NCIS Los Angeles s04e05 Episode Script

Hello? Sam, Frank Turner.
If you're hearing this, it means it's all gone to hell.
A lot of people think I'm crazy.
How'd you get this number? I guess I might be, a little.
But please try and see this through my eyes.
No one else can seem to.
I need your help.
You know where I am.
Original air date on October 30, 2012 It's me.
I'm sorry.
It's not like that.
Didn't know him that well.
We did a joint task force together eight years ago.
Haven't seen him since.
Why'd he call you? That's the million- dollar question.
He's got a dog? Big-ass poodle.
Doesn't make any sense.
It's in the bathroom.
You're not a poodle guy? Why breed a dog with an Afro? I think you're just jealous.
No ladder.
Well, he could have climbed up over here, stood on top, swung the rope over the beam.
Turner wasn't the most athletic guy.
He was brilliant, but a little nutty.
He wasn't a CIA field agent? No, he was more of a reader, researcher.
He had a lot of crazy theories.
I heard the CIA tossed him.
They always like baseball, don't they? The geniuses at the Agency? Those stats and numbers they obsess over it.
Turner was always doing crossword puzzles word games.
Hello? We're in here.
See, it's 'cause of stuff like that I don't leave OPS.
Spiderman will protect you.
Those pajamas come with feet? I cut the feet off.
Come on.
I don't wear footy pajamas.
They don't come in my size.
Did you forget your gear? The transformer for this part of the grid was intentionally overloaded when someone circumvented the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's firewall.
I saw a security camera down at the entrance.
Yeah, there are three covering the building and eight traffic cameras outside.
Unfortunately, they all went out when the power went out.
Taking out the power is a great way to cover your tracks.
LADWP's computer system is designed to stop a cyber-terrorist attack.
Whoever did this has got mad skills.
If someone wanted to make it look like a suicide, why blow the door? Nothing's adding up.
Start looking at street cams just outside the area where the transformer blew.
Hey.
Hello.
Um, you look Sleepy.
He was gonna say "beautiful.
" Oh.
Okay, well, um the recorded call you received, it came from a message service.
It was a fail-safe.
So if Turner didn't manually cancel the automated message every night It called me.
This where the party's at? Ooh.
This does not look - like a party.
- Yikes.
We know him? Kind of.
He's got a dog? Oh, poor little guy.
His master is dead.
He's stuck in a bathroom.
Oh.
A poodle? No.
Sorry, I don't do poodles.
Huge attitude, un-trainable.
- Actually, they are one of the three most intelligent breeds of dog.
Well, I will have you know that Monty is brilliant and humble.
Monty eats sponges.
- This is true.
- Turner was a high-level CIA agent.
He was trained to live inconspicuously.
There's no way he'd have a dog like that.
Find out where the dog came from and why Turner had it.
Me and the Poodle.
Nell's got the photos.
Let's see if the dog's been listed as stolen or missing.
Hmm think I'm gonna have to go spend some time with him, alone.
Why? What's going on? Nothing.
I just got a way with animals.
Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds really creepy.
What, you never heard of the dog whisperer? Just because you have Monty doesn't mean you're the dog whisp Ssst! Oh.
Ssst! Ssst! Don't you dare do that to Sit! Hey! Listen, canines are very sensitive to all this negative energy.
Yeah? They can also smell fear.
That's true.
Poodles are the pit bull of France.
God, my partner is Dr.
Dolittle.
How we doing, boy? All right.
That didn't sound like whispering.
That sounds like growling.
He is angry and confused, and you are not helping.
You're a handsome devil.
What's your name? What's that? She doesn't understand you? Yeah, well, she's my partner.
Welcome to my world.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, she is very high-maintenance.
That's fine.
You want to play like that? That's fine.
We'll go to plan B.
Kensi? Gonna need some bacon.
Oh, really? That's your special skill with dogs? - Bacon? - I need it cooked.
Very well done, preferably organic.
All right.
I know a shelter that's offering free neutering.
Oh, what? Yeah, that's what I thought.
I hate paper.
You sure he didn't have a computer I could search? Turner was strictly a hard-copy information guy.
Turner may have left the Agency, but he was definitely still gathering intelligence.
There's information here on al-Qaeda, North Korea.
