Bull (2016) s04e17 Episode Script

1 And that will do it for the headlines for the 9:00 hour.
We will see you back here at 9:30.
For New York News 3, I'm Allison Rojas.
And we're out.
- Nice broadcast.
- Thanks.
That new shade of lipstick, that looks great on camera.
Who would send me a birthday card two months before my birthday? Okay, this is not funny.
- Oh, no.
It's in your hair.
- It's everywhere.
I have to be back on the air in 23 and a half minutes.
No, I'll get-get, uh, wardrobe and makeup.
Hurry.
Yesterday morning, my wife she woke up achy, nauseous.
She had a bit of a fever, said her chest hurt.
We thought it was the flu.
But then, today, she started coughing up blood.
Attendant, - let's get her to Room One.
- Yes, Doctor.
Let's page Dr.
Farmer and the chief, and then alert the Health Department and the CDC.
The-the CDC? Center for Disease Control? What's going on? Government buildings remain closed and subway ridership is at its lowest level since 9/11 as anthrax terror grips Manhattan.
A quiet panic has descended on the city as New Yorkers are trying to figure out who's behind this and when it will end.
At this hour, the death toll remains at two.
The deceased are Katie Connors, who opened a birthday card addressed to her husband, Manhattan Congressman Peter Connors, and Emmanuel Bakry, the postal worker who delivered it.
But, finally, some good news.
News 3's Allison Rojas is responding to treatment after opening an anthrax-laden greeting card in this very studio more than a week ago.
Doctors expect her and the four other News 3 staffers who were taken ill to make a full recovery.
Folks, we're about to roll, so I need quiet.
Five, four, three, two Good afternoon from ground zero.
Here in Manhattan we're all collectively holding our breath, waiting for the next anthrax-laden shoe to drop.
With that thought in mind, we thought we'd pay a visit to Hudson University, which is one of the foremost laboratories for the study of chemical weapons and bio-pathogens.
We wanted to talk with Dr.
Roger Simpkins, a microbiologist and researcher who runs this lab, which is financed in a combination of funding from the university and the government.
Dr.
Simpkins, any words of wisdom or homespun advice for our viewers tuning in, missing work and school, doing everything they can to keep themselves from becoming a victim, falling ill, possibly even dying? The thing we all need to remember is that anthrax is not a virus.
It's a bacteria, and that means you can't catch it.
It can't be transmitted from person-to-person, so if you don't have direct contact with it, it poses no threat to you.
So calm down.
A-And I've been told that even if you do have direct contact, it's still not necessarily fatal.
Absolutely true.
If anthrax is identified early, it can be treated.
What makes it tricky is early anthrax symptoms look just like the flu.
So unless your doctor knows that you've actually had contact with it, the disease can go undetected until the drugs we use to cure it are no longer effective.
But it's been nearly 20 years since the last round of anthrax incidents.
How is it there's still no cure for this stuff? Well, ironically, uh, last year at this time, my, uh, colleagues and I were in the process of developing some very promising new late-stage anthrax treatments.
Wait.
"Were"? Well, our funding, particularly with regard to anthrax research, comes from the federal government.
And they pulled way back this year.
What can I tell you? Go write your congressman.
The FBI is in my office.
They've determined that the anthrax used in all these recent attacks comes from our labs.
They want to talk to the three of you.
What did you do? Get a second job? Aren't you afraid of dogs? Other postal workers going postal? Not funny.
It's just my mail for the last couple of weeks.
I made the post office hold it for me.
Once I found out the FBI arrested the anthrax killer, I figured it was finally safe to pick it up and sort through it all.
Won't be needing that anymore.
Bull in his office? I'm in the middle of some very important procrastination.
Hey.
Sorry to interrupt.
Why are you so glum, Mr.
Colón? Haven't you heard? It's a glorious day in New York.
Spring has sprung, Easter's barely a month away, and the anthrax killer is off the streets.
We can put this whole dark chapter behind us.
Well, actually, no, we can't.
What does that mean? You remember, a couple of years ago, we signed up to be a part of that program where private firms offer their services to the public defender's office? No.
I got nothing on that.
Must have been trying to get into somebody's good graces.
