Burn Notice Turn and Burn

Michael Westen needed to de-code the crossword puzzle which Carla had left him in the bar – he called it “Steganography” but didn’t reveal the key. The message read “meet at Marwa Mall, noon.” Insecure Fiona (in her usual tiresome way) ragged on MW about Carla “flirting” with him. He told her it was past so-called flirting when she had tried to kill him and threatened his family. Fiona was supposed to wait in the car and Sam was to take a photo of Carla; but,  both were rousted by Carla’s people. Carla avoided photos, and was captioned as Ms new “handler” for whatever “organization” she was part of. Carla offered him a drink and he said that he’d "have what you're drinking" – which turned out to be qishr (Yemenis coffee) that she had brought herself because she was afraid of being poisoned. She handed him a security badge – integrated circuit processor, embedded hologram over laminate patch – which was impossible to duplicate. Her orders were to go to the only counterfeiter in Miami who could duplicate it and get Nefzi, a Tunisian, to do it. She said she liked “working with people like you” because they can do things on their own without getting her involved. She gave him a bag of money, saying that he could keep what he didn’t use, and a two day deadline. Her goons brought Sam’s camera which she threw to the ground after taking the film and Fiona’s keys – telling him that “the next time the kids stay at home.” Fiona thought the goons had been polite; Sam on the other hand was in trouble with Veronica over the damage to the Cadillac and now to the camera.

 

Barry would know where to locate Nefzi but was avoiding M because he “didn’t enjoy our last meeting.” Fiona refused to go, so M asked “do it for me” and she replied that "your charms no longer have any effect on me." She eventually did it for "all the yogurt you can eat" (which she takes anyway.)  Sam called M about a job he wanted to talk about. A lady named Sophia had asked Sam, in front of Veronica, to help with a stalker (which he said really turns Veronica on.) Sophia claimed that a low-life named Raul was stalking her at the restaurant where she worked and now has become possessive to the point of injury. M wanted to meet Raul, so went to the church where he picked her up every day. When he saw that Raul was packing a MAC-10, M became suspicious, especially because the lady had met Sam and Veronica in an expensive cooking class that she didn't look like she could afford. Madeline called under the ruse that she couldn’t find her coffee-pot warranty and wanted M to come over and fix her coffee pot. Fiona had to sneak into a massage parlor, where Barry was having an avocado and cucumber facial mask; and, after threats, Barry said to: “tell M that it’s nothing personal. Last time we met there was this ‘do this or we’re enemies for life’ vibe.”  He said they shouldn’t deal with Nefzi because he was ‘hard core’ doing fake money for coke deals, counterfeit passkeys for bank robberies, "you know stuff that gets people killed.” M found that fixing the coffee-pot was just another one of Madeline’s ruse’s to get him to go see a counselor with her ‘because it’s all your fault.’ Then when he resisted she again began whining about men and guns… until he agreed. Sam tailed Raul to his job where he was the boss of a warehouse which ran guns, Lidocaine and coffee – all things related to cutting and smuggling drugs.

 

Without Sam’s knowledge M confronted Sophia and forced her to tell the truth that she was actually a DEA agent watching drug king-pin Campos and Raul was an accomplice who had accidentally become possessed with her and was now compromising her case. She had targeted M for help when she had heard rumors of "someone who had helped take on the cartel" so tracked down who he had helped and was told that it was him. M devised to go undercover to Raul to do a deal, then make Campos think that Raul was going behind his back. Barry gave M some left over checks from a defunct shell company, which M could “wash’ in order to support his cover ID with Nefzi. He became a “colleague” of Nefzi who had gotten a job to duplicate a computer-key which was out of his league. He asked if Nefzi could duplicate it for him. Nefzi said that he wanted 10K and could do a “knock off  by tomorrow or a real good one which would take a few days.” M decided to give him a few days even though he knew Carla's deadline was nearly over. Madeline called again, this time pissed that he had missed the appointment she had made with the counselor. Then Carla (who must have been tailing him) called to see why he looked so upset. When he told her that they would have the key in a couple of days, then she was pissed that she wouldn’t get her duplicate key card by her deadline. He told her "it's the best I could do," and she rebutted "I don't think so."

 

M met Raul posing as an “expeditor” of shipments and offering his services. He went to apologize to Madeline and found that Carla had broken in again and replaced her coffee maker, leaving another crossword puzzle. Meeting Carla at the mall again, M found that she had broken in as a sign that she could, had been doing surveillance on Madeline, and warned that the next time he didn’t do what she wanted “it would be more than a coffee maker.” Fiona planted a GPS tracker in one of Raul’s trucks so that then M could tell him about it and convince him that he did have connections in order to sell his cover. At counseling Madeline’s issue was about Mike keeping secrets. She gave as an example that he hadn’t called her on her birthday EIGHT YEARS AGO! So he revealed the reason which made her feel petty for even asking. Then he decided to fight fire with fire and asked her why that when he was nine she hadn’t even asked about the black he had gotten from stealing a bag of groceries after his father had squandered his paycheck. Madeline didn't have an answer, it looked as though she had merely expected M to steal.  She told a lie then wanted to talk about something else. M backed her down for an answer a second time and she asked to change the subject. Walking out of the building after the session, Madeline said that she didn’t like the counselor but M smirked “it wasn’t so bad.”

 

Raul called and demanded that M come to the restaurant where he said that he had examined the phone that he had taken out of Ms glove compartment and found calls to Sophia on it which had been returned by Sophia. He had beaten her up trying to get information. M said that of course he’d called to do a background check on Raul; but that she wouldn’t give Raul up.  Raul believed M but said that he wouldn’t do a deal with him directly, only with Campos involved too. So, M had to devise plan "B" which involved Raul getting a call from Sophia, while M and Campos were meeting, in order to get him to leave the meeting thinking she was at work and someone was trying to make time with her. Raul told Campos he needed to leave to go help Sophia at work, which gave M a chance to intimate that Raul was doing something shady because Sophia wasn't at work that day.  Also he had Fiona take a shot at Campos through a window and blow up a truck to simulate that Raul was selling him out to the Mexicans. So, Campos went after Raul who then went to the DEA to cop a plea in exchange for maximum facility protection. Sophia was happy to talk to him in her true DEA role. M asked Sophia not to reveal any of their actions to anyone when she asked him how she could return the favor.

 

Nefzi gave the duplicate key to M and said that it had taken three prototypes. M paid extra if he could find out what lock that it actually opened; then, after leaving, spotted a tail and ran back to protect Nefzi. It was too late. Nefzi had already been suffocated by nitrogen gas pumped into his closed back room. M retrieved the money he had given Nefzi and an extra copy of the key that Nefzi had made. M went to pick up Madeline for another counseling session and found that she had cancelled it because she was going to find another counselor "who asked better questions." He told her that he wasn’t going to talk about when he had been away, but that if she wanted to spend time together he would take a potter class with her. M met Carla and gave her all the extra money back saying that he’d never work for her in that way and she said that she would hold onto it for him. She reluctantly agreed to no more high powered rifles or nitrogen gas and walked away. As she was leaving, M asked her about coffee in Arabic and she responded in Arabic that she had another meeting. M called Sam and told him that Carla "speaks Arabic with a Kurdish accent!"