Numb3rs s02e16 Episode Script
Protest
# Saturday night I was downtown # # Workin' for the FBI # # Sittin' in a nest of bad men # # Whiskey bottles piling high # # Bootleggin' boozer on the west side # # Full of people who are doin' wrong # # Just about to call up the D.
A.
man # # When I heard this woman singin' a song # # A pair of.
45's made me open my eyes # # My temperature started to rise # # She was a long cool woman in a black dress # # Just a five-nine beautiful tall # # With just one look I was a bad mess # # 'Cause that long cool woman had it all # I'm pretty sure there's an ATM around here somewhere.
I don't want to wander around downtown at this time of night.
Don't worry.
If we don't find one here, we'll go back.
Ah, here's one.
You never listen to me.
Hey, guys.
It's an Army recruiting office.
We had the victim standing here at the ATM.
He died on the scene.
His wife's in shock, but she's stable.
Bomb looks to be homemade.
We'll need the chem work-up to know more.
It's an interesting choice of targets.
High profile, and low risk of casualties.
Antiwar protest? Maybe just somebody with an axe to grind against the Army.
Well, someone's definitely gonna take responsibility for this.
You were right.
This came in last night, just before the bomb went off.
You having any luck tracing this? It's been routed through so many servers.
I can't promise anything.
"This act is in retaliation "for an illegal war begun at the behest of U.
S.
imperialists " Wait.
It's signed the Weather Underground? The protest group from the '70s? Maybe somebody's having a flashback.
Weather Underground were radicals disguised as patriots.
They're willing to use any means necessary to accomplish their ends.
Today, we call them terrorists.
Uh, Agent Thomas Lawson.
Retired.
Back in my day, uh, all we had was a couple of IBM Selectrics and a telephone.
I'm sorry.
Can we help you with something? Chief of Criminal Division called me this morning.
Why is that? You had a bombing at a recruitment center.
We had an identical bombing at an ROTC office 35 years ago to the day.
And you think it's the same people? Same person.
Matthew Stirling? He was a member of a local radical group from '69 to '71.
He was responsible for three bombings, including the one at the ROTC which killed two people.
Where is he now? Never apprehended.
His current whereabouts were unknown until this morning.
The e-mail is almost identical to a letter received by the FBI in '71, except instead of "Vietnam", the new letter reads "Iraq".
Bomb materials, composition and placement are all similar.
I know you guys didn't use math consultants back then, but meet my brother Charlie.
He's going to do a statistical assessment of crimes from back then.
Compare it to this one here.
Given the length of time between these bombings, this is going to be a great challenge.
Maybe.
If you were looking for a different perpetrator.
We haven't ruled out the possibility of a copycat yet.
You're wasting time.
Time you haven't got.
We're gonna look into Stirling as well as some current groups with similar profiles, so The day after Stirling was questioned about the ROTC bombing, he went underground.
He abandoned a wife and baby.
The bomb he set killed two people.
Thomas O'Keefe Albert Whitetower I was the one that had to knock on their parents' door to tell them their kid was dead.
Next time, it'll be you.
Somebody blew up a car.
That's an antiwar act? A military vehicle parked outside of an Army recruiting office where somebody was killed.
You might want to round up some of the local high school parents.
I understand a lot of them aren't too happy with the Army's on-campus recruitment tactics.
Your organization called for resistance against the United States.
The war on Iraq is illegal, and any resistance is protected by international law.
Vandalism and violence aren't.
We're gonna need to take a look at all the e-mails coming and going into your office.
Then you're gonna need a warrant.
Maybe.
Look, try to pull any of that Patriot Act stuff, and you'll get plenty of press.
I don't doubt it.
You're wasting your time.
We didn't have anything to do with it.
Really? Cross your heart and hope to die? Hey! So, what do you think of this? Wow.
You got it done fast.
Yeah.
I found it in the original designs.
The people who owned the place before us - they tore them out.
Can't imagine why they did that.
Well, people did a lot of stupid things in the '70s.
I take it you're not just talking about home remodeling.
Here are the files from the ROTC bombing.
Oh, great.
So you think this guy Stirling was involved with these recent bombings, huh, after all these years? Stirling? You're talking about Matt Stirling? Yeah.
Why? Well, I knew him.
We worked together.
You did? At City Hall? No.
Californians for Peace.
We organized volunteers.
Matty worked with the local colleges.
You were an antiwar protester? I participated in peaceful demonstrations, so did Matt.
Dad, Matt Stirling is the one who blew up the ROTC Center.
He killed two innocent kids.
Matt Stirling's guilt was never proven in a court of law.
Yeah, because he took off.
Look, I knew Matt Stirling.
He had a wife, he had a child.
What are you talking about? - I'm talking about evidence.
- What evidence? Those files right there, to begin with! Oh, come on.
You guys probably had twice that much on the man you mistakenly accused of the Madrid train bombings.
We're trying to stop someone from killing innocent people here.
So were we.
- Hey.
- Hey.
I didn't know Dad was so active back then.
Yeah, well, I kind of forgot about it until I was joining the bureau.
Came out in my background check.
Was he ever arrested? Oh, yeah.
Twice.
- Twice? - Sit-ins.
I was, like, three.
Mom and Dad both took me to a march.
LAPD hauls Dad off in cuffs.
Dad has an FBI file.
What's in it? Well, that's the thing.
It's funny.
You know, I mean, I never wanted to read it that closely.
By the time I was born, the war was over.
Yeah.
Well, lucky you.
All right, Don.
What about this bomb investigation? Well I mean, Stirling's our prime suspect, but You know, you've got a lot of data here from the old case, and I might be able to run an application of math called social network analysis, which analyzes the structure of groups.
Might tell us how Stirling fit in to Californians For Peace, and who he worked with.
Could it tell if he was involved in something like the Weather Underground? Oh, quite possibly.
And if it was a copycat? The analysis might very well identify likely suspects.
Coming up empty with e- mails and phone records.
There's nothing to indicate that any of the local antiwar groups are planning anything like this.
LAPD's anti-terrorist surveillance indicates these groups are organizing demonstrations to mark the start of the war in the spring.
So we're back to looking at a copycat.
Well, either that, or Lawson's right, and Stirling's resurfaced.
It's possible.
Serial bombers often claim political motivations, but it's a sociopathic drive.
It's the same as serial killers.
They can go underground for years, and then return to violence if circumstances bring up old obsessions.
Circumstances like a new war, new climate of protest? You got it, but if it is him, more than likely, he's gonna contact somebody from his past.
Yeah, Matt and I were very good friends back then.
But that was back then.
You worked together in the peace movement.
And I admired Matt, I really did.
But the things we did I don't believe in them anymore.
Are you saying you were involved in violence? No, no, none of us were.
No, just those protests, when the troops needed our support, coming back from that hellhole.
That's something I wish I'd never been a part of.
Dad.
Hey, Wilkie's at the Culver City site, he says the concrete hasn't shown up yet.
Agent Sinclair, that's my son Adam.
Is everything all right? Yeah, everything's fine.
They just have some questions about a guy that I knew a very long time ago.
- Well, do you want to talk to the foreman or? - No, no.
You can handle it.
I'll be right there.
My son.
Smart kid.
He's got a business degree.
Me - I studied sociology.
Mr.
Bennett, if you think of anything or if you hear from anyone, give us a call.
Hey, Tom.
Hi.
Some of my old files.
I'm going through and annotating them.
Look, I got to tell you, we really appreciate all you're doing.
Somewhere in me, I still think of this as my case.
Yeah.
I understand.
I mean, they get under your skin, huh? Then maybe you'll understand if I speak to you frankly about something.
Yeah, sure.
Are you sure you're the right guy to be heading up this investigation? You read my father's file.
I thought your name sounded familiar.
Checked up on him.
Your father was a leader, Eppes.
