Rubicon Episode 1.04 The Outsider

As he drinks a cup of coffee in his apartment, Will leaves a voicemail message: "I'm taking a morning train, so I will call you when I arrive." Peering out his kitchen window, he sees in the window of a nearby apartment. She smiles at him.

Spangler meets Will on a train platform to catch the 8:30 Acela train to Washington, D.C. Spangler looks disapprovingly at Will's messenger bag.

In Will's absence, Kale leads the morning team meeting, and tells Tanya, Miles, and Grant to put the Yuri Popovich and George Boeck investigation aside. Instead, they are to assess a proposed missile strike on an Indonesian safe house where a Mujahideen operative named Kateb is reported to be headed in a few days. Kale informs the team that their verdict must be unanimous because "there are no split decisions when it comes to irreversibles."

At home, Katherine opens up an evidence box containing Tom's bloody bathrobe and his cell phone. She plays his voicemail messages; one is from James Wheeler: "If you keep this up, you know what's going to happen."

Back at API, Miles recounts Kateb's long list of terrorist activities. "So it's a no-brainer," says Tanya. "You do realize that a surgical strike is a euphemism for a thermobaric warhead capable of demolishing this entire block?" asks Miles. "He's a leader of Al-Qaeda," Grant argues.

As they wait to check into their Washington hotel, Spangler advises Will to replace his messenger bag with a proper briefcase so people will take him seriously.

Will's team reaches an impasse over Kateb as Miles' frustration mounts over their lack of intel. "Source reliability quotient 71%. Targeting accuracy differential 4.3," reads Tanya from the intelligence report. "You think that's real?" "She doesn't belong here," Miles tells Grant.

Over coffee with Will, Spangler tells him their mission is "to keep API fully independent and to make sure they remember how useless the information they gather is unless they have us to make sense of it." The arrival of an old intelligence friend of Spangler's, [redaction] ,interrupts this conversation. Will is asked to leave.

That afternoon, Will and Spangler meet with the CIA. Spangler sweet talks them with API's unique interpretation of recent data from Malaysia. Will says it points to a nascent Al-Qaeda operation, but [redaction] expresses doubt. "Why don't we walk you through it?" suggests Spangler.

Meanwhile, at API, a distressed Tanya pops a pill in the restroom then rejoins her colleagues. Miles questions the motivation of the Kateb source. "Just because he thinks its true," adds Grant, "doesn't mean it is."

That night, Will meets his friend Daniel [redaction] , who works for [redaction] , in a deserted parking garage. "So what's the deal with my seven names?" Will asks. Daniel reveals that six of the men worked in the CIA's Middle East division in the 1980s. [redaction] and [redaction] were killed in the line of duty, [redaction] , died of cancer, and [redaction] is confined to a nursing home in Florida. The others include author C.M. Haddix and a man named Donald Bloom. Daniel was unable to find information on the seventh name.

The next morning, Will and Spangler meet with military brass. A colonel asks why API deserves less scrutiny than other intelligence agencies. "We like to share with our friends," says Will.

Katherine pays another visit to Tom's townhouse, where she finds a menu from a China Moon. She visits the restaurant and learns that a food order was delivered to Tom's address less than a month ago and was charged to James Wheeler.

At API, the team analyzes photos of the target zone where the safe house is. "Between 10 and 100 civilians," Miles estimates. Tanya looks at a photo showing children playing in front of the safe house and then exits. "I don't remember it being this hard the last time," says Miles. "We had Will. And Hadas. And no girls," replies Grant.

Kale stops in to announce that a new intelligence report indicates that Kateb will arrive at the safe house earlier than expected. The team must make their decision by the end of the day. Miles calls Will for advice. "Figure this out on your own," Will says. "I trust you." Will also asks Miles to do a full trace on Donald Bloom.

Truxton and Will go to a meeting with the National Security Council, where [redaction] insists that congressional oversight of API is mandatory. Spangler muses that while the man's wife might compliment him on his tie, he can't always know her motivation. Will is "a remarkable intelligence analyst," claims Spangler, but his greatest asset "is that you don't know him and he doesnt know you."

Back at API, Miles reluctantly votes to approve the missile strike. "I'd rather live with the consequences of my action than my inaction," he says. "I know I'm supposed to say yes," says Tanya. Grant trudges upstairs to deliver their verdict to Kale: "Take him out."

At their hotel that night, Spangler congratulates Will for doing a good job. "I didn't speak," says Will. "You'd be amazed how hard that is for most people," Spangler responds, and then presents Will with a briefcase just like the one he carries.

Back in the API conference room, Tanya, Miles, and Grant rehash their assessment of the Kateb strike over drinks. "There's no special sauce in this sh-t," says Grant. "Just data and decisions." "And morality? Values?" asks Tanya. "Values are for politicians," Grant replies.

After arriving back at his apartment the next morning, Will again sees [redaction] out his kitchen window. He waves to her. She turns away from him.

In his office, Will hides the briefcase Spangler gave him then stops in to see Kale, who tells Will that accompanying Spangler to Washington was an honor. "For some reason, he thinks you have potential."

Will catches up with Miles and asks about the research on Bloom. "Very slippery character," says Miles, presenting Will with a photocopy of Bloom's driver's license. "He flew into JFK two days ago."

The team gathers in the conference room, where Will informs them that their recommendation was accepted, and two missiles were fired into the safe house. "We won't know whether we were successful until Kateb either surfaces again or doesnt," Will says.

Will asks for the latest updates on Popovich and Boeck. As Grant goes over the most recent intelligence, a distracted Will stares out the window.