Hey.
I did a scan of the building's security cameras' hard drives from before the blackout Just for the record, I was gonna say that-that you look nice.
Oh.
Well thank you.
So, I went back I was distracted, because I was wondering why you were so dressed up at 4:00 in the morning.
Okay, well, perhaps I had a date.
Makes sense.
But then I noticed your, uh, your pronounced bed-head, which means that you were asleep.
But if-if you were home, then, um, you would have changed before you came into work, which means that you were asleep but not at home, which means It's none of your business.
What did you find out? I looked at the cameras going back two weeks, and I saw that Turner had a guest that came over three times.
I got her license plate from one of the outside cameras, and I tracked it from the DMV to this TAS security record.
Megan Hendley, flight attendant? Let's see what she knows.
So, that's what happened.
Mrs.
Allen came in with, uh, her miniature chocolate poodle named Coco Chanel, who you probably would have thought was super hot.
The point being that I reached across to try to pet Coco Chanel, and that's when she bit me, hence the two bite marks I had right there and why - I'm afraid of poodles.
- Are you having a therapy session with a dog? It took a while, but he finally broke down, spilled his guts.
It's actually kind of a sad story.
What did he have to say? He said his name was Chaucer.
Ain't that right, Chaucer? Come here.
Good boy.
Okay, nobody names their dog Chaucer.
He's just smelling the bacon.
Bacon was for me.
His vet is Dr.
Hall on Robertson Boulevard.
His previous owner was Jason Young from Tarzana.
Did Nell find out the dog was missing? No.
Why are you doubting me? Wow, you must really want the bacon.
He's microchipped.
You scanned him and got the information.
What? Don't hate on me.
I'm the one that knew to look between his shoulder blades.
And that is all of my bacon you're getting.
Send the information to Nell.
Just got home.
Megan Hendley? Federal agents! Back alley! Federal agents.
Drop it or you're dead.
Something tells me you're not really a flight attendant.
Got it.
Hetty got confirmation-- she is CIA.
You were working with Turner? Frank hasn't worked for the Company in two years.
You were in his loft three times in the last two weeks.
We were romantically involved.
No more? He's dead.
Makes it kind of hard.
And you know this how? An official call to the L.
A.
Coroner's Office.
You often call the morgue to find out if your friends are dead? Frank called yesterday.
Left a message.
Said he was in a lot of trouble.
He didn't think he'd be alive much longer.
He say why? No.
But he thought I could be in danger, too.
That explains the warm reception.
Last couple days, he thought he was being surveilled.
I thought he was paranoid.
Why? Frank was brilliant but he was obsessive, difficult, opinionated, depressed.
And you loved him? Sometimes you can't choose who you fall in love with, Agent Hanna.
What was he working on? You ever heard of the Sinclair Project? The Sinclair Project began at the end of the Cold War, when Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik.
It's rumored they discussed the mutual disclosure of long-term sleeper agents inside both countries.
Armed with small nuclear bombs.
I always thought that was an urban myth.
Not for Frank-- he thought the Soviets had them in the U.
S.
since the late '60s.
And if a war broke out We'd each have a gun to each other's head.
So the Sinclair Project was the mission to find the sleeper agents in the U.
S.
and collect their weapons? The Agency thought Frank was a nut.
They didn't even want to hear what he'd uncovered.
You think he killed himself? No way.
Frank was too angry to kill himself.
He had too much to prove.
Any chance that has something to do with the task force you worked with Turner? Eight years ago? We had good intel that an al-Qaeda cell was trying to acquire automatic rifles from a Russian arms deal.
Something spooked 'em.
Deal didn't go down.
Everybody disappeared.
Task force was disbanded.
Well, if they're not related, why did Turner have the fail-safe set up to call you? Go.
We're just finishing up over here.
Few things we need you to look at.
Okay.
One thing's a little odd.
Medical examiner's got something.
The fractured cervical spine, the rope abrasions, the lividity of the blood trapped in his head, are all consistent with self-inflicted hanging.
Could somebody else have hanged him? They could have, but I didn't find any indications of a struggle.
That's not the headline, though.
Put your gloves on.
I found this in his stomach.
What is it? Well, there's a yogic practice-- Vastra Dhauti.