He organized radical activities, and he knew Matt Stirling.
I just want to be sure that we're all in the same team here.
We just got the prelim on the bomb.
Looks like a non-industrial grade nitroglycerin.
It's probably homemade.
Back to basics—sulfuric and nitric acid, glycerin, sodium carbonate.
Sawdust was the stabilizer.
Were there any signature elements? Yeah, there was one.
The sodium carbonate was sodium carbonate decahydrate.
In other words, baking soda.
Stirling's bomb to the letter.
Why are you asking me about Matt Stirling? Because you were closely affiliated during the antiwar movement, and we had a bombing at a recruitment center on the anniversary of the bombing at the ROTC center in '71.
Right.
I remember.
The FBI blamed that one on Matty.
You think he's come back after 35 years to do it again? We haven't come to any conclusions yet.
Sounds like you have.
But you don't really know anything about the ROTC bombing, do you? I know that two young men were killed in the explosion.
And 18-year-old boys were used as cannon fodder in a war we had no business fighting.
Do you have any information on Mathew Stirling's current whereabouts? None.
Would you tell me if you did? That's the same question they asked me in 1971.
And what was your answer? Over 2,000 troops are dead in Iraq.
That's not an answer.
The point is, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Nearly 35 years later, you're still chasing the wrong man.
Mom, please, maybe they have something they can tell us.
Trust me, they don't.
You don't know that.
Do either of you know where he is? We haven't seen him since the day he disappeared.
You people hounded him, and threatened him with jail.
Forced a loving husband and father to leave his family, or face prison for a crime he didn't commit.
If he was innocent, why didn't he stay and defend himself? You were going to railroad him.
The government wanted to discredit the peace effort, what better way than indict a local leader for murder.
The "effort", as you called it, was riddled with terrorists, people who hated this country.
Look, there was a bombing at an Army recruiting office recently.
You know anything about that? Of course not.
Have you had any contact with your husband since his disappearance? No.
You realize he's probably married again.
New wife, kids, Probably has got some nice house in the suburbs somewhere- Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
My mother filed a missing persons report.
Nobody ever did anything about it.
What if something happened to him? What if he was hurt? What if he needed help? I want you to leave.
Now.
-All right.
Both of you.
Get out of my house.
Agent Lawson? Hi.
I'm here looking for my brother, they said he might be with you.
Nah, he just left.
We're taking a little break from each other.
A little disagreement over methods employed in this investigation.
I can relate to that.
Yeah.
My day, witness refused to cooperate, we didn't coddle them.
My brother coddled someone.
You sure we're talking about Don Eppes here, right? You know, you have a lot of data here.
I investigated Californians for Peace and violent protest groups for five years.
A lot of data.
That's actually what I'm trying to verify through social network analysis.
See you know when you're getting old.
I never heard of that.
Humans form social networks- from bridge clubs and church groups, to universities and federal agencies.
Mathematically, we can analyze these organizational structures to reveal who the true leaders are.
Now, these various antiwar groups in 1971 were also social networks.
Now, using bipartite network analysis, I can identify who the true connectors are.
See, in my day, we, uh we didn't work much with college professors.
We didn't think we could trust 'em.
I have National Security clearance.
Well here's to you.
So what happened to your social network analysis? I'm still working on it.
But this e-mail the FBI received promises more violence, and Don would like me to analyze past attacks to see what can be expected.
So, we're working on recurrence plots.
I mean, hundreds of these events happened, many happened here at CalSci.
Oh, the school had defense contracts back then.
I mean, there were antiwar demonstrations right here on campus.
Bad news is, three of those 12 events rank high as possible repeats.
Really? Two were vandalisms that destroyed research for defense work, and the third was a fire that damaged a sculpture right out in front of this building.
And they all happened around this time in 1971.
You know, all these things were in the headlines: Pentagon Papers, My Lai Massacre, Charles Manson murders.
Do you have any idea how little press the Apollo 15 mission was getting? I need more current data.
You do have a problem.
You have one single recent event with which to base your comparisons.
Which means that you need more bombings.
That's right.
The constant quandary of crime analyses: to get more data, you need more crimes.
Oh, my God, they hit it again.
This same globe that was burned in 1971.
Well, now you have more data.
So the fire at CalSci does in fact match a fire that FBI linked to Stirling.
Linked it to him, because he was the one that set it.
We have an e-mail claiming responsibility identical to a note nailed to a tree back in 1971.
Reads, "There can be no peace for the masters of war".
That's a reference to a Bob Dylan song.
Stirling used politics as an excuse.
Now with the antiwar movement revived, he's back in his element.
Based on the evidence, we're not letting go of the possibility that it was a copycat.
The sculpture burned due to a creosote-based substance that somebody put on it.
There's only about a dozen places in the area where you can buy it.
All right, so why don't you get a list of recent buyers, run that against anyone who bought chemicals used in the recruitment office bombing.
Wait a minute, we've got a match.
The language in the letters.
The construction of the bomb.
The sculpture.
We need to quit chasing around and drag in Stirling's wife, his daughter anybody he's associated with.
These people all have careers; they got mortgages.
Believe me, they'll talk to us.
Well, I disagree.
And I think our best shot is following the leads from today, Tom, not from 35 years ago.
All right, guys, let's just continue with what we're doing.
This is exactly what I was worried about.
Pardon me? Divided loyalties.
"Subject is active in groups "associated with the overthrow of the U.
S.
government, violent political unrest and social agitation".
And your point? Your commitment to this investigation.
Your father knew Stirling, he worked with him All right, look, let's just clear this up right now.
Are you actually suggesting that my father had something to do with these bombings? Of course not.
But your father knew the people that Stirling knew.
Your father's a source of information.
A source which you are choosing not to use.
Hi.
Hi, can I help you? I'm Laura Stirling.
My father was Matthew Stirling.
Your brother's working on a case involving him.
Okay.
I cannot discuss my brother's work.
I did an internet search on your brother and I found out that sometimes he works with you.
If you have questions, if you have concerns, you need to take them directly to the FBI.
I know, but my mother's still angry with the FBI.
She'd never cooperate with them, and she wouldn't want me cooperating with them, either.
If I went to their offices, she'd never forgive me.
I'm sorry, then why are you here? Um This hairbrush was my father's.
The FBI might be able to match his DNA.
You understand that if they match this to a crime scene, it might prove that your father was involved in these bombings.
It's a chance I'm willing to take.
I barely got to know my father.
But if he's proved innocent, then maybe, finally, he can come home.
Hey.
Charlie's not here.
Actually, I came to see you.
Dad how well did you know Matt Stirling? Is this an official visit? Come on.
How'd you meet him? At a local church.
I was organizing voters.
You know, we had people from all walks of life there.
We had students and teachers Dad, Matt Stirling.
Matt Stirling was a lawyer devoted to non-violent protests.
And he was a good speaker, too.
That's what got him in trouble with the FBI.
You see, he could speak their language.
He could use it against them.
That's it, huh? Am I suspect, too? Come on, don't be ridiculous.
It's just that Stirling got help from someone, we think, and Oh, I see.
And I knew the people he knew Credit your mother- she loved to organize things.
You know, keep records.
What's this? Oh, that's called a phone tree.
Before e-mail, that's how we organized things.
Each person was assigned a list of people to call.
Schedules, committee rosters Oh, Dad, this is definitely going to help.
You know, Donnie, I'd hate to see anyone found guilty by association.
Well, you can trust me.
It's not you I'm worried about.
Dad, I know a lot of the guys who were in the Bureau in the '70s.
These are good people.
I mean, they truly believe what they were doing was right, so Yeah? So did we.
You read my file, haven't you? I mean, all that crap they have in there about me? Yeah, I read some of it.
Donnie, they said that my work registering voters in South Central was part of a conspiracy to instigate racial tensions.
