The plane is ready when you are, Mr. Renner.
I've loaded your luggage.
I'll be down in a few minutes.
Okay.
Forgive me, Boyle, but it's just too early for Mahler.
Of course, sir.
Boyle?
No! No!
♪ NCIS: LA 2x09 ♪ Absolution Original air date on November 16, 2010
== sync, corrected by elderman == == for www.addic7ed.com ==
What ya got there, Inspector Gadget?
It's an electric potential sensor
that can read changes in the electric field
caused by your heartbeat.
Hmm.
72 beats per minute.
That's pretty normal.
So it's, like, a high-tech stethoscope?
Uh, no. Way more than that.
Okay. Everybody's heartbeat's unique, right?
Like a finger or voice print.
Well, this sensor is strong enough to pick up, record,
and analyze your specific
cardiac cycle from a considerable distance.
Even through walls.
Wow. I thought Mr. Microphone was fun.
I'm sorry. Who?
It was this toy microphone
that amplified your voice through the radio.
Never mind.
I got a "Person of Interest" alert.
The name "Sebastian Renner" popped up on a police report.
Hmm. I didn't flag him.
Neither did I.
But I did.
Whoa! Would you look at that?
46 beats per minute? That's incredible.
Ah, that's Tsa lung Trul khor. Tibetan yoga.
Sebastian Renner
is a Swiss antiques dealer.
Not anymore.
He was just found murdered near the Hollywood sign.
You'd best rally the troops.
Would it help if I sing the theme from Rocky?
Where the hell have you been?
Waiting for you.
We were supposed to meet, go for a run before work.
We were supposed to meet
at Patrick's Roadhouse for breakfast.
If we try, we can still get in a couple miles.
No way.
I just had pigs in a blankets and waffles.
I'm a little bit full.
You're full of something, and it ain't waffles.
You know what? You get a little grumpy
when your blood sugar gets low.
Yeah, Eric?
Hetty wants everyone in Ops-- ASAP.
All right. We're on our way.
Hey, hold on. Let me get a towel.
For what? This is nice leather.
It's nice.
Morning, Sunshine.
You lied to me.
Not so much as a "hello"?
I even called you "sunshine."
You said you needed a ride. I do.
Deeks, I'm your partner, not your chauffeur.
I thought you were having car trouble.
Nope.
What are you doing?
Hmm?
Please tell me you didn't...
What?
Oh, my God. You're using me as bait?
No, no, no. Not bait. As a wingman.
This is what partners do.
Do you know how utterly unprofessional this is?
You should tell me.
I don't... What? Don't stop.
Keep telling me. Get mad.
Act like we're breaking up. Get angry. Ready? Go.
Are you for real? Partner?
Oh, come on! Sunshine!
Wait!
Stay away from me. It's over!
I can't do this anymore!
Listen, I-I'm sorry. All right?
I know that it's tough when I'm on the road
all the time, touring with the band.
I don't care about that!
You-You cheated on me.
With my brother!
That's just mean.
In addition to his antiques dealership,
Sebastian Renner was also a known black marketeer.
Eric?
The footage you're watching is from a surveillance perimeter
around the Hollywood sign.
Police are still on the scene.
That looks like an execution.
Yeah. But they're also looking for something.
Apparently, Renner used his antiques dealership
as a front for brokering some major arms deals.
He specialized in weapons, salvaged and stolen,
following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Finding out who killed Renner
is secondary to finding his little black book
of weapon buyers and sellers.
Every spook and his brother
will be looking for that intel
and we need to find it first.
What if the men who killed him already have it?
Then we get it back.
Hold on a second.
That's it?
End of discussion?
The clock is ticking, Mr. Callen,
and you're already late for the party.
Any further queries will have to wait.
Okay, Deeks and Kensi, see what you can find out
from LAPD at the crime scene.
Sam and I will take Renner's house.
Problem?
No. We're cool.
Yeah. You're so the opposite of cool.
So, that's hot?
So, you think I'm hot.
That's cool.
Morning, Ray.
Guess who's here to see you, Mr. Cole?
J. Edgar Hoover?
We don't usually get to see you during the week, Mrs. Cole.
I thought I'd surprise my husband.
Looks like we beat LAPD here, but somebody else beat us.
