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Previously on Numb3rs:
Charlie, you have
to read these letters.
I found them in the old
wall secretary.
- I would be thrilled to write one.
- Seem to be
- having a real breakthrough.
- Yeah, and then
my brother got stabbed.
I'm back to full duty Monday,
and I plan to take it easy.
I know I should write
this letter.
I just don't know
what the future holds.
Will you marry me?
It's September, and I'm looking
at four letters,
written by four of the greatest
minds of the 20th century.
Hightower, Knox,
Newberry, Beiderman.
Each one had this office
before me,
and each one wrote a letter
to the professor
who would come after.
Now it's my turn.
I'm writing a letter
to the faceless,
nameless professor
who will take this office
after me.
Who are you?
What questions
are you wrestling with?
Where are you looking
for your answers?
Do you take this office
at the end
of a long
and distinguished career?
Or are you on the ascent--
Your greatest work
waiting for you
amid an infinity
of possibilities?
Do you hover above the chaos,
looking for your answers
in patterns and trends,
or do you need to be
at ground level,
walking through the problem?
Hey.
- Hey.
- Looks like you jumped the gun, Charlie.
Nobody's been shot yet.
I know, but, uh,
Don said that you guys
were doing VIP security
for a big rally.
I figured I'd slap together
some, uh, crowd flux dynamics,
a dash of covering sets,
Toth it all up a spanning tree.
G G.
Fejes Toth
and, uh, L.
Fejes Toth--
They're the leading
authorities on, uh
on covering sets.
I told you-- it's not funny.
You know, in certain circles,
I am considered
to be really funny.
FBI circles?
Who is the VIP?
- Benjamin Polk.
- The, uh, political family?
Yeah, Benjamin's the apple that
fell off your spanning tree.
This guy walked away
from a trust fund to be,
uh, one of these people
that just protests
just about everything.
Caused a riot in Portland
during the 2005
trade negotiations.
You know, a lot of
people in New Orleans
said he was a hero
during Katrina.
I mean, he brought in food
to neighborhoods
that the cops abandoned.
I'm not exactly sure what he is,
except our problem
for the next few days.
This place is a nightmare
from a security standpoint.
I mean, there are a zillion
good sniper positions.
There is no way to control entry
and exit from the park.
For our purposes, that's where
crowd flux can help.
You know, the same algorithms
that are used to keep your car
at a steady speed
when you're on cruise control
can be applied to
the flow of people
coming in and out
of a rally area.
And you guys rember when
we used covering sets, right?
Yeah, that was
the fishing net, right?
No, I think fishing net
No, brute force--
Could've been our fireworks.
You guys, this is the dog
chasing the cat
- chasing the mouse.
- It was lighthouses.
I made an analogy to the
positioning of lighthouses.
Get down! Get down!
Everybody stay down!
- You all right?
- 60-74 to control,
we have sniper fire
in Macarthur Park,
vicinity of the band shell.
Colby, you see
anything over there?
Sounded like a .
308--
semiauto fire, so maybe an M1A1.
What's the muzzle velocity
on an M1A1?
- Like 700-800?
- 853 meters per second.
Effective range of 460 meters.
That accounts for a roughly
quarter second delay.
Wind's out of the southeast--
What, at ten miles an hour?
Maybe 15.
Angle of declination--
Assuming a male--
National average height of
at least five-foot-nine
In the trees!
David, moving.
Covering!
When I make my move, you get
to the bandstand, okay?
LAPD?
FBI.
You want to tell me
what that was all about?
That was fair warning.
Don't get between Benjamin Polk
and the bullet
with his name on it.
My mother had this photo
of the Parthenon
from a trip she'd taken with
my father before I was born.
And one day, I, uh
I scribbled all over it
with a crayon.
She was understandably upset
until my dad pointed out
that I had covered it with
rectangles within rectangles,
retracing the Greeks' use
of the golden ratio.
Does that speak
to the mathematician's need
to understand beauty
or to the child's need
to tear it apart?
People don't want to admit
that the government's broken.
That's a big idea.
It's a scary idea.
This turnout makes me happy,
but it makes them nervous.
Change starts today!
The government has an interest
in keeping you comfortable,
in keeping you
from asking questions.
They can gas us, they can club
us, they cannot ignore us!
We don't espouse violence.
I'm not resisting!
