Episode 201: Breaking and Entering

Breaking and Entering
Season 2, Episode 1

Air date	July 10, 2008
Written by	Paul Holahan
Directed by	Matt Nix & Alfredo Barrios Jr.
Episode Guide
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Breaking and Entering is the season premiere episode of the second season and is the thirteenth episode overall.

Notes[]

Clients: Jimmy
Bad Guys: Ryder Stahl, Carla Baxter

Synopsis[]

Having been recruited by the people who burned him, Michael's new handler Carla tasks him with helping a computer tech, Jimmy, whose wife and daughter were kidnapped, liberate some information that is guarded by bowelless mercenaries.

Spy Facts[]

As a spy, you get to spend a lot of time alone. Whether you're in an Indonesian prison, a cave in the Afghan mountains, or the back of a cargo truck, it comes with the job. You're trained to make the most of it, plan your next move, go over your intel, review your training, but, when you've cleaned your gun thirty times, and reviewed the past tense of every verb in five languages, you start itching to make a move.
Airbags are great for surviving crashes but they make some evasive maneuvers tough. Gone are the days when you could run through a stand of trees without a face full of nylon. Of course anything you used to do head-on you can still do... but it's a little hard on anyone who's stuffed in your trunk.
Security measures can sometimes seem a little cruel. Just like parents sometimes twist their kid's arm, yanking them out of a busy street. Sometimes the safest thing, isn't the most comfortable.
Private military companies are best known for their bodyguard work. It's a big part of their business but it's not the only part. For a big enough check they'll rain hot lead down wherever you want. It's not work that attracts service-with-a-smile types.
When you're claiming to be someone you're not, the key is commitment. You've got to sell it like your life depends on it. Because sometimes it does. One reason to work with the same people is you know each other's moves; so if you shoot at your team in the middle of an operation, they know to go with it.
It takes a good marksman to shoot you at 50 feet from a moving car, but it takes a great marksman to miss... while making it look like they are trying to hit you... or markswoman as the case may be.
Every thief knows that the best way to scout a place you want to rob is as a customer. Who gets to see the vault at the local bank? The rich guy with something to protect. Who gets to see the security at a private military company? A guy who wants to start his own little war.
A great way to get people talking about their security, is to put them on the defensive. Accuse a guy of having bad locks, and before you know it, he's telling you where his motion detectors are.
It takes some practice, but counting your steps can be extremely useful if you need to reproduce a floor plan from memory... Once you've memorized a floor plan, you want to get it down on paper a quickly as you can. Combine that with the technical specs of the security devices in the room, and you'll know where the holes in the security are. Then it's just a matter of slipping through one of those holes.
Badly done surveillance that is, surveillance you notice, can mean a lot of things. Some organizations need intelligence but can't afford to pay for training. Some organizations just want you to know they're watching.
Getting into a secure facility is as simple as giving yourself a good reason to be there.
The typical floor is concrete slab over 20-gauge steel pan with the steel trusses spaced thirty inches for support. When you cut through a floor, the thing you have to worry about is wiring. Cut into the wrong wire, and you'll set off the building alarms, electrocute yourself, or both. If you don't want a chunk of concrete crashing through to the floor below, you need to drill a hole, and anchor the slab. A concrete saw cuts it like butter. If you've done your planning right, you'll be dropping in to a blind spot for the security system, usually behind an interior wall. Motion detectors bounce sound off objects, and analyze the reflection. If something changes, the alarm goes off. Move slow enough, and a wool comforter absorbs enough sound to keep it from triggering. A thermal blanket, meanwhile, shields your body from heat sensors.
Quadrangle buckshot is a specialized round designed to destroy the inside of anything delicate. A computer for example. For hardened security glass I prefer Frag-12, a military round with an explosive projectile.
Once the cops pick up a call on a flagged cell, they triangulate its location. From there, they organize and deploy units - a process that can take ten minutes, give or take. Bad guys don't have that chain of command. They can be anywhere as fast as their wheels can take them.
In intelligence gathering, too little information is obviously a problem, but too much information is just as bad in some ways.
When you work as a spy, it's easy to think of people as assets. Resources to accomplish a goal. Because you don't have a personal relationship with an asset. You don't care about an asset. You don't miss the scent of an asset when she leaves the room.