Hetty's right. We're late for the party.
Huh.
Mouton Rothschild Pauillac.
Very fine. Very rare.
Very expensive.
Maybe Renner was celebrating.
Maybe Sebastian Renner
knew his time was running short,
and he wanted to enjoy it while he could.
What's missing from this picture?
Printer, scanner, cables...
No computer.
Speaking of missing pictures...
Renner had no family...
these must all be friends or associates.
Who was in this one?
This guy's in a lot of 'em.
Probably a pretty good place to start.
Yo.
Eric, Callen's sending you some photographs.
Need to identify the players.
Concentrate on the guy in his 30s
who appears the most.
Got it.
Federal agents!
Come out with your hands up.
Hey, boys. How you doing?
Easy.
You're good doggies, aren't you?
Yes, you are.
How those waffles feeling right about now?
Ha. You know what's really funny?
Your car's still in there.
What's all this?
Sebastian Renner's personal effects.
LAPD was more than happy to hand the case over.
Two less homicides for them to worry about.
No cell phone or laptop?
Well, if he had either, the killers must have grabbed them.
All right. I'll see what I can find
in terms of phone, Internet,
and travel records.
Who's this with Renner?
That's Sander Lee.
Callen and Sam found his photo all over Renner's house.
He's an interior designer here in L.A.
He's got a store in the Pacific Design Center.
Could be a client.
Or something a little more significant.
Call Callen.
Let him know what you found.
Where's Hetty?
Uh, she left
right after this morning's briefing.
She didn't say where she was going.
"They wrenched
"the flag furiously from the dead man,
"and as they turned again,
"the corpse swayed forward with bowed head.
"One arm swung high,
"and the curved hand fell with heavy protest
on the friend's unheeding shoulder."
Sebastian Renner passed away this morning.
Do you remember him?
He was an antique dealer.
Among other things.
I believe you had dealings with him in the past.
Did I?
Yes.
I don't remember.
He helped smuggle you
into this country.
In exchange for a book you gave him.
A book in which you'd recorded
information about your past.
I told you, I don't remember.
Well, Renner's dead.
He was murdered.
You could be next...
if they were to find you.
I would prefer death over this.
That should come
as no surprise to you, Sylvia.
No.
What surprises me is
that you haven't asked who killed Renner or why.
Perhaps I don't care.
Or perhaps you know who killed him,
and perhaps you remember a lot more
than you're telling me.
I am tired of being your prisoner!
Enough!
It's okay, Mr. Cole.
Just try and relax.
I'm sorry.
Oh, it's quite all right.
He gets... frustrated sometimes.
Yes.
Perhaps it's best if you go back in and rest, dear.
I'll come back later.
Gartenzwerg.
Place is enormous.
One point two million square feet.
You've never been to the Pacific Design Center?
Look who I'm asking.
Of course you've never been here.
That's a nice chair.
What do you know?
You don't own any furniture.
Well, maybe it's time I get a chair.
Yeah?
$3,700.
I don't need a chair.
Sander Lee Design.
This is it through here.
How much did you give him?
MAN 2: The usual.
He must have had a reaction.
Pulse is weak.
Federal Agents!
Go! Go! Quickly!
He's got a pulse, but it's thready.
Stay with him.
Drop the gun!
Drop it! Now!
Okay. Okay.
Did you get them?
One of 'em got away.
Other one needs an ambulance.
He gonna make it?
What's the word on Sander Lee?
The guy's in critical condition.
Would have been dead if it hadn't been for Sam
keeping him alive until the paramedics got there.
He's not out of the woods yet.
Doctors say they pumped him full of a narcosynthetic.
A truth serum? Yeah.
They must have thought he knew where Renner's black book was.
This little black book of Renner's must be
one hell of a read, if they're willing
to keep killing people to get it.
You find anything?
Yeah.
I talked to Sander's parents.
They're flying in from Phoenix to be with him.
They did confirm that he'd been in a relationship
with Sebastian Renner for the past several years.
Eric, what have you got?
I managed to I.D. the two men from Sander Lee's.
The dead guy is Dars Talbert.
The guy you wounded and captured is one Frederick Harbin.
