FBI: Most Wanted (2020) s02e14 Episode Script

Pass the ball.
Pass the ball! - It's coming for you, Taylor! - Watch the push.
Watch the push.
Get ready.
Get ready! All right, Taylor! Oh, come on, Patrick! What the hell was that? That was a goal.
My kid caught the ball! While standing behind the goal line.
Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.
Ma'am, I need you to back up.
Or what? Hey, Lindsey.
Hey.
It's all good.
Just calm down.
It's all right.
It's not exactly the World Cup.
She's going great.
That's all right, Taylor.
You shake it off.
I think it's snack time.
I brought those oranges you asked for.
You want me to grab 'em? No, I'll go.
I could use the cool-off.
I agree.
All right.
Let's go, Taylor.
Come on! Come on.
Hit, hit.
- Ha! - Hit it.
Move those hands.
Move those hands.
- Come on, man.
- Ha! Hit, hit.
Ah.
There you go.
I've gotta get that, Coach.
Get that from me.
This is Ortiz.
Ivan? It's me.
Sheri? What's wrong? My sister was shot dead today.
Uh I think someone's trying to kill me.
So the trick is low heat for a long time.
What other secrets are you keeping from me, Cheffy, huh? You do a stint at Le Cordon Bleu or something? The CIA, actually.
The what? It's the Culinary Institute of America.
- Really? - No.
My mom's a professional chef.
She's not.
Bye.
Remind me never to plan a wedding in the middle of a pandemic again.
- What, uh, Commander's Palace? - Florist.
Oh, they're rescheduling? They closed down permanently.
Wait.
What? Isn't that the second cancellation this month? In weeks.
And with the CDC playing fast and loose with their gathering guidelines It's enough to make a guy wanna call the whole thing off.
Another guy.
A stupid guy.
Not me.
You guys could get married here.
- Here here? - Yeah.
That's actually a cool idea.
It is.
No scrambling.
No more lost deposits.
Right? Marie, there's more than one florist in New Orleans.
And we would have to find a priest or a Justice of the Peace.
Oh! Aunt Louise can do it.
She got ordained last year for her two friends.
We could take what would have been two more months of planning and turn it into a few days.
Have fun with it.
We got family.
What more do we need? What do you think, Jesse B? Here, here? Aw, don't worry.
The girls have got this.
All you need to do is show up dressed to impress.
What are you laughing at, young lady? Eat your eggs.
LaCroix.
Rookie taking point? They grow up so fast.
This is Lindsey Verlage, recruiter for a software company based out of D.
C.
She was shot six times.
It happened in the parking lot of her daughter's soccer game yesterday.
Six? Which suggests it wasn't random.
There were no witnesses.
No one even heard the shots.
What do we have from the scene? No prints, no casings.
So our UFAP is for a John Doe? Don't need one.
Murder in the District kicks it up to a federal case.
Plus the potential intimidation of a federal informant.
Who's the informant? Lindsey's sister, Sheri James.
You're saying the sister of our vic is an active FBI source? Was.
Five years ago.
My first case.
Joint Terrorism Task Force in D.
C.
We ran a surveillance op on this guy: Drug dealer, Max Nikolla.
What'd the JTTF want with a dealer? We suspected he was part of a Serbian terrorist cell in the U.
S.
But we couldn't prove it until we got Sheri.
And you flipped her? We worked Nikolla for a year.
He was good, but she was better.
She got him to admit that he was plotting to kill Daniel Arwith.
The journalist? Nikolla stalked him for months.
Death threats, phone calls.
I mean, he even killed the family dog.
But we could only put him away for five years.
As far as we knew, Nikolla didn't have any reason to suspect that Sheri flipped on him.
She was the best CI I ever had.
I haven't seen her in years, but she really did make a life for herself in D.
C.
She owns a townhome.
She runs a limo company.
A real life.
Until the Bureau of Prisons called and said Nikolla was released to a halfway house.
Which means he's free to come and go.
And he hasn't checked in in three days.
He's had five years to figure out what Sheri did and where she's at now.
But why was her sister murdered when Sheri was at the game with her? Sheri and Lindsey, they bear a resemblance to each other.
And Lindsey was unloading the cooler from Sheri's BMW.
Either he shot the wrong sister Or he's making a game of it.
Stalking his prey.
Just like he did with Arwith.
You reach out to your buddies at the JTTF? Yeah, they're making all their resources available to us.
Why don't you go? Check to make sure that Sheri's okay.
The rest of will catch up with you in D.
C.
- Hey.
- Hey.
We got a room for you at a hotel in Bethesda.
You'll be safe there.
Okay.