It's the swallowing of a strip of cloth to cleanse the stomach.
This is not that.
We need to sign this out.
Something shaped like a pipe or a tube.
How big we talking? I don't know.
The size is the key to the cipher.
If you don't know the circumference of the tube, you can't duplicate it.
What are you guys looking for? That.
It's more conical.
It'd be a better key for the code, right? Harder to duplicate.
Hold this.
Whoa, this is the code? Cool! Where'd you get it? Turner's stomach.
I think it's a coded message called scytale.
The Spartans used it to send secret messages during battle.
And Turner expected you to know about a code like that? Turner knew I studied warrior cultures.
He knew it'd be the one code that Sam would recognize.
This is a message for me.
Our friend Chaucer has lead a big life.
He's descended from a long line of award-winning poodles.
Chaucer was flown to Paris twice to breed.
He was paid to have sex in Paris? I should have been born a dog.
I walked into that one, didn't I? Turner bought the dog just a month ago, and immediately entered him into the Southland Kennel Club Dog Show, so I cross-referenced the list of names Eric found in Turner's documents with the dog show's judges and contestants, and I found this: Robert Pierce.
He named his dog Uma? Maybe Turner was using Chaucer to get close to this Robert Pierce.
He's a dog groomer and breeder who's lived in Los Angeles his entire life.
He's got no military and no criminal record.
You know what this guy is? Yeah.
Boring.
Why was Turner looking into him? Why would he name his dog Uma? Hey, Eric, do we have anything else on a Robert Pierce? Nothing yet.
Still looking.
So Turner entered Chaucer in the dog show soon after he bought him.
Pierce is one of the contestants.
Well, Turner didn't just stop being a CIA agent, and suddenly get into fancy dogs.
Turner was looking at Pierce.
When is the show? It's tomorrow morning at the L.
A.
Sports Arena.
Get to the show.
Get close to this guy and see what you can find out.
I know for a fact that Chaucer is mortified by that haircut.
Deeks, you do not have the ability to talk to dogs.
Hey, trust me-- there is no species in the entire universe where it is cool to have pom-poms shaved into your butt.
Speaking of haircuts, you're gonna need a little sprucing up if you're going to be seen with Chaucer.
Whoa, no.
Wait a minute-- okay-- I may have developed a little bit of a special relationship with this dog, but there is no way that I am prancing around the ring with that animal.
Detective Deeks.
I think there's much for you to learn from Mr.
Chaucer.
He's a very complex and spiritual animal.
It's not Mr.
Chaucer, it's just Chaucer.
Which actually makes me want to throw up a little bit every time I say it.
Chaucer is very loyal.
He will have your back undercover.
Oh.
You were listening again? Yeah.
Stand tall with your partner, Detective Deeks.
All right.
Chaucer, let's go.
Good boy.
And listen, if you're going to walk next to me, no prancing.
I don't want the Dobermans laughing at us.
Guys, Turner encoded the code.
It's a simple cipher.
Of course.
It's the old secret spy ring, from when we were kids.
Come on, the spy ring, when we were kids-- you turn it and the letters line up? I love that ring.
It was my first piece of spy gear.
I don't think I've ever seen him this excited.
It's a cool ring.
I know what I'm getting you for Christmas.
All it is, is substituting one letter for another.
Exactly.
Letters on the top of the alphabet, letters on the bottom, are the key.
Both the receiver and the sender need the key.
So the A's become R's.
Right.
But Turner took the encrypted message, used the new key, and encoded it again.
So he probably changed the cipher pattern slightly, each time he did it.
If there is multiple keys, you're going to need all of them to unlock the message.
But if he encoded it with a computer, it could be millions.
He didn't use a code.
The message was for me, so the key had to be something he knew I could find.
It's somewhere here.
There's hundreds of thousands of documents in this room.
Then let's get to work.
- Here go you.
- Thank you.
Open miniature, jumpers with weaves, fast, ring two, five minutes.
Everybody's making their dogs look like Dr.
Seuss animals.
There is our grooming station.
Up.
Come on.
ring three for the obedience competition.
Good Chaucer.
Good boy.
Hey, uh, give me your hairbrush.
For Chaucer? No.
I need a hairbrush, all right? His fro is a mess.
Oh, my gosh.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.
