Numb3rs s03e19 Episode Script
Pandora's Box
Hey, Phil, what's your 20? Blackwell Trail.
I'm going to head on over to the north side, check out the campgrounds.
You coming back to the station for dinner break? Well, it depends.
You cooking? See you later, wise guy.
What's that? Phil, are you all right? What happened? Plane crash.
Went right over me.
Where did it go down exactly? Just past the third switchback.
I'm almost there.
Emergency crews are on their way, but if you're that far out Holy! Phil? Send everyone.
This is bad.
Is there anyone alive?! Can anyone hear me?! Hello? Right in the middle of my lecture.
Charlie, I'm as embarrassed as you are.
You were snoring Charlie? Yeah? We forget to lock the door? What? Wow! Wait, wait.
They could still be here.
Here.
They got the DVD player and my laptop.
I've been living in this neighborhood 30 years.
Nothing like this has ever happened.
Hey, they, uh they stole the case of Bavarian beer.
Uh, they stole the blender.
Why would anyone want a blender? I'm calling Donny.
Hey, Donny, someone broke into the house.
No, no, no, we're fine.
I - I think they were grabbed only What? Yeah, sure.
All right.
I'll let you know what the police say.
Yeah.
Bye.
- Dad, is he coming or not? - No, he can't.
He's, uh, he's got a case - uh, some airplane crash.
Did he say where? Yeah, a small jet in the Angeles Forest.
Where are you going? I'm just going to go grab my stuff, because it's a plane crash.
I mean, that's that's an amazingly complex dynamics problem.
They're probably going to need my help.
If I leave now, I should get there by Call the police.
Two sons who solve crimes.
Neither one cares.
So, I talked to David, he'll coordinate from the office, but I haven't been able to get a hold of Megan yet.
Yeah, she's on the task force for DOJ.
All I can say.
Forget it.
You tell me, she'll have to kill me.
See what happened here.
Forest Ranger Phil Hadwin.
NTSB said he was the first one on the scene.
Said he never drew his weapon, so whoever shot him must have surprised him.
All right.
So, who's that? We don't know, but nobody on board.
Said all the passengers on board were accounted for.
Bob? Yeah.
Don Eppes.
Bob Tombrello.
- Good to have you.
- How's it going? What have you got here? Got a corporate jet carrying five, including the pilot and the copilot.
They're all dead.
Seat belts don't do you much good at 270 miles an hour.
These passengers were all officers of a company called AeroNomics, high-tech defense contractor.
What brought it down? Little too soon to tell.
We just started the investigation.
It's possible it was knocked out of the sky, a bomb, a rocket? I don't think so.
Yeah, you see, this debris field is too compact, it's too directed.
So I'm pretty sure the plane was intact when it hit the ground.
Charlie, what areyou doing here? Classical mechanics mixed with a dash of Ito-Stratonovich Drift Integrals.
I mean, that's a perfect recipe for putting a crashed plane back together.
Yeah? Well, slow down.
I mean, we're just getting going here.
We don't even know what we've got.
Well, where there's one, Eppes, there's always two.
Agent Edgerton.
Anybody looking for this? That's the black box.
How'd you find that? How I find anything.
Gentlemen, take it and run diagnostics on this, please.
- Excuse me.
Do you mind - if I tag along? - I'm Professor Charles Eppes.
- Hello, Charles.
Ian, didn't know you were around.
I wasn't till they found a dead forest ranger.
I've done a lot of tracking on this mountain.
I've already scoured a 100-yard perimeter, looking for tracks, signs of encampment.
Figure, what, maybe the guy who shot him was living in the area, and drawn by the crash? How have you been, Eppes? I haven't talked to you since the Crystal Hoyle caper.
I'm all right, Ian.
Cruising speed, plane mass, inclination, fuel burn, even the cockpit voice recorder - black box records everything.
That damage is worse than I thought.
I'll have to send this back to our lab in D.
C.
to recover the data.
The California Institute of Science lab is a lot closer.
We've got the equipment there.
We've certainly got the know-how.
Beats waiting around five days for results.
That's what I'm saying.
So if the ranger was the first one on the scene, and he arrived just minutes after the crash Yeah, but how do we know he was first? What, you mean the shooter? No.
I searched all over these woods.
There weren't any trails or boot prints.
Oh, God.
I mean, a dead ranger and a crashed plane- it doesn't feel like a coincidence to me.
Well, if the shooter is tied directly to the plane crash, he had to be here ahead of time.
Just waiting for the plane to fall out of the sky? Wow.
Who knew a black box isn't really black, huh? Yeah.
For it to be damaged at all is so rare.
Well, they must have been flying awfully fast.
- They probably hit the ground full-force.
- Yeah, well, hard enough to damage the stacked memory boards.
Hey, Amita, um, what was that that DVD you lent me? - Oh, The Bicycle Thief.
- The Bicycle Thief.
Yeah.
It was great, right? Yeah Uh, I won't be returning it.
Oh, you liked it that much? It was stolen inside my DVD player, along with a vase, blender, my Dad's laptop.
Wait.
Someone broke into your house? Yeah, last night.
Police think it's probably just a bunch of kids.
If there is anything our department can do to help Yeah, um, you and Ranger Hadwin were the only rangers stationed up here, is that right? This time of year, the ridge is quiet.
It was just the two of us.
Did either of you encounter anyone up here? Maybe anyone camping out, or living off the land? Summers, we see campers.
But, um, now Phil and I had the whole mountain to ourselves.
I'm sorry.
No, it's okay.
I understand you two were probably close.
Phil was my husband.
I'm so sorry.
I - I had no idea.
I didn't want it to make a difference.
I want to help you find whoever did this to him.
I need this.
I need to be doing something to keep my mind busy.
Yeah.
Hold on.
I need to see some identification.
You can't go up there.
I'm really sorry.
I'll be right back, okay? Hey, guys, I'm going to need to see some credentials.
You don't understand.
That's my plane.
Okay, what do you mean, that's your plane? My name is Aaron Helm.
I'm CEO of AeroNomics.
Those were my people in that crash.
Well, sir, I'm sorry, but we still can't have you back here.
I've got five families who are looking for answers.
All of the passenger bodies have been moved to the L.
A.
Coroner's Office, so the families will be receiving a call shortly.
- My God, if this was my fault - John, we don't know that yet.
And you are? John Wellner, the plane's mechanic.
We're a very small company.
The more I can tell my people now, the easier it's going to be for all of us.
Cause of the crash is yet to be determined.
So you need to go back and be with the families.
When we have any real information, we'll contact you.
All right, there you go.
The input buses are connected.
Gentlemen, the digital flight data recorder, also known as the black box.
This will allow us to recreate the last moments of the flight- altitude, air pressure, flap movement, pitch, you name it.
As you can see, right after wheels-up, the pilot hands over control of the aircraft to the Flight Management Computer.
And that's normal, right? Sure.
I mean, the fact is, with the help of the plane's Inertial Reference System, the FMC can basically fly and land a plane within a millimeter of accuracy.
Okay, coming through 10,000 feet.
That's where the plane hits the mountain.