Now, how can you defend that? I don't have to.
I don't see stuff like that going on today, Dad- and I see a lot- things have changed.
I think you believe that.
I do believe it.
I'm not sure that I do.
These are Alan Eppes' records of the group- names, committees Wow.
And these ones are those sales records of local chemical companies from '69 to '71- everything we could dig up, anyway.
A lot of them don't exist anymore.
And I bet a lot of them didn't use their real names.
That's why we been looking at the street addresses.
Nothing there.
And they might be stolen.
Maybe the bomber didn't buy the raw materials.
He had access to them, through a job or something.
But what kind of companies would have these materials on hand? Lots of them would have one or two, but the only ones that actually have all three of the chemicals are companies that specifically make explosives.
The bigger issue is, most industrial uses of nitric acid only require a solution that's between For nitroglycerin, you need over 86 percent.
Yeah, but if none of these people had access to the chemicals Wait a minute, wait a minute.
There's always grain alcohol.
What? When we were in college, my buddies and I would want to make a grain alcohol punch, and couldn't get our hands on some, we talked to a pre-med student and see if we could have him swipe some pure lab alcohol.
Pre-med student.
Here, take a look at Look who was pre-med at UCLA in '71- Dr.
Sarah Kemple.
She knew advanced chemistry.
And she'd have access to a university lab.
She has everything.
She has motive, she has knowledge, and she has the materials.
Why didn't the Bureau put this evidence together back then? Because they were so focused on Stirling, they didn't bother looking at anybody else.
Dr.
Kemple? You need to come with us.
It's all right.
I'm ready.
I've been waiting 35 years for you.
I was pre-med.
I made the nitroglycerin myself.
Took what I needed from the university labs.
The police and the FBI they never even questioned me.
And after Matty disappeared, it was just so easy to let it end there.
Well, it didn't.
The families of the kids you killed couldn't let it end there.
Where were you the night of the bombing at the recruitment center? At a medical conference in San Francisco.
I would never have set another bomb.
Not after what happened.
Do you know where Matthew Stirling is? I told you, I have no idea.
He held you planthe ROTC bombing? No, Matty didn't know anything about it.
Then where did the idea come from? There was this one guy in the group.
We called him Cisco.
I read some stuff he wrote.
He was charming, passionate.
Cisco was his first or his last name? I don't know.
I didn't really know him.
He was Matty's friend.
I'm so very sorry.
She was covering for Stirling.
She was pretty specific about the making of the bomb, how it was planted She was out of town.
She couldn't have done the second bombing.
How do you explain that? A copycat.
Tom Look, I'm telling you, Stirling put her up to it in '71, and he's the guy behind the new ones.
Let me ask you this did you ever even look at anybody else besides him? Have you ever had a hunch? Have you ever known deep in your gut who the bad guy was? What about Cisco? You ever hear of that name? I had a report.
Yeah, and what happened? Drifter, outside agitator.
Operated locally for a few months, and we never heard anything more about him.
A nobody.
Well, not to Sarah Kemple.
She claims she got the whole idea for the bombing from him.
You know, Tom, I've had a few wrong hunches in my time.
This analysis says which members of this group got along, and which didn't, and who linked up with people in other antiwar groups.
Boy, you know, people don't like to think that their lives can be tracked so accurately, but, uh, human action isn't very different than any other data, is it? Network analysis quantifies relationships.
It reveals substructures in networks, like cliques, romances, even secret alliances.
However, there's something odd here.
What? Matt Stirling was a connector between Californians for Peace and another group, but that group wasn't the Weather Underground.
My SNA graph indicates that that group was the FBI.
How can that be? The FBI's investigation into the group.
I mean, there are dates here.
Key steps into the investigation which coincide with the activities of this subset.
Only look, they predate the events.
But that means the the FBI wasn't just investigating this group.
It was somehow inside it.
We now know unequivocally hat your husband wasn't responsible or the ROTC bombing.
It was a woman named Sarah Kemple.
Sarah?! Yeah.
I told you people Matty wasn't capable of hurting anyone.
Well, can you tell me f you've ever heard of a man named Cisco? Are you actually asking for my help? Yes, Mrs.
Stirling, I'm asking for your help, okay? A man died on Sunday.
I got two letters promising more of the same.
These are innocent people e're talking about here.
Cisco - I never met him.
But you heard of him? Matty was afraid of him.
Afraid of how far he might go.
But I told the FBI all of this.
But they wouldn't listen.
All right, well, I'm listening now.
All I know is, the night that Matty disappeared, he was scared.
Of what? I don't know.
But because of it I've always thought that something must have happened to him.
Only the FBI decided that he was a fugitive.
And that was that.
Again, I'm sorry, and I appreciate you talking to me.
Thanks.
Now, this seems very strange to me, although the analysis is fairly definitive.
We've analyzed patterns of meetings, groupings, actions, and we're seeing correlations with the FBI's investigation into this group.
What type of correlations? It seems decisions that were made by the Bureau predate related activities by the protest group.
So, I mean, it's almost as if Californians for Peace and the Bureau were overlapping organizations.
I mean, that's not possible, is it? Suddenly a lot about this case seems more possible.
Who was Cisco? I told you, he was a drifter.
I think he was an undercover agent who you put inside.
Those records are sealed.
In order to get at them, you'd need a special court order, and I think I still got enough juice to keep you from doing that.
Why didn't you say something? I told you, Sarah Kemple said Cisco was the one that convinced her to plant the bomb.
Nonsense.
All right, fine; let's go talk to her - come on.
I don't need to talk to her.
What is your problem? I mean, I can't figure you out.
Why are you such an ass? I don't need to talk to Sarah Kemple, because she never ever spoke to Cisco.
So, you knew about him all along.
So, who else did he talk to? Cisco's contact was Stirling.
What, that's the only person he spoke to? How are you so sure about that? I'm certain of it.
Well, I want to talk to him.
You just did.
I was Cisco.
I was operating under orders.
We believed that Stirling and his group were capable of violence.
Based on what? See, that's the thing I'm not clear about.
It was the consensus at the time.
Maybe you had to be there.
That's not good enough, Tom.
You said your undercover work was mostly with Stirling, right? I met him at a protest march, got to know him.
We talked about the role of violence in the movement.
Who brought it up? I did.
I was instructed to.
Did you give anyone in Stirling's group instructions on bomb-making? We talked about what kind of chemicals were readily available we talked about the chemical processes one could use.
Did you provide any materials? No.
Was there even the slightest concern that innocent people could get hurt? We followed Stirling day and night for months.
This guy was a lawyer.
In order to nail him, we had to catch him in the act, which I would have done, except the press got involved.
Somebody blew the whistle, there was an article in the Times, and then I was ordered off undercover.
Two months later, the ROTC was bombed.
Which is when Stirling disappeared.
Fled from prosecution.
You still think he's the bomber.
Maybe he put Kemple up to it but he's involved.
You realize, without you, there might not even have been an ROTC bombing? A person doesn't become violent because you talk to him, Eppes.
You're either a terrorist or you're not.
Something's been bothering me about Sarah Kemple's bomb.
What's that? These are her records from UCLA.
The quantity of chemicals that was stolen from there was enough to make about three times the amount of explosives that were used in the bombing at the ROTC center in '71.
You're right.
So what happened to the rest of it? We got lucky- no major injuries.
Well, it's the first bit of luck we've had on this thing.
Prelim on the bomb indicates it's the same composition as the one used on the recruitment office.
You know we got another e-mail.
Yeah.
Similar wording, more attacks to come.
Blah, blah, blah.
Here's the kicker.
Just came in from the Bomb Data Center in D.
C.
Confirms our initial thoughts.
These explosives have the same chemical signature as the '71 ROTC bomb.
So you tell me how two people, 35 years apart, use the same process.
Not likely.
Don, they use the same exact process.