It's like a rat's nest.
There's Robert Pierce.
Huh? Oh.
And there is Uma.
Not as pretty as her picture.
Probably airbrushed.
Oh, he's checking us out.
Hi.
Open standard, jumpers with weaves, fast, ring two, five minutes.
Come on, girl.
All right, that's us.
Let's get ready.
All right, you go talk to Pierce; I'm going to give Chaucer a pep talk.
Mm.
What? The better that we do, the easier it's going to be for you to get close to Pierce.
Okay, that makes sense.
I was getting a little disturbed by my partner talking to a dog.
You really want to do this? You want to have a fight right in front of him, before the biggest moment of his life? Ittleay, elfishay, ensikay.
Okay, the dog doesn't understand English.
Why are you speaking in Pig Latin? Because you're adorable when you get angry.
Deeks ah Ssst! See? You're stunning.
Hey, psst! What are we doing? Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for, open standard.
Okay, over! Chute! Over! Double! Double! Over! Target! Tunnel! Zip, zip, zip, zip, zip! And over! Teeter, teeter, teeter, teeter! Slam! Weave! Weave! Good girl! Weave! Over! That was a great run by Uma, trained by Robert Pierce.
Okay, all right, boy.
We got to do this.
It's our job, and I have no idea what I'm doing, so I need your help.
Now, Chaucer, trained by Frank Turner.
Okay, you ready? Game face.
All right, let's do it.
Here we go.
Come on, come on.
Ho, sit.
Sit.
Good boy.
That's a good Chaucer.
That was amazing.
Thank you.
I'm Rebecca Turner.
Chaucer is my dog.
Oh, great dog.
Nice height, good lines.
Thank you.
All right, and go.
And begin.
All right.
Uh, you can go now.
Can we please? All right, yeah.
This is our first show.
If you're doing this to get back at me for all the poodle jokes, the only person you're hurting is yourself.
Come on, Chaucer.
Chaucer, I need you to help me right now.
Can you please just start.
Chaucer, here we go.
Over, through! Go over, tunnel.
Yeah, come on, come on.
Up! Sorry.
Climb.
Mark Mark.
Up.
Tunnel.
Come on.
Yeah.
Over.
Easy, easy, easy.
Easy.
Over.
Mark.
Easy.
Easy.
Good boy.
Come on, through.
Weave.
Weave, weave.
Oh, you're doing great.
You're doing great.
Weave, weave, weave Over.
And that was Chaucer, trained by Frank Turner.
Hey, would you be interested in breeding Uma and Chaucer? I'm not really interested in breeding right now.
Sorry.
It looks like a clean run Oh.
after a slow start with no faults.
Oh, you did a great job.
You're an amazing dog, and if you ever want to get into bomb- sniffing, you call me.
Good boy.
So, uh, we got a love connection? No.
He spooked.
Come on, come on.
He's gone.
Parking lot.
Good girl, Uma.
Hi.
Hi, sorry, we really wanted to, uh, to breed with you.
Sorry, that sounded a lot creepier than I meant it to sound, I just meant that, uh I have to go.
All right.
Federal agents.
Get out of the car.
Get out! Hands up against the car.
Just FYI, Chaucer would never fall for somebody as tawdry as Uma.
What the hell is going on? Why are you following me? Come on, poodles.
Nothing out of you two.
Up.
Up.
Sit.
And no inappropriate licking.
For starters, a stud doesn't ask to breed with a bitch.
It is the other way around.
I hope you're listening to this.
That doesn't explain why you ran.
I was in a bad relationship.
My ex-boyfriend was stalking me.
I hired a detective who told me there was a man watching my house.
Not your boyfriend? No.
This is the picture the detective got.
What is going on here? Do you guys work for him? Pierce did file several complaints with the LAPD against an ex-boyfriend.
It's Turner.
Turner was looking into old sleeper agents with nuclear weapons.
Why was he after Robert? This guy couldn't have been involved with the Sinclair Project.
He's too young.
Hey, I found this.
It says, "Both parents black?" Question mark.
I didn't know what to make of it, but then I saw that Pierce was African-American.
Turner was trying to find Robert's parents.
If one of them was white, they might be Russian.
Deeks, ask him about his parents.
Are your parents still alive? Yes.