But didn't the impact happen at around 6,000 feet? Yes, it did, and the altimeter is just north of 10,000.
So, it's off by 4,000 feet.
All right, so there's something wrong with the altimeter.
It's unlikely.
Every plane's got triple back-up.
If one system fails, a second checks in.
Well, so, the Inertial Reference System was wrong times three? How do you look out a window and not see a mountain coming at you? No moon, black sky.
We had the exact situation a few years back with Air New Zealand flight 901.
Now, because of that accident, mistakes like this are almost impossible.
So what - sabotage? I can't tell you without the Flight Management Computer.
Yeah, but isn't that what this is? No.
This is the black box.
It just records and stores data.
Right, the Flight Management Computer is-is the aircraft's brain.
Which, unfortunately, we haven't been able to find yet.
Wow.
Well, uh, with the data from the black box, along with a topographical map of the impact site, what I can do is, calculate a highly-precise, predictive debris field pattern.
That will help us find the Flight Management Computer.
With some math and a little persistence, the Flight Management Computer shouldn't be too hard to locate.
Thank God for the geometry of predictive trajectories.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
What's the measurement? Oh, uh Have you heard anything else about the burglary? You know what, to be honest, I'm so caught up with this - My Dad's dealing with it.
- No, I know.
But, um is he okay? Uh, I know how he is about that house.
You know, when I was an undergrad, I never locked my dorm room.
Until someone came in one day and stole a Fossil watch right off my desk.
Changed my thinking.
I always lock my door, you know? Sometimes I double and sometimes I even triple check it.
I noticed that, that cute little thing you do where you unlock the bolt, then relock the bolt.
What's the measurement? No, Charlie, the point is, is that having someone come in and rob your house can be a very emotional thing.
You know, maybe this is a bigger deal than you realize.
It is bigger.
Are we not talking about the same thing anymore? We've planted eight flags.
Every one of them, the trajectories were dead on, the distances were off.
You allowed room for some slosh in your calculations, right? Yeah, but this isn't slosh.
I mean, with slosh the distances would be off in both directions- some short, some long.
Our predictions, the distances are short, every one by geez, by almost 15%.
Let me see.
take a look at this It's like everything's out of scale.
It's amplified.
Hold this.
Factoring in for this new nontrivial amplification and combining that with trajectories that we've already mapped out, we should be able to find the FMC! Take a look at this.
These tire marks started under some brush.
The, uh, axle width and tread block point to a Ford F-250 pickup.
Doesn't match with any of the emergency vehicles in the area.
You think this might be the killer's truck.
Yeah.
Look at this.
- What is that, oil? - Yeah.
It's concentrated here.
He was sitting there for a while.
Waiting for the plane to crash.
Sick as it is, I can see crashing a plane, but why would you want to be there when it comes down? So we found the plane's Flight Management Computer.
- That's great, Charlie.
- Yeah, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be.
Yeah, we found it by adjusting the size of the debris field.
Sounds like a happy ending.
No, it's a problem.
Here, I'll show you.
You shouldn't come between a man and his fiber.
All right, so that's the debris field.
Now, this looks like it's just sort of a random mess, but it's not.
See, a debris field size and shape is actually governed by variables like speed, mass, angle of incidence, ground topography.
Now, let's say this muffin had walnuts in it, well, then the mess would've been much larger.
See, because walnuts weigh more.
And extra weight means more mass, which translates into greater momentum.
Similarly, what we have outside is a debris field that's, that's much larger than it should be.
Larger, because the plane was heavier than the manifest indicated.
Right about 1000 pounds heavier.
Well, what exactly was this weight? It has to be what the killer was waiting for.
So, we want to know what's so valuable that someone's willing to crash a plane kill six people? Ok? debris field map, twice.
Every major component of the aircraft is accounted for.
So, if Professor Eppes' calculations are right, we are definitely missing Trust me, Professor Eppes' calculations are right.
Those tire marks I found there are two sets- one driving up to the crash, the other one leaving.
The ones leaving were deeper.
Can somebody do this? Can somebody know exactly where this plane was going to come down? This peak is aligned with the San Bernardino Regional Airport takeoff path.
We get as many as 15 planes an hour overhead.
So if they messed with the altimeter, made sure the plane was 4,000 feet low It would crash right here.
Give or take a mile.
What was on that plane, Mr.
Helm? Apparently there was a thousand pounds of undeclared cargo.
Our scramjet prototype.
Which is? Which is a new breed of missile propulsion.
It's efficient, it's clean, it's fast.
We can have some of my technicians identify its parts among the wreckage.
NTSB's already inventoried the major debris from the wreckage.
They didn't find anything like that.
- What are you saying? - It's gone.
This thing is missing.
Who do you think might be after it? Could be any one and a half-dozen propulsion labs.
We're all racing to develop a viable scramjet prototype.
First ones in are going to get billions in government contracts.
That's why it wasn't on the manifest.
We're flying it out to Santa Fe for testing.
We didn't want anyone to know how far along we were.
How about the mechanic for the plane? Who's he? Where's he at? John Wellner? Yeah.
He isn't here.
After we were out at the crash site, saw all our friends dead, he was a basket case.
I sent him home.
So, the State Department said because the scramjet's a prototype, they're not worried about it as an imminent threat.
The FAA analyzed the plane's Flight Management Computer.
It was reprogrammed two days ago.
Now, you need a lot of technical knowledge just to get at the FMC.
It sits inside an obscure panel underneath the nose cone.
Something an airplane mechanic would know.
Colby and Edgerton just called me from Wellner's apartment.
He never made it back home.
And Helm was saying that they're worried that someone's going to rip off the designs for the scramjet.
So no one supposedly outside the company knew the thing was on the plane.
Which means, pretty much, whoever wanted it they had to have an inside man.
Look at this, David.
That's a pretty narrow space.
So if somebody wanted to mess with that FMC, it'd be pretty hard not to leave some prints.
Oh, hey.
Hi, Charlie.
Hey.
Hey, uh look, I-I just want, um I'm sorry about running out on you last night.
That was Well, you did say it was about an airplane crash.
Yeah, some pretty interesting debris field dynamics emerged, actually.
You know what really bugs me? Before last night, everyone who walked through that front door was invited.
Well, hey, let's be grateful that it wasn't worse.
That what they took were just things and things can be replaced Things?! Some of those things were lifetime memories.
I mean, really good memories.
Even the bad ones, they belonged to us.
Somebody violated that.
I - I understand.
Look, I worked on over 50 criminal cases, I'm certain I can crack a minor larceny.
All I need is the right data.
I'll tell you what I can do, I can apply a Heterogeneous Poisson Process on the DVD thefts, and cross-reference that with data and stats on stolen blenders.
I mean, you know, it'll probably yield some sparse results, - to say the least - Yeah, well, whatever.
You know, um, I don't want to sound corny, but I've always looked at this house as an heirloom for you and Don.
Well, then I paid two percent over market value for the "heirloom.
" Well, capital gains notwithstanding, this has been home for 30 years.
Hey.
What's up with the no beer? You could thank the burglars for that one.
