Burn Notice Shot in the Dark

Arriving at the loft with Fiona, who was ragging on him about never wanting to take her to the noisy bar below him, Michael Weston discovered a slinky brunette on his steps.  She had a present of some rejuvenating body lotion for him and offered to apply it to his body. He dismissed her quickly, before Fiona could get wound up, and found that the present was from Tom Strickler, the “recruiter.” M went to Strickler's boat the next day and threw it back on his lap over objections that it was “40% Aloe Vera – good for burns.” Strickler got right to the point and said that he could help with his “burn” like he had done with an NSA agent back a few years. M said he wasn’t interested in being a mercenary; however, he went immediately to Diego Garza, his “point of contact,” and asked (forced) him to see if Strickler had that kind of connections. Not content unless she is ragging on M for something, Fiona whined about Strickler as they walked up to her house for dinner. M spotted that it had been broken into and they flushed out a 13-year old boy, Joey, who was attempting to steal Fiona’s hand-gun to kill his step-father.  He said that the guy was trying to take he and his brother away from their mother and nobody was helping. M was letting Fiona talk to Joey’s mother thinking she would feel more comfortable talking to a woman – but Sam said he “didn’t think Fiona counts,” so they both went in. April Luna said that the custody hearing for Joey and Danny was in a week and her husband would probably win because he was highly connected politically, had lots of money and… his brother Quinn was a gangster. Erik and his brother smuggled and Erik had only married her in order to look more respectable. Once married he had become abusive to her, although her reports to the police had somehow been gotten around. Now, he had begun on the kids so she had left him.

 

M decided that they needed to drive the two brothers apart and get Erik to miss his custody hearing; and Madeline insisted that April and the kids come to stay with her. April finally admitted that she had found out that Erik had a side business and he had threatened to kill her if she told his brother about it. Sam found that Erik takes stuff which was seized at the docks and sells it for personal gain without any records. M decided to show up at Erik's office pretending to be a “dissatisfied customer.” M was turning a cell phone into a listening device so he could bug Erik when Joey saw him. He had to tell Joey that he had learned how to do it in a “special school.” M burst into Erik’s office and slugged him saying that his name was Peter and he had bought a Lotus from him. He said that one day it had disappeared with a note saying that he was a "dead man." His house had been torched and he had been shot at… so he hit Erik again, and planted the bug in his flowers while he was doubled over. He gave Erik one day to call and give his money back then warned him that “they” would be after him as well. That night M, Sam and Fiona arranged to have the lights go out in Erik's parking lot, his car not start, his cell phone quit working and a giant, spot-lighted SUV try to run him down.  He called M and said that he wanted to work together to catch the “guys,” but still refused to leave town.

 

M put a network analyzer on Diego’s phone line to see if there was a lot of traffic about Strickler. Meanwhile Erik showed up at April’s work which upset her and joey decided to take matters into his own hands. He stole Madeline's car and used Ms 12-guage shotgun to go after his step-dad. Erik called M in a panic about "seeing their car drive back and forth" so M went to assist him. He luckily intercepted Joey before he could do anything and distracted him long enough to take the gun away. He told Joey that his step-dad was "about to wet himself" and that he should peel out with some noise then meet up around the corner. Together they listened to the bug M planted in Erik's office as Erik was bawled out by his brother Quinn for letting a councilman's wife see him carrying a gun through the parking lot. Erik was able to bluff his way out of his brothers anger but Joey heard him get told to straighten up "or else!"  Later, Erik told M that he was going to hire someone to find the people who were after them; so M offered Fiona and Sam to do it. Erik paid them $40 thousand and told them that he wanted to be there when it was done. Sam had a buddy who had left town and just happened to leave a small store front empty. They decided that they could use it for plan "C" and they made several blood-squibs for their con. They brought Erik to the back of the store telling him that they had traced the car he had seen to a "mister Chuck Finley" and found that he and his gang were in "that store." Then, when they went to do the deed, Erik watched as all three of them were “shot” by the bad guys, which scared Erik into running. However before he could leave town Quinn showed up and said they were going back to the site of the shooting to sort it all out.

 

Sam was luckily listening to the bug and heard Quinn's plans so he called M and Fiona. M suggested they had to do "the same con they did in 1999 on Colonel Prokov in Moscow" to negate his credibility. They hurriedly erased all the blood mess from the alleyway and M put on a priests collar. He was able to con Quinn that he (as Father Peter, the priest) had seen Erik one night on the street in a daze. He said that he had been helping Erik because he had been talking about seeing assassins everywhere and now was saying he was hiring assassins. Erik blabbered frantically that “you’re going to get me killed” and became frantic, dropping to his knees begging for M to "tell them the truth or you'll get me killed."  Then when he told Quinn that the hot dog vender (Sam) and a tourist (Fiona) were in on the same scheme with M, and that he had seen them all killed in the alley behind the store Quinn bundled Erik off into his car. M said "he's lucky to have you as a brother" then winked at Erik when Quinn wasn't looking. April received full custody of the kids because Erik was locked away in "a facility." Fiona gave her Erik’s $40 thousand so that they could get started somewhere else. Saying goodbye, Joey stood with his arms and legs crossed, just like M was doing, next to the charger and listened as M told him that he knew someone who had "gotten a job that paid him to do many of the same things that got him into trouble as a kid – and he turned out alright." Joey asked if that meant "I should eat a lot of yogurt?" (food spies eat on stakeouts) “Can’t hurt,” M told him.

 

Back at Diego's, when M went to retrieve the analyzer, Diego caught him. Diego said that since he had left the name he had "been in more meetings and found more government departments than I even knew existed." M handed over the analyzer machine and said “I just needed to know how connected Strickler was and I think you just answered my question.”  Then, Strickler told M that "We both know that you have checked my references and what you had found out." He M that he had a job "which won't offend your sensibilities" and that he could either take it or leave and never hear from him again. In voice-over M said: “sometimes you dance with the Devil.”