What's the difference? We offered, and this morning they called.
Natalie Reznick, the accused anthrax killer, is facing two counts of capital murder and a slew of other charges.
Well, she needs a defense team, and we're one of the few firms in the city with the expertise to handle that type of case.
Well, just call 'em back and tell 'em no.
I have a newborn child and you have Just say that we really appreciate the offer, but we are not interested in representing a terrorist at this time.
An accused terrorist.
I think you're missing the point.
The federal defender's office wasn't asking when they called me this morning.
They were telling.
It's our case, Bull.
Happy spring.
I have no idea why I'm here.
Surely you heard the FBI agent read you the charges before he took you into custody.
You're being charged with murdering two people with a Tier 1 federal select biological agent and terrorizing the city of New York.
Yes, of course, but wh-why would they think I would do that? Well, the evidence against you will be laid out at your arraignment, but based on the charging documents, the FBI has a pretty strong case.
How is that possible? Well, when the funding for your anthrax research was cut last year, you sent out dozens of e-mails.
To journalists, to politicians.
The very people who've been the targets in these attacks.
Well, y-yes, b-but that's that's just a coincidence.
The-the letters that I was writing were about how shortsighted and dangerous it was to cut that funding.
Just because anthrax was out of the news did not mean that it was no longer a risk to national security.
Well, the U.
S.
Attorney's Office suspects that when your warnings fell on deaf ears, you orchestrated these attacks to prove a point.
"Anthrax is still out there.
It's still lethal.
" That's absurd.
I am a doctor, I am a scientist.
The work that my team was doing was about saving lives.
How on earth would killing people help us achieve that goal? If that's all they had, I'd agree with you.
Are you aware that your office had been bleached before the FBI searched it? Yes.
Bleach is a disinfectant.
I work with pathogens.
But yours was the only office in the complex to have been so recently and thoroughly bleached.
Bleach kills anthrax.
It makes it appear as if you were destroying evidence.
Your apartment had been bleached, too.
And investigators found a stash of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin and a box of N95 face masks in your kitchen.
They suspect you used both when you assembled the anthrax-laden birthday cards.
I mean, the masks were I I was gonna paint my bathroom.
And I go on a medical mission every year.
This year, it's Cambodia.
Last year, it was Honduras, Guadalupe.
Anyway, my doctor gives me cipro before I go every year.
I meant what I said.
I have no idea why I'm here.
I believe the woman.
I mean, she says she has no idea what she's doing behind bars.
I believe her.
Okay.
Well, that makes two of you.
Unfortunately, the government sees it all quite differently.
Yeah, government.
You ever heard of detective myopia? Detective myopia? No.
Can't say that I have.
It is when law enforcement, usually because of extreme public or political pressure, picks a suspect and then evaluates all the evidence with the predisposition that that suspect is guilty.
And they stop looking for other suspects, they stop running down leads that don't back up their predetermined theories.
All their work goes into proving that their suspect, the person they picked at random is guilty.
City's in a panic.
FBI needs to restore calm.
Natalie presented as someone with access to the bacteria and an apparent motive, so they combed through her life looking for ways to prove she did it.
Detective myopia.
I think we need to argue for a change of venue.
Well I know legal strategy isn't exactly my area of expertise, but I have been going through the potential jury lists, and, well, given the panic and all of the publicity around this case, wouldn't we be likely to get a more impartial jury somewhere else? Somewhere that hasn't been through as much as New York has? That's not a bad thought, actually.
You know, the problem is, it's next to impossible to get a change of venue in a federal criminal case.
I'm just worried.
No matter how I look at the data, I just don't know how we're gonna seat a jury that can look past their own fears.
That's why we shouldn't try.
In fact, we should do just the opposite.
We should scare the living daylights out of 'em.
People are predisposed to convicting Natalie because they want to believe that the danger has passed.
So what we need to do is convince the jury that it hasn't.
Anybody remember the last time we had a series of anthrax attacks? It was right after 9/11, wasn't it? Yes, yes.
Very good.
And do you remember how long it took for them to find the perpetrator? Uh I seem to recall it was pretty quick.
Indeed it was.
Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly named former biodefense researcher Steven Jay Hatfill as a person of interest in the attacks.
FBI tapped his phone.
He lost his job, couldn't get another one.
Almost committed suicide.
Then, in 2008, everyone suddenly realized that they were persecuting the wrong man.
So here's my question to you.
How many of you folks believe that, of course, with all the best intentions in the world, people whose job it is to root out the bad guys sometimes get it wrong? Now we're getting somewhere.
Means, motive and opportunity They must feel they have it, or they wouldn't have brought the case.
For those of us who didn't go to law school, what does "means" mean again? It means she could do it; she had the tools necessary.
In this case, anthrax.
She worked at a place where anthrax was readily available.
Yeah, but there's more to it than that.
Every expert I've spoken with said the same thing.
Researchers work with wet anthrax spores.
To make a-a powder that can be sent in the mail, you have to use dry anthrax spores, and in order to dry them, you have to use a very specific, very large piece of equipment built just for that purpose.
Which, of course, they have at the lab? Which, of course, they have at the lab.
But all of that takes time.
Stealing the anthrax.
Drying the anthrax.
I've skimmed over this grand jury transcript three times I've yet to see an explanation for when Natalie would have been able to do that without raising suspicion.
Obviously, they are saving their biggest surprises for trial.
I'll give you another one.
So, the FBI was able to determine that all the anthrax letters were mailed from this mailbox within a specific eight-hour period.
Really? Well, since I'm the only one here who hasn't worked for Homeland or FBI, can someone tell me how they do that? When you drop a letter into a government mailbox, it goes into a bin that's location-specific and time-coded.
When that bin is carried back to the general post office for processing and your letter is postmarked, it carries all that information with it.
Wow.
That's really cool.
And more than a little scary.
Back to the pictures.
All right, so, the FBI examined security footage from area cameras taken during the same time frame.
They were able to eliminate all but three people who mailed letters during that period.
Wha? And how were they able to do that? How could they tell from these grainy photos who's mailing anthrax and who isn't? Well, I can't be sure, but my suspicion is, what they really did was basically eliminate everyone who didn't look like Natalie.
There is your detective myopia that Bull keeps talking about.
And that left them with three people who did look like Natalie? Well, it left them with three people, like this person here.
Or this person here.
Or this person here.
People who don't really look like anyone in particular.
At least not as far as I can tell.
So what am I gonna tell Bull? Opening arguments, testimony start tomorrow morning.
What in the world am I gonna tell Bull? Tell him that Danny and I are putting together dossiers on everyone Natalie works with, and That our strategy hasn't changed.
To get the jury and the public to let go of the idea that Natalie is the mastermind behind these attacks, we have to come up with another credible suspect.
And we will.
Now, Dr.
Poulson, as a researcher in the Medical Countermeasures Unit at Hudson University Laboratories, you frequently work shoulder-to-shoulder with Natalie Reznick, - don't you? - Yes, I do.
Now, it's against the lab's standard operating procedures for anyone to work alone? - That's correct, yes.
- And to your knowledge, Dr.
Poulson, did Dr.
Reznick ever simply disregard this tenet of standard operating procedure? Yes, I believe she may have.
Once.
About a week before the attacks.
You're referring to the evening - of the 11th? - I don't know what he's talking about.
It was late.
We were the only two people in the lab.
And at around 7:00 p.
m.
, I got summoned to the chancellor's office for a call with D.
C.
Much of the work we do at our labs is in partnership with the Department of Defense, so when they say jump, we jump.
And I told Natalie to clean up and that we would finish up another day.
So I left her unattended.
Which, as the senior researcher, I shouldn't have done.
But she assured me that she would just take a few minutes - and then she would leave.
- Just to be clear.
Your expectation was that Dr.
Reznick would take five, maybe ten minutes to clean up the lab and then leave.
Correct? That was my assumption, yes.
Dr.
Poulson this is a single frame from security footage taken from the night in question.
It shows someone leaving the laboratory complex at Hudson.
Can you identify that person? - It's Dr.
Reznick.
- And could you read the time stamp on the photo for us, please? 9:26 p.
m.
9:26 p.
m.
Two and a half hours after you left the lab, correct? Yes.