You look beat.
Yeah, I've just spent three hours waiting for some prints that came back smudged.
Smudged? How smudged? What do you mean? Smudged.
Only 'cause there's very exciting work being done with Deconvolution Algorithms.
Yeah, as in that would fix my fingerprints? Yeah.
Now, the principle here is fairly simple.
Uh, picture a sprinter and a photographer with a cheap camera Now, without the right shutter speed, the sprinter will smear across the frame.
Edges are blurred and fine details are no longer visible.
A Wavelet-based Deconvolution Algorithm analyzes the image, sharpens the edges and restores the details- to find the picture beneath the smear.
The same technique was used to fix the fuzzy vision of the original Hubble Telescope.
And if we apply a similar algorithm to our smudged fingerprints It's like the computer putting on corrective lenses.
The prints on the nose comb belong to Mike Daley.
He works in AeroNomics' IT department.
Because of their government contracts, all employees have to register their prints.
IT guy would probably know how to tamper with the flight computer.
All right, go get him.
Mike Daley! FBI! Open up.
Up or down? I'll take down.
Bet I can pull the trigger before you hit the gas.
I know how this looks.
Looks like your fingerprints all over the nose cone of the company plane.
Two days later, it's smashed to a million pieces, five people dead.
You reprogrammed the flight computer.
I always reprogram the flight computer.
The FAA issues update software every six months, um new approach patterns, decommissioned runways.
I'm the guy who installs them.
We're a small company.
I help out where I can.
The plane's mechanic John Wellner is too big to get into the nose cone, so he has me do it.
Now, you see that still doesn't explain why you went out the window when we showed up.
Mr.
Helm said that, um, a computer malfunction brought the plane down.
I panicked.
Maybe I installed it wrong.
Maybe I killed my friends.
Only one problem with his story.
The FAA hasn't issued any recent updates.
So what did Wellner have him install? So, Colby, where are we with Wellner? Well, he's not at home, not at the hangar not at AeroNomics - and he's not answering his cell phone.
- All right, so he's in the wind, right? Yeah, and I ran a deeper background check on him.
Clean, this guy is not.
Used to run an air charter business out of the Florida Keys.
DEA suspected it was bankrolled by a Salvadorian drug runner named Victor Morelos.
Wellner's a drug smuggler? Well, never proven, but he tested positive for cocaine during a flight physical, lost his license.
Ended up drifting back west and got a job as a mechanic for AeroNomics.
All right, well, we've got enough for a warrant, right? So, let's hit his apartment.
Agent Granger.
Hey, Ranger Williams.
I just wanted to check in, see if you had made any progress on finding Phil's killer.
We're working a few leads.
You know, I can't really discuss any of the details while the investigation is still open.
I'm sorry.
Don't apologize.
Part of coming here was really just an excuse to get off the mountain Without Phil, it's just me.
I couldn't really figure out where else to go.
You know, um Hey, Colby, warrant for Wellner's apartment just came through.
Edgerton's waiting in the war room.
You're going to get through this.
What? More with the plane crash? Somebody's tricked the airplane's computer into thinking it was 4,000 feet higher than it really was.
So, so the crash was intentional? That's why we're dissecting the code line by line.
What's confusing is there's so much code in this thing.
So, we've decided to play a little trick on the program.
We're rolling back the internal clock and fooling it into thinking the plane hasn't crashed yet.
And we've just faked the plane crash.
The extra code hasn't been accessed.
Really? There's nothing.
Well, then, what's it there for? Well your job isn't done yet.
Hitting the side of the mountain, that pretty much ends the flight.
Well, the flight's computer is its diary, so its job isn't over until Mom and Dad read all the good parts.
She's right.
I mean, the program isn't finished running until the NTSB downloads the information.
Right.
What was that? I don't know.
It deleted itself.
It doesn't want to be seen.
Any luck finding Wellner? Eh, just tossed his apartment.
Empty hangers in the closet, underwear drawer empty, no toothbrush.
Sounds like he's not coming back.
You find any clues to where he might have gone? Sure.
Guess who got to go Dumpster-diving behind Wellner's apartment? Oh, seniority is a son of a bitch.
Wellner had to pull up in a hurry.
Guys in a hurry make mistakes, leave a trail.
Shall we? Four days ago, Wellner drained an IRA account despite a ten percent penalty for early withdrawals.
Bought a Gortex coat, wasn't in his closet.
That would make sense.
Wellner's Web printouts are of these little houses up in Washington State, Montana and Idaho.
Retiring to the mountains to do some fishing.
Here's a padlock.
Could be for anything.
Could be for a storage facility in Van Nuys.
Storage manager ID'd Wellner's photo.
Said Wellner paid cash two days ago for the locker.
Here it is.
Just an unschooled guess, but that looks like a scramjet to me.
They killed six people to get this thing.
Think they would have moved it out of L.
A.
by now.
It's Sinclair.
Yeah, we found the scramjet.
John Wellner.
Looks like he didn't make it out of town either.
The gun shot to the head, just like the ranger.
Shell casing's the same caliber.
The tenants have 24-hour access.
They get in the outside gate with a PIN code.
So when did Wellner use his? At 4:48 P.
M.
, and there was no one else in or out in 30 minutes either side of that.
So no witnesses.
Right.
Come on.
So, Wellner gives Daley a bad program for the flight computer, crashes the plane.
And his partners wait up on the mountain to collect the cargo.
It's one heck of a partnership.
Put a hole in Wellner's head and leave him in his own storage locker? Yeah, they must have known we were getting close to him, didn't want him to talk.
Why leave the scramjet behind? The locker's rent's been paid three years in advance.
Yeah, you got to figure three years from now, the prototype's worth less, not more.
Makes you wonder why the hell six people died.
Why would someone crash that plane, steal the scramjet and mothball it? I don't know.
Better figure it out; we got a lot of bodies piling up here.
What do you mean? Your mechanic, John Wellner, is dead.
Bullet to the head.
Look, we know he was working with someone else and we know you had a lot of info at your fingertips.
You keep saying how important that thing is I can see where the company would pay you to kill the project.
Look You don't know what you're talking about.
Just hold tight.
All right, so what do you need? The plane crash had nothing to do with stealing that scramjet engine.
What? The scramjet's a mislead.
Look, did you hook the plane's flight computer into your mainframe yet? Yeah, that's how we got the reprogramming evidence.
Well, then the program's almost certainly vectored its way into the FAA's computers by now.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? What program? This whole exercise was designed so that someone could place a malicious program into the FAA's computer.
- What does this program do? - I don't know yet.
I need access to the FAA's mainframe.
Do you know how guarded that access is? It's the FAA, guys.
It's what he says he needs.
I'll make a call.
Thank you.
- Stolen blenders? - That's not this.
That's the break-in, I'm working on the break-in.
What, Dad's not all right? That house means a lot to him.
Yeah.
Well, it's like the screens, remember? - Every summer with the screens Putting new screens - Right? - in every single window of that house.
Climbing out on that roof and then the flies come in anyway.
Right.
Just his way of checking in with the house once a year.
Yeah, you're right.
