Burn Notice Friends Like These

Tom Strickler came to pick up Michael Westen for a job, of course over Fiona’s objections. Strickler said that if M did this job his record would be reviewed by the “powers.” From his car, he pointed to an American intelligence agencies safe-house which was being robbed at that very moment; and, he wanted M to take photos of their “cleaners” license plate, so he could track where the sale was going to take place. Sam was on his way to a weekend at a buddy’s villa with Miss Reynolds.  He had tracked the "cleaner" guy to Doral and possibly the Wages Motel, next to a bingo parlor, a perfect set up for Madeline to do recon.  Her roof was leaking in the rain and she was blaming Sam's explosion for it. In the midst of this Barry called M, so anxious he was about to wet himself, asking for a favor – someone had stolen his ledger with all his transactions in it! He said that a man had called saying he wanted $5 million or he was going to sell the ledger to someone else. The ledger had been kept in a private storage space under an alias. When Barry revealed that he had also stored a piece of paper for his girlfriend in his safe, M knew immediately who had set him up for robbery – Amy! At her stakeout, Madeline had fun winning at Bingo but complained all the time about possibly getting shot. When M and Fiona went to Amy's house, belligerent Amy made the mistake of taking a first swing at Fiona with her golf club, but got decked to the ground. Fiona had to trigger the trembler switch someone had set to blow up her car before Amy would believe that the people who paid her $100,000 for Barry’s book would want to kill her -- some foreign sounding name in Coconut Grove. M and Sam broke into the house in Coconut Grove but didn’t find anything; so they had to kidnap the man and woman who came home: Milovan Dragas and Natalie Rice.

 

They then told Barry that he should dodge calls from his clients for a while and Sam gave up his villa time so they could interrogate the two captives. Madeline did find the “cleaner” in her stakeout, so Fiona tailed came to tail him in order to see where he scouted for the buy. Natalie told Sam that she was a property manager who had a son and that Milovan was a beast – she whined and cried at the drop of the hat so Sam couldn't ask any more questions. M told Milovan that he was working for a client of Barry’s and that he’d already “taken care” of Barry. Milovan had slapped Natalie to keep her quiet when they first came in the house and later would only tell M that he had only known her for three days. He also said that if he didn’t show up for the sale, a friend would post the ledger on the internet. Natalie only wailed every time Sam asked her a question they asked Fiona to go in and “befriend” her. Had advised M that the cleaner had scouted a certain park for the sale. Natalie did talk to Fioina and claimed that she was a single mother a son, Jared, and in tough times she had let people use places that she listed "off the books." Natalie said she had shown Milovan a particular condo more than once which then led M and Fiona to a place that had been set up with a burn-safe in the fireplace.  They pumped CO2 into it to freeze everything, then found lots of money in it as well as passports for Milovan, Natalie and someone named Bennett Tash. Milovan’s tact then with Sam was to insult and badger him into coming close so he could then steal his gun. Unfortunately, Sam was already prepared and had unloaded the gun that Milovan had stolen. Sam stood up, pulled his real gun and shot at Milovan to get him to sit back down.

 

They found that Milovan had been Serbian Intelligence – and interrogation specialist so was going to be impossible to break. Barry told Fiona that he had found out that Bennett Tash had opened accounts in Overtown somewhere.  Fiona let Natalie call her son and she wept on her cell phone. Then Natalie told Fiona that Tash was at a storefront on Poe Street. M and Sam did find Tash but were nearly killed in his Mac-10 barrage of gunfire. Tash told them that he had instructions to shoot ANY stranger without exception, and that he just was to handle the buyer for the deal set for 5 this afternoon; but, he said, he didn’t know where it was to be. He knew nothing about posting any merchandise on the internet because that psycho "woman" wouldn’t trust anyone – the "boss" was Natalie. Milovan was just a fall guy whose kids were threatened by Natalie. Meanwhile Natalie was putting the moves on Fiona to open her handcuffs so she could go to the bathroom and had turned off Fiona's phone. M called Barry and told him Natalie was the boss and to keep his phone on. M arrived just as Fiona was picking the lock on the handcuffs and kept their cover by slapping Fiona to stop her. They took Milovan into the bathroom and pretended to shoot him and told Fiona to pretend that she had to kill Natalie but actually let her take Sam’s red Buick, which was easy to tail.

 

Then as Natalie left, they each stole a different car and Barry told them which road Natalie turned off on. Natalie turned into South Point Park waiting to exchange keys with a bicyclist. The biker got the ledger out of a locker and Fiona was to take Natalie. M tackled the biker and got the ledger back; Fiona got to slug Natalie and hold her at gun point, until Natalie pulled a gun as well and threatened to shoot into the group of kids that happened to be walking by. She said that the name Natalie was just a cover ID and the photo of the boy just came with the keychain. She disappeared into the crowd leaving her cash still in the trunk. Immigration deported Milovan, M said that Natalie wouldn’t be showing up any time soon and Barry said that this "canceled all of Ms debts." Madeline told Barry to tell his clients that he had been purifying in an ashram without any phones and Barry had sent over a roof-repair guy to take care of her leaks. Fiona then showed up the next morning and backed out of her promise that she had understood Ms desire to get back in, and that she would “still help him,” by revealing that she now intended to leave Miami, and of course she blamed it on Ms working with Strickler. So M went to the job alone and merely took photos as the thieves exchanged the stolen guns. Strickler showed up complimenting him on his photo technique, implying that the crooks would not be caught, but still refusing to answer who the photos were for. Instead he handed M his ringing phone which was happened to be Diego Garza calling to say that “Washington had called that there had been some movement on his burn notice and he would be in contact to set up a meeting.” Strickler told him, “this is just the beginning, superstar.”