Dr.
Poulson, in your professional opinion, if Dr.
Reznick had been alone in that lab, not just for a few minutes to clean up, but for several hours, would that have given her enough time to dry the anthrax spores into a powder and sneak them out of the lab? Objection, Your Honor! Calls for speculation.
Your Honor, Dr.
Poulson is a microbiologist.
I'm simply asking him for his professional opinion.
Objection overruled.
I'll allow him to answer.
I believe it would have, yes.
No further questions for now, Your Honor.
Dr.
Poulson.
Really appreciate you being here today.
Now, I know we've heard a lot of speculation about what might have happened, what could have happened, but you are a scientist.
You deal with the physical facts of the world.
So let's get back to that.
Do you have any proof that Dr.
Reznick stayed in the lab alone any longer than she told you she would? Well, based on the time stamp Oh, no, no.
That time stamp only proves what time she left the building, which was two and a half hours after you did.
Nowhere does it indicate what time she left the lab itself, does it? - No, it doesn't.
- Uh-huh.
Now, Dr.
Reznick maintains she left the lab as promised and spent the remainder of that time in her office typing a report of the day's work.
In fact you reviewed that very report the next morning, didn't you? It's quite possible.
I often review the reports from the previous night - the next morning.
- I see.
And before the FBI informed you that Dr.
Reznick was a suspect, did you have any reason to suspect her of this crime? No.
I've always believed Natalie to be trustworthy and a passionate scientist.
And I'm still inclined to believe so.
I mean, hon honestly I hope the version of events you just laid out is the truth.
Thank you very much, Dr.
Poulson.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Redirect? Regardless of what you might hope, Dr.
Poulson, doesn't the fact remain that a pathogen was stolen from your lab? Yes.
And based on your own testimony, wouldn't you agree that Dr.
Reznick was the only researcher who could possibly have had an opportunity - to do it? - Asked and answered, Your Honor.
Counsel is badgering the witness.
I'll withdraw the question, Your Honor.
How's the view from where you're sitting? The only good news is, it can't get any worse.
I'm awake.
It's okay.
Partying all night with Astrid again, huh? Yeah.
I was sitting in the living room at 3:00 in the morning, little Astrid up on my shoulder.
I was trying to get a burp out of her.
And I flip on the news, and we're everywhere.
- Mm-hmm.
- Every channel.
And if it is our intention to convince the jury that the real anthrax killer is still out there, well, the national media has not picked up on it.
Which means we're failing.
Well, you don't know that.
Our target's the jury, not cable news.
But the world of cable news is the world these jurors go home to every night.
And if the CNNs and the Foxes and the CNBCs aren't buying our version of events, then neither are the jurors' families or neighbors.
And we all know they're not supposed to talk about the case or watch the news about it but they do.
I'm sorry, Bull, but I think you're being a little premature.
The prosecution is still presenting their case, and we haven't even gotten our turn.
I know.
But we can't wait until then.
We have to go on the offensive now.
We got to use every objection, every cross to hammer home how dangerous it will be if the jury gets this one wrong.
The killer is still out there.
My wife, my-my wife Katie, she didn't aspire to a political life.
I mean, heck, when I met her in grad school, she didn't even read the paper.
But then we fell in love, and the next thing you know, I'm running for office and then we're out there together on the campaign trail.
Oh, she was a natural.
I mean, she loved people.
And people sensed it and they loved her right back.
You see, I take enormous pride in being a congressman.
But the thought that my job, that my commitment to public service somehow contributed to her d-death It's all right, Congressman Connors.
No further questions.
Uh, Bull, it's not looking good here.
This jury really feels for the congressman.
Of course they do.
So do I.
But that doesn't mean his pain is Natalie's fault.
Congressman Connors.
I'd just like to say how profoundly sorry I am for your loss.
Thank you.
Now, much has been made of the fact that you were a part of a long list of legislators Dr.
Reznick reached out to in the wake of a funding cut to her research program.
Now, do you recall Dr.
Reznick's message to you to be threatening in any way? Honestly, I don't.
You see, my staff filters my e-mails, so I only learned about that message in the, in the aftermath of my wife's passing.
But, no, it did not appear to be threatening.
But I imagine your office must receive threatening e-mails from time to time? Yes, unfortunately, in my line of work, you have to make tough choices sometimes, choices that anger people, and occasionally those people do lash out.
How many threats would you estimate that you've received in the seven years that you've been in Congress? Uh, like I said, my staff filters my communications, so there's really no way for me to know.
Well, my office inquired.
And according to your staff, it's 102.
That's how many unique threats your office has received in the past seven years.
19 of those were death threats.
So let me ask you, in the wake of these attacks, to the best of your knowledge, did the FBI investigate those 19 people who previously threatened to take your life? They may have.
Honestly, I don't know.
You don't know.
Wow.
That's kind of unsettling.
I mean, did the FBI even ask you about anyone who possibly could have had a vendetta against you during that time period? I don't know.
Well, then I truly am sorry for you, Congressman Connors.
Not only for your tragic loss, but also because, apparently, law enforcement seems more interested in scapegoating Natalie Reznick than it does in making sure your wife's real killer is off the streets.
Objection.
Counsel is testifying.
Sustained.
The jury will disregard the defense's last statement.
Ask a question, Mr.
Colón.
That's all right, Your Honor.
I have no further questions at this time.
I'm sure you can't see it yet, but it finally feels like we're making progress.
The government will call its next witness, please.
The government rests its case, Your Honor.
Then the defense will call its first witness, please.
My parents came to this country before I was born.
They were scientists in the Soviet Union, but they refused to toe the party line, so their lives were in danger.
They fled and they found sanctuary here, in America.
And until the day they died, they never ceased being grateful for that.
And they raised me to be grateful, too.
I decided when I was a very young girl that, when I grew up, I-I would help people somehow, protect people somehow.
So, is that how you ended up researching cures for deadly biological weapons? Uh, well, it was It was part of it, sure.
A love of science.
I don't know.
It-it-it gives me a sense of satisfaction, like I'm-I'm pulling my own weight, I'm doing my share.
I am showing my gratitude.
So the idea that you would hurt or kill fellow Americans for your own personal gain Is absurd.
To do the work that I do, you have You have to become a doctor.
I'm-I'm a doctor.
I took an oath to save lives.
Why would I knowingly set out to hurt anyone? Kill anyone? Thank you, Dr.
Reznick.
No further questions, Your Honor.
They look engaged to me, receptive.
Open body language.
A couple jurors are starting to lean in.
Does that line up with what you're seeing? Sure does.
They're starting to find Natalie credible, and a few of them are now firmly on her side.
So, Dr.
Reznick, the pleasure you take from your work is fundamentally altruistic, right? I mean, you want to pull your own weight.
You want to do your share.
And, most of all, you want to help people, huh? Protect people.
This is what you just testified to, correct? Yes.
And you would never want to hurt anyone.
You certainly wouldn't want to see anyone die.
I mean, the work you do, your very reason for being, is all about saving lives.
Is that correct? That is what I said, yes.
Interesting.
Because I have a video of an academic conference you participated in, which would seem to suggest otherwise.
Uh Objection.
Your Honor, this is the first the defense has heard of any video.
- The AUSA knows - Your Honor, a concerned citizen - sent this video to our office - he has a duty to disclose - any and all - only just yesterday.
Enough! Both of you.
Mr.
Reynolds, I'm gonna take you at your word and allow this.
Mr.
Colón, I will give you ample time to prepare should you choose to redirect.
Let's proceed.
Is that you up there, Dr.
Reznick, on the stage, in the video? It is.
Yes.
Do you recall when this video was taken? Um, I-I believe it was an ethics panel at a microbiology conference about ten years ago.
I was still a postgrad.
I have a hypothetical question for you, Dr.
Reznick.
Okay.
If an unknown deadly virus or bacteria were to infect an isolated group of people, what, in your opinion, is the best course of action? Um, well, uh, if there was a chance to contain the outbreak within that group, I'd say that the only choice is to quarantine the infected Nobody in, nobody out And then watch the, uh, progression of the disease.
Even if the disease were deadly? Well, if you don't know what the pathogen is, treating the symptoms may be futile.