Charlie, you have some fans at the FAA.
If they've got a problem, they want you to find it.
Great.
All right, get to it.
All right, come on.
Review board called me in on the spree killing case.
Figured it was about what we did to Buck.
All they wanted to talk about was you dinging Crystal Hoyle.
I told them you had the clearer shot.
Is that true? I figure you had your reason.
Bad news first, well, the bad news is that the rogue program has fully rooted itself in the FAA's computers.
The good news is that we don't have to ground air traffic.
So no mid-air collisions? This one won't even lose your luggage.
It was designed for something very different.
Well, what was it designed for? Uh, you ever hear of "squawk"? Yeah, it's a seagull who wakes me up every morning.
Not just a seagull.
An entire bird sanctuary.
Each bird has it's own unique squawk.
Enough so that a bird watcher spying from the ground can identify each bird just by its sound.
Now think of the bird watcher as the FAA's radar, and each plane has its own unique signal so that Air Traffic Control canidentify each plane by the code, or "squawk" it receives.
The squawk is sent from a transponder in the plane, which tells the radar not only location, but also ground designation and trajectory.
That's right, now these are all the planes flying over the city right now.
And each with its own unique designation.
Let's say I programmed the virus to listen for This one here.
So I enter in its squawk code.
Now it's gone.
What happened to it? Whoever controls this program can make any plane in Southern California invisible.
Consider M.
C.
Escher's lithograph of the stairs.
Escher was famous for leading the subjects of his artwork back to where they started.
Like the path of the monks in his drawing, in Strange Loop Theory, all math as well as music and even biology, can fold back in on itself, and check in with its origin.
So a program that jumps from computer to computer can leave certain clues that take us back to its origin.
Amita and I traced the program's code via its Strange Loop.
And took you back to the guy who wrote it? It took me back to an AeroNomics Computer used Mike Daley.
by an IT technician Charlie, are you saying he's behind this? At least as far as authoring the code.
- Well, now we know why he ran.
- This program, is it tampering with the FAA's computers right now? No, it's still waiting for an activation code.
You wrote the program - that crashed the plane.
- We've done this before, - that was Wellner.
- No, this is Wellner.
I want a lawyer.
Why? What for? You're free to go.
Yeah, go ahead.
Take off, right? I'll tell you how it's going to go down though.
When they find you, and they will, pal.
They're gonna take a nine millimeter pistol and they're gonna put a hole in your head just like that, and just like Hadwin.
Not every guy gets to know the caliber of bullet that'll kill them.
Nobody was supposed to die.
They said that nobody - was going to get hurt.
- Are you kidding me? You wrote a program that screwed with the altimeter of a plane and crash it into a mountain! What the hell did you think was going to happen?! You know, at least your partners had the guts to pull a trigger when they killed Wellner and the ranger.
You hid behind a damn computer! How could I know about the ranger showing up so fast? Look, I see three scenarios.
Okay, one, you walk out of here, you wind up like that - two, you go down for this alone, you take a seat on death row.
Three, you rat out your buddies and you save your own miserable ass.
The guy behind it, Wellner knew him.
We need a name! I didn't want to know.
My job was to write the programs and figure out a way to backdoor the FAA's computer.
How were you going to make any money on it? The backdoor doesn't work without the pass code.
Wellner's friend, the guy with the truck, he was going to pay us $2 million.
I'll do anything.
I'll cooperate.
Well, we're going to find out if you mean that.
I played a hunch, showed Daley a photo array.
He picked out Victor Morelos.
This guy ran drugs with Wellner, right? Makes sense A smuggler's plane, even without a transponder, has a chance of being seen.
This program erases the transponder number, and the FAA won't even look for the plane.
Yeah, so he'd basically own the border.
Hey, don't I get - a bulletproof vest? - What for? Morelos always goes for the head shot.
Just make sure you get him to take that program.
The more you can get him to say, the better.
Um I don't know about this.
Right now, everything we have on Morelos is circumstantial.
But you on the other hand, you're a prime candidate for Guantanamo Bay.
Yeah, and about ten or twelve years of alternative interrogation methods to look forward to.
Yeah, relax, you've got the fifth best shot in the country covering your ass.
Hey, fourth.
Right.
You don't want to ask how I moved up one spot.
Button your shirt.
I've been thinking, maybe I take my chances with Homeland Security after all.
$50 says the kid rabbits.
Too late.
Got a silver Ford pickup just pulled in.
F-250, I got it.
Hey.
We good? Good.
Yeah, sure.
We're good.
Well? You bring it? You bring my final payment? Well, first we've got to make sure that this thing of yours actually works.
Sure.
I got the stick drive right here.
Whoa-ho.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Mikey, take it easy with the hand in the pocket, okay? Take it easy.
I trust you.
My boy here's a little overprotective.
You're shaking.
Calm down.
You really think I'd try to pull anything after seeing what you did to Wellner? What did I do to Wellner, Mike? He's blowing it.
It's going south, guys.
What did I do to Wellner, Mike? Uh Who've you been talking to, Mike? What do you know? - FBI! Don't move! - Back up! FBI! FBI! Put your hands up! Put them up! Back up right now.
Drop it! I will kill him.
You know I'll do this.
You know I'll do this! Back up! I'm walking out of here right now.
Get away! Drop the gun! Back up! Put your hands up! Get down! Get down! That ought to make me number three.
Thanks.
For being here.
I can understand why you guys moved up here.
Away from the city, you almost forget where you are.
I'll never forget.
No.
No chess.
I win, you pout.
Well, we're not playing poker.
I'm not your personal ATM.
Aw, come on One game.
Hey, come on.
You've said no to Scrabble, Jenga, Battleship and air hockey.
- Wussy games.
- Hey.
Hey, Charlie.
I got a breakthrough on the burglary.
Hey, Millie.
Hey, hey, Charlie.
So, I've mapped out an associative model of crime, based on the victim experience, our experience.
It is kind of cool being a major component in a criminal equation.
Yeah, and so, so? I can tell you the guy's definitely in Los Angeles.
I can tell you that.
Oh.
He's in Los Angeles.
Don't say it like that.
A few more days, a little more data collected I might have a short list to give - to the police.
- Hello.
Hey.
Hey, in here.
Look what I got.
- Hey, Millie, how're you doing? - Good, how are you? Wait a second, is that? - My laptop.
- Your laptop.
Yeah, I had Pasadena PD track the GPS inside.
Of course! The GPS in your laptop.
It's standard now on all models since 2005.
They just punch in a code and there it was blinking away at, uh, 3rd and Lucas.
What do you got here? A rather long way around.
Stole my collar.
Your collar, huh? I would've gotten him.
In six or seven years, maybe.
At least I was working on it.
I wasn't sitting - around playing games.
- Ooh, well Who wins the games, huh? Millie Finch, I believe You want to put that record on the line with a game of spoons? Spoons? What, you boys play games with your cutlery? I have an idea that it's - right up your alley.
- Oh, yeah? All right, hand me your spoons.
Well, you guys ate off both of these.
Do we have other? Come on, Charlie.
Man up.
What are you? This house is kind of a weird.