The hard reality
is that confrontation
is the most effective way
of shaking people out
of their stupor.
I get a dozen death
threats every week.
The right hates me because
I'm a *** *** agitator.
The left hates me
because I'm a sellout.
This threat was backed up
with gunfire.
He was smart enough
to shoot at the FBI
and get away unidentified.
You should be smart enough
to be concerned.
Why? That's what I got
you guys for, right?
No, we can't guarantee
your safety in that park.
Let me guess.
You want me to change
the location of the rally?
Some airplane hangar
in the valley
or a warehouse in San Pedro?
Only if you're worried
about getting shot.
All right, let's get it
out in the open.
You're wondering
if I was behind it.
Some kind of PR stunt.
Oh, you're capable of that.
Probably too smart
to risk getting caught, but
I know that you don't want to see
past the guy who threw bricks
and talked revolution--
Maybe I don't
even blame you--
But I'm not him anymore.
Look, I was lucky enough
to survive my mistakes.
Now I'm just trying
to convince people
to turn over some of their
time to helping others.
You guys give your whole lives
to that.
I don't like a lot of the things
that this country has done,
but I have nothing but respect
for the people who risk
their lives for it.
And the least that I can do
is risk my own.
Is that a preview of
Tuesday's speech
or, uh, just the long way around
to saying "no"?
It's a little bit of both.
Man talks a pretty
word or seven.
What do you think?
Keep your eyes open.
Stay with him.
Don seemed different.
Uh, preoccupied.
When he got in his car
to chase after that sniper,
he hesitated.
The expression on his face
was almost pained.
You think maybe he hasn't fully
recovered from the stabbing?
I think, if he were hurting,
he wouldn't let anyone know.
Well, you know, sooner or later,
everyone slows down.
Speaking
from personal experience?
No.
I'm the exception to the rule.
And on the topic of slowing down,
I seemed to notice
the, uh, absence
of a certain beautiful
young professor
around the house
these past few days.
What's going on, Charlie?
I've been here the whole time.
Amita has been really busy,
actually.
She's just been incredibly busy
with classes.
And I've been busy, too, frankly.
Busy time for busy people.
You know, the least
challenging thing
about being
Charlie Eppes's father
is knowing when he is lying.
It's a clean shot at the dais.
A clean shot at us.
What do we have?
A male, white--
No prints,
uses burner phones.
Everything about this guy
says pro.
Except for the fact that he shot
at us in the first place.
Why even give himself away?
Why not wait till the rally,
then take your shot?
Maybe he was trying to spook him.
Polk's been shot at before,
beaten up by the cops.
I don't think he's the kind
of guy that's going to flinch.
All right, see, this is why
we don't talk politics.
We're not talking
about politics, man.
We're talking about a guy
who gets threatened
every time he opens his mouth,
then he opens it anyway.
I mean, my dictionary--
That's that's brave.
There's just no way we can
cover every problem here.
Forget about the buildings
surrounding the park.
There's buildings behind those.
It's like he was shooting at us
to point out the obvious.
Yeah, he was definitely
pointing out something.
Any word from CERN?
The Max Planck Institute
aimed a radio telescope
at the particular cloud
in the middle of the Milky Way.
They were looking
for amino acids.
- Do you know what they found?
- Ethyl formate.
Which happens to be
the same chemical
that gives raspberries
their flavor.
Milky Way tastes
like raspberries.
So, no word from CERN.
No.
I expect my invitation to the
Hadron Collider is coming soon.
Have second thoughts about
spending six months in Geneva?
Just thoughts.
And that is Charlie
asking for help
with some aperiodic tiling.
- You want to come with?
- Actually, I have some
low density parity check code
that isn't writing itself.
I am going to make
an effort to leave
without running screaming
from the room.
What?
Come on, that subtle yet
impossible to ignore breath
followed by the
half-hearted evasion.
This can only mean
one more chapter
in the unending romantic
serial of Charlie and Amita.
And I have no desire
to reprise my supporting role.
Larry
No!
You're a poor little
rich boy from what,
four generations of politicians?
It's kind of hard to
generate a populist message
from your summer home
in Kennebunkport.
So you throw on a flannel shirt
and you grab the mic at
a couple of our protests.
Six years of being
gassed and clubbed
doesn't sound that dilettante.
He's played the part
longer than most
but what's he doing now?
