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Episode 108: Foe[]
2006
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She suggests "Wilson" but opts for a different name. She offers him a drink but he refuses and she tell him that he should drink so that he is not tense while undercover. She also tells him that now he would be behind enemy lines forever and that there is no way back to his old life. He understands when she shows him a surveillance picture of Reese meeting Jessica at the airport earlier that year. (“Mission Creep”)
2011[]
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The Machine monitors a man at Grand Central Station and by checking several databases a match from the CIA appears, identifies him as Wallace Negel. After checking additional information, a document from the Ministry for State Security of East Germany identifies the man as Ulrich Kohl, a presumed dead Stassi agent whose wife was killed in a car accident. The Machine categorises Kohl as non-relevant and contacts the administrator. The man exits the train station avoiding an agent armed with his picture checking arriving passengers .
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At the Library, Reese arrives with take out coffee, and is suspiciously eyed by Finch, who promptly informs him that he doesn’t drink coffee. Reese tells him that he just brought him a cup of tea, Sencha green tea with one sugar, just as Finch likes it and jokingly assures him that he hadn’t guessed Finch’s favourite colour yet.
Finch then informs Reese about a new number that has come up. The new person of interest is Wallace Negel, an immigrant from Germany who worked in international export and who hasn’t made a single electronic transaction since December 1987. Reese quickly figures that Negel is an alias and that the man is most likely a spy. Finch had already found out that Negel purchased a cemetery plot in the Bronx shortly before he disappeared.
While Reese is taking a closer look at the cemetery plot, Finch pays a visit to a book seller named Pilcher who unofficially keeps pre-digital records about covert operations and spies from the 1980s and may be able to provide him with information he cannot find on computers.
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Finch uses information he gathered about a deal Pilcher made with Russian intelligence about Soviet submarine schematics to blackmail Pilcher into giving him detailed information about Negel. Finch learns that Negel's real name is Ulrich Kohl and that he was part of an espionage team sent out to hunt down and neutralize East German defectors and that he was in Europe when the wall fell and that he went into hiding in the Soviet Union when he learned western authorities were after him. Finch also learns that Kohl’s wife Anja worked as a secretary in Stassi headquarters and that she was killed in a car accident in 1987, shortly before Kohl disappeared.
In the meantime, Reese tells Finch that Kohl had used the cemetery plot to hide a stash kit and that, apparently, he just dug it up. He only finds a single German coin left in the plot.
Kohl has now arrived at the apartment of an old man, Hauffe. He shows him a picture of a woman and asks (in German) if he remembered Anja. As Hauffe realizes who Kohl is, Kohl shoots him the shoulder, telling him that there are some things to discuss.
2006
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They later meet with two American agents to interrogate them about the whereabouts of a terrorist named Alim Assir who had fled the country. The agents claim that Assir bribed customs to get him out when Stanton shoots them promptly. Reese, visibly shocked, asks her why she shot them without even questioning them. She tells him that there was information from a very reliable source that these men took a bribe and let a mass murderer escape. She orders Reese to dispose of the gun and the bodies and wants him to understand that the threat is very real and that his country needs him. Stanton also reminds him that he is on his own now and that he doesn’t have his old friends anymore. Eventually she assigns him the name 'Reese'.
Back at the library, Finch identifies the coin as an East German Mark, a coin that has been out of circulation since 1990 when East and West Germany reunited. He also found out that a whