The Firm Episode 1.09 Chapter Nine

Three men exit a black car parked in front of Mitch's house. Over the phone, Andrew frantically asks Mitch if he remembers where they first met. Mitch needs to get the hell out of his house and meet Andrew there now!

Four weeks earlier, Mitch and Ray leave a stadium and hop into the limo Alex rented for them. Mitch feels uneasy about all of Alex's favors, thinking the perks might be some kind of smoke screen. "We can't trust anyone," says Ray. The limo pulls away to reveal Tommy, the driver who brought the brothers to the stadium, lying on the ground unconscious. Unsuspecting, Ray confides his plans to propose to Tammy. Suddenly, the limo comes to a stop, and a voice commands Ray to step out of the vehicle.

Confused, Ray steps out to confront U.S. Army Sergeant Leonard Debs, who apologizes for knocking Tommy unconscious and commandeering their vehicle. Right now, he needs Ray to investigate his son Rashad's murder three days ago. Leonard filled out a missing person's report with the police, but he's positive his son is dead; he just doesn't have a body. Leonard takes them to the scene where two weeks previously, 21-year-old Rashad called him from a pay phone to "say goodbye." Leonard heard a gunshot and the line went dead. Two hours later, Leonard arrived at the scene, but the pay phone had been wiped clean. The power line crew said they hadn't seen anything. Leonard's wife Charlene had died a few days before, but Rashad didn't show up at the funeral. No one has seen him since the phone call. Ray and Mitch realize the chain link fence has new iron panels, covering up a fresh bullet hole.

Only drug dealers and nobodies use pay phones, Ray reasons, especially in high-crime areas. Rashad Debs was likely either buying or selling drugs. At his house, Leonard tells Ray and Mitch the blinds were drawn, door locked and fridge empty when he returned home from duty. Rashad and Leonard grew apart over the years because Rashad resented his father's deployment to the Middle East. A neighbor, Karen Gorwalter, comes over because she saw the blinds go up and thought Rashad had returned. She's worried about him. He's been in an out all hours and seems angry and deeply unhappy. Ray notices a fallen picture frame. Pulling out the photo, he finds an unknown key taped to the back. Mitch receives a call from a Detective Quinn, who asks the guys to meet him at the scene of Rashad's alleged murder.

Abby believes the Moxon embezzling explanation sounds like a cover story, so she goes undercover to befriend Moxon's wife. If the Moxons were having severe marital problems, like Alex and Stack claim, the wife would know why Moxon killed himself. Abby visits with Danielle Moxon. She answers Abby's questions curtly, claiming she knows nothing about any work-related or marital troubles. Getting nowhere, Abby mentions that Nobel suggested that Moxon might have been stealing. That's when Danielle's red light goes on. She can't bother to think about that because she doesn't know how she's going to continue. Moxon's actions were selfish, says Danielle. He left her with no income. If she didn't have his Noble life insurance policy, she'd be in real trouble.

At the pay phone, Detective Quinn makes it clear that he's not buying into Rashad's murder. He believes Mitch and Ray don't have concrete evidence pointing in any direction. Ray shows Quinn the bullet hole they found earlier. He breaks off the detective's car antenna to determine the bullet's trajectory path: the shot must have been fired, sniper-style, from the roof of an adjacent building.

Scrambling up the building's fire escape, the three men look for clues. Ray spots a potential bullet shell on the fire escape, but discovers it's an unmarked token. Looking through a small window next to the token, Ray spies a woman taking off a man's jacket. On the roof, an armed man sneaks up and orders Mitch and Quinn to get on the ground. Unnoticed, Ray approaches from behind and knocks the gun from the guy's hand. Inside the building, a fully operational brothel is being run by the armed man, Quon Pho. As police round up the girls, Pho insists he didn't see the shooting, but one of his prostitutes did. Mai identifies Rashad's photo, saying she saw him talking on the pay phone; when a man with a dog approached and the animal begin barking at Rashad's van, he became scared. Rashad was shot walking back to his van, but Mai was too scared to watch what happened to his body.

Tammy's latest plan on the Moxon case is to get hired at Noble and tap into their database from the inside. Post-Chinese takeout, Mitch, Abby, Ray and Tammy discuss Tammy's job possibilities. At Bright Buddy, a Noble-affiliated pet food company based in Maryland, a sales manager position is available. When Tammy clicks on their locations, she realizes Maryland's outline matches the logo on Rashad's mystery key.

By linking the key to a Maryland storage facility, Ray and Mitch discover Rashad's secret storage room. The room has several duffels stuffed with bagged white powder and guns. The manager walks in, demanding they sign in. The situation doesn't look good for Mitch and Ray, so they quickly exit. Mitch grabs a laptop before they leave. In the car, Mitch finds over a hundred radical Islamic articles on Rashad's laptop.

Mitch and Ray discover Rashad didn't just read the website articles; he contributed to them. He was also on the government's no-fly list. Terrorists often sell drugs and weapons for money. Ray begins to connect the dots. Only the federal government has the power and means to use snipers and fake power crews, and clean up in under a minute. The man with the barking dog may have sniffed bombs. Mitch decides they need to file a Freedom of Information Act request to discover the truth. However, Leonard refuses to accept his son was a drug-dealing terrorist, claiming the government must have made a mistake. The FOIA request may lead them to the truth, Mitch says, but the process may take months or even years. Before he can finish his thought, Tammy calls to inform Mitch the request was granted for the next day.

Louis Coleman arrives at the office upon Mitch's request. Louis knows Mitch only wants to talk to him to gain information on Rashad Debs. Upset at being lumped in with the federal government, Louis refuses to tell Mitch any information and leaves abruptly.

Abby tells Mitch about Danielle Moxon's payment from Noble life insurance, an illegal move on the company's part. Mitch is confused because the company doesn't owe Danielle anything for her husband's suicide. A late-night knock startles them, but opening the door only reveals a small package, sitting on the steps. Their old Witness Protection number is on the front, so they reason it's from Louis. Within the package, a DVD reveals the government had a terrorist kill list: Rashad Debs, an American, was essentially executed on U.S. soil.

Mitch, Ray and Leonard enter the courtroom, but the floor is empty of civilians. Alan Harper, Assistance U.S. Attorney, is the government defendant. In the courtroom, Mitch pushes for the federal government to hand over the bare facts of Rashad's case. Harper argues the government doesn't have to do so in the interest of national security, nor do they have to hand over Rashad's body - if they have it. Recognizing Harper's refusal breaches amendment rights, Judge Bram demands Harper hand over the case file. After reviewing the evidence, the judge decides Rashad's case file will not be released to Mitch. The government had sufficient evidence to conclude Rashad posed an immediate threat to national security, and therefore, the government was within its rights. He concludes by returning the body to Leonard for proper burial. When Rashad's body is uncovered, Mitch tells Leonard they could appeal the ruling if he really wanted the truth, but Leonard says he only wants to continue serving his country.

Abby opens the door to an angry Danielle Moxon. She still doesn't know why her husband killed himself, but Danielle does know he was trying to figure out how Kevin Stack saved the company so much money. "I do know this... Kevin Stack is a bad man," says Danielle.

Four weeks later, the McDeeres desperately try to escape from their house, but Claire is grabbed through the window.