Who wants a beer? Anyone? There's still no beer.
I'm going to head on over to the north side, check out the campgrounds.
You coming back to the station for dinner break? Well, it depends.
You cooking? See you later, wise guy.
What's that? Phil, are you all right? What happened? Plane crash.
Went right over me.
Where did it go down exactly? Just past the third switchback.
I'm almost there.
Emergency crews are on their way, but if you're that far out Holy! Phil? Send everyone.
This is bad.
Is there anyone alive?! Can anyone hear me?! Hello? Right in the middle of my lecture.
Charlie, I'm as embarrassed as you are.
You were snoring Charlie? Yeah? We forget to lock the door? What? Wow! Wait, wait.
They could still be here.
Here.
They got the DVD player and my laptop.
I've been living in this neighborhood 30 years.
Nothing like this has ever happened.
Hey, they, uh they stole the case of Bavarian beer.
Uh, they stole the blender.
Why would anyone want a blender? I'm calling Donny.
Hey, Donny, someone broke into the house.
No, no, no, we're fine.
I - I think they were grabbed only What? Yeah, sure.
All right.
I'll let you know what the police say.
Yeah.
Bye.
- Dad, is he coming or not? - No, he can't.
He's, uh, he's got a case - uh, some airplane crash.
Did he say where? Yeah, a small jet in the Angeles Forest.
Where are you going? I'm just going to go grab my stuff, because it's a plane crash.
I mean, that's that's an amazingly complex dynamics problem.
They're probably going to need my help.
If I leave now, I should get there by Call the police.
Two sons who solve crimes.
Neither one cares.
So, I talked to David, he'll coordinate from the office, but I haven't been able to get a hold of Megan yet.
Yeah, she's on the task force for DOJ.
All I can say.
Forget it.
You tell me, she'll have to kill me.
See what happened here.
Forest Ranger Phil Hadwin.
NTSB said he was the first one on the scene.
Said he never drew his weapon, so whoever shot him must have surprised him.
All right.
So, who's that? We don't know, but nobody on board.
Said all the passengers on board were accounted for.
Bob? Yeah.
Don Eppes.
Bob Tombrello.
- Good to have you.
- How's it going? What have you got here? Got a corporate jet carrying five, including the pilot and the copilot.
They're all dead.
Seat belts don't do you much good at 270 miles an hour.
These passengers were all officers of a company called AeroNomics, high-tech defense contractor.
What brought it down? Little too soon to tell.
We just started the investigation.
It's possible it was knocked out of the sky, a bomb, a rocket? I don't think so.
Yeah, you see, this debris field is too compact, it's too directed.
So I'm pretty sure the plane was intact when it hit the ground.
Charlie, what areyou doing here? Classical mechanics mixed with a dash of Ito-Stratonovich Drift Integrals.
I mean, that's a perfect recipe for putting a crashed plane back together.
Yeah? Well, slow down.
I mean, we're just getting going here.
We don't even know what we've got.
Well, where there's one, Eppes, there's always two.
Agent Edgerton.
Anybody looking for this? That's the black box.
How'd you find that? How I find anything.
Gentlemen, take it and run diagnostics on this, please.
- Excuse me.
Do you mind - if I tag along? - I'm Professor Charles Eppes.
- Hello, Charles.
Ian, didn't know you were around.
I wasn't till they found a dead forest ranger.
I've done a lot of tracking on this mountain.
I've already scoured a 100-yard perimeter, looking for tracks, signs of encampment.
Figure, what, maybe the guy who shot him was living in the area, and drawn by the crash? How have you been, Eppes? I haven't talked to you since the Crystal Hoyle caper.
I'm all right, Ian.
Cruising speed, plane mass, inclination, fuel burn, even the cockpit voice recorder - black box records everything.
That damage is worse than I thought.
I'll have to send this back to our lab in D.
C.
to recover the data.
The California Institute of Science lab is a lot closer.
We've got the equipment there.
We've certainly got the know-how.
Beats waiting around five days for results.
That's what I'm saying.
So if the ranger was the first one on the scene, and he arrived just minutes after the crash Yeah, but how do we know he was first? What, you mean the shooter? No.
I searched all over these woods.
There weren't any trails or boot prints.
Oh, God.
I mean, a dead ranger and a crashed plane- it doesn't feel like a coincidence to me.
Well, if the shooter is tied directly to the plane crash, he had to be here ahead of time.
Just waiting for the plane to fall out of the sky? Wow.
Who knew a black box isn't really black, huh? Yeah.
For it to be damaged at all is so rare.
Well, they must have been flying awfully fast.
- They probably hit the ground full-force.
- Yeah, well, hard enough to damage the stacked memory boards.
Hey, Amita, um, what was that that DVD you lent me? - Oh, The Bicycle Thief.
- The Bicycle Thief.
Yeah.
It was great, right? Yeah Uh, I won't be returning it.
Oh, you liked it that much? It was stolen inside my DVD player, along with a vase, blender, my Dad's laptop.
Wait.
Someone broke into your house? Yeah, last night.
Police think it's probably just a bunch of kids.
If there is anything our department can do to help Yeah, um, you and Ranger Hadwin were the only rangers stationed up here, is that right? This time of year, the ridge is quiet.
It was just the two of us.
Did either of you encounter anyone up here? Maybe anyone camping out, or living off the land? Summers, we see campers.
But, um, now Phil and I had the whole mountain to ourselves.
I'm sorry.
No, it's okay.
I understand you two were probably close.
Phil was my husband.
I'm so sorry.
I - I had no idea.
I didn't want it to make a difference.
I want to help you find whoever did this to him.
I need this.
I need to be doing something to keep my mind busy.
Yeah.
Hold on.
I need to see some identification.
You can't go up there.
I'm really sorry.
I'll be right back, okay? Hey, guys, I'm going to need to see some credentials.
You don't understand.
That's my plane.
Okay, what do you mean, that's your plane? My name is Aaron Helm.
I'm CEO of AeroNomics.
Those were my people in that crash.
Well, sir, I'm sorry, but we still can't have you back here.
I've got five families who are looking for answers.
All of the passenger bodies have been moved to the L.
A.
Coroner's Office, so the families will be receiving a call shortly.
- My God, if this was my fault - John, we don't know that yet.
And you are? John Wellner, the plane's mechanic.
We're a very small company.
The more I can tell my people now, the easier it's going to be for all of us.
Cause of the crash is yet to be determined.
So you need to go back and be with the families.
When we have any real information, we'll contact you.
All right, there you go.
The input buses are connected.
Gentlemen, the digital flight data recorder, also known as the black box.
This will allow us to recreate the last moments of the flight- altitude, air pressure, flap movement, pitch, you name it.
As you can see, right after wheels-up, the pilot hands over control of the aircraft to the Flight Management Computer.
And that's normal, right? Sure.
I mean, the fact is, with the help of the plane's Inertial Reference System, the FMC can basically fly and land a plane within a millimeter of accuracy.
Okay, coming through 10,000 feet.
That's where the plane hits the mountain.
But didn't the impact happen at around 6,000 feet? Yes, it did, and the altimeter is just north of 10,000.