They live in the Valley.
Get the address.
I want to talk to them.
He'll give up the address.
He doesn't know anything about this.
Low profile.
Who is it? Federal agents.
Just want to ask you a couple of questions.
About what? About your son.
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago.
It's a horrible disease.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Is my son okay? He's fine.
Well, he's a good man.
Takes good care of his mom and I.
Is that why he pays the rent, collects the mail? Yeah, yeah.
He does everything that he can so that I can take care of my bride.
Do you have any idea why a CIA agent might want to find you? The CIA? No.
What is this about? Just trying to connect the dots.
Nothing for you to worry about.
You have enough to handle.
You think this guy's a Russian sleeper agent? Turner must have thought so.
Why else was he investigating him? I don't know yet.
Maybe Turner was crazy.
His girlfriend called him paranoid.
Would you call me paranoid? Sometimes.
Sometimes I need to be.
Somebody blew that door open.
Tell you the truth, I'm feeling a little paranoid right now.
Did you catch the guys in the car back there? I got them.
I'll pull around the corner.
That's not good.
We need to talk.
Three heavily armed men come to your house, and you don't know why? I don't know what else you want me to say.
Where'd you learn to shoot like that? West Valley Gun and Ammo.
I heard the shots.
I grabbed my gun, I ran outside.
I thought I was helping.
I'm just not buying it, James.
You know who those guys were.
You know why they were there.
I'm telling you, I don't know who I don't know who they were.
Maybe they were there because of you.
Where are my wife and son? They're in a safe location.
Well, my wife, she has medications she needs to take at specific times.
She has a nurse with her.
She has her meds.
Are you a Soviet agent? Do I look like a Soviet agent to you? I finally found a car heading out of the blackout zone near Turner's loft, and I got a name.
The car was moving fast at roughly Turner's time of death.
I, uh, traced the license to a man named Kozlov.
Know this guy? This is what the CIA has on him.
Russian, former federal security service agent.
He could still be FSB.
So whatever Turner was investigating, it made Russian Intelligence nervous enough to go after him.
Blow up the photo in the upper left full screen.
I want to see the guy Kozlov's talking to.
According to the CIA, his name is Isaac Sidorov.
Sidorov is the arms dealer that the task force was monitoring when I was working with Turner.
Well, that at least explains why Turner contacted you.
Sidorov worked in Putin's network the first go-around and is a former FSB agent.
He's an arms dealer now.
Several agents tried to go undercover inside his network.
Most never got close.
But one did? Yeah.
We have a major problem here.
If Frank Turner was looking into old sleeper agents And FSB found out about it and asked Sidorov to investigate Turner That means the Sinclair Project Is real.
Exactly.
Soviet agents are here now, armed with nuclear weapons? The NSA and the CIA are already tracking our investigation.
That means their interest is most definitely real.
All of this explains why the Russians killed Turner, but why go after James? FSB is never wrong.
You and your wife are living in a way so you couldn't be easily found.
Why? My son was taking care of us.
A CIA agent was tracking your son to get to you and you don't know why? Why don't you ask the agent? He's dead.
I'm sorry.
But I don't know what to tell you.
I really don't.
Okay.
Your wife and son are getting sent back to your house, but you're not getting released.
Well, what if those men come back? Why would they come back? I don't know.
Who were they, James? My wife and my son are all that I have in this world.
Please don't do this.
Okay.
Yeah.
Cut 'em loose.
Send 'em back to the house.
Are you wait, wait, wait.
Okay, wait.
Hold on.
They need to be kept in a safe place.
You need to protect my wife from prosecution.
I'll call you back.
We can guarantee their safety.
But we won't give them immunity.
If your wife is involved Then you get nothing from me.
She might as well die tonight than rot in a jail.
Grant the immunity.
Okay.
Your wife will be granted full immunity from prosecution.
Safety and care, guaranteed.
Yes.
Who were those men, James? Do you know what it's like to live with a secret your entire life, Agent Hanna? I'm sure it's not easy.
Where do I start? There is a light in here, somewhere.
From what I understand, this generates a 17-kiloton explosion.
That's bigger than Hiroshima.
Can you imagine the burden of carrying this secret, Agent Hanna? Let me ask you a question.