Fundraiser luncheons,
community center openings.
Celebrity activists
always end up being
more celebrity than activist.
Yeah, 'cause there's nothing
worse than a community center.
He leaves your movement,
now you want to shut him up.
We're planning
to exercise our rights
to free speech
and lawful protest.
You know, there are rumors
that Polk was an FBI informant.
That's a good reason
to take a shot at him.
And turn him into a martyr?
We don't need to shoot Ben Polk.
He's going to impale himself
on his own hypocrisy.
If we move the barricades
back here and here,
we're gonna maximize
finger effect
and minimize edge crowding.
So we'll have bomb dogs
and CTX units
here, here and here.
And then two aerial units,
one of ours, one of LAPD's.
I'm more worried
about the snipers.
We're going to cover
as many rooftops as we can.
And hopefully we can help you
pick the right rooftops.
Of course, you realize
this may be exactly
what he wants.
Allocate more resources toward
counter-sniper tactics,
leave ourselves vulnerable
somewhere else.
Which presupposes a level
of guile and lucidity.
Yeah, but a lot of these guys,
they just get off
on one-upping the police
and who they kill
is beside the point.
Which presupposes
a level of amorality.
He could've waited,
he could've taken his shot.
But he leaves a phone,
he warns us, he talks to us.
Setting the rules.
A prisoner knows
that he's going to be hanged
and the hangman
tells him two things:
that he's gonna be hanged
at dawn one day next week,
and that it'll be a surprise.
If the prisoner's alive
on Thursday,
he can't be surprised on Friday
and so he knows
he can't be hanged on Friday.
And if he's alive on Wednesday,
and he knows he can't
be hanged on Friday,
then Thursday's out as well.
So the reasoning
continues backwards.
Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday.
And the prisoner concludes
he's not gonna be hanged.
The next week, the prisoner
is hanged anyway.
Which is the surprise.
So the prediction has come true
despite his reasoning.
And that is called the
Unexpected Hanging paradox.
The rules we're hearing may
not be the rules he's setting.
Two years ago, I would have been
out on the street,
screaming through a bullhorn,
probably arranging for someone
in the kitchen to tamper
with the hors d'oeuvres.
I believed
that being prosperous meant
you couldn't appreciate
the problems
of the less prosperous.
That compassion couldn't exist
without suffering.
I was wrong.
Prosperity does not
make you evil,
but it can blind you
to the way other people live.
Children go hungry in east LA.
Honest people are denied justice
every day on the same streets
that you speed past.
But tomorrow night,
we're going to come together
in Macarthur park.
We will embrace sacrifice
and decency, the most
fundamental of american
Down!
The kitchen.
All clear!
Firecracker.
Call our techs,
see if you can get
a triangulation.
- Hello?
- Yeah, I would've thought that
this morning would have bought
me a little more credibility.
Room full of windows,
no extra security.
I counted five agents,
assuming
the african-american woman
with the fast reflexes
was one of yours.
Five agents doesn't seem
You know, respectful
of my intentions.
We are we are taking
you very seriously.
You have my word on that.
Listen, my name is
David Sinclair, okay?
You are?
Not yet.
Soon enough, but not yet.
Okay, well, is, uh
Is there something
you'd like me to call you?
It wasn't your decision,
was it?
It was Polk.
So arrogant.
The world exists to serve him.
There's a threat on his life,
and he makes it your problem.
That's what they pay us for.
You know,
it could be anyone.
Anyone could just walk up
and shoot him.
Yeah.
If they're
willing to die.
Is that what you want to discuss?
The depth of my conviction?
My willingness to die?
You have something
you want to say,
why don't you just tell me,
you know, what it is?
I've shown you my hand
twice now.
The third time
it'll be for real.
John Von Neumann once said
that in mathematics
you don't understand things.
You just get used to them.
I wish I could have debated
that point with him,
because it seems to me
that in mathematics,
we find the power to refuse fate.
In understanding
the way things are,
we give ourselves the means
to change them.
Hey.
So, the techs say
the firecrackers were rigged
to a model rocket ignition set,
set off by remote control.
So he has technical expertise.
Or a DSL connection.
Took me three minutes to find
instructions on the Internet.
Profile on the shooter?
Male, western european descent.
Only, use of the term
african-american
suggests he has a
college education.
That's it?