So, it's off by 4,000 feet.
All right, so there's something wrong with the altimeter.
It's unlikely.
Every plane's got triple back-up.
If one system fails, a second checks in.
Well, so, the Inertial Reference System was wrong times three? How do you look out a window and not see a mountain coming at you? No moon, black sky.
We had the exact situation a few years back with Air New Zealand flight 901.
Now, because of that accident, mistakes like this are almost impossible.
So what - sabotage? I can't tell you without the Flight Management Computer.
Yeah, but isn't that what this is? No.
This is the black box.
It just records and stores data.
Right, the Flight Management Computer is-is the aircraft's brain.
Which, unfortunately, we haven't been able to find yet.
Wow.
Well, uh, with the data from the black box, along with a topographical map of the impact site, what I can do is, calculate a highly-precise, predictive debris field pattern.
That will help us find the Flight Management Computer.
With some math and a little persistence, the Flight Management Computer shouldn't be too hard to locate.
Thank God for the geometry of predictive trajectories.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
What's the measurement? Oh, uh Have you heard anything else about the burglary? You know what, to be honest, I'm so caught up with this - My Dad's dealing with it.
- No, I know.
But, um is he okay? Uh, I know how he is about that house.
You know, when I was an undergrad, I never locked my dorm room.
Until someone came in one day and stole a Fossil watch right off my desk.
Changed my thinking.
I always lock my door, you know? Sometimes I double and sometimes I even triple check it.
I noticed that, that cute little thing you do where you unlock the bolt, then relock the bolt.
What's the measurement? No, Charlie, the point is, is that having someone come in and rob your house can be a very emotional thing.
You know, maybe this is a bigger deal than you realize.
It is bigger.
Are we not talking about the same thing anymore? We've planted eight flags.
Every one of them, the trajectories were dead on, the distances were off.
You allowed room for some slosh in your calculations, right? Yeah, but this isn't slosh.
I mean, with slosh the distances would be off in both directions- some short, some long.
Our predictions, the distances are short, every one by geez, by almost 15%.
Let me see.
take a look at this It's like everything's out of scale.
It's amplified.
Hold this.
Factoring in for this new nontrivial amplification and combining that with trajectories that we've already mapped out, we should be able to find the FMC! Take a look at this.
These tire marks started under some brush.
The, uh, axle width and tread block point to a Ford F-250 pickup.
Doesn't match with any of the emergency vehicles in the area.
You think this might be the killer's truck.
Yeah.
Look at this.
- What is that, oil? - Yeah.
It's concentrated here.
He was sitting there for a while.
Waiting for the plane to crash.
Sick as it is, I can see crashing a plane, but why would you want to be there when it comes down? So we found the plane's Flight Management Computer.
- That's great, Charlie.
- Yeah, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be.
Yeah, we found it by adjusting the size of the debris field.
Sounds like a happy ending.
No, it's a problem.
Here, I'll show you.
You shouldn't come between a man and his fiber.
All right, so that's the debris field.
Now, this looks like it's just sort of a random mess, but it's not.
See, a debris field size and shape is actually governed by variables like speed, mass, angle of incidence, ground topography.
Now, let's say this muffin had walnuts in it, well, then the mess would've been much larger.
See, because walnuts weigh more.
And extra weight means more mass, which translates into greater momentum.
Similarly, what we have outside is a debris field that's, that's much larger than it should be.
Larger, because the plane was heavier than the manifest indicated.
Right about 1000 pounds heavier.
Well, what exactly was this weight? It has to be what the killer was waiting for.
So, we want to know what's so valuable that someone's willing to crash a plane kill six people? Ok? debris field map, twice.
Every major component of the aircraft is accounted for.
So, if Professor Eppes' calculations are right, we are definitely missing Trust me, Professor Eppes' calculations are right.
Those tire marks I found there are two sets- one driving up to the crash, the other one leaving.
The ones leaving were deeper.
Can somebody do this? Can somebody know exactly where this plane was going to come down? This peak is aligned with the San Bernardino Regional Airport takeoff path.
We get as many as 15 planes an hour overhead.
So if they messed with the altimeter, made sure the plane was 4,000 feet low It would crash right here.
Give or take a mile.
What was on that plane, Mr.
Helm? Apparently there was a thousand pounds of undeclared cargo.
Our scramjet prototype.
Which is? Which is a new breed of missile propulsion.
It's efficient, it's clean, it's fast.
We can have some of my technicians identify its parts among the wreckage.
NTSB's already inventoried the major debris from the wreckage.
They didn't find anything like that.
- What are you saying? - It's gone.
This thing is missing.
Who do you think might be after it? Could be any one and a half-dozen propulsion labs.
We're all racing to develop a viable scramjet prototype.
First ones in are going to get billions in government contracts.
That's why it wasn't on the manifest.
We're flying it out to Santa Fe for testing.
We didn't want anyone to know how far along we were.
How about the mechanic for the plane? Who's he? Where's he at? John Wellner? Yeah.
He isn't here.
After we were out at the crash site, saw all our friends dead, he was a basket case.
I sent him home.
So, the State Department said because the scramjet's a prototype, they're not worried about it as an imminent threat.
The FAA analyzed the plane's Flight Management Computer.
It was reprogrammed two days ago.
Now, you need a lot of technical knowledge just to get at the FMC.
It sits inside an obscure panel underneath the nose cone.
Something an airplane mechanic would know.
Colby and Edgerton just called me from Wellner's apartment.
He never made it back home.
And Helm was saying that they're worried that someone's going to rip off the designs for the scramjet.
So no one supposedly outside the company knew the thing was on the plane.
Which means, pretty much, whoever wanted it they had to have an inside man.
Look at this, David.
That's a pretty narrow space.
So if somebody wanted to mess with that FMC, it'd be pretty hard not to leave some prints.
Oh, hey.
Hi, Charlie.
Hey.
Hey, uh look, I-I just want, um I'm sorry about running out on you last night.
That was Well, you did say it was about an airplane crash.
Yeah, some pretty interesting debris field dynamics emerged, actually.
You know what really bugs me? Before last night, everyone who walked through that front door was invited.
Well, hey, let's be grateful that it wasn't worse.
That what they took were just things and things can be replaced Things?! Some of those things were lifetime memories.
I mean, really good memories.
Even the bad ones, they belonged to us.
Somebody violated that.
I - I understand.
Look, I worked on over 50 criminal cases, I'm certain I can crack a minor larceny.
All I need is the right data.
I'll tell you what I can do, I can apply a Heterogeneous Poisson Process on the DVD thefts, and cross-reference that with data and stats on stolen blenders.
I mean, you know, it'll probably yield some sparse results, - to say the least - Yeah, well, whatever.
You know, um, I don't want to sound corny, but I've always looked at this house as an heirloom for you and Don.
Well, then I paid two percent over market value for the "heirloom.
" Well, capital gains notwithstanding, this has been home for 30 years.
Hey.
What's up with the no beer? You could thank the burglars for that one.
You look beat.
Yeah, I've just spent three hours waiting for some prints that came back smudged.