What would make you betray your country? Money? You think I'm American.
I was born in Somalia.
In 1961, during the coup, the Russians came to our country.
They took Donna and I back to USSR.
Why you? We had excelled in our language class.
We spoke English.
They force-fed us Soviet doctrine, day and night.
We were nine years old.
In 1973, as husband and wife, we were taken on a Soviet submarine to a fishing boat off the shore of Seattle.
I had a passport, an identity, a profession.
You escaped detection because the Soviets knew Americans would never think a Russian agent would be black.
Would you have detonated that bomb if the order came in? Yes.
At first.
They had conditioned me to do it.
But then after a few years I had a wife and a son.
I could never do that.
Love, family turned out to be much stronger persuaders than fear, Agent Hanna.
FBI's Render Safe unit's They'll remove the bomb.
So FSB asked Siderov to look into Turner because Because Turner was right.
There are more agents here.
Then what was the next step? Get the agents out of the country, or kill them to cover up.
That's what FSB would do.
Siderov had no allegiance to Russian Intelligence.
He's a for-profit arms dealer.
He couldn't give a damn about old Soviet agents.
You just said it.
He's an arms dealer.
He wanted the bomb.
To sell.
It'd be the mother of all weapons deals.
Siderov knew Turner was tracking the other Soviet sleeper agents.
He gets Turner, he gets the names of the agents.
Siderov knew there were more bombs.
That's what was in Turner's stomach.
It was a list of the sleeper agents.
Turner needed me to find it before Siderov.
Anything? Without the code keys, it might be impossible.
All right, let's start at the beginning.
What happened the night Turner was killed? He knew Siderov and the FSB were onto him.
Turner was prepared for that.
He coded the names.
Had them ready.
Power goes out Maybe he saw them out the window.
He knew they were coming for him.
He had only minutes.
But he was ready.
He swallowed the list of names.
But he still had the names in his head.
He knew he'd be tortured.
He did kill himself.
He called the fire department so that Siderov wouldn't have time to search the loft.
He did everything he could.
No one would listen.
And he still died for his country.
That's why you were his fail-safe.
He knew you wouldn't write him off.
He said, "See through my eyes".
"See through my eyes" What if he meant it literally? It's the decoder ring.
The piles of books are arranged in a circle.
All the books on top have bookmarks.
Count how many there are.
The first letter's underlined.
Two, four, six, eight, ten, 12, 14, 16, 18 Twenty-six.
Just like the alphabet.
Wait, so it's the first letter in each book.
Read me the letters.
"N.
" "U.
" "K.
" - "H.
" - "R".
"W.
" "A.
" "B.
" "F.
" "G.
" Ironic.
"C.
" "E.
" "I.
" "P.
" "J.
" "D.
" "V.
" "Q.
" - "O.
" - "S.
" - "Y.
" - "M.
" "T.
" "X.
" That's it.
Okay.
The first part is decoded.
Okay, he-he's telling us he changed the cipher for the next round.
It's two letters represent one.
Means every other letter in the code is blank, a-a dummy.
Start over.
We use the second letter in each book.
"X.
" "Z.
" "P.
" "I.
" "F.
" "W.
" - "S.
" - "G.
" "O.
" "U.
" "Z.
" "A.
" Okay.
We got it.
It's the list of names.
There's James Pierce's name.
It's the list of sleeper agents.
Oh, just so you know, last night I, uh, I went out drinking It's none of my business.
with Hetty.
Oh.
I wanted you to know.
Naturally, she drank me under the table, so I had to stay at her house Sounds fun.
I wish I was there.
Mm.
Uh, it took a while, but we think these are them.
How do you know? Well, some of them had gaps in their history.
A birth record but no elementary school record.
Two are husband and wife, so that made it easy, but with this one, the facial structure of the adult photo didn't match the childhood photo.
Where are these agents located? All over.
Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit Eight largest cities in the country.
Not exactly.
Not now.
Those are the eight largest cities back in the '70s and the '80s, when they were put undercover.
Each one of those could have a nuclear bomb.
And what makes them really valuable is that they're already inside our borders.
So anybody that buys them is gonna use them here.
Nell, get me the National Security Division of the FBI.
Who would you like to speak to? Anyone who'll pick up the phone.
Quickly.