For how long? At least until we find Nikolla.
He shot her six times.
I know.
Look, I'm sorry.
I know it's I'm sorry.
Listen to me.
Look.
Everything's gonna be okay.
- All right? - Mm-hmm.
Everything's gonna be fine.
You're gonna be okay.
Homesick already? Guys, this is Agent Lisa Moss.
Best agent in JTTF.
- Besides me.
- What? Hey, hey.
I'm Jess LaCroix.
Thanks for having us.
We're glad for the help.
Max Nikolla at large is a scenario we're not excited about.
Can we get the highlights from the original investigation? I have that set up right here.
Nikolla is the American-born child of Serbian immigrants Vlado and Jana Nikolla.
Born and raised in D.
C.
He came on our radar when the Washington "Star Tribune" received hate mail with traces of Anthrax in it.
We connected the mail to a local Serbian cell and started a wiretap.
Ortiz flipped Sheri, got Nikolla's confession, and the first round of victory beers was on me.
As I recall.
Well, why did he want the journalist dead in the first place? Arwith's covered international relations for decades.
A needle in any one of those haystacks most likely.
You have a detail on Arwith's house? - We do.
- All right.
Barnes and I'll head there.
Hana, Crosby, you guys hit the halfway house.
Anybody knows his whereabouts or intel on a plan, I wanna know about it.
Go check on her.
Let's go.
Hey! Stop! Stop! Hey, stop.
Please hurry.
- You okay? - It's my wife.
Please.
She's hurt.
There's a deer, and I I swerved.
Please, she I-I tried to swerve, okay? The deer The deer, he just never saw me coming.
I get death threats all the time.
My beat for the "Star Tribune" is war crimes and human rights violations.
But they don't usually send the FBI.
We're not here about a new death threat.
We're here about an old one.
About five years ago, your dog was killed.
Max Nikolla is out of prison? For about three days now.
Can you think of anything I wrote this in 2016 after Suriname became the first UN nation to withdraw its recognition of Kosovo as a sovereign nation from Serbia.
And that would've made Nikolla angry enough to threaten your life? It was an op-ed cautioning other nations against following suit.
My fear was that Suriname would be the first domino in a row of UN nations to fall.
So yeah, I can see how my warning would've pissed some Serbians off.
Nikolla's parents were Serbian immigrants, but he was born here.
Nationalism sometimes skips a generation, especially if immigrant parents are laser-focused on assimilation.
I was boots on the ground during the war.
The 1999 bombings of Serbia and Kosovo were NATO forces, but we know how that goes.
NATO didn't act alone.
Only public responsibility the U.
S.
took for the war was bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
But U.
S.
special ops were there.
And not for the vacation.
Would Nikolla have known that? If he had family there, sure.
And it means that if Nikolla is planning something bigger, my article won't be of much use to you.
Because? Because his target won't be ambassadors to countries like Suriname.
It likely won't even be Kosovar Albanians.
He'll be targeting Americans.
My team and I are doing everything we can, Miss James.
Your job is to sit tight.
Don't make or answer any calls.
No one can know where you are.
Well, he knew I was gonna be at my niece's soccer game, so couldn't he just I got agents in the lobby.
Nikolla sets foot inside your hotel, they'll know about it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, boss.
Seriously.
Thank you for everything.
You put your life on the line for me before.
I'll always be there for you.
Catalina? Hm? - Your hat.
- Oh.
Yeah.
Uh, I went there to, uh to watch the eclipse.
Strange, huh? What? How it doesn't feel strange.
Us being around each other again? Yeah.
Look, is there something that you wanna tell I gotta go.
These are all of Nikolla's personal effects.
Did he make any waves while he was here? No.
He seemed like a normal guy.
Didn't make any trouble.
Until he fled your halfway house three days ago and allegedly murdered a mother at her daughter's soccer game.
Until then.
Did he make any calls to friends and family? No one.
He didn't associate with folks in here either.
Spent his time reading.
Crosby.
Who's that? Boy in the photo is Andrej Markovic, Nikolla's first cousin.
So either Andrej came to America or Nikolla spent time in Serbia.
Likely the latter.
Andrej was born and raised in Belgrade.
He lost his leg in the 1999 bombings.
He was in the war? He was a civilian.
11 years old.
He died five years ago.
It was a suicide.
To Nikolla, that translates to "the U.
S.
killed my cousin.
" Okay.
Hold on.
Body found on the side of the highway in Alexandria.
Prints at the scene are a match to Nikolla's.
The deceased is Tommy Webb.
He was delivering for a company called Pace Keepers Tech, and the truck's been stolen.