Same amounts, both used a commercially available sodium carbonate-baking soda.
Yeah, we know it ain't Sarah Kemple.
Someone else has his formula.
Definitely, definitely.
You said you figured out the formula for the bomb yourself.
That's right.
I did.
That's not gonna fly, Sarah.
Someone else is using the same process to make new bombs.
That's impossible.
You're a doctor.
You know that lab reports don't lie.
Someone else had to be aware of the chemical mix that you used.
The book.
What book? It was a copy of Essays on Revolution.
The formula was written on the flyleaf.
I assumed it was Matty's.
But later, when I asked him about it, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.
Where's the book now? I don't know.
I haven't seen it for 35 years.
And where are the rest of the explosives? I know you had more than you used at the ROTC bombing.
I hid them in a shed behind a weekend place my parents owned.
A few weeks later, I went back to get them.
But they were gone.
They were gone.
And who else knew they were there? Matty was the only one.
I've shown you every book in the house.
I have never owned a copy of "Essays on Revolution".
Okay, how about your husband? I don't know.
We cleaned out his office.
I gave most of his stuff away.
What's so important about this book? Well, we believe that it contained the chemical signatures for the explosives used in, not only the '71 bombing, but the one the other night.
The chemical signatures? Mrs.
Stirling, has your husband ever mentioned anything about explosives he may have come across? No, but if Matty had, he certainly wouldn't have brought them in the house and exposed his family to danger.
And the night he disappeared, you told the FBI he said he was leaving to prevent a, quote, "terrible mistake".
That's what he said.
Excuse me.
Swept the house.
There's no sign of any book; no explosives.
Sarah Kemple said Stirling was the only one who knew about the explosives.
- could be anywhere.
He said he was trying to prevent a mistake.
Which, at the time, the FBI assumed meant him being arrested.
So what if he was trying to stop Sarah Kemple from making another bomb? You think he was going after the explosives? Sarah said, by the time she got back here, the explosives were gone.
Yeah, but how's he gonna move nitro without Wait so if he's out to stop Kemple and he never leaves L.
A.
, we should be looking at routes he would have taken out of here, right? I just found a bunch of my old maps, which should show us what roads were not around in 1971.
Terrific.
I ran a preliminary analysis to find the most likely route between Stirling's home and his destination.
You rock.
Okay, so we take this information, we run it against that map, which shows areas of dense vegetation The result should be a short list of places to find a man hidden in plain sight.
Yeah, there's a wreck down here.
It's an old Volkswagen.
Can you tell what color it is? Yeah, it's yellow.
A lot of damage, though.
That's Stirling's car.
I'm gonna come down and take a look.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
We got a human skull! Looks like the damage came from the explosion inside the car.
I'd say he was driving away from the cabin, right? That nitro was pretty unstable.
So he's got a trunk loaded with this stuff, and then he hits a pothole.
That means all the explosive material from '71 is gone.
And with Stirling dead, that effectively eliminates him as a suspect in the current bombings.
Yeah, but our current bomber is using the same recipe and the same wording in all the letters claiming responsibility.
We got a copycat who got ahold of that book.
The Revolution book's not at Hester Sterling's house, and it's not at Dr.
Kemple's home or her office.
All right, well, what about Stirling's daughter? She's got a place, right? Yeah.
So check that out.
Bank records on that protest group finally came through.
That American Peace Movement? Guess who donated $1,000 last year? Jack Bennett? GOP poster boy.
Give money? Me? To a bunch of radical nutcases like that? No way.
You used to be a radical nutcase yourself.
I learned my lesson.
I believe in this country.
I'm not looking to tear it down.
That's your company's name, isn't it? Yeah, but that's got to be a forgery.
Look, you can check my handwriting, right? You have experts who can do that? Yeah, we got armies of them.
'Cause I'm telling you, I would not give money to an organization like that.
What about his company? If they use explosives, we might be able to tie the bombings to him.
Bennett hires a contractor for demolition work.
And those would be commercially made explosives.
Yeah, and our bomber's making his own.
Basic chemicals, we might be able to tie them to him.
Yeah, they'll need more than ingredients.
They'll need a knowledge of chemistry.
No luck.
Bennett flunked high school chemistry.
There's three invoices in this file.
Bennett's company from a chemical wholesaler.
One of them's for sulfuric acid, one's for nitric acid, and the third one is for glycerin.
Let me see those checks again.
Think he's right about the forgery of his signature on these checks.
This handwriting doesn't match.
All right, so what are we missing here? What are we missing? We're missing a dimension.
Hey, check this out.
Okay, figure this is our antiwar group, just this, in 1971.
Now, we can analyze the various connections and patterns for just this social group, for just that year, but see, time creates new connections, the offspring of the old network.
So we're looking at the wrong generation? Are you out of your minds? I'm a Republican! Hold on a second.
Just relax - we're not here for you We're here for your son.
My son? All right, this has gone far enough.
He's the one who forged your name to buy chemicals so he could make nitro No, I know my son! This is absurd! You can search my home.
You will not find anything! Actually, they will! Hey! He's got blasting gelatin, made with nitroglycerin.
That's right.
And it's lot more powerful than dynamite.
Shoot me and find out.
Clear the area - everyone with a hard hat, step back! Get outta here! Back off! Adam, for God's sake, please.
What happened to you? You used to believe in something.
Now innocent kids are dying, and all you can do is keep voting the same guys back to office who send them off to war.
This is not an answer.
It worked once.
The war went on for years! Not this war, Dad, not while I can still do Guess you do know a little about explosives, huh? Yeah, that's right.
Like blasting gel is a lot more powerful than dynamite, but it's a lot more stable, too.
Where did you get this? It was in a box of things that belonged to my dad back when he was an activist.
Actually, it doesn't belong to your father.
It belonged to someone else.
I don't know, Tom.
I'm having a hard time getting my head around the fact that you guys started a chain reaction that lasted through two wars.
Had no choice.
We had to be proactive.
Three people are dead.
And how many more are alive because of what we do? The formula for the bombs are in here.
Is it your handwriting in the margins? We had to stop these people from killing Americans.
When that happens, no one cares how you do it.
Terrorists, bottom line.
Our job is to protect, by any means.
I don't know about that, Tom.
At a certain point, there's a cost - there's got to be.
You know, that's the kinda thing that gives us a bad name around the world, and it comes back to haunt us just like it did.
Just like it did.
It seems that your father died while attempting to do a very good thing.
I'm not sure if knowing that helps at all.
No, it does help, a lot.
I guess I probably knew my father was dead, but what I really couldn't face would have been if he was guilty.
You know, my father was a peace activist, and he knew your father.
He says that your father was a man committed to helping people.
And he never believed the charges against your father were true.
Mm.
That's good to hear.
Finally, after all these years, we're going to have a memorial service.
Maybe your father would like to come and you, too, if you want.
I think my father and I would like that very much.
Dad? Hi.
Charlie did a good job on this, huh? Yeah, I like it.
Look, you know, I'm aware that the Bureau has some bad history.
Is that an apology? I'm just saying, it was a different time, you know? And I know that.
Donnie, I'm the same guy I was then.
I still believe in the same things.
Yeah, well, good.
You know, when you told me you were going to join the FBI, you know what the first thought I had was? "Where did I go wrong?" Honestly, yes.
Because I thought you wanted to do something as different from Charlie and the rest of us as possible.
No, I knew it was something I was going to be good at.
And you are.
Yeah.
No, I mean it.
You are, Donnie.
Maybe it's because your mother and I brought you guys up to do the kind of work that really matters in this world.
And, you know, look I didn't have to read the file, okay? 'Cause I knew that, ultimately, I would respect anything that you or Mom were involved with.
Commie.
G - Man.
All right, big shot, where are you gonna take me to dinner? All right, well, there's a new Italian place that supposed to have great steak pizzaiola.