They're both in the country as agricultural attachés,
but are suspected of being Bundesnachrichtendienst.
Gesundheit.
BND is the German Federal Intelligence Service.
AKA spies.
This just became an international incident.
You know, there is a bright side to this.
If these guys were interrogating Sander Lee,
it suggests they're still looking for something.
He's right.
Maybe they didn't find Sebastian Renner's little black book.
Then again, they are Germans.
They could be just getting their kink on.
I'm half German.
I can see that.
Director Vance is on the phone.
Where the hell is Hetty?
I'm right here.
Let me deal with the director.
I'll meet you in Ops in ten minutes.
Eric, access a file that's called "Dinner Party 76."
The password is
Haruspex 77981.
"Dinner 76" mean anything to you?
Not a clue.
It's buried
in a bunch of administration folders.
What's that password code?
Haruspex 77981.
In ancient Rome,
a haruspex was someone who could predict the future
by reading the entrails of sacrificed sheep.
You don't think that Hetty...?
Okay.
Here it is.
It's a surveillance folder on Bernstrom Kohl.
Bernstrom Kohl.
Guy was Staatssicherheit.
Gesundheit.
Just wait for it.
Rule of threes.
Third one's gonna be hilarious, I promise you.
STASI were
the East German Secret Police during the Cold War.
Cold War ended 20 years ago.
Seems to me like it's heating up again.
Bernstrom Kohl was a rising star
in the former Soviet Republic,
before running into some trouble with his superiors.
Apparently, he had a little black book on some of his
fellow STASI operatives,
as well as foreign agents from numerous countries.
The little black book Sebastian Renner ostensibly possessed.
Kohl allegedly had evidence
of some of the more infamous, albeit secret,
operations of the KGB, the U.S. and Israel,
including assassinations.
That's one hell of a dinner party.
So why would Hetty tell us this book has a list
of arms dealers?
Because the actual specifics of the book
are way beyond all of our pay grades,
Ms. Blye.
Where did Renner get the book?
Bernstrom Kohl traded the information
to our friend Renner for safe passage to the West.
Renner kept the book as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card.
Nobody wanted to risk that information leaking out,
so they left him alone.
So why did the Germans whack him now?
Ah, one never knows with the Germans.
Right.
Come on, guys. I'm right here.
Apologies, Herr Beale.
Danke.
Where's Bernstrom Kohl now?
He's been living in this country
for several years under the name Branston Cole.
C-O-L-E.
He had a stroke a while back
which left him crippled and legally blind.
It may have contributed to early onset Alzheimer's,
but that's debatable.
He's waiting in the boatshed.
Question Cole,
see if you can get anything useful out of him.
Oh, I had
animal control move the dogs
from Renner's property.
Perhaps Ms. Blye and Mr. Deeks can have a more thorough search.
Absolutely.
Done.
Hetty?
Do you have some sort of plan you want to share?
Yes. My plan is to prevent an onslaught of foreign operatives
from tearing this town apart looking for that book.
I suggest you and your team do the same thing.
This place looks more like a museum than a house.
How can you even relax in a place like this?
You don't like antiques?
Antique is just a fancy word for secondhand goods.
Why on earth would I want something
that somebody else had?
We're not talking about a toothbrush.
I mean, look around. You don't find
craftsmanship like this anymore.
Some of this stuff is probably worth a fortune.
Reason number two.
Why would I want a coffee table I can't put my boots on,
or have to worry about my beer leaving a ring?
You are a classy chick.
I'm classy.
You're more sassy than classy.
Oh, and those yoga bunnies
you were perving on before-- they're classy?
It's really hard when I'm on the road
all the time touring... with the band.
Like I said, classy.
Whoa.
Check this out.
It's an application for a clinical trial
at UCLA Johnson's Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Renner had cancer?
I don't know. If he did, it wasn't good.
This trial involves placing experimental chemotherapy wafers
into the brain after the removal
of a metastatic tumor.
Brain cancer.
Might explain why the Germans came after Renner now.
If they learned that he was dying, maybe they were afraid
that he was going to unload the book.
Well, selling it would provide his companion Sander Lee
with a pretty nice nest egg.
Well, he's already got a nice little nest egg here.
Maybe Renner was planning on getting rid of it
so that no one would come after Sander Lee looking for it.