Full Recap[]

The season opens with Michael still in the truck transporting him to the meeting with the mysterious woman on the phone. Michael cleans his gun and exercises while waiting to emerge from the truck to speak with her.

Moments later, a gunfight erupts outside the cargo truck. Screams from men and women can be heard outside. The woman calls Michael and invites him to the party as the "guest of honor." Michael thought he would meet her face-to-face, only to arrive at a private landing strip with a burning, blown-up plane and several men shot and killed. Also there is a man gagged and bounded as a "gift-wrapped" present for Michael. She tells Michael to call her "Carla" and orders him to bring the gagged man (introduced as Jimmy) back to Miami.

Jimmy was supposed to complete an assignment for Carla, but escaped instead. In retaliation, Carla's crew killed the airstrip security and kidnapped his family. In the gunfight, Jimmy dialed 911, but was captured.

On the way back to Miami, Jimmy explains to Michael that he did a job at Security Associates. His assignment was to implement a data redundancy system for the company. Jimmy was contacted by Carla to get a memory dump from the servers and refused. He asks Michael to help save his family.

Michael returns to The Loft to find Sam recovering from his injuries as a former hostage. He asks Sam to help him with Jimmy so he can figure out who Carla is and who she is working for. Sam is happy to see Michael return his Cadillac, but tells him it needs work.

Fiona returns to The Loft but is not visibly happy to see him. He asks Fiona to help Jimmy. Afterwards, Madeline calls Michael from Fort Lauderdale to see if it is okay to return home. Michael lets her know it's safe to return to Miami.

Michael and Sam meet with Jimmy at Carlito's to discuss his situation with Carla. Carla's organization uses assets to achieve their goals, much like many black ops organizations. The data appears to be valuable enough that they need Jimmy's help in stealing it. The head of Security Associates is Ryder Stahl, who offers mercenary firepower at premium prices. Michael asks Jimmy to get him an introduction to study their security systems.

At Security Associates, Michael introduces himself to Stahl as Terry Miller. He poses as a British mining businessman with interests in Kenya. He would like to hire Stahl to deal with the locals for his mining company. During their meeting, a security associate informs Stahl that a team is staking out the building and makes him out to be a cop. Miller assures him that since his operations earn no less than nine figures, he has enemies to contend with. They both go up to the roof to scope out the team.

Sam and Fiona wait out in the parking lot for Michael. When Michael and Stahl's associates spot the duo, Michael warns both the duo and the associates by pretending to fend off the duo, establishing his cover as a "legitimate" diamond merchant. Michael and Sam deliver the good news to Jimmy. While Sam offers to hang out with Jimmy over some beers, Madeline returns to Miami and calls Michael for a disaster.

When Michael arrives, Madeline points a shotgun at Michael and puts it down. She called him about her 1967 coffee maker that exploded on the wall outlet. Madeline also gives Michael a phone she found in the Dodge Charger's glove compartment. Michael calls back the number which belongs to Carla. She puts Jimmy's daughter on the phone to "motivate" him to finish his job quickly. Michael tells Carla she will not hurt the girl, but in Michael's words, if he finishes his job, "you won't need to find out."

Terry Miller aggressively approaches Ryder with the frustration of being shot at by Sam and Fiona. Ryder agrees to hear out what Terry is proposing. He tells Ryder about unoxided kemblar (blue ground) in Kenya. Terry wants the local village eliminated for the minerals worth $100 million. Before completing the deal, Terry wants Ryder to inspect the server room with him. Terry starts scoping out the room and leaves.

Back at the loft, Michael begins drawing a plan to break into the server room and strip the data from the servers. Sam continues to distract Jimmy for the time being. Fiona arrives and reminds Michael they need to talk, but Michael wants to concentrate on the upcoming heist at Security Associates. He asks Fiona to get access into Isogene Labs, which is one floor above so Michael can enter the server room from the floor above.