Red meat, let's eat.
Hey, at least it's good to know, when it comes to food you're still both your father's sons.
A.
man # # When I heard this woman singin' a song # # A pair of.
45's made me open my eyes # # My temperature started to rise # # She was a long cool woman in a black dress # # Just a five-nine beautiful tall # # With just one look I was a bad mess # # 'Cause that long cool woman had it all # I'm pretty sure there's an ATM around here somewhere.
I don't want to wander around downtown at this time of night.
Don't worry.
If we don't find one here, we'll go back.
Ah, here's one.
You never listen to me.
Hey, guys.
It's an Army recruiting office.
We had the victim standing here at the ATM.
He died on the scene.
His wife's in shock, but she's stable.
Bomb looks to be homemade.
We'll need the chem work-up to know more.
It's an interesting choice of targets.
High profile, and low risk of casualties.
Antiwar protest? Maybe just somebody with an axe to grind against the Army.
Well, someone's definitely gonna take responsibility for this.
You were right.
This came in last night, just before the bomb went off.
You having any luck tracing this? It's been routed through so many servers.
I can't promise anything.
"This act is in retaliation "for an illegal war begun at the behest of U.
S.
imperialists " Wait.
It's signed the Weather Underground? The protest group from the '70s? Maybe somebody's having a flashback.
Weather Underground were radicals disguised as patriots.
They're willing to use any means necessary to accomplish their ends.
Today, we call them terrorists.
Uh, Agent Thomas Lawson.
Retired.
Back in my day, uh, all we had was a couple of IBM Selectrics and a telephone.
I'm sorry.
Can we help you with something? Chief of Criminal Division called me this morning.
Why is that? You had a bombing at a recruitment center.
We had an identical bombing at an ROTC office 35 years ago to the day.
And you think it's the same people? Same person.
Matthew Stirling? He was a member of a local radical group from '69 to '71.
He was responsible for three bombings, including the one at the ROTC which killed two people.
Where is he now? Never apprehended.
His current whereabouts were unknown until this morning.
The e-mail is almost identical to a letter received by the FBI in '71, except instead of "Vietnam", the new letter reads "Iraq".
Bomb materials, composition and placement are all similar.
I know you guys didn't use math consultants back then, but meet my brother Charlie.
He's going to do a statistical assessment of crimes from back then.
Compare it to this one here.
Given the length of time between these bombings, this is going to be a great challenge.
Maybe.
If you were looking for a different perpetrator.
We haven't ruled out the possibility of a copycat yet.
You're wasting time.
Time you haven't got.
We're gonna look into Stirling as well as some current groups with similar profiles, so The day after Stirling was questioned about the ROTC bombing, he went underground.
He abandoned a wife and baby.
The bomb he set killed two people.
Thomas O'Keefe Albert Whitetower I was the one that had to knock on their parents' door to tell them their kid was dead.
Next time, it'll be you.
Somebody blew up a car.
That's an antiwar act? A military vehicle parked outside of an Army recruiting office where somebody was killed.
You might want to round up some of the local high school parents.
I understand a lot of them aren't too happy with the Army's on-campus recruitment tactics.
Your organization called for resistance against the United States.
The war on Iraq is illegal, and any resistance is protected by international law.
Vandalism and violence aren't.
We're gonna need to take a look at all the e-mails coming and going into your office.
Then you're gonna need a warrant.
Maybe.
Look, try to pull any of that Patriot Act stuff, and you'll get plenty of press.
I don't doubt it.
You're wasting your time.
We didn't have anything to do with it.
Really? Cross your heart and hope to die? Hey! So, what do you think of this? Wow.
You got it done fast.
Yeah.
I found it in the original designs.
The people who owned the place before us - they tore them out.
Can't imagine why they did that.
Well, people did a lot of stupid things in the '70s.
I take it you're not just talking about home remodeling.
Here are the files from the ROTC bombing.
Oh, great.
So you think this guy Stirling was involved with these recent bombings, huh, after all these years? Stirling? You're talking about Matt Stirling? Yeah.
Why? Well, I knew him.
We worked together.
You did? At City Hall? No.
Californians for Peace.
We organized volunteers.
Matty worked with the local colleges.
You were an antiwar protester? I participated in peaceful demonstrations, so did Matt.
Dad, Matt Stirling is the one who blew up the ROTC Center.
He killed two innocent kids.
Matt Stirling's guilt was never proven in a court of law.
Yeah, because he took off.
Look, I knew Matt Stirling.
He had a wife, he had a child.
What are you talking about? - I'm talking about evidence.
- What evidence? Those files right there, to begin with! Oh, come on.
You guys probably had twice that much on the man you mistakenly accused of the Madrid train bombings.
We're trying to stop someone from killing innocent people here.
So were we.
- Hey.
- Hey.
I didn't know Dad was so active back then.
Yeah, well, I kind of forgot about it until I was joining the bureau.
Came out in my background check.
Was he ever arrested? Oh, yeah.
Twice.
- Twice? - Sit-ins.
I was, like, three.
Mom and Dad both took me to a march.
LAPD hauls Dad off in cuffs.
Dad has an FBI file.
What's in it? Well, that's the thing.
It's funny.
You know, I mean, I never wanted to read it that closely.
By the time I was born, the war was over.
Yeah.
Well, lucky you.
All right, Don.
What about this bomb investigation? Well I mean, Stirling's our prime suspect, but You know, you've got a lot of data here from the old case, and I might be able to run an application of math called social network analysis, which analyzes the structure of groups.
Might tell us how Stirling fit in to Californians For Peace, and who he worked with.
Could it tell if he was involved in something like the Weather Underground? Oh, quite possibly.
And if it was a copycat? The analysis might very well identify likely suspects.
Coming up empty with e- mails and phone records.
There's nothing to indicate that any of the local antiwar groups are planning anything like this.
LAPD's anti-terrorist surveillance indicates these groups are organizing demonstrations to mark the start of the war in the spring.
So we're back to looking at a copycat.
Well, either that, or Lawson's right, and Stirling's resurfaced.
It's possible.
Serial bombers often claim political motivations, but it's a sociopathic drive.
It's the same as serial killers.
They can go underground for years, and then return to violence if circumstances bring up old obsessions.
Circumstances like a new war, new climate of protest? You got it, but if it is him, more than likely, he's gonna contact somebody from his past.
Yeah, Matt and I were very good friends back then.
But that was back then.
You worked together in the peace movement.
And I admired Matt, I really did.
But the things we did I don't believe in them anymore.
Are you saying you were involved in violence? No, no, none of us were.
No, just those protests, when the troops needed our support, coming back from that hellhole.
That's something I wish I'd never been a part of.
Dad.
Hey, Wilkie's at the Culver City site, he says the concrete hasn't shown up yet.
Agent Sinclair, that's my son Adam.
Is everything all right? Yeah, everything's fine.
They just have some questions about a guy that I knew a very long time ago.
- Well, do you want to talk to the foreman or? - No, no.
You can handle it.
I'll be right there.
My son.
Smart kid.
He's got a business degree.
Me - I studied sociology.
Mr.
Bennett, if you think of anything or if you hear from anyone, give us a call.
Hey, Tom.
Hi.
Some of my old files.
I'm going through and annotating them.
Look, I got to tell you, we really appreciate all you're doing.
Somewhere in me, I still think of this as my case.
Yeah.
I understand.
I mean, they get under your skin, huh? Then maybe you'll understand if I speak to you frankly about something.
Yeah, sure.
Are you sure you're the right guy to be heading up this investigation? You read my father's file.
I thought your name sounded familiar.
Checked up on him.
Your father was a leader, Eppes.
He organized radical activities, and he knew Matt Stirling.
I just want to be sure that we're all in the same team here.
We just got the prelim on the bomb.