Well, if so, he waited too long.
I thought Hetty said the dogs were gone.
Dogs don't wear shoes. Well, that's not
necessarily true. You ever seen those little dog booties?
Shh. Shh. Get little bells on 'em.
- Federal agents! Don't move! - LAPD!
NSA! NCIS!
M-O-U-S-E.
What are you doing here?
This is our case.
Sebastian Renner was a foreign national
with information considered a threat
to the United States of America.
Still our case.
We don't have to be adversaries.
After all, we are on the same side.
Perhaps we could work together.
Have you found anything that might be--
Whoa!
What are you doing?
You heard the guy. We're on the same side.
I'm pretty sure he's not NSA. Pretty sure?
'Cause you teed off on him like you were kicking a field goal.
Deeks, I got a hunch they're foreign operatives, okay?
A hunch?
You don't kick a guy in his junk on a hunch.
Geez.
Sometimes I don't even know you.
Who does that?
This place smells like fish and gasoline.
I can hear the water underneath me.
Where the hell am I, a boat house?
Something like that.
Budget cuts,
or are you planning on chopping me up into chum?
We'd just like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Cole.
You were an East German agent?
Was I?
I don't remember things.
Tell us what you do remember.
I remember...
San Francisco.
November 22, 1989.
Smelled just like this.
But it was cold and drizzly.
Last day I had eyesight and the sun wasn't even shining.
Was that when you had your stroke?
My stroke was caused by blood loss from two bullet holes,
compliments of an American operative.
You were fortunate to survive.
Was I?
Why don't you tell us about Sebastian Renner.
He was an antiques dealer.
Was?
He's dead, isn't he?
Supposedly, he has a book of yours.
I don't remember any book.
Sorry.
You were told Sebastian Renner died this morning.
Usually, Alzheimer's patients have more of a problem
with short-term memory.
I am not a doctor.
No, you were a spy.
I was a lot of things.
Now, I am just this.
You want my help?
So be it.
We make a trade.
I tell you what you need to know
and, in exchange,
Sylvia finishes what she started.
Sylvia?
Vicious pixie owes me that much.
Sylvia is one of Hetty's aliases.
Hmm. Seems like there's a lot
of old school cloak and dagger stuff going on here
that we're not being told about.
How'd you make out?
Did you take anything new away from Renner's?
Yes. These two guys.
These jokers waltzed in
while we were there, tried to pass themselves off
as NSA agents,
but they're DGSE.
French Intelligence Agency.
How'd you know they were bogus?
Their accents.
They didn't have accents.
Do you know the difference
between French open syllabic organization
and English trochaic speech patterning, Deeks?
That old chestnut?
Hetty was right.
They're coming out of the woodwork.
Where are they now?
Had my LAPD buddies lock 'em up downtown
for a few hours.
You know? Give them a taste of the real L.A.
that's not in the star tours.
They probably have diplomatic immunity.
That's exactly why we put 'em in county.
I mean, they're gonna be lucky if they get
to make a phone call by Christmas.
Hmm. Just, uh,
don't let Kensi interrogate them.
Why's that?
'Cause the guy on the right?
She kicked him in the nom de plumes.
No.
Guy didn't even have his weapon out.
Really?
Eh...
Mm-hmm. Right in the cul-de-sac.
Kicked him so hard it gave me a stomachache.
So what? It would have been better
if I'd pistol-whipped him across the face?
Yes!
What is with you guys and-and your...
Really, it's not...
It's not all that, trust me.
Did you guys manage to get anything out of Cole?
Not so much.
He's playing us.
He may not be the only one.
What do you mean?
Yo. Eric, I need to talk to Hetty.
She left again. How long ago?
Uh, about an hour ago.
She say where she was going?
No. When I asked, she stared me down like a mongoose.
Bugger.
And don't tell me you're here
'cause you wanted your chair reupholstered.
That was very foolish of you, Mr. Callen.
You came dangerously close to having your head blown off.
You're lucky I caught a whiff
of your partner's baby fresh scent.
You and I need to talk.
Shall we start with Branston Cole?
Not unless he told you something useful.
Well, it was as much what he didn't tell me.
It was you.
I'm sorry?
