card slip? Security footage? He paid cash.
And no on the camera.
That many drinks, you must at least remember his name? Carl? And he kept ordering triple pump mocha chai lattes.
Argh! That alone calls for a manhunt.
Hmm.
Sounds good to me.
It's 'cause you're 10.
Where are we? The unknown hacker definitely used this router.
Once I find a physical location matching the IP address, it'll lead us directly to him.
Any second now.
Max, you outdid yourself.
Knew I felt my ears burning.
It was either you or my new pomade.
So, what did you get from the cafe? Besides Laura's caffeine fix? Oh, nothing.
Hello, you got a lot.
Yeah, I did.
I did? Physical description.
Again please.
As per Billy and Meredith, our presumed hacker was a diminutive white male.
I'm guessing they didn't say diminutive? Twenties, with dark hair and glasses.
Profiling.
As old school as it gets.
Oh, he gave a name, Carl and his beverage of choice was a triple pump mocha chai latte.
Ugh! Barf! - It's a start.
- Let's hope Billy and Meredith can push the ball forward with the IP address lead.
NYPD.
Open up.
We have a warrant.
Allow me.
NYPD.
Put your hands in the air.
Hands up.
You're not pizza.
And you're not a twentyish white guy with dark hair.
Not anymore.
Anybody else in here? There's a cat somewhere.
We got played.
Let's figure out how.
Is this because I clicked on that porno mail? I didn't mean to.
We never do.
This is for sure the IP address the hacker used to dump the files.
Hacker? All I did was order a pizza.
The coupon says it's cheaper online.
So I tried.
Seemed to work once they helped me.
Was that help a chat button? I suppose.
I typed my words in a box, the customer service person typed back, told me how to click, where to click, even took over the mouse and controlled it for me.
And all the while, he used Seymour's computer as a proxy for the stolen files.
From the coffee shop to here.
Then forwarded to a third party IP that could be routed anywhere.
Oh, he just needed a mark to cover his tracks.
Seymour, what do you remember about your chat with customer service? His spelling was funny, I guess.
he spelled favorite with an "ou.
" I assumed he was from India or someplace.
You said "favorite.
" Favorite what? A TV show! You were talking pop culture with your customer service tech? He asked my name and I got cute with him.
I typed in Tiberius - And he knew that that was - Captain Kirk's middle name.
So we talked about Star Trek.
I said there were 79 episodes in the original.
He said 80.
And that I had to sub read, whatever that means, to get the facts right.
Feisty fellow! Probably stalling for time so he could finish relaying the files.
Hacker's a smart son of a bitch.
Working in customer service gives him plenty of innocent people to take advantage of.
Pizza site's live help is outsourced to a company called Chatterlink.
Headquarters are downtown.
All right, let's get over there.
Seymour, I'd forget that pizza coupon if I were you.
I'd call in the order, buddy.
Good luck.
File that under wishful thinking.
Of course the corporate suits get the swanky offices while the 2400 tech support employees work from home.
Yeah.
Scattered all over the damn city.
You like playing with guns? Devin? You know this guy? He's a drug boss I targeted back when I was undercover.
What? The hacker.
First he sends someone to kill John Campbell, now you Only took you five stops on the C train to track me down at the Chatterlink building.
Small world after all.
All right, Devin.
Who told you about me? The whole time I'm in the joint, I'm wondering if you made it out okay.
- And you put me in there.
- Listen.
Hold on a sec You sat down at my dinner table with my family.
I took you in.
Bailed your ass out.
Saved your life.
- And I returned all of that - But not a damn minute of it was real.
You were the one who always said the game was gonna get you killed.
I was the one who didn't let that happen.
That was real, D.
You don't get to call me that.
I did six years! While the rest of your boys did 15! All right.
Clearly, I was the one who made the mistake.
You are not the person I thought you were either.
So I hope you had a good time at Sing Sing, 'cause you're going back.
See you when you're 60.
Vernon.
Soto.
Whatever the hell your name is, there was a text.
Gave your name, precinct, with a photo of you in uniform.
We didn't recover a cell phone when we took you down.
Smashed it to pieces when I saw you in that uniform.
Any sense of who that text came from? I asked who the hell the sender was.
All he said was to call him Ziggy.
Ziggy.
Another gang member? Maybe a fan of the old comic strip? More likely another alias for our hacker.
Good news! We can at least start running manual checks on the Chatterlink customer service techs to see who duped old man Seymour.
Well, hold up there.
You can't go online.
Well, it's secure.
Compliments of TARU.
As long as I use anonymizing software to route my traffic, I'm invisible.
This won't be fast.
Got to go to the profile page for each individual employee.
We don't have that kind of time.
Well, there's no work around.
We don't have enough info on him to narrow him down.
You know what? Maybe we do.
Small white guy, twenties, dark hair, glasses, went by Carl when he ordered triple pump mocha chai latte.
By Ziggy when texting Billy's gunman.
Seymour thought he was Indian because of his unusual spelling.
He's white.
He doesn't have an accent.
Canadian? Uh, loves Star Trek.
Told Seymour to sub read about the number of episodes? Come on, smarty-pants.
There's no term that's not on your radar.
Oh, he probably meant subreddit.
Oh, I've heard of that.
Nerd forum? The nerd forum.
And if the hacker recommended a trekker subreddit? Hold on.
Here's his post.
"Humour me idiots.
" Humor spelled "our.
" "List the final Shatner-Nimoy instalment.
" Only one L? Well, that one's not Canadian.
It's just wrong.
User handle "tychobrahe2020.
" Like Tycho Brahe, the So our Star Trek loving hacker is also big into astronomy.
Carl.
Space guru Carl Sagan.
What? I watch Jeopardy.
Tychobrahe2020 is everywhere.
Youtube, Twitter, message boards, comments.
Aside from just a few mornings, he posts 24/7 and it's all trash talk.
Yeah, that's troll MO.
They rip strangers anonymously to make themselves feel better.
Look there! He's posting addresses.
Doxing.
Publicizing someone's private information and their documents.
Just like he did to John Campbell.
God! The things he says and does to these women, some are just girls.
Wait, go back.
Go back! I know her.
That's Rachel Campbell.
John's bullied little sister? The hacker could have been a cyberbully, maybe linked to why John was killed.
And Billy was just collateral damage for staying on his trail.
Let's hope "why" can link us to "who.
" - I'm going to find out.
- Okay.
This nightmare just won't go away.
I know this is painful, Mrs.
Campbell, But whoever attacked Rachel online could also be behind John's murder.
I'm sorry but I'd like you to go.
- Mrs.
Campbell, we just need Rachel - Please understand, she's only just getting better.
Rachel's put the past in the past.
We intend to keep it there.
Mom, it's okay.
If we can catch whoever killed John, I wanna do it.
Thank you, Rachel.
I just have a few questions.
This recent bullying, it started when you posted a video of yourself online singing? After I put it up someone spammed the comments, figured out my email and started sending me pictures of his, you know Got it.
And I emailed back to tell him that he was disgusting, but then he got mad.
Uh, he doxed me all over the web.
She got horrible messages flooding in every day.
Rape threats.
People posing as her late father.
And how did you put an end to it? I didn't.
John did.
He took my laptop for a little while and when he gave it back he said that the guy wouldn't bother me anymore.
And he didn't.
I never asked what he did.
It was over.
We are going to need access to your accounts.
John must have tracked the cyber texts back to our troll hacker.
Thinking like a big brother not a cop.
Whatever he did, the hacker wanted payback.
Just need to find the message John used to track the hacker down.
Okay, here we go.
Oh! Please don't get your boys cameras, ever.
- Look at his junk! - I just did.
It's underwhelming.
No not that junk.
The junk behind him.
Red plastic cups, piles of books, hot plate.
It's a dorm room.
Blue and gold.
Those are the colors of Hudson University.
Color scheme on the sweatshirt with the heron logo.
It's the school mascot.
We may not know who the hacker is, but now we know where.
We need to go teach someone a lesson.
It's like Grand Central Station with Birkenstocks.
How are we supposed to find this guy out here? The same way we found him online, only this time in real life.
Well, we narrowed down his character profile, but out here it's like finding a needle in a hipster haystack.
No, he's not out here.