Looks like a non-industrial grade nitroglycerin.
It's probably homemade.
Back to basics—sulfuric and nitric acid, glycerin, sodium carbonate.
Sawdust was the stabilizer.
Were there any signature elements? Yeah, there was one.
The sodium carbonate was sodium carbonate decahydrate.
In other words, baking soda.
Stirling's bomb to the letter.
Why are you asking me about Matt Stirling? Because you were closely affiliated during the antiwar movement, and we had a bombing at a recruitment center on the anniversary of the bombing at the ROTC center in '71.
Right.
I remember.
The FBI blamed that one on Matty.
You think he's come back after 35 years to do it again? We haven't come to any conclusions yet.
Sounds like you have.
But you don't really know anything about the ROTC bombing, do you? I know that two young men were killed in the explosion.
And 18-year-old boys were used as cannon fodder in a war we had no business fighting.
Do you have any information on Mathew Stirling's current whereabouts? None.
Would you tell me if you did? That's the same question they asked me in 1971.
And what was your answer? Over 2,000 troops are dead in Iraq.
That's not an answer.
The point is, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Nearly 35 years later, you're still chasing the wrong man.
Mom, please, maybe they have something they can tell us.
Trust me, they don't.
You don't know that.
Do either of you know where he is? We haven't seen him since the day he disappeared.
You people hounded him, and threatened him with jail.
Forced a loving husband and father to leave his family, or face prison for a crime he didn't commit.
If he was innocent, why didn't he stay and defend himself? You were going to railroad him.
The government wanted to discredit the peace effort, what better way than indict a local leader for murder.
The "effort", as you called it, was riddled with terrorists, people who hated this country.
Look, there was a bombing at an Army recruiting office recently.
You know anything about that? Of course not.
Have you had any contact with your husband since his disappearance? No.
You realize he's probably married again.
New wife, kids, Probably has got some nice house in the suburbs somewhere- Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom.
My mother filed a missing persons report.
Nobody ever did anything about it.
What if something happened to him? What if he was hurt? What if he needed help? I want you to leave.
Now.
-All right.
Both of you.
Get out of my house.
Agent Lawson? Hi.
I'm here looking for my brother, they said he might be with you.
Nah, he just left.
We're taking a little break from each other.
A little disagreement over methods employed in this investigation.
I can relate to that.
Yeah.
My day, witness refused to cooperate, we didn't coddle them.
My brother coddled someone.
You sure we're talking about Don Eppes here, right? You know, you have a lot of data here.
I investigated Californians for Peace and violent protest groups for five years.
A lot of data.
That's actually what I'm trying to verify through social network analysis.
See you know when you're getting old.
I never heard of that.
Humans form social networks- from bridge clubs and church groups, to universities and federal agencies.
Mathematically, we can analyze these organizational structures to reveal who the true leaders are.
Now, these various antiwar groups in 1971 were also social networks.
Now, using bipartite network analysis, I can identify who the true connectors are.
See, in my day, we, uh we didn't work much with college professors.
We didn't think we could trust 'em.
I have National Security clearance.
Well here's to you.
So what happened to your social network analysis? I'm still working on it.
But this e-mail the FBI received promises more violence, and Don would like me to analyze past attacks to see what can be expected.
So, we're working on recurrence plots.
I mean, hundreds of these events happened, many happened here at CalSci.
Oh, the school had defense contracts back then.
I mean, there were antiwar demonstrations right here on campus.
Bad news is, three of those 12 events rank high as possible repeats.
Really? Two were vandalisms that destroyed research for defense work, and the third was a fire that damaged a sculpture right out in front of this building.
And they all happened around this time in 1971.
You know, all these things were in the headlines: Pentagon Papers, My Lai Massacre, Charles Manson murders.
Do you have any idea how little press the Apollo 15 mission was getting? I need more current data.
You do have a problem.
You have one single recent event with which to base your comparisons.
Which means that you need more bombings.
That's right.
The constant quandary of crime analyses: to get more data, you need more crimes.
Oh, my God, they hit it again.
This same globe that was burned in 1971.
Well, now you have more data.
So the fire at CalSci does in fact match a fire that FBI linked to Stirling.
Linked it to him, because he was the one that set it.
We have an e-mail claiming responsibility identical to a note nailed to a tree back in 1971.
Reads, "There can be no peace for the masters of war".
That's a reference to a Bob Dylan song.
Stirling used politics as an excuse.
Now with the antiwar movement revived, he's back in his element.
Based on the evidence, we're not letting go of the possibility that it was a copycat.
The sculpture burned due to a creosote-based substance that somebody put on it.
There's only about a dozen places in the area where you can buy it.
All right, so why don't you get a list of recent buyers, run that against anyone who bought chemicals used in the recruitment office bombing.
Wait a minute, we've got a match.
The language in the letters.
The construction of the bomb.
The sculpture.
We need to quit chasing around and drag in Stirling's wife, his daughter anybody he's associated with.
These people all have careers; they got mortgages.
Believe me, they'll talk to us.
Well, I disagree.
And I think our best shot is following the leads from today, Tom, not from 35 years ago.
All right, guys, let's just continue with what we're doing.
This is exactly what I was worried about.
Pardon me? Divided loyalties.
"Subject is active in groups "associated with the overthrow of the U.
S.
government, violent political unrest and social agitation".
And your point? Your commitment to this investigation.
Your father knew Stirling, he worked with him All right, look, let's just clear this up right now.
Are you actually suggesting that my father had something to do with these bombings? Of course not.
But your father knew the people that Stirling knew.
Your father's a source of information.
A source which you are choosing not to use.
Hi.
Hi, can I help you? I'm Laura Stirling.
My father was Matthew Stirling.
Your brother's working on a case involving him.
Okay.
I cannot discuss my brother's work.
I did an internet search on your brother and I found out that sometimes he works with you.
If you have questions, if you have concerns, you need to take them directly to the FBI.
I know, but my mother's still angry with the FBI.
She'd never cooperate with them, and she wouldn't want me cooperating with them, either.
If I went to their offices, she'd never forgive me.
I'm sorry, then why are you here? Um This hairbrush was my father's.
The FBI might be able to match his DNA.
You understand that if they match this to a crime scene, it might prove that your father was involved in these bombings.
It's a chance I'm willing to take.
I barely got to know my father.
But if he's proved innocent, then maybe, finally, he can come home.
Hey.
Charlie's not here.
Actually, I came to see you.
Dad how well did you know Matt Stirling? Is this an official visit? Come on.
How'd you meet him? At a local church.
I was organizing voters.
You know, we had people from all walks of life there.
We had students and teachers Dad, Matt Stirling.
Matt Stirling was a lawyer devoted to non-violent protests.
And he was a good speaker, too.
That's what got him in trouble with the FBI.
You see, he could speak their language.
He could use it against them.
That's it, huh? Am I suspect, too? Come on, don't be ridiculous.
It's just that Stirling got help from someone, we think, and Oh, I see.
And I knew the people he knew Credit your mother- she loved to organize things.
You know, keep records.
What's this? Oh, that's called a phone tree.
Before e-mail, that's how we organized things.
Each person was assigned a list of people to call.
Schedules, committee rosters Oh, Dad, this is definitely going to help.
You know, Donnie, I'd hate to see anyone found guilty by association.
Well, you can trust me.
It's not you I'm worried about.
Dad, I know a lot of the guys who were in the Bureau in the '70s.
These are good people.
I mean, they truly believe what they were doing was right, so Yeah? So did we.
You read my file, haven't you? I mean, all that crap they have in there about me? Yeah, I read some of it.
Donnie, they said that my work registering voters in South Central was part of a conspiracy to instigate racial tensions.
Now, how can you defend that? I don't have to.
I don't see stuff like that going on today, Dad- and I see a lot- things have changed.
I think you believe that.