He knows not
to leave physical evidence.
He also knows not to leave
much of a profile, I guess.
You're sure this is your man?
He delivered six cartons
of napkins
and paper cups.
Chef said he didn't order it.
Yeah, see where he unloaded?
There, there and there.
- The firecrackers were in the box.
- Oh, you're right.
He did a pretty good job
of avoiding the cameras.
- And?
- And consider
a barbershop pole,
seen through a camera lens.
If we see only a portion
of the pole,
we infer movement up
and to the right.
This is called
the aperture illusion.
But remove the obstruction,
we see the ends of the stripes,
and then we're looking
at one side
of one spinning pole.
Unless the camera itself
is rotating.
Now, kinematically,
there's no difference
between a moving camera
on a still object,
and a still camera
on a moving object.
Or a series of still images,
which we can use then to infer
a rounded image of your guy.
And that would take?
Well, less time
with Amita's help.
I'm sorry.
Something just
occurred to me.
Charlie's way
of changing the subject?
You know, I think
there's something
going on between him and Amita.
No.
No, no, no, no.
Out.
Out! Out!
Out.
Out.
Out, out, out.
We're pulling more assistance
from LAPD,
the Marshals,
the Sheriff's office,
but we have got to seriously
consider a change of venue.
Been through this already.
There's no time.
This reminds me of this joke
that my dad tells
about a guy--
He's sitting on a roof
in the middle of a flood,
and a boat comes along,
and he's, like, "No thanks.
God's going to save me.
"
Another one comes, same thing.
Helicopter comes.
"Pass.
God's on his way.
"
And of course, he drowns.
And he says to God,
"Why'd you let me down?"
and God says, "what the hell
do you want from me?
I sent you two boats
and a helicopter.
"
You're supposed
to be God in this story?
I'm the guy in the boat,
wondering why you won't get on.
Look, whoever this guy is,
whether he silences me
with a bullet or with fear,
it amounts to the same thing.
Think I got to stay on the roof.
Bodyguards.
He's getting scared.
Kind of stuff he talks about--
Volunteerism,
compassion--
That's not the kind of stuff
you shoot somebody over.
Yeah, well,
someone disagrees with you.
So, what occurred to me
is that this assailant must have
clearly scouted this park prior
shooting at you.
- Uh, us, actually.
- He was shooting at me?
He was shooting at me.
So, what occurred to you?
He must have identified a number
of desirable locations
for firing on this band shell.
And assuming that he plans
to make good on his threats
He's not gonna give away
his favorite spot.
I actually managed to get that
far without a single algorithm.
What do you bring to the party?
A geomatic survey.
Okay, we actually have
Yeah, we have maps
of buildings and streets,
but we're going
to build a thematic map
with a bias for accessibility,
distance from the park
Target visibility,
practicality of the shot.
Right.
What you bring to the party.
Check this out.
Hey, man, you
You can keep a secret, right?
I was a chinese spy and a
double agent for two years.
Managed to keep
that one under wraps.
Well, uh, all right.
I need some advice
about me and Amita.
Well, it's about me and my dad
and Don and Amita.
Um, I, uh
Yeah.
Pass.
Pass?
Oh, yeah, pass.
Can I ask you a question?
Does this touch upon anything
of a personal
- and romantic nature?
- No.
It's strictly case related.
Okay.
Fire away.
We have a man
who shoots at the FBI,
shows them flaws
in their own security.
Irrational actions, right?
Yeah, ostensibly
Yet, he's intellectually
rigorous,
even thorough
in evading identification.
Now, maybe he's a
high-functioning psychopath.
Or, when faced with an opponent
of superior strength
and resources,
he's opted to wage
unconventional warfare.
Like Douglas Lenat's
Eurisko program.
You know, I should run
some simulations of my own.
Applied game theory.
You know who
Never mind.
Shepard Crater.
Teaches high
school science in Elko, Nevada.
No arrests.
But from 1978 to '81,
the intelligence unit
had an interest in him.
He ran with a group
called Resist First.
The leaders were arrested
for the bombing of a
construction site,
thought Crater was
never implicated.
Any connections to Polk?
No, and if you believe the sheet,
Crater got scared
somewhere between straight
and amazingly dull
after his buddies got busted.
He's been teaching longer than
Polk's been out of high school.
Never been married,
no immediate family on record.