Smudged? How smudged? What do you mean? Smudged.
Only 'cause there's very exciting work being done with Deconvolution Algorithms.
Yeah, as in that would fix my fingerprints? Yeah.
Now, the principle here is fairly simple.
Uh, picture a sprinter and a photographer with a cheap camera Now, without the right shutter speed, the sprinter will smear across the frame.
Edges are blurred and fine details are no longer visible.
A Wavelet-based Deconvolution Algorithm analyzes the image, sharpens the edges and restores the details- to find the picture beneath the smear.
The same technique was used to fix the fuzzy vision of the original Hubble Telescope.
And if we apply a similar algorithm to our smudged fingerprints It's like the computer putting on corrective lenses.
The prints on the nose comb belong to Mike Daley.
He works in AeroNomics' IT department.
Because of their government contracts, all employees have to register their prints.
IT guy would probably know how to tamper with the flight computer.
All right, go get him.
Mike Daley! FBI! Open up.
Up or down? I'll take down.
Bet I can pull the trigger before you hit the gas.
I know how this looks.
Looks like your fingerprints all over the nose cone of the company plane.
Two days later, it's smashed to a million pieces, five people dead.
You reprogrammed the flight computer.
I always reprogram the flight computer.
The FAA issues update software every six months, um new approach patterns, decommissioned runways.
I'm the guy who installs them.
We're a small company.
I help out where I can.
The plane's mechanic John Wellner is too big to get into the nose cone, so he has me do it.
Now, you see that still doesn't explain why you went out the window when we showed up.
Mr.
Helm said that, um, a computer malfunction brought the plane down.
I panicked.
Maybe I installed it wrong.
Maybe I killed my friends.
Only one problem with his story.
The FAA hasn't issued any recent updates.
So what did Wellner have him install? So, Colby, where are we with Wellner? Well, he's not at home, not at the hangar not at AeroNomics - and he's not answering his cell phone.
- All right, so he's in the wind, right? Yeah, and I ran a deeper background check on him.
Clean, this guy is not.
Used to run an air charter business out of the Florida Keys.
DEA suspected it was bankrolled by a Salvadorian drug runner named Victor Morelos.
Wellner's a drug smuggler? Well, never proven, but he tested positive for cocaine during a flight physical, lost his license.
Ended up drifting back west and got a job as a mechanic for AeroNomics.
All right, well, we've got enough for a warrant, right? So, let's hit his apartment.
Agent Granger.
Hey, Ranger Williams.
I just wanted to check in, see if you had made any progress on finding Phil's killer.
We're working a few leads.
You know, I can't really discuss any of the details while the investigation is still open.
I'm sorry.
Don't apologize.
Part of coming here was really just an excuse to get off the mountain Without Phil, it's just me.
I couldn't really figure out where else to go.
You know, um Hey, Colby, warrant for Wellner's apartment just came through.
Edgerton's waiting in the war room.
You're going to get through this.
What? More with the plane crash? Somebody's tricked the airplane's computer into thinking it was 4,000 feet higher than it really was.
So, so the crash was intentional? That's why we're dissecting the code line by line.
What's confusing is there's so much code in this thing.
So, we've decided to play a little trick on the program.
We're rolling back the internal clock and fooling it into thinking the plane hasn't crashed yet.
And we've just faked the plane crash.
The extra code hasn't been accessed.
Really? There's nothing.
Well, then, what's it there for? Well your job isn't done yet.
Hitting the side of the mountain, that pretty much ends the flight.
Well, the flight's computer is its diary, so its job isn't over until Mom and Dad read all the good parts.
She's right.
I mean, the program isn't finished running until the NTSB downloads the information.
Right.
What was that? I don't know.
It deleted itself.
It doesn't want to be seen.
Any luck finding Wellner? Eh, just tossed his apartment.
Empty hangers in the closet, underwear drawer empty, no toothbrush.
Sounds like he's not coming back.
You find any clues to where he might have gone? Sure.
Guess who got to go Dumpster-diving behind Wellner's apartment? Oh, seniority is a son of a bitch.
Wellner had to pull up in a hurry.
Guys in a hurry make mistakes, leave a trail.
Shall we? Four days ago, Wellner drained an IRA account despite a ten percent penalty for early withdrawals.
Bought a Gortex coat, wasn't in his closet.
That would make sense.
Wellner's Web printouts are of these little houses up in Washington State, Montana and Idaho.
Retiring to the mountains to do some fishing.
Here's a padlock.
Could be for anything.
Could be for a storage facility in Van Nuys.
Storage manager ID'd Wellner's photo.
Said Wellner paid cash two days ago for the locker.
Here it is.
Just an unschooled guess, but that looks like a scramjet to me.
They killed six people to get this thing.
Think they would have moved it out of L.
A.
by now.
It's Sinclair.
Yeah, we found the scramjet.
John Wellner.
Looks like he didn't make it out of town either.
The gun shot to the head, just like the ranger.
Shell casing's the same caliber.
The tenants have 24-hour access.
They get in the outside gate with a PIN code.
So when did Wellner use his? At 4:48 P.
M.
, and there was no one else in or out in 30 minutes either side of that.
So no witnesses.
Right.
Come on.
So, Wellner gives Daley a bad program for the flight computer, crashes the plane.
And his partners wait up on the mountain to collect the cargo.
It's one heck of a partnership.
Put a hole in Wellner's head and leave him in his own storage locker? Yeah, they must have known we were getting close to him, didn't want him to talk.
Why leave the scramjet behind? The locker's rent's been paid three years in advance.
Yeah, you got to figure three years from now, the prototype's worth less, not more.
Makes you wonder why the hell six people died.
Why would someone crash that plane, steal the scramjet and mothball it? I don't know.
Better figure it out; we got a lot of bodies piling up here.
What do you mean? Your mechanic, John Wellner, is dead.
Bullet to the head.
Look, we know he was working with someone else and we know you had a lot of info at your fingertips.
You keep saying how important that thing is I can see where the company would pay you to kill the project.
Look You don't know what you're talking about.
Just hold tight.
All right, so what do you need? The plane crash had nothing to do with stealing that scramjet engine.
What? The scramjet's a mislead.
Look, did you hook the plane's flight computer into your mainframe yet? Yeah, that's how we got the reprogramming evidence.
Well, then the program's almost certainly vectored its way into the FAA's computers by now.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? What program? This whole exercise was designed so that someone could place a malicious program into the FAA's computer.
- What does this program do? - I don't know yet.
I need access to the FAA's mainframe.
Do you know how guarded that access is? It's the FAA, guys.
It's what he says he needs.
I'll make a call.
Thank you.
- Stolen blenders? - That's not this.
That's the break-in, I'm working on the break-in.
What, Dad's not all right? That house means a lot to him.
Yeah.
Well, it's like the screens, remember? - Every summer with the screens Putting new screens - Right? - in every single window of that house.
Climbing out on that roof and then the flies come in anyway.
Right.
Just his way of checking in with the house once a year.
Yeah, you're right.
Charlie, you have some fans at the FAA.
If they've got a problem, they want you to find it.