I do believe it.
I'm not sure that I do.
These are Alan Eppes' records of the group- names, committees Wow.
And these ones are those sales records of local chemical companies from '69 to '71- everything we could dig up, anyway.
A lot of them don't exist anymore.
And I bet a lot of them didn't use their real names.
That's why we been looking at the street addresses.
Nothing there.
And they might be stolen.
Maybe the bomber didn't buy the raw materials.
He had access to them, through a job or something.
But what kind of companies would have these materials on hand? Lots of them would have one or two, but the only ones that actually have all three of the chemicals are companies that specifically make explosives.
The bigger issue is, most industrial uses of nitric acid only require a solution that's between For nitroglycerin, you need over 86 percent.
Yeah, but if none of these people had access to the chemicals Wait a minute, wait a minute.
There's always grain alcohol.
What? When we were in college, my buddies and I would want to make a grain alcohol punch, and couldn't get our hands on some, we talked to a pre-med student and see if we could have him swipe some pure lab alcohol.
Pre-med student.
Here, take a look at Look who was pre-med at UCLA in '71- Dr.
Sarah Kemple.
She knew advanced chemistry.
And she'd have access to a university lab.
She has everything.
She has motive, she has knowledge, and she has the materials.
Why didn't the Bureau put this evidence together back then? Because they were so focused on Stirling, they didn't bother looking at anybody else.
Dr.
Kemple? You need to come with us.
It's all right.
I'm ready.
I've been waiting 35 years for you.
I was pre-med.
I made the nitroglycerin myself.
Took what I needed from the university labs.
The police and the FBI they never even questioned me.
And after Matty disappeared, it was just so easy to let it end there.
Well, it didn't.
The families of the kids you killed couldn't let it end there.
Where were you the night of the bombing at the recruitment center? At a medical conference in San Francisco.
I would never have set another bomb.
Not after what happened.
Do you know where Matthew Stirling is? I told you, I have no idea.
He held you planthe ROTC bombing? No, Matty didn't know anything about it.
Then where did the idea come from? There was this one guy in the group.
We called him Cisco.
I read some stuff he wrote.
He was charming, passionate.
Cisco was his first or his last name? I don't know.
I didn't really know him.
He was Matty's friend.
I'm so very sorry.
She was covering for Stirling.
She was pretty specific about the making of the bomb, how it was planted She was out of town.
She couldn't have done the second bombing.
How do you explain that? A copycat.
Tom Look, I'm telling you, Stirling put her up to it in '71, and he's the guy behind the new ones.
Let me ask you this did you ever even look at anybody else besides him? Have you ever had a hunch? Have you ever known deep in your gut who the bad guy was? What about Cisco? You ever hear of that name? I had a report.
Yeah, and what happened? Drifter, outside agitator.
Operated locally for a few months, and we never heard anything more about him.
A nobody.
Well, not to Sarah Kemple.
She claims she got the whole idea for the bombing from him.
You know, Tom, I've had a few wrong hunches in my time.
This analysis says which members of this group got along, and which didn't, and who linked up with people in other antiwar groups.
Boy, you know, people don't like to think that their lives can be tracked so accurately, but, uh, human action isn't very different than any other data, is it? Network analysis quantifies relationships.
It reveals substructures in networks, like cliques, romances, even secret alliances.
However, there's something odd here.
What? Matt Stirling was a connector between Californians for Peace and another group, but that group wasn't the Weather Underground.
My SNA graph indicates that that group was the FBI.
How can that be? The FBI's investigation into the group.
I mean, there are dates here.
Key steps into the investigation which coincide with the activities of this subset.
Only look, they predate the events.
But that means the the FBI wasn't just investigating this group.
It was somehow inside it.
We now know unequivocally hat your husband wasn't responsible or the ROTC bombing.
It was a woman named Sarah Kemple.
Sarah?! Yeah.
I told you people Matty wasn't capable of hurting anyone.
Well, can you tell me f you've ever heard of a man named Cisco? Are you actually asking for my help? Yes, Mrs.
Stirling, I'm asking for your help, okay? A man died on Sunday.
I got two letters promising more of the same.
These are innocent people e're talking about here.
Cisco - I never met him.
But you heard of him? Matty was afraid of him.
Afraid of how far he might go.
But I told the FBI all of this.
But they wouldn't listen.
All right, well, I'm listening now.
All I know is, the night that Matty disappeared, he was scared.
Of what? I don't know.
But because of it I've always thought that something must have happened to him.
Only the FBI decided that he was a fugitive.
And that was that.
Again, I'm sorry, and I appreciate you talking to me.
Thanks.
Now, this seems very strange to me, although the analysis is fairly definitive.
We've analyzed patterns of meetings, groupings, actions, and we're seeing correlations with the FBI's investigation into this group.
What type of correlations? It seems decisions that were made by the Bureau predate related activities by the protest group.
So, I mean, it's almost as if Californians for Peace and the Bureau were overlapping organizations.
I mean, that's not possible, is it? Suddenly a lot about this case seems more possible.
Who was Cisco? I told you, he was a drifter.
I think he was an undercover agent who you put inside.
Those records are sealed.
In order to get at them, you'd need a special court order, and I think I still got enough juice to keep you from doing that.
Why didn't you say something? I told you, Sarah Kemple said Cisco was the one that convinced her to plant the bomb.
Nonsense.
All right, fine; let's go talk to her - come on.
I don't need to talk to her.
What is your problem? I mean, I can't figure you out.
Why are you such an ass? I don't need to talk to Sarah Kemple, because she never ever spoke to Cisco.
So, you knew about him all along.
So, who else did he talk to? Cisco's contact was Stirling.
What, that's the only person he spoke to? How are you so sure about that? I'm certain of it.
Well, I want to talk to him.
You just did.
I was Cisco.
I was operating under orders.
We believed that Stirling and his group were capable of violence.
Based on what? See, that's the thing I'm not clear about.
It was the consensus at the time.
Maybe you had to be there.
That's not good enough, Tom.
You said your undercover work was mostly with Stirling, right? I met him at a protest march, got to know him.
We talked about the role of violence in the movement.
Who brought it up? I did.
I was instructed to.
Did you give anyone in Stirling's group instructions on bomb-making? We talked about what kind of chemicals were readily available we talked about the chemical processes one could use.
Did you provide any materials? No.
Was there even the slightest concern that innocent people could get hurt? We followed Stirling day and night for months.
This guy was a lawyer.
In order to nail him, we had to catch him in the act, which I would have done, except the press got involved.
Somebody blew the whistle, there was an article in the Times, and then I was ordered off undercover.
Two months later, the ROTC was bombed.
Which is when Stirling disappeared.
Fled from prosecution.
You still think he's the bomber.
Maybe he put Kemple up to it but he's involved.
You realize, without you, there might not even have been an ROTC bombing? A person doesn't become violent because you talk to him, Eppes.
You're either a terrorist or you're not.
Something's been bothering me about Sarah Kemple's bomb.
What's that? These are her records from UCLA.
The quantity of chemicals that was stolen from there was enough to make about three times the amount of explosives that were used in the bombing at the ROTC center in '71.
You're right.
So what happened to the rest of it? We got lucky- no major injuries.
Well, it's the first bit of luck we've had on this thing.
Prelim on the bomb indicates it's the same composition as the one used on the recruitment office.
You know we got another e-mail.
Yeah.
Similar wording, more attacks to come.
Blah, blah, blah.
Here's the kicker.
Just came in from the Bomb Data Center in D.
C.
Confirms our initial thoughts.
These explosives have the same chemical signature as the '71 ROTC bomb.
So you tell me how two people, 35 years apart, use the same process.
Not likely.
Don, they use the same exact process.
Same amounts, both used a commercially available sodium carbonate-baking soda.
Yeah, we know it ain't Sarah Kemple.