If Nikolla needed transpo, why steal a delivery truck? What was it carrying? Pace Keepers Tech.
Looks like they manufacture and sell timing chips.
Those discs that upload pace and final times in marathons.
I ran the Maui Tri last year.
They're required.
- Are they hackable? - Sure.
Though I can't say shaving a minute off your mile pace is the most diabolical terrorist conspiracy I've heard of.
Yeah, but they could be turned into IEDs.
Yeah, tiny ones.
They wouldn't pack much of a punch, but they could take off a hand.
Or a leg.
Sporting events or races in the D.
C.
area.
Triage 'em by date.
Mm-kay.
Starting today.
We got a kids' swim meet in Bethesda.
There's a bike race in Arlington.
There's a 10K mud run benefitting Solidarity for Soldiers.
That one.
Click on that one.
That's just a nonprofit.
Provides financial support to wounded U.
S.
veterans.
That's it.
The mud run is Nikolla's target.
The charity, it honors veterans.
The race is for civilians.
I don't That's exactly who he's after.
He's not looking to kill anybody.
He wants to maim 'em.
Make amputees out of American citizens? Like what was done to his cousin.
How many people have registered in the race? Over 100.
Attention, attention.
Welcome to the Solidarity for Soldiers 10K mud run! There you go.
Hey, I'm 150.
It's my first mud run.
I'm a little nervous.
Don't be.
Thank you.
- Here you go.
- All right, listen up, folks.
Make sure your timing chips are securely attached to your shoe, and your race bands are fastened to your shirt.
Thank you.
Keep your eyes peeled.
He could come from anywhere.
All runners, all runners, please proceed to the starting line.
Good luck and have a great time! I don't see anything.
It's in the shoes.
It's in the shoes! Take your shoes off, everybody! Take your shoes off! - Get your shoes off! - Shoes off! Take your shoes off, everybody! - Hey! - Get your shoes off! Get your shoes off! Everybody, get your shoes off now! Shoes off! Shoes off! He's behind the fence.
6:00.
I see him.
Stop right there! Stop! I got you, I got you.
It's gonna be okay.
Pressure on.
Someone's coming right now, okay? Hands behind your back! Hands behind your back! Get up.
Get up! Hi, it's Sheri.
You know what to do.
Mondale Lodge.
Yeah, could I get room 815 please? One moment.
- Hello? - Who's this? Who is this? This is Agent Ortiz with the FBI.
Detective Briggs, Metro PD.
The ME hasn't gotten here yet, - so the body is - The body what body? What are you talking about? Sheri James.
She was murdered this morning.
She died quickly if that's of any condolence.
Her carotid artery was shredded immediately by the first shot.
She looks so different.
People do when they're dead.
It's like you know them, but you don't know them, you know? She has a scrip for progesterone.
What? Was Sheri pregnant? She never mentioned that.
I won't know for sure until the autopsy, but it looks like she was starting to show.
You recover any shell casings? From a .
22.
Anybody hear anything? No.
So killing her was what, finishing up old business? Before you moved on to your plan to blow the ankles off innocent civilians.
Now that that was a pretty good plan.
Making a race course a battlefield.
That way Andrej wouldn't be alone.
It's not right what your country did to him.
Our country.
Weren't you, uh, born in Baltimore? My parents were not.
So you see yourself as Serbian.
100%.
Everyone deserves to feel the pain that your country left behind.
They don't count the injuries of war, only deaths.
The rest are just collateral damage.
Is that what Sheri was to you? Collateral damage? - Who? - Sheri James.
You shot her three times.
And that's after you shot her sister six times.
I haven't heard that name since I went in.
So did it take you all these years to track Sheri down so you could what just kill her? I didn't shoot anybody.
Come on.
The Mondale Lodge.
This morning? I was at the race this morning.
You arrested me there.
Single shot, close range with a silencer.
This was a hit.
Nikolla hired someone.
I don't think he was involved at all.
He never left the race.
Maybe the ME got her time of death wrong.
Barnes said his motivation was purely political, not personal.
It has to be Nikolla.
Ivan, it isn't.
When was the last time you spoke to Sheri, before all of this? Like I said before, it's been a few years.
And you've been divorced how long? A few years.
W How long were you two in a relationship? She was my CI.
I said, "How long were you two in a relationship?" Look, whatever did or did not happen with me and Sheri has nothing I could bench you for not telling me the truth about this.
You can bench me if you want.
But I will find her killer.
Then start by being honest.
By keeping this from me, you've given that person one hell of a head start.
All I cared about was her safety.
And all you could see was the past.
It wasn't Nikolla.
We have to tear Sheri's life apart so that we can find out why somebody wanted her dead.