You're going to have to let in medical workers, and then, at some point, you're going to have to let them back out, and they very well may carry whatever it is to the general population.
So, yeah, harsh as it sounds, quarantine.
Because, unfortunately, sometimes five have to die to save 5,000.
"Sometimes five have to die to save 5,000.
" Is that why you sent the anthrax through the mail, Dr.
Reznick? Because you thought it would be okay to kill two if it meant recovering the funds that you needed in order to find a cure? Objection.
Facts not in evidence.
Speculation.
Badgering.
Should I go on? Of course not.
That is part of a larger conversation.
You lifted that out of context.
- Dr.
Reznick.
- And organically contracting a disease is fundamentally different - than intentionally infecting someone.
- Dr.
Reznick.
Dr.
Reznick.
Your attorney was making an objection on your behalf.
In the future, when an attorney makes an objection, please refrain from answering until I've rendered my decision on the objection.
I will let the witness's statement remain in the record.
Let's take a ten-minute break and allow everyone to cool down.
- The witness will remain - How's this playing where you are? Not terribly well.
I'm afraid we lost all our greens, Bull.
We will continue her testimony at that time.
- So, how was dinner? - Not great.
I wasn't hungry.
I'd been eating my small intestine all afternoon.
I promise you, it was as difficult to listen to over here as I'm sure it was for you to witness in person.
The problem is, was, and continues to be we've presented the jury with no real alternatives to our client.
We keep insisting it must be someone else, but - we never say who.
- Yeah.
Bull's hitting the nail on the head, Marissa.
Every time I feel like we're making progress, every time I feel a hint of traction with this jury, it all slips away.
That's because they have no one else to consider but Natalie.
I hear you.
And all I can tell you is that Danny, Chunk, and Taylor Who is standing right next to me They're all beating the bushes, trying to find someone who could have plausibly pulled this off.
Dr.
Bull, did you get a chance to go through those dossiers I prepared for you? There's material there on almost 50 lab employees, all of whom have access to anthrax.
I'm getting through them as fast as I can, Taylor.
But it's not as if anyone flagged one of the employees and said, "Here's a plausible suspect.
" Come on, Bull.
We are all pulling on the same end of the rope here.
What? The hell was that? What's going on over there? Uh is it safe out here? Absolutely.
My name is, uh, Jason Bull.
This is my place of business.
I have two employees inside.
Do you have any sense of when they'll be able to come out? They will be able to come out at some point, right? It's gonna be quite a while.
You might want to give them a call.
How you guys feeling? At the moment? Absolutely fine.
A little hungry.
He asked.
We can't eat anything from the kitchen.
Can't eat anything until they give us the all clear and we can get out of here.
We are gonna be fine.
They've loaded us up with antibiotics.
I think it's primarily about waiting for lab results at this point.
Marissa, Taylor, I'm so sorry you're going through this.
They give you any ETA on these tests? Uh, they've estimated another three hours or so.
Taylor, do you need us to swing by your place and pick up your son? Nope.
He's at his dad's.
Thank goodness.
Hey, uh, guys, there's nothing for you to do here.
Why don't you just head home? Bull, I will text you as soon as they tell us anything.
As soon as they let us out of here.
Are you sure? I mean, I'm happy to stick around.
We're good.
- We've got each other.
- Okay.
Then I am going to go home, kiss my baby, and read some dossiers.
Would you think I was a terrible person if I told you that, as horrible as this must be for Marissa and Taylor, there's potentially a big upside to it? Oh, thank God.
I thought I was the only one whose mind worked that way.
Natalie's in jail.
So she couldn't have done it.
If the FBI and the CDC confirm that the handwriting is the same on the letter we got at TAC as on the envelopes that went out to the congressman and the newscaster And that the construction of the gizmo that makes sure the anthrax makes contact with the person is similar I think our client is free and clear.
I'll make sure to keep all my digits crossed.
Hello? Marissa.
Tell me what's going on.
On your way home? Uh, that's great.
Great to hear.
Really? They certain of that? Powdered sugar? Yeah, that is funny.
If Taylor had only licked her fingers, she wouldn't have been hungry anymore.
Well, the two of you get something to eat, get some sleep, and I'll see you in the morning.
