Crisis Episode 1.04 We Were Supposed to Help Each Other

Olsen gathers the Ballard parents, including Meg and her husband Noah, to explain every parent will have two round-the-clock FBI escorts. Dunn questions her sister, sure that she's lying about something. Meg advises Dunn to forget her hostility and focus on the investigation. Since Meg did what was asked of her, why didn't the kidnappers release Amber? Dunn refuses to tell Finley about the interview, and they're quickly pulled to another classroom. Parent Norah Yarrow has locked herself in, and is reading a note from the kidnappers on a live news broadcast. Finley breaks a window and puts a stop to the broadcast, but the operation is already underway; Norah tells Dunn and Finley that her husband, Senator Mason Yarrow, is somewhere in the building... but the bomb squad and SWAT can't find him anywhere.

Back at the mansion, the kidnappers assemble the kids and Finley in front of a massive pile of money. No one will sleep until the cash has been precisely packed in coffee then bagged and boxed. One of the kidnappers "disciplines" student Jin Liao, after discovering his help note on a stack of bills. When Jin collapses, Finley appeals to the kidnappers over the cameras, and Jin and Finley are quickly dragged out of the room, leaving Beth Ann to disclose a family secret. Her father used to work from the CIA. Finley finds Koz tending to Jin, who's unconscious, but still breathing, having had a heart attack. Finley places a call to Congressman Langston Wirth and his wife Marie, also his chief of staff. They have the vest with them, and they're prepared to do whatever Finley says - which is to loose their FBI escorts.

Meg meets with First Lady Julia Devore. Julia's sure the kidnappers are going to call her and she'll have to do something terrible to get Kyle back, against her husband's wishes. Meg claims the FBI doesn't understand anything, then asks Julia to get her access to everything the FBI has. Within the hour, Meg is in Olsen's office, focused on finding out what the other parents have done to get their children back, and demanding all files. When Olsen asks what she thinks she can do with them, she explains that she has six times his budget and 10 times his employees.

Back at the school, Norah Yarrow refuses to give the FBI any information about her husband; he's doing what he has to do to retrieve their daughter Sloan. Finley has one of his operatives take over police dispatch, sending them on a wild goose chase. Figuring the Wirths are off-course, Olsen sends Dunn and Finley to their home, where they find instructions for assembling a suicide bomb vest. Dunn and Finley deduce that both the senator and congressman have access to the CIA building.

In the basement of the CIA, the Senator meets with the Congressman and his wife. He's got a flash drive that has to be stuck into a phone and transmitted to the kidnappers - but only once it's 150 feet outside the building. Sharlene is to walk the drive out of the building, while her husband creates a diversion with the suicide vest, which is supposedly a fake. At the last moment, Wirth refuses to put on the vest, so Sharlene gives him the drive and offers to put on the vest under her trench coat. Dunn and Finley burst in by the time she throws off her coat in the building's entrance. Finley tries to talk Sharlene down while Dunn follows Wirth out of the building. She asks for his phone just as CIA sharpshooters put a bullet in his heart and Finley realizes the suicide vest is fake. Within moments, there's a stand-off with the cops as Finley picks up the phone to see a snippet of the video that's being transmitted. Finley tells Dunn that it looked like special forces were firing on civilians.

Finley and Koz watch the video at the mansion as Amber realizes that both Sloan and Sharlene are missing. Thinking it's her turn to go home, she doesn't fuss when she's pulled away from the other kids. Back at the FBI, Dunn and Finley question Marie and Mason, who each offer half of a GPS coordinate of a location around the block. Dunn and Finley spy a black van, where they find Sharlene and Sloan bound, gagged and hooded. Finley picks up a ringing phone on the front seat, which transmits a message read by Amber: Congressman Wirth's blood is on the CIA - not the kidnappers. And Amber's not going home... she tells the other kids that her best friend's dad is dead and cries in Mr. Nash's arms.

That night, Meg and her team have their hands full of FBI files. In a photo, Meg recognizes a former employee - and lover - Jonas, who used to work for her company as a CIA liaison. All she'll tell Noah is that he stopped working for her because something horrible happened. In the middle of the night, Beth Ann wakes up and sneaks into the bathroom to cut herself with a remnant of a blade she swiped during the day's money-packing operation. Kyle catches her mid-slice and refuses to leave. He understands; she wants to feel something that's just hers. Claiming he knows what that's like, he kisses her. Nevertheless, Beth Ann doesn't think there's any way he could know. At the FBI, Finley has made a connection: one of the soldiers they took out of the Pakistani Embassy was in the video on Wirth's phone. Olsen pales. If this kidnapping is about the CIA things just got a lot more serious...