He's in class.
And you know this how? The hacker posted all hours of the day except between 9:00 and 10:50 A.
M.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
- Classroom hours.
- Exactly! And that's where the course registry comes in.
Can you just be a little bit more discreet? I lifted that from the bookstore.
Of course you did.
Literature, foreign languages It's not just any class.
This has to be the course that the hacker cared about so much he wouldn't even go online during it.
We need to channel Tycho Brahe.
How about astronomy? History of science? No and no.
What about, uh, science fiction? That's an actual course? Oh, please.
In colleges these days, they'll teach you how to blow your nose if they think the kids will sign up.
English 421, the literature of Mars.
Oh, that class has Tycho Brahe written all over it.
Hamilton Building, Lecture Hall 2.
Up to the right.
Ziggy.
I'm willing to bet this guy's a fan of David Bowie.
Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars.
I don't love the hacker has a cool streak.
Well, even if he is in the class we still have to figure out how to pick him out.
The literature of Mars? How many dorks can be in that haystack? As you create your charts, comparing Wells to Asimov, Bradbury and beyond Big haystack.
Note how Mars serves as a twisted reflection of our Earth.
At times, a reminder of the worst within us.
May I help you? We are just touring campus.
Our son's a dork.
Uh, no offense.
Furthermore, one could posit We better be certain before we move in.
Carl, Ziggy, Tycho could be one text away from exposing another undercover.
about their societies at large at the time of their respective writings.
What social and political trends inform their fantasies of another planet and life? How do their personal lives and turmoils shine through? Ground control to Major Jake.
Cover me.
I'm going in.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Sorry.
Dry mouth emergency.
Oh! Triple pump mocha chai latte? This is a terrible order Carl.
Don't even think about it.
Hack's over.
It's a free country.
That girl was free to post herself singing and I was free to tell her what I thought.
Free to repeatedly send cruel and abusive messages to a vulnerable 15-year-old? What if I did? That gave her brother the right to beat on me? And he should have known every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
You come after a person like that, you're going to get what's coming to you.
John Campbell came after you for torturing his sister.
In return, you sentenced him to death.
You're right.
You're gonna get what's coming to you.
We thought we were looking for a psychopath or a criminal syndicate looking to take down the place.
Instead, it was just a boy.
A boy whose computer destroyed his sense of reality.
He clicked a mouse and took a life.
And he never saw, never felt the consequence.
He will now.
Hello, baby, mama's here.
Fancy, thanks.
So Infotech is sweeping all of Tycho's devices and putting in a new fireball to prevent any further hacking.
Oh, adorable.
It's firewall.
I knew that.
Anyway, we're out of the woods.
Are we? Santiani still has all of my emails to you.
Personal emails.
Guess that shoe still might drop.
Soto, Bose.
A word, please? Sound of shoe dropping.
Me first.
Before any hypothetical fallout occurs from any hypothetical secrets that may have been exposed.
Yeah.
Ain't nothing hypothetical about it.
To-ma-to, to-mah-to.
Can we first just acknowledge that we all have secrets and by we, I mean, you? The hack exposed a secret about me? No, but I have known a secret about you for months.
She's supposed to get bumped up to deputy inspector.
She picks out a new office, plans herself a party, gets loaded, tells half the precinct what she really thinks of them.
Then the promotion falls through.
Epic.
That's none of your concern.
Agreed, which is why I haven't told a soul all this time.
And I've only just started to like you.
Wait, I mean A little.
I'm touched.
Captain, I will never tell anyone because we watch out for each other here.
You might even say that we're a family, warts and all.
You still want to talk to Bose and Soto? I suppose I don't.
Eh, Detective.
You have any idea what happened to my printer? Nope.
Hmm.
When I said dinner date, I had something a little different in mind.
When you said forsaking all others till death do us part, I had something a little different in mind.
Oh.
Gut punch.
This is your dinner date.
Enjoy.
What do you want to do with that? Got to be a lot of secrets still queued up.
Hmm.
We plug it in, I'm guessing lot of dirt spills out.
Could make for an interesting night.
And you've got nothing to hide.
Medically or otherwise? I am an open book.
The hell you are.
I've had enough with secrets.