You shot him.
It was your wounds that led to his stroke.
Which also suggests it was you that kept him from dying.
That is quite a theory, Mr. Callen.
You put him into an assisted living facility
as your husband, under a new name,
so you could keep working him for information.
Only it's difficult, sometimes,
to tell when it's his Alzheimer's,
and when he's just playing you.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
He's a stubborn old bastard.
But I'm patient.
Occasionally, he trips up, and I get him.
If I didn't know any better,
I'd say that you two enjoy the game.
Maybe even each other's company.
Now you're straying into fantasy, Mr. Callen.
Cole is an asset from the past, nothing more.
You read to him every week, for years.
It's a cover.
And it's wearing thin.
He's become more and more withdrawn lately.
As his physical condition worsens,
so does his spirit.
He's willing to cooperate.
If you agree to finish what you've started.
Oh...
He's asked you before?
About a year ago.
Taking a life in the line of duty is one thing.
Hell, I've already shot him.
Twice.
I'm not a murderer, Mr. Callen.
But I may be a hypocrite.
Cole's fate is now in the hands
of someone far greater than I.
I didn't think there was such a person.
What about this little black book of secrets?
I don't think he knows what Renner did with it.
Is it really as valuable as everyone thinks?
From what I know,
it could permanently damage international relationships
and jeopardize our country's political security.
Such as what?
Sanctioned assassinations?
Use your imagination.
Are you in the book?
The longer one stays in this business, Mr. Callen,
the more one's closet resembles an ossuary.
Mine, I'm afraid, is beginning
to look like the Paris catacombs.
Speaking of closets,
did you find anything before you ducked into Sander Lee's?
I found something!
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt. I could just...
No, no, tell us what you discovered, Nell.
Well, I was going through the manuscripts,
thinking that maybe there's something hidden in them.
It took me a while to even figure out what they were,
because they're written in Boustrophedon.
Back and forth, like plowing a field.
Exactly. Very old school.
Uh, Ms. Jones, to the point.
Right. Well, the manuscript's legit.
It's not the book. It's the bookmark.
Eric.
It's sterling silver and very rare. See?
It has a magnifying glass compartment
which contains a miniature dictionary.
It was a very clever novelty item back in Victorian England.
That's when Eric and I started talking
about Sherlock Holmes
and vintage cloak and dagger stuff.
And, anyway, it was Eric who found it.
It was the punctuation that was the tip-off.
There's just too much of it.
And that's when our conversation started me thinking
about Cold War spycraft, and then it hit me.
Microdots. Exactly!
Renner was using old-school techniques
to hide his assets in plain sight.
It was easily overlooked by everyone.
I managed to enlarge one of the microdots.
So we found it?
Yes and no.
I'm still analyzing this, but, for the most part,
it just seems like a lot of outdated Cold War information,
the value of which is suspect at best.
But it could mean that the information we're looking for
is hidden in a similar manner.
You see how many books were in Renner's place?
It could take years to look through them all
for microdots.
It's like picking fly--
Yes, Mr. Hanna, it would be labor-intensive,
to say the very least.
But we have to do something.
Washington is having a conniption fit
over the number of foreign operatives
who've descended on our city.
What if we put word out on the street
that Cole's book had been found and it's up for sale?
We could use some of what we found
as proof to help smoke out the foreign operatives
that have infiltrated the city.
Sounds like a plan.
Let's do it.
I put it out to the Koreans and the Armenians
that the book is for sale.
You speak to your buddy Arkady?
He might be helpful in spreading the word.
What is it?
It's Hetty.
What about her?
Something's not right.
I'll be right back.
What's going on?
Not sure.
Nell, have you seen Hetty?
She was in her office.
Eric?!
Yeah?
Hetty up there? Yeah, she was...
I'm sorry. She's like a ninja.
Mattias.
Herta.
I'd hoped you'd find my note.
You look well.
Well enough, as do you.
Too much sun,
too much wine, too much food.
But I didn't expect either one of us
to live this long, so who cares?
If you hand over your weapons,
it would spare us both the vulgarity
of having me search you.
That's it these days.
And even then, it's mostly for the common street thug.
Please, sit.
Thank you.
It's a shame, isn't it?
So much crime and corruption.
Whatever happened to honor among thieves, huh?
Or respect for one's elders, let alone one's enemies.
Chivalry.
Indeed.
Do you ever come here?
Occasionally.
Reminds me of the first time we met.
Vienna, the Volksoper Wien.
I missed the second act of Die Landstreicher
because of you.
I wish you'd stayed.
Of course you still would have missed the second act.
I don't have the book, Mattias.
I don't even care anymore.
To be honest, I'm beginning to think
it's nothing more than a legend.
No, I don't want the book.
I want Cole.
He's dead.
Herta.
I shot him myself.
That much is true, but our agents confirmed
that he survived his run-in with the gartenzwerg...
With you.
Cole was most fortunate.
I know only too well that most aren't.
Present company excepted.
You must know then that I won't tell you anything.
I would never insult you by suggesting you would.
I'm confident, however,
that you are worth far more to your people
than a crippled, old, blind man.
Which is why I am certain
they will be willing to trade him for you.
I apologize for the distastefulness of it all,
but we should get going.
I'm not going anywhere.
You're just going to have to shoot me
right here.
Herta, I could kiss you right now,
if I wasn't afraid you would
gouge out both my eyes
and bite through my windpipe if I got close enough.
The fact that you're so damn defiant,
especially knowing what I'm capable of.
You truly are the last of a dying breed.
We both are, Mattias.
We are, aren't we?
It's not just my Kodachrome nostalgia
for a simpler time?
The world has changed...
...and our business has changed.
And I for one,
have seen enough bloodshed
in the name of king and country.
Let me appeal to you,
as one Cold War survivor to another.
What is Kohl to you?
No one cares about a crippled, blind traitor.
Surely you haven't developed feelings for the old man?
You know, he's the one who gave you the nickname Gartenzwerg.
Sticks and stones...
Unfortunately, we are now talking guns...
and knives.
You're just as valuable to me dead, my dear.
I send your people an ear, maybe a finger,
they'll hand over Kohl before your corpse is cold.
Why now?
Who cares about the incoherent babblings of an old man?
Some wounds last a lifetime.
Treason is one of them.
I'm sorry, Herta.
I find it hard to even do this myself.
But in the end, we all die alone.
One more step,
and she's dead.
Don't listen to him.
I already told him to shoot me, and I'm still here.
Clear.
I guess that's the difference between us, Mattias.
Despite my best efforts
to keep these ones at arms' length...
I'm not in this alone.
Schweinepriester.
Gesundheit.
Nicely played.
So, the FBI and the real NSA have been brought up to speed,
along with the other agencies.
Hopefully, we'll be able to round up the rest
of the foreign operatives still lurking around town.
What's going to happen to Mattias?
Well, if he's lucky, he'll be sent back to Germany
in some face-saving spy trade.
Along with Kensi's French boyfriends.
What about this missing book?
If it's hidden among Renner's manuscripts
or in his library, it'll take a while to find it.
Nevertheless, it was a job well done.
National Security
is a marathon,
not a sprint.
I suggest you all get some rest.
The game begins anew
tomorrow.
Well,
I don't know about you guys, but I could use a drink.
You'd be better off getting a good night's sleep.
Don't let alcohol become your chosen form
of stress management.
I'm not stressed, man, but I'm buying.
Then I'm in. Me, too.
Nell, that means you got to come, too.
I can't be the only woman in this group.
Really?
Okay.
Looks like you're the designated
driver, G.
Nice.
Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna check with Hetty
and see if she wants to make this the Magnificent Seven.
I'm all right, Mr. Callen.
Thank you for not asking.
Just wanted to see if you want to join us for a drink.
I'm driving.
A more generous, inviting offer I can't imagine,
but I have plans.
Hetty, you're kidding me.
You almost getting killed
today-- that doesn't merit
a celebratory cocktail with your rescuers?
I have a previous commitment.
Forgive me if I'm, uh, hesitant
to let you out of my sight.
If you must know,
I'm going to see Branston Cole.
Which means what exactly?
I'm not certain myself.
But it's something I have to do alone this time.
And I'm confident
that you'll respect my wishes to do so.
Good night... Mr. Callen.
== sync, corrected by elderman == == for www.addic7ed.com ==