Great.
All right, get to it.
All right, come on.
Review board called me in on the spree killing case.
Figured it was about what we did to Buck.
All they wanted to talk about was you dinging Crystal Hoyle.
I told them you had the clearer shot.
Is that true? I figure you had your reason.
Bad news first, well, the bad news is that the rogue program has fully rooted itself in the FAA's computers.
The good news is that we don't have to ground air traffic.
So no mid-air collisions? This one won't even lose your luggage.
It was designed for something very different.
Well, what was it designed for? Uh, you ever hear of "squawk"? Yeah, it's a seagull who wakes me up every morning.
Not just a seagull.
An entire bird sanctuary.
Each bird has it's own unique squawk.
Enough so that a bird watcher spying from the ground can identify each bird just by its sound.
Now think of the bird watcher as the FAA's radar, and each plane has its own unique signal so that Air Traffic Control canidentify each plane by the code, or "squawk" it receives.
The squawk is sent from a transponder in the plane, which tells the radar not only location, but also ground designation and trajectory.
That's right, now these are all the planes flying over the city right now.
And each with its own unique designation.
Let's say I programmed the virus to listen for This one here.
So I enter in its squawk code.
Now it's gone.
What happened to it? Whoever controls this program can make any plane in Southern California invisible.
Consider M.
C.
Escher's lithograph of the stairs.
Escher was famous for leading the subjects of his artwork back to where they started.
Like the path of the monks in his drawing, in Strange Loop Theory, all math as well as music and even biology, can fold back in on itself, and check in with its origin.
So a program that jumps from computer to computer can leave certain clues that take us back to its origin.
Amita and I traced the program's code via its Strange Loop.
And took you back to the guy who wrote it? It took me back to an AeroNomics Computer used Mike Daley.
by an IT technician Charlie, are you saying he's behind this? At least as far as authoring the code.
- Well, now we know why he ran.
- This program, is it tampering with the FAA's computers right now? No, it's still waiting for an activation code.
You wrote the program - that crashed the plane.
- We've done this before, - that was Wellner.
- No, this is Wellner.
I want a lawyer.
Why? What for? You're free to go.
Yeah, go ahead.
Take off, right? I'll tell you how it's going to go down though.
When they find you, and they will, pal.
They're gonna take a nine millimeter pistol and they're gonna put a hole in your head just like that, and just like Hadwin.
Not every guy gets to know the caliber of bullet that'll kill them.
Nobody was supposed to die.
They said that nobody - was going to get hurt.
- Are you kidding me? You wrote a program that screwed with the altimeter of a plane and crash it into a mountain! What the hell did you think was going to happen?! You know, at least your partners had the guts to pull a trigger when they killed Wellner and the ranger.
You hid behind a damn computer! How could I know about the ranger showing up so fast? Look, I see three scenarios.
Okay, one, you walk out of here, you wind up like that - two, you go down for this alone, you take a seat on death row.
Three, you rat out your buddies and you save your own miserable ass.
The guy behind it, Wellner knew him.
We need a name! I didn't want to know.
My job was to write the programs and figure out a way to backdoor the FAA's computer.
How were you going to make any money on it? The backdoor doesn't work without the pass code.
Wellner's friend, the guy with the truck, he was going to pay us $2 million.
I'll do anything.
I'll cooperate.
Well, we're going to find out if you mean that.
I played a hunch, showed Daley a photo array.
He picked out Victor Morelos.
This guy ran drugs with Wellner, right? Makes sense A smuggler's plane, even without a transponder, has a chance of being seen.
This program erases the transponder number, and the FAA won't even look for the plane.
Yeah, so he'd basically own the border.
Hey, don't I get - a bulletproof vest? - What for? Morelos always goes for the head shot.
Just make sure you get him to take that program.
The more you can get him to say, the better.
Um I don't know about this.
Right now, everything we have on Morelos is circumstantial.
But you on the other hand, you're a prime candidate for Guantanamo Bay.
Yeah, and about ten or twelve years of alternative interrogation methods to look forward to.
Yeah, relax, you've got the fifth best shot in the country covering your ass.
Hey, fourth.
Right.
You don't want to ask how I moved up one spot.
Button your shirt.
I've been thinking, maybe I take my chances with Homeland Security after all.
$50 says the kid rabbits.
Too late.
Got a silver Ford pickup just pulled in.
F-250, I got it.
Hey.
We good? Good.
Yeah, sure.
We're good.
Well? You bring it? You bring my final payment? Well, first we've got to make sure that this thing of yours actually works.
Sure.
I got the stick drive right here.
Whoa-ho.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Mikey, take it easy with the hand in the pocket, okay? Take it easy.
I trust you.
My boy here's a little overprotective.
You're shaking.
Calm down.
You really think I'd try to pull anything after seeing what you did to Wellner? What did I do to Wellner, Mike? He's blowing it.
It's going south, guys.
What did I do to Wellner, Mike? Uh Who've you been talking to, Mike? What do you know? - FBI! Don't move! - Back up! FBI! FBI! Put your hands up! Put them up! Back up right now.
Drop it! I will kill him.
You know I'll do this.
You know I'll do this! Back up! I'm walking out of here right now.
Get away! Drop the gun! Back up! Put your hands up! Get down! Get down! That ought to make me number three.
Thanks.
For being here.
I can understand why you guys moved up here.
Away from the city, you almost forget where you are.
I'll never forget.
No.
No chess.
I win, you pout.
Well, we're not playing poker.
I'm not your personal ATM.
Aw, come on One game.
Hey, come on.
You've said no to Scrabble, Jenga, Battleship and air hockey.
- Wussy games.
- Hey.
Hey, Charlie.
I got a breakthrough on the burglary.
Hey, Millie.
Hey, hey, Charlie.
So, I've mapped out an associative model of crime, based on the victim experience, our experience.
It is kind of cool being a major component in a criminal equation.
Yeah, and so, so? I can tell you the guy's definitely in Los Angeles.
I can tell you that.
Oh.
He's in Los Angeles.
Don't say it like that.
A few more days, a little more data collected I might have a short list to give - to the police.
- Hello.
Hey.
Hey, in here.
Look what I got.
- Hey, Millie, how're you doing? - Good, how are you? Wait a second, is that? - My laptop.
- Your laptop.
Yeah, I had Pasadena PD track the GPS inside.
Of course! The GPS in your laptop.
It's standard now on all models since 2005.
They just punch in a code and there it was blinking away at, uh, 3rd and Lucas.
What do you got here? A rather long way around.
Stole my collar.
Your collar, huh? I would've gotten him.
In six or seven years, maybe.
At least I was working on it.
I wasn't sitting - around playing games.
- Ooh, well Who wins the games, huh? Millie Finch, I believe You want to put that record on the line with a game of spoons? Spoons? What, you boys play games with your cutlery? I have an idea that it's - right up your alley.
- Oh, yeah? All right, hand me your spoons.
Well, you guys ate off both of these.
Do we have other? Come on, Charlie.
Man up.
What are you? This house is kind of a weird.
Who wants a beer? Anyone? There's still no beer.