And you You're a part of that life.
Look at me.
Is there anything else you're keeping from me? No, boss.
Okay, so murder-for-hire schemes usually prey on the desperate.
Our hitman is most likely someone living on the fringes at the end of their rope.
Yeah, but no one knew Sheri was at the hotel.
She must have told someone.
Surveillance didn't see anyone suspicious coming or going.
Well, they were watching for Nikolla.
All right.
I'm in Sheri's bank accounts.
She has several large deposits at random times made to her District Drivers account.
That's the car service company she owns, right? Yeah.
Cars, limos, SUVs for local hire.
It's a lot of corporate accounts, mostly the same amounts billed monthly.
But then you have these balloon payments.
Any names on the senders? Yeah, the largest one's from something called Luna de Lobo.
You're kidding.
Have you heard of it? The only Luna de Lobo I know is a production company.
For Rob Parker.
The actor? From that show, "The Beltway Diaries?" - What's that? - It's about Watergate.
Yeah, but with But with teens, right? Well, it's not historically accurate.
Rob Parker plays the hot dad.
He's so good in it.
She told me she had me on video.
From one of her limos? I mean, if we were in New York, this would never happen.
- In New York - Let me guess.
Escorts.
Look.
Some parts require research.
Lots of people see escorts, especially in this town.
So what else did she have on you? I have a big fanbase.
Show's been on the air for five years.
I've seen pictures of you with your fans.
Are you, uh, a fan too? Your fans are on the younger side.
If we were in California, this would never happen.
Exploiting underage fans is pretty much illegal no matter where you are.
Never give a ride to a fan without checking their ID first.
So you paid to keep it on the DL.
I would've lost my insurance rider on this show.
And that, I could not afford.
I figured I'd pay her, she'd destroy the thumb drives, and this would all blow over.
When you were running Sheri, did you wire her up? Yeah, we tapped her phone and her car.
So she would know how to rig discrete mics in a limo.
Well, this is also a woman willing to sell out her drug-dealer boyfriend.
The better the source, the bigger the problems.
I've had sources go south on me.
I'd finished a case against an agricultural company.
Six months later, I found out my source was embezzling from the company she testified against.
She called me for help, but she never mentioned any of this to me.
Probably because she thought she had it all under control, and it seems like she did until she pissed off the wrong person.
That's what got her killed.
From day one, she played me.
I gave her a way out, and I thought she took it because she wanted to change.
But she was only ever out for herself.
She wasn't just hustling her clients.
She was hustling me.
We do all our bookings online.
Sheri's desk has seen better days.
What do you think they were looking for? Evidence of extortion? It could be thumb drives, camera recordings.
Hey, Crosby, look at this.
Somebody taped a key to the bottom of the drawer.
Huh.
You see these teeth marks? It's a safety deposit key.
Now we just gotta find the box.
I think I have an idea.
Yeah.
You see these bank statements from TWL bank? Someone accessed Sheri's safety deposit box at TWL Bank this morning at 9:00 a.
m.
I'm running facial recognition.
Sheri's purse wasn't recovered at the scene.
This woman took her ID.
She killed a dispatcher to get the key from Sheri's office, then posed as Sheri at the bank to get access to the safety deposit box.
Can you get anything else on this woman? Her name is Nancy Lawson.
Army vet, one tour in Afghanistan.
She knows her way around a gun.
All right, let's go find the connect between Sheri and Nancy.
Here.
And Sheri? You have something for me? - Did you book your flight? - I leave tomorrow.
Leave tonight.
There's a little something else in there for you.
Not here.
Barnes and I will take the front.
You two cover the back.
Hey! She's on the move! Stop right there! Hey! Hands behind your back.
Stop moving.
- You all right? - Yeah.
We found two phones in Nancy's apartment.
One was a burner.
One was Sheri's.
Both placed calls to the same number.
It's to a congressman Reese Holland from fifth district in Indiana.
When was the last time Nancy called Holland? About an hour before we picked her up.
- And Sheri? - The morning she died.
So she must have told him where she was, or he traced the call to the hotel somehow.
And Nancy's lawyered up.
And not saying a word.
Do we have anything that puts Nancy at the hotel when Sheri died? Cameras were down in the elevators.
Holland put a hit out on Sheri.
Is that what we're saying? That a congressman is behind this? How'd he even find this Nancy? Well, some congressman work soup kitchens.
Others kiss babies.
Holland, on the other hand, is a fan of basketball.
Bottom right.
With Nancy's military background, it would give her the training she needed to effectively take out Sheri.
We also found tracks on her arms after Crosby took her down.
Fighting an addiction.