At Carlito's, Michael and Jimmy discuss how to strip the data from the servers. Not too long after, Jimmy deduces he must participate in the operation to strip the data and save his family. During the conversation, he notices a man suspiciously taking notes on Michael. The scout flees, but Michael catches him later. He says that he responded to an ad about taking notes on Michael and leaves him with a picture of Jimmy's wife and daughter. The back of the photo reads "Hurry up We're waiting."

Michael calls Carla to let her know he got the photo. He also tells her that he plans on breaking into the server room the same night. In exchange, Michael wants Carla to deliver the guns used to kill the men at the airstrip earlier. She agrees. Afterwards, Michael preps the van, slapping a "Cook Bros. Construction" sign on it.

At Isogene Labs, Fiona informs the front desk guard about an architectural defect in the building, allowing Michael and Jimmy access to the floor above the server room.

Later that same evening, Michael arrives and begins to drill the hole into the floor. He uses a concrete saw to cut into the slab and a pulley to anchor the slab.

After dropping into the blind spot of the server room's security system, he uses a wool comforter to dampen the sound so that motion detectors cannot detect sound and a thermal blanket to counter the heat detectors. Outside, Fiona asks Sam for advice to explain his bruises and the Cadillac that was scraped up to Veronica. Fiona tells him to tell Veronica he got beat up fighting ex-soldiers. They spot Ryder arriving late and inform Michael via text message. The data is successfully backed up, but Jimmy's celebration sets off the alarms.

Plan B: Escape. Michael uses a SPAS-12 shotgun with quadrangle buckshot round to destroy the servers. He loads the gun with a Frag 12 round to blow out the windows and escape. Jimmy injures himself dropping onto the sidewalk, but Michael helps him up. While they slip into the Cadillac, Ryder opens fire on Cadillac as it speeds away.

The next step in the plan is to fake Jimmy's death. Michael asks Sam for a boat to lure the Security Associates mercs to kill Jimmy. Fiona calls Michael to let him know that the machine guns he requested were found in the trunk of her car. She also tells him that Madeline is on edge and tells him to visit her.

Michael arrives at the house to visit Madeline and calm her down. She's awfully worried about Michael and particularly with Nate. Michael reminds her that Nate has disappeared for years at a time. He is apologetic about not wanting to involve the Westens in his professional life.

At the boat docks, Fiona begins rigging C4 to the boat they plan to lure Ryder and his mercs to. Jimmy calls a furious Ryder to let him know he wants to meet him about the stolen data. Shortly after Ryder and his mercs arrive, Fiona plants the machine guns in his truck.

Jimmy calls Ryder to show proof he is not armed. He's scared he can't hold off Ryder, but Michael reminds him of the consequences if he does not follow through with the plan. Jimmy threatens Ryder that he will broadcast his data over the internet if he does not strip down to show he's unarmed. Ryder has had enough and pulls out his gun from his ankle holster. Michael blows up the boat, ensuring Ryder and the police presence that Jimmy is "dead." The police arrest Ryder and the mercs later with the guns used at the airstrip.

Later in the same evening, Michael tells Jimmy to take a boat to Haiti to meet up with his family there. As a way of saying thank you, Jimmy gives Michael the keys to his Saab Convertible.

At the loft, Michael and Fiona go over the stolen data to pinpoint what Carla is up to. However, there's too much information to go through, but deduce that Carla's organization has got a lot of fingers in a lot of operations. Michael and Fiona finally talk about their relationship and deduce it's nothing more than two assets helping each other with their end goals. Fiona walks out of the loft, signaling the end of a hopeless romantic relationship.

Sam scopes out a beautiful blonde ("a firecracker") at the bar at Carlito's to help out with her crossword puzzle. They talk and the firecracker walks out with a smile. Michael shows Sam the photo of Jimmy and the family back together. Carla calls Michael later to tell him she's fulfilled her obligation by showing herself to him. She tells Michael to thank Sam for help with the crossword puzzle, revealing "the firecracker" to be Carla.

Cast[]

Main[]

Recurring[]

Tricia Helfer as Carla Baxter

Guest[]

Patrick Fischler as Jimmy
James C. Burns as Ryder Stahl

Trivia[]

Michael's alias of "Terry Miller" in this episode is a reference to one of the series' producers; Terry Miller.