Human Target Episode 1.06 Lockdown

Winston's got a snatch-and-grab rescue, time-sensitive, with a highly technical extraction. It involves Centronics, a defense contractor that builds advanced weaponry. The company has imprisoned top engineer Martin Gleason in its headquarters.

Centronics HQ is airtight. Undercover as a water delivery man, Winston cases the lobby. Motion trackers, thermal sensors, armed guards, the works. But there's no camera on the roof, so Chance just has to parachute down and go in the access door. Simple.

As Chance hurtles toward Centronics' roof, Guerrero hops into Winston's surveillance van. Actually, there IS a camera on the roof, dude. Chance sticks the landing on the ledge in the camera's blind spot, but the wind knocks him off-balance. Grabbing out, he snaps the camera cord, raising an alert. Overpowering the guard who investigates, he's in. But, due to signal jammers, he won't be able to communicate with Winston.

Disguised as a janitor, Chance finds Martin in his 31st-floor lab, talking to his goldfish, Meredith, and chatting online with someone named "NiteOwl," aka Layla, a cute geeky chick from security who monitors him. Chance explains he's going to get Martin out. He sprays something around a window that fizzles and steams, weakening the glass. Martin notices a parachute on the desk. Oh, so that's what "highly technical extraction" means.

Martin tells Chance that, a few months ago, a hospital in Burma collapsed, killing 121 people. The regime suspected it had been harboring rebels but denied involvement. Martin knew a weapon was involved: a plasma cannon he built. He and colleague Kozinski asked Centronics head honcho Vivian Cox how their enemies got that weapon. Two days later, Kozinski died. She's only keeping Martin alive to finish a $4 billion project.

The window shatters, and Layla reports the breach to security chief Leonard Kreese. Before Chance can get Martin out, guards start shooting. Bullets tear the parachute and shatter the fishbowl -- no! Chance returns fire, then shoots out the camera. He attaches a note to the ruined chute and tosses it out the window for Winston and Guerrero.

Layla retrieves an image of Chance's reflection in the window from the lab camera. She cleans it up and runs it through the FBI and Interpol databases. Kreese says they'll track Chance and Martin with thermal imaging. He orders a fire drill to clear the building. Chance realizes what's up, but Martin has an idea. His project is a high-powered directional microwave. Maybe he can hot-wire it and fry the security system's hardware. The weapon's in the Black Room, 13 floors down.

Chance and Martin travel in the vents to hide their heat signatures. Vivian tells Kreese to use climate diagnostics to detect the slight rise in temperature as they pass over a room.

In the Black Room (which is all white), Chance avoids the floor's laser sensors by shimmying across a beam to the microwave gun. He notices Martin's cargo pocket is leaking. Martin saved Meredith in a plastic bag. Now, that's eccentric.

The climate diagnostics work, and troops race to the Black Room. Kreese says it's too late to save Martin, and Vivian says do what you must. As Martin hot-wires the weapon, he tells Chance how Vivian got him to do the work he loved for her twisted purposes. Chance says he had a boss like that once. He ran away, changed his name, and started again. Martin can't imagine Chance running from anybody. Martin never met Chance's old boss.

The FBI calls Kreese about a kidnapping attempt. Kreese says everything's fine ... just as Chance flips the weapon's switch, plunging the building into darkness.

That call is Winston and Guerrero's doing. Winston hatches a scheme to create a threat to national security, the only way the Feds can go into Centronics HQ. He takes a jumpy Guerrero, posing as an informant, to the San Francisco FBI. The agent already knows about Burma and Centronics' shady ways. But they need tangible evidence. Guerrero says a kidnapping's going on at Centronics right now, dude. Soon the agent reports he got cut off while talking to Centronics' head of security. A Homeland Security alert goes out.

Martin and Chance use a handy plasma cannon to blast a hole in the Black Room floor, and Chance rigs a way to ride the elevator cables. When Kreese starts shooting from inside the car below, Chance swings around and flies headfirst down the cable, firing back. In the elevator, they smash at each other before Chance kills Kreese. But more troops are in the lobby. Luckily, Chance has a remote detonator to blow up the water cooler Winston planted earlier.

Outside, Vivian tries to pin the kidnapping on Chance, but Martin says she's the real bad guy. Girl. The FBI agent says take both Chance and Vivian away. Winston arrives to get Chance out. Meanwhile, Layla tells Martin she's "NiteOwl," says sorry she didn't help him sooner, and gives him a bottle of water to put Meredith in.

Later, Winston says Layla told him about the ID scan on Chance. She only found an old, dead profile, but it triggered an e-mail, alerting someone that Chance was spotted. Winston tried tracing the signal but it was elaborately bounced around the world -- exactly how Chance taught Winston to hide a signal. Weird, says Chance, and leaves.

Guerrero tells Winston a guy's been looking for Chance and just got one step closer. But who? "His old boss."