Probably low on cash.
It's the perfect person to approach.
Okay, great.
ME just confirmed Sheri was four months pregnant.
Okay.
I'm guessing Holland was Is married.
15 years.
Any chance that baby is his? Here's the weird.
I can't find any payments from Holland to Sheri other than a standing corporate account.
She wasn't extorting him for money.
Then why would he want her dead? Because she was gonna have his baby.
A woman having an affair with a congressman who then winds up dead.
It's a riff on the Chandra Levy story.
Exactly.
Maybe she wants more out of the relationship.
But that's bad for Holland's political career.
So he hires Nancy to kill Sheri and access whatever's in that manila envelope.
Proof of their relationship? Or proof of her pregnancy.
So you think she threatened to expose him if he didn't do right by his kid? How else would Holland know about the safe deposit box? That would explain why he went to the lengths that he did.
Emptying the box, having Sheri killed.
Any proof of their relationship dies with her.
So Nikolla getting out of jail last week was what, karmic coincidence? I don't know.
Could be.
Well, they were together, right? Maybe Sheri told Holland about her old life, that she helped put Nikolla away.
There's also this.
Holland was on the Oversight Committee for the Bureau of Prisons.
He knew exactly when Nikolla was getting out.
And planned Sheri's murder perfectly.
Reese Holland! FBI.
What is this? Sheri James and Nancy Lawson.
Reese, what are they talking about? Do you wanna tell your wife who they are, or would you like me to? I A federal informant was murdered.
Your husband got her pregnant.
That wasn't me.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey! - Easy, take it easy.
- That's it.
That's enough.
How could you do this to us? Get up.
Give me your hands.
Whatever scam that woman was running was just that A scam.
I've been happily married for over 15 years.
Save it for your memoirs, Congressman.
You're under arrest for solicitation of murder.
Let's go.
How could you do this? Take it easy.
Take it easy.
I really thought she would turn her life around.
- I was an easy mark.
- Maybe.
But she was also really good at what she did.
You made some mistakes.
You can look at this as a blind spot, or you can see it as an asset.
What do you mean? Your ability to connect with people.
We all have our strengths and our weaknesses.
What are yours? My what? Your weaknesses? I tend to run a little bit cold.
You don't.
Don't lose that.
You got plans tomorrow? The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said "Even though we know love's landscape, "again and anew we walk out together" Come on.
We all know why we're here.
Do we love each other or what? - We do.
- We do.
Then by the authority vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Now kiss each other already.
Seriously.
Have you ever sorted laundry before? You mean like clean and dirty? My "White Album" shirt is pink.
- All right, all right.
- Oh, I'm s Y'all leave my boy alone.
Aww.
I'm so sorry.
- Cheers.
- Anybody else? Cheers.
Cheers.
Charlotte, you want one? - Cheers.
- Cheers.
I'm not drinking.
Are you on a cleanse too? Zadie makes a mean green machine.
You gotta try it.
Congratulations.
- How far along are you? - Aw.
Wait.
What just happened? It's early still.
What's early? This! Oh! Congratulations! - Thank you.
- Wow.
I'm gonna drink your drink for you.
You know what? Take it.
- It's all yours.
- Do you mind? Do you mind? - No problem.
- Okay.
Bye, guys! - Enjoy.
- Ooh! You make it look so easy.
Everything's easier here.
Hugh called.
He wants me to drop the charges.
Are you going to? No.
Of course not.
I just wanted you to know.
There's a guy by the barn who's about to steal your motorcycle.
Oh, dear.
He's happy when you're here.
And he hasn't been happy for a long time.
You wanna go dance? Yes.
When'd you get this bad boy? Before Tali was born.
There's dust all over it.
When'd you stop riding? - After Tali was born.
- Ah.
You know, my dad always says, "If you've got a horse, you gotta ride it.
" He's right.
Thank you! For one of the better days of my life.
Marie could not be happier with the way everything turned out.
Sarah's the one who kept the train on the tracks.
Yeah.
Sarah's great, man.
Thanks.
Congrats, Byron.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Sarah is a keeper.
She could be.
Have you told her that? Well, I invited her to stay with us.
No.
No, I invited her to stay.
You showed her where the towels are.
Jess, are you scared? - Dad - Because sometimes with you, the way you are, and with your work and all, it's hard to know exactly how you're feeling.
Let's get back to the party.
I no, Jess.
You do this This this "keep your distance" mamba, and it's really hard to dance with.
You know, I'm only saying.
How much weight does one give to love advice from a man who just had his third wedding? Well, it took three tries to get it right.
But but the important thing is, I took the chance.
What are you waiting for?