Someone else has his formula.
Definitely, definitely.
You said you figured out the formula for the bomb yourself.
That's right.
I did.
That's not gonna fly, Sarah.
Someone else is using the same process to make new bombs.
That's impossible.
You're a doctor.
You know that lab reports don't lie.
Someone else had to be aware of the chemical mix that you used.
The book.
What book? It was a copy of Essays on Revolution.
The formula was written on the flyleaf.
I assumed it was Matty's.
But later, when I asked him about it, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.
Where's the book now? I don't know.
I haven't seen it for 35 years.
And where are the rest of the explosives? I know you had more than you used at the ROTC bombing.
I hid them in a shed behind a weekend place my parents owned.
A few weeks later, I went back to get them.
But they were gone.
They were gone.
And who else knew they were there? Matty was the only one.
I've shown you every book in the house.
I have never owned a copy of "Essays on Revolution".
Okay, how about your husband? I don't know.
We cleaned out his office.
I gave most of his stuff away.
What's so important about this book? Well, we believe that it contained the chemical signatures for the explosives used in, not only the '71 bombing, but the one the other night.
The chemical signatures? Mrs.
Stirling, has your husband ever mentioned anything about explosives he may have come across? No, but if Matty had, he certainly wouldn't have brought them in the house and exposed his family to danger.
And the night he disappeared, you told the FBI he said he was leaving to prevent a, quote, "terrible mistake".
That's what he said.
Excuse me.
Swept the house.
There's no sign of any book; no explosives.
Sarah Kemple said Stirling was the only one who knew about the explosives.
- could be anywhere.
He said he was trying to prevent a mistake.
Which, at the time, the FBI assumed meant him being arrested.
So what if he was trying to stop Sarah Kemple from making another bomb? You think he was going after the explosives? Sarah said, by the time she got back here, the explosives were gone.
Yeah, but how's he gonna move nitro without Wait so if he's out to stop Kemple and he never leaves L.
A.
, we should be looking at routes he would have taken out of here, right? I just found a bunch of my old maps, which should show us what roads were not around in 1971.
Terrific.
I ran a preliminary analysis to find the most likely route between Stirling's home and his destination.
You rock.
Okay, so we take this information, we run it against that map, which shows areas of dense vegetation The result should be a short list of places to find a man hidden in plain sight.
Yeah, there's a wreck down here.
It's an old Volkswagen.
Can you tell what color it is? Yeah, it's yellow.
A lot of damage, though.
That's Stirling's car.
I'm gonna come down and take a look.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
We got a human skull! Looks like the damage came from the explosion inside the car.
I'd say he was driving away from the cabin, right? That nitro was pretty unstable.
So he's got a trunk loaded with this stuff, and then he hits a pothole.
That means all the explosive material from '71 is gone.
And with Stirling dead, that effectively eliminates him as a suspect in the current bombings.
Yeah, but our current bomber is using the same recipe and the same wording in all the letters claiming responsibility.
We got a copycat who got ahold of that book.
The Revolution book's not at Hester Sterling's house, and it's not at Dr.
Kemple's home or her office.
All right, well, what about Stirling's daughter? She's got a place, right? Yeah.
So check that out.
Bank records on that protest group finally came through.
That American Peace Movement? Guess who donated $1,000 last year? Jack Bennett? GOP poster boy.
Give money? Me? To a bunch of radical nutcases like that? No way.
You used to be a radical nutcase yourself.
I learned my lesson.
I believe in this country.
I'm not looking to tear it down.
That's your company's name, isn't it? Yeah, but that's got to be a forgery.
Look, you can check my handwriting, right? You have experts who can do that? Yeah, we got armies of them.
'Cause I'm telling you, I would not give money to an organization like that.
What about his company? If they use explosives, we might be able to tie the bombings to him.
Bennett hires a contractor for demolition work.
And those would be commercially made explosives.
Yeah, and our bomber's making his own.
Basic chemicals, we might be able to tie them to him.
Yeah, they'll need more than ingredients.
They'll need a knowledge of chemistry.
No luck.
Bennett flunked high school chemistry.
There's three invoices in this file.
Bennett's company from a chemical wholesaler.
One of them's for sulfuric acid, one's for nitric acid, and the third one is for glycerin.
Let me see those checks again.
Think he's right about the forgery of his signature on these checks.
This handwriting doesn't match.
All right, so what are we missing here? What are we missing? We're missing a dimension.
Hey, check this out.
Okay, figure this is our antiwar group, just this, in 1971.
Now, we can analyze the various connections and patterns for just this social group, for just that year, but see, time creates new connections, the offspring of the old network.
So we're looking at the wrong generation? Are you out of your minds? I'm a Republican! Hold on a second.
Just relax - we're not here for you We're here for your son.
My son? All right, this has gone far enough.
He's the one who forged your name to buy chemicals so he could make nitro No, I know my son! This is absurd! You can search my home.
You will not find anything! Actually, they will! Hey! He's got blasting gelatin, made with nitroglycerin.
That's right.
And it's lot more powerful than dynamite.
Shoot me and find out.
Clear the area - everyone with a hard hat, step back! Get outta here! Back off! Adam, for God's sake, please.
What happened to you? You used to believe in something.
Now innocent kids are dying, and all you can do is keep voting the same guys back to office who send them off to war.
This is not an answer.
It worked once.
The war went on for years! Not this war, Dad, not while I can still do Guess you do know a little about explosives, huh? Yeah, that's right.
Like blasting gel is a lot more powerful than dynamite, but it's a lot more stable, too.
Where did you get this? It was in a box of things that belonged to my dad back when he was an activist.
Actually, it doesn't belong to your father.
It belonged to someone else.
I don't know, Tom.
I'm having a hard time getting my head around the fact that you guys started a chain reaction that lasted through two wars.
Had no choice.
We had to be proactive.
Three people are dead.
And how many more are alive because of what we do? The formula for the bombs are in here.
Is it your handwriting in the margins? We had to stop these people from killing Americans.
When that happens, no one cares how you do it.
Terrorists, bottom line.
Our job is to protect, by any means.
I don't know about that, Tom.
At a certain point, there's a cost - there's got to be.
You know, that's the kinda thing that gives us a bad name around the world, and it comes back to haunt us just like it did.
Just like it did.
It seems that your father died while attempting to do a very good thing.
I'm not sure if knowing that helps at all.
No, it does help, a lot.
I guess I probably knew my father was dead, but what I really couldn't face would have been if he was guilty.
You know, my father was a peace activist, and he knew your father.
He says that your father was a man committed to helping people.
And he never believed the charges against your father were true.
Mm.
That's good to hear.
Finally, after all these years, we're going to have a memorial service.
Maybe your father would like to come and you, too, if you want.
I think my father and I would like that very much.
Dad? Hi.
Charlie did a good job on this, huh? Yeah, I like it.
Look, you know, I'm aware that the Bureau has some bad history.
Is that an apology? I'm just saying, it was a different time, you know? And I know that.
Donnie, I'm the same guy I was then.
I still believe in the same things.
Yeah, well, good.
You know, when you told me you were going to join the FBI, you know what the first thought I had was? "Where did I go wrong?" Honestly, yes.
Because I thought you wanted to do something as different from Charlie and the rest of us as possible.
No, I knew it was something I was going to be good at.
And you are.
Yeah.
No, I mean it.
You are, Donnie.
Maybe it's because your mother and I brought you guys up to do the kind of work that really matters in this world.
And, you know, look I didn't have to read the file, okay? 'Cause I knew that, ultimately, I would respect anything that you or Mom were involved with.
Commie.
G - Man.
All right, big shot, where are you gonna take me to dinner? All right, well, there's a new Italian place that supposed to have great steak pizzaiola.
Red meat, let's eat.
Hey, at least it's good to know, when it comes to food you're still both your father's sons.