Night.
You have no idea how happy I am to be standing here, talking to you.
You have no idea how happy I am to be talked to.
Mm.
Just a copycat.
Copycat with powdered sugar trying to intimidate us.
Somebody who'd watched the news and convinced themselves that Natalie is a murderer and that we're the bad guys just doing whatever we can - to help her evade the law.
- Well, I went through the rest of the dossiers early this morning, and I found one that ticked a lot of boxes for me.
Really? What if I told you that one of the employees at Hudson served as a medic during the first Gulf War? Okay.
And that's meaningful because? Because it means they have firsthand knowledge of the devastation biological and chemical weapons cause.
No offense, but that hardly seems like enough to get a jury to change its mind.
What if I told you this person was stationed in territory where Saddam Hussein was waging chemical and biological warfare against a large swath of civilians? Still kind of feels like we're making some big leaps here, don't you think? I don't know.
Why does someone dedicate their life to finding an antidote to something like anthrax? We know why Natalie did it.
She felt a sense of obligation to her country.
So, what if this person did it because they keenly understood that biological weapons were an imminent threat to the homeland? So, when Congress cut their funding for the research, they took matters into their own hands and decided the one or two deaths necessary to seize the public's imagination were a fair trade if it helped prevent a greater harm.
So, you're saying the FBI had the right motive Just pegged the wrong person.
Who is this person? Roger Simpkins? Uh, Natalie's boss? The man who oversees the entire program? His position means he can come and go between labs by himself without raising suspicion, which means he has access to anthrax.
Not to mention the know-how and the equipment to dry the spores with.
Not only did Dr.
Simpkins have the motive, the means, and the opportunity to commit this crime He was also in the perfect position to frame Natalie Reznick.
Natalie had to get her boss's okay before she wrote to that list of legislators and journalists in the wake of the budget cuts.
Dr.
Simpkins could easily have pulled Congressman Connors' and Allison Rojas' names from that list in an effort to make Natalie look guilty.
I'm sorry, but none of this sounds terribly convincing.
In fact, it sounds desperate, like you know you're about to lose and you're throwing spaghetti on the wall, hoping something will stick.
Look, I came to this meeting in good faith.
But I got to tell you, I believe Natalie Reznick is guilty, and nothing I've heard here today even remotely begins to change my mind.
Well, perhaps we should have skipped the warm-up then.
Danny, the pièce de résistance, if you will.
You recognize these images, Mr.
Reynolds? Of course.
Those are from the security footage the FBI lifted near the mailbox where the letters were sent.
You were never able to identify Natalie in any of these photos, were you? Come on.
Look at the time of year.
Look how everyone is dressed.
Nevertheless, we do believe one of them is Natalie.
Well, in the same way you set out to prove one of them is Natalie, we set out to prove one of them is Dr.
Simpkins.
We widened the surveillance area and accessed all of the security cameras within a half-mile radius of the mailbox.
Now, the FBI determined that there was an eight-hour window during which the letters were mailed.
So, using a photograph of Dr.
Simpkins' face, our office created an algorithm to scan all eight hours of the footage from every single camera.
This is what we found.
Recorded by an ATM about four blocks away from the mailbox.
As you can see, that's Roger Simpkins.
And you'll notice his hat perfectly matches this hat.
In this photo.
Where a person is clearly mailing letters.
Letters which I would bet contain anthrax.
Nice work.
Well, I suppose the four of us should take a walk down to the judge's chambers, see if we can get an audience.
If this isn't probable cause for a search warrant, I don't know what is.
Look out there.
You see a single face mask? Nope.
Just people walking their dogs, strolling their kids.
Well, it's like we told the judge The FBI searched Dr.
Simpkins' apartment, only to discover it, too, had been bleached.
Luckily, when they opened up the HVAC ducts, they found anthrax spores behind a vent in the kitchen.
I still have a hard time believing it.
We talked about it all the time.
He kept saying how he wanted to help people, protect people.
Oh, I'm sure he thought he was doing just that.
Doing it for the greater good.
You know, I guess that's why I like my work so much.
Bacteria may be challenging, but they're a whole hell of a lot easier to understand than people.