Now, Crater hasn't shown up
for work
for the last three weeks.
The Las Vegas office
is knocking on doors.
They're doing a deeper
background search.
Show his picture to Polk?
No, hold off.
I want to see
what else we can hit him with.
Now, Colby and I did, well,
an assassination map
of the rally area.
It yielded seven
high-desirable sniper perches,
another 12 with rough parity
to the location
he shot at you
Or shot at us from.
Colby's already working on this.
He's, uh, doing
deployment adjustments,
so, unless you need me here?
No.
Go ahead.
I keep thinking about
this, uh, Hangman's thing?
In retrospect,
that seems like
it might have been
an extemporaneous thought.
No.
I think you're onto
something.
I just
I don't know what yet, but
Anything you want to talk about?
No, not really.
Is there anything
you want to talk about?
No.
Okay.
I'm glad
we cleared the air.
No.
You're okay,
though, right?
You're not dealing
with any residual pain, or?
You saw me hesitate in the park.
Maybe you seemed to be moving
a little slower than usual.
You got stabbed.
You You almost died, so
You think, uh, it's possible
that you pushed yourself
back to work too fast?
I mean, it's just
How many things have we
seen done to the human body?
Punctured, burned, broken.
You know, we're just so
ridiculously fragile.
Somehow, you know, you don't
relate it to yourself, but
I'm just a bag of blood and
bones like everyone else.
Boy, I'm not sure
any of us would get out
of bed if we all felt that way.
Yeah, well, I got
to get out of bed anyway.
I can move fine, buddy.
Maybe I'm just starting
to think before I do.
So, I know we agreed not
to talk politics
But?
You got radicals
shooting other radicals
for not being radical enough.
There's got to be a moral
in there somewhere, right?
Yeah, like, don't talk politics.
Here we go--
Number seven on Charlie's list.
Fourth floor, south windows.
I mean, let's just say
I ran for office.
You'd vote for me, right?
What are you running for?
I mean, why does that matter?
What, you wouldn't vote for me?
I've seen you balance
your checkbook
with your fingers and your toes.
Well, come to think of it,
you could be governor.
All right, yeah,
we're not talking politics.
Wait.
What's wrong
with the staircase?
It's the seventh one.
- I've walked today?
- No.
The one leading up is
covered with crud, right?
No one's been up that way
in a couple of weeks at least.
Look at the one leading down
to the basement.
Yeah, it's cleaner.
Ten bucks says it's wet
and dark down there.
Don't move!
Please.
I'm trying very hard
not to kill you.
Agent Sinclair, right?
Yeah.
You're Shepard.
Shepard Crater.
You know who I am, then you know
about Resist First,
about my skill set.
I know that you walked
away from violence
Why now?
Why Polk?
Because he doesn't deserve
the things that he says.
Ask him about Portland.
Ask him about people
that did anything
he asked them to.
People he sacrificed
like cannon fodder.
Portland?
The riots?
Who got sacrificed?
Shepard, who did he sacrifice?
Come on!
If Polk were standing there
right now,
would you put yourself
between him and a bullet?
Told you before.
That's our job.
Right, your job.
Well, that means
that you're a better men
than him, which means your lives
are more valuable, which means
you shouldn't be standing
in front of that bullet.
I've warned you.
I've shown you.
Anything that happens now
isn't my fault.
Come on.
We're trying to understand
what it is you want, okay?
You got to help us
out a little bit here.
Give us one good reason
why you're doing this.
Okay?
Give us two reasons.
Three.
The bomb squad says
the detonators found
in Crater's crash pad
were for something
considerably bigger
than firecrackers.
So, what have we got here,
a shooter or a bomber?
Or both.
From Nevada.
Crater had a son by
a common-law wife--
Richard Sloan.
Now, in 2007, Sloan's
at a trade protest,
and guess who's on the bullhorn.
A young Mr.
Polk.
Yup.
This is still Polk 1.
0.
The protest ended in tear gas,
a whole lot of
arrests and six dead.
- What? The kid?
- No.
Richard Sloan got arrested,
and four days later,
he was stabbed to death
in a jail fight.
So Crater's putting it on Polk?
There were rumors
Polk planned the violence.
Okay, so the next day,
he has a press conference,
denounces his own people
for getting out of hand,
and then takes half
of the movement with him
to a much more
media-friendly Polk 2.
