Michael Westen had spent long minutes fondling and turning the piece of plastic over and over in his hands before Fiona startled him from his reverie by complaining: "I'm getting jealous of that badge. I remember when you couldn't keep your hands off me." He had been contemplitively worrying that the badge was "reserved for the most trusted people in the intelligence community" and that having one meant "fewer constraints, limited oversight and a frightening ability to do real harm." Fiona argued, yet again, that she didn't want him to plant the "Voidbot" virus in the CIA computers like Anson was blackmailing him to do because that meant "the dick" (as Sam pronounced him) would go back to being the most dangerous enemy the US had, and completely invisible. [Of course the writers don't ever give her a "plan B," they just need her to endlessly argue for exposition purposes.] They both knew that Anson was never going to relinquish the falsified evidence he had on her – but "what else can I do" Michael asked. Fiona offered to put a tracker on Anson's car if Mike could get a meeting with him, which he did. Wishing that the tracker in her hand was a sniper rifle, she told Sam: "can you think of anyone who deserves a bullet more than that souless bastard?" Michael asked for a "walk and talk" over a lemonade and told Anson that he hadn't planted it yet because there was a delay in clearance; however, Anson said: "No! Your psych-eval says 'Westen is particularly skilled at social engineering…' I know your moves better than you do… I don't know what you're planning but I'm not going to fall for it" and abuptly left nearly catching Fiona. However, she ran to an intersection she knew he would be crossing, crawled under a truck at a stoplight to get at Anson's trunk, planted the tracker as the light turned, let the truck pass over her and rolled side-ways between its tires to get out of the road. Looking up she saw two dumb-founded kids who had seen the whole thing, so sontaneously added a disclaimer: "don't try this at home."
At the loft Mike and Jesse watched the tracking data show them that Anson went to the dentist as Madeline came in looking somber and telling Michael that his best childhood friend, Andre, had been shot and killed. His brother Ricky asked them to stop by to talk to him. He told them that Andre always had thought of them as family and had been saying that he was going to call Michael since he got out of jail eight months back. The cops weren't helping because they thought Andre had gotten back in the game and had been killed as a result. Ricky said that wasn't true, he had turned his life around and disclosed to Mike that he had found several cell phone calls to a number, right before he was killed. Mike agreed to trace the calls and help. Jesse traced the calls to a burner phone in a particular house. He and Mike went in posing as gas repair-men but got shot at. They chased down a drugee, Dolly, who knew both Ricky and Andre. After much persuasion she finally admitted that Dion Carver, who she occasionally slept with, had come home one night all bloody with a bag full of money. He had killed the "shot-caller" for the Magic City Overlords in Overtown, which had then sent the gang heirarchy into chaos. Andre wanted to solve the increased violence so she told him what Dion had done and that got him killed. Now Dion was gunning for Dolly so Mike offered to hide her at Madeline's house and to go after Dion. They just wanted to borrow Jesse's car to go meet Dion pretending to be an arms dealer with guns for the war that Dion was starting with rival gangs; but, Jesse demanded to do it himself, under the ID of Kalil, because Mike was too involved emotionally. Dion faked being grieved over Andres death in front of Ricky then fell for Jesse's
"scarface deluxe package" gun deal at a discount; except that he demanded a demonstration of the the weapons he was buying and to see the supplier.
The problem was that Fiona no longer had that kind of inventory so they were going to need to "borrow" an "associates" stash when they weren't looking. "That's crazy," Jesse whined. "But that doesn't mean it won't work," Fiona countered. She and Sam kept lookout while Jesse introduced Mike to Dion as Mr. Turner, the weapons supplier. He had just demonstrated a USAS12 shotgun when the "associate" came down the road for a Sunday visit. Fiona intercepted the driver and called Mike who let Dion shoot an RPG missle at the truck creating a street-wide holocaust. Dion said
"I'm going to need to stop by an ATM." Unfortunately, Dion kept delaying because he wanted to kill Dolly before bringing out the money. Mike and Jesse went in to put some pressure on him while Ricky and Fiona listened in on a bug. During the meet, Dion was advised that a shooter had spotted Dolly and was going to kill her so Ricky and Fiona raced to where she was, only to find her mortally shot, excusing that she "just needed a fix" so she sneaked out. Knowing she would be shot, Dion told Mike he had set up a meet with other "playa's" to bring them all in on the deal. Without Dolly as a potential witness, Mike set up to go stall the deal long enough to get Ricky out of town. Instead, Ricky planted a bomb at the meeting place on his own. Fiona, discovered his plan and took him at gun point to Mike who decided to lower the explosion level to make it look like a failed attempt by Dion to kill the rest of gang's. Mike took Dion outside during the meeting and told him that the feds were staking out his weapons so the deal was off, then he had to let Dion call "agent Torres" to verify and instead his call blew up the meeting place. Jesse convinced everyone who survived that it had been Dion who did it so they went to find and kill him. Ricky and Mike convinced Dion to go to the police and make a deal for a "private cell" and protection in exchange for a confession and ratting out all the others. On their way to Andres funeral they reminisced back to when Mike and Andre had taken the engine out of Madeline's lawn-mower and built a go-cart. Andre had drove like a mad man into her rose bush; then, without telling anyone, came back the next week to apologize and plant her a new one. She put a rose in each of their lapels and told them
"these are from Andre."
Sam and Fiona were able to tail Anson from a distance because of the tracker and waited for him to run all around town "doing errands." Eventually they saw him stop and had to race to catch up before he disappeared. Sam said
"he's stopped, let's get there, go!" then screamed like a little girl when Fiona decided to get a better view by rocketing up a parking garage under construction, nearly miss a truck coming out on the top floor and do a 360 spin right to the edge of an unfinished floor. They were just in time to see which apartment complex he went into; but, which of the 300 units was Ansons? Sam went to the local college under-cover as an environmental lawyer wanting help from the "tree-hugging" club to sort out an environmentally-unfriendly apartment complex. They did agree to canvass the building to find who lived where; so, Sam was able to narrow Ansons apartment down to three possible locations. Mike asked for another meeting with Anson and demanded that before he planted the virus he needed to know that
"there is an end to this." Instead of answering, Anson recounted a time from his visits with Madeline when Mike had poured all his dad's liquor down the drain which only caused a rage and Madeline got the worst of it.
"You've got to grow up," Anson pontificated,
"and realize that you can't keep your dad from beating your mom, you can't save Nate from his demons and you can't prevent Max from bleeding out in your arms." When they broke in, it was absolutely swept clean except for one funny looking antenna on the balcony which Sam just happened to recognize as a combat network encryption relay antenna. Anson was relaying his signal through some government building's network to anywhere in the world.
"That's all that's here, a glorified telephone" Fiona lamented. Michael went to his office, wired his thumb-drive to a mouse and uploaded the virus.
"Sometimes betrayal is as easy as pushing a button," Michael said in voice-over
"but the hard part is being able to live with yourself after you've done it."