0.
Okay.
Now you hit him.
All right, I-I guess
I've missed you guys again.
Um,
it's-it's no big deal,
but if you could please
call me back, that would
be great.
Thank you.
You on a new diet?
New train of thought.
The flavor of the cosmos.
Ethyl formate.
Where's that train taking you?
You know, it's hard to say.
Right now, I am suspended
in this
this maddening, thrilling
moment just prior
to the exhilaration of epiphany.
It's the intellectual itch
about to explode into a sneeze.
How about you?
Well, I already did my FBI deed
for the day, so, uh
Yeah, you know what?
I'd gonna start banging
around on these boards.
Oh, hey, that was good work
you did on the optic flow.
Um, you and Amita.
Raspberry seeds--
They're arranged
in a fibonacci sequence,
- are they not?
- Yes, they are.
Aren't you curious
about what's-what's
going on with, uh
- with me and Amita?
- Well,
given your historical trends,
you factor in age,
career dynamics,
uh, concomitant
cultural pressures,
it's fairly self-evident
that one of you
has proposed marriage.
And assuming that as my given,
it's observable that neither
of you is as yet prepared
to share the outcome
of said proposal,
but it's a position
I intend to respect.
Richard Sloan.
He was killed in Portland, 2007.
Trade protest.
I could feel myself spinning off
in the wrong direction.
We were building
day care centers,
reaching out to the homeless.
All anybody ever saw were
the overturned police cars.
That day it
just got all out of control.
Did it?
You couldn't walk away
from the new way,
'cause everyone would know
you were that flaky rich boy
you were trying so hard
to convince them you weren't.
But a tragic riot, well--
that gave you an excuse
and a new platform.
A way to go respectable and keep
your street fighter cred.
If you've been reading the blogs
I've been watching the video.
They can gas us,
they can club us.
They cannot ignore us!
Five seconds later,
first round of garbage cans
go through a department store
window.
Almost as if on cue.
And that guy looks like
he's just given the cue.
It's not exactly
the Zapruder film.
Seven people died.
It was a tragedy.
A tragedy that led to lot of good
and saved a lot more lives.
We can shut you down,
revoke your permit.
Eight hours before the rally?
A couple hundred cops try
to kick 10,000 people
out of the park?
That guy would eat it up.
Play victim
for the cameras and blame
all the violence on the FBI.
Now, I don't see your boss
or the governor
or the mayor having
a big appetite
for that kind of risk.
All that crap you
said yesterday
You believe any of it?
I believe all of it.
Next time you offer
to buy me lunch,
remind me to ask for specifics.
Well, I-I am a retiree
on a fixed income
in these rather uncertain
economic times.
Mmm, hot dog is good.
I'm gonna have to head back
in a few minutes.
Okay?
Oh, I know you're very busy.
I just,
uh, I was just
checking in with you.
- Don is doing fine.
- No, David,
- I meant with you.
- Me?
Well, since your promotion,
you've been shouldering
more and more responsibility,
but you never complain, David.
Well, if you ever need
someone to complain to
Thanks, I'll keep
that in mind, okay.
Actually, can I ask
you a question?
- Some
- Yeah.
A- a father's point of view?
Well, I do have that.
Say that your son is killed
a- and you know
who's responsible--
a- at least you think
you do, anyway--
And he's not getting justice,
so you decide to get it for him.
What else am I going to do?
It's my son.
See, my life stops
until he's spoken for.
Okay, all right.
You spend two years planning
to kill this guy, right,
- and you're waiting for
- Well, I'm afraid I can't help you there,
- David.
- Why not?
Well, because
I-I'm not a killer,
and if I allow my rage
to change who I am,
then this man has taken
two lives.
Sog 4 is clear on Wilshire.
Heading into the frozen zone.
You kind of liked
the Kool-Aid, huh?
Turning your life around,
using your own mistakes
to help other people.
Guess I'm a sucker
for that story.
Fans.
When you lead,
you have to sacrifice your soul.
You make decisions you
know will haunt you,
sacrifice the few
to benefit the most.
Anyone who tells you
any different
hasn't studied history.
You know, I've studied
a little bit of history
and I've led.
Think I'll try to hang on
to my soul, though.
I thought they were pulling out
all the garbage cans.
Garbage cans and mailboxes.
We've got possible explosives
on Wilshire.
Pull off.
Get down!
Liz, talk to me.
There's a lot of smoke and flame,
but almost no concussion.
It was more like pyro
than serious explosives.
Let's get the bomb squad
here anyway
and start shutting down
that rally.
We're going back
- to the hotel.
- You can't shut us down.
That's what Crater wants.
Yeah, well, then he won.
You heard what happened
at the rally, right?
Yeah, I was just applying
the attack
to some war game scenarios
I've been running.
And?
Well, it makes perfect sense
with Crater's strategy,
which has been making no sense.
How so?
Crater and the FBI are playing
an imperfect information game
like dominoes.
Right, where they only
see their own tiles,
not their opponents'.
But Crater is playing checkers,
exposing not only
his own strategy
but the weaknesses in ours.
In the Hangman's paradox,
there's one school of thought
that argues that
the problem itself is flawed.
Right, just because the judge
sets a rule doesn't mean
the prisoner should assume
he's going to follow that rule.
Every time Crater exposes
a flaw in our strategy,
he forces us
to behave reactively.
Closing the holes
by moving the resources
on the terms that he set.
Moving Polk toward
Crater's terrain.
He never intended
to kill him at that rally.
Put the gun down, Shepard.
Does he know you
used him as a decoy?
No.
Maybe you're not that good a man.
I could tell you how all this
wouldn't bring your son back
and how you would have made
a hero out of him.
It just comes down to the fact
that we can't let you pull
that trigger.
I visited Richie in jail
two days be
Befo
befo
Before
I tried to bail him out, but,
uh, there were so many arrests
that it took them a week
to arraign everyone.
By then
Richie told me
Polk planned the whole thing,
used 'em.
I've been carrying his
story around for two years.
So put down the gun and tell it.
Sure
The words of a ghost
through the voice of a
Of a what?
What?
What am I?
What?
You're a father
that lost his son, right,
that does not want
to lose himself.
I told Richie all those stories
about, uh, who I'd
been, what I'd done.
I told him
I told him that a man was the
things that he believes in.
I did everything
but drive him to that rally.
Shepard, when everyone else
was arrested in 1978,
there's a reason
that you were not.
Okay, I don't think you could
have taken it that far.
Listen You
are not a killer.
I killed my son!
Polk was just
He was just the thing I
didn't protect him from.
But it doesn't matter.
No, it doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter at all.
Doesn't matter to anyone but me.
It matters to us, Shepard.
Come on.
Listen, just put the gun down.
Come back.
Please.
Ple--
Control,
we need a medic.
Ambulance is on the way.
Nah.
My son's story
belongs to you now.
Hightower, Knox,
Newberry, Beiderman.
Each of their signatures is
a self-swallowing set,
a name that shorthands
a body of thought,
a life's work.
The question isn't who you are.
The question is:
Who did I turn out to be?
- Okay, you ready?
- Yeah.
- Hey.
- Hey.
- Hi.
- What's up?
We, uh, we have something
to tell you.
We're getting married.
We're getting married.
Oh.
You guys are the first to know.
After my parents, which is
my fault because I wanted
Charlie to ask their permission.
It's just a formality,
but it's a family tradition.
Yeah, it's a formality
that required
a four-day game of
transatlantic phone tag,
which is why I've been
a little, you know, evasive.
Oh, I see.
But it feels
really good to get it out.
Uh, I actually--
I kind of almost
spilled the beans
more than a few
times, but, uh--
It's hard keeping a secret,
but it's kind of fun
- It was fun.
- keeping a secret.
I think we did good.
Congratulations.
What do you say?
I think we get the,
- the good stuff out, huh?
- Yeah.
What, y-you
already knew?
How did you already know?
Your parents told me.
Come on,
it's what I do for a living.
- I told him.
- All right, he might have mentioned it, but
Come here, sister-in-law.
Congratulations.
Big secret, huh?
Who am I to you?
Are faded chalk marks
and scratches on the floor
the only evidence
that I was here,
or did some scribbled note,
some fragment of a proof
invert your perception
of the world
even confirm it,
cementing what you knew
in your heart to be true,
with the balance
of left column to right?
What footprints have
I left behind?
Do they endure,
or has the ocean of discovery
washed them away already?
How many lives have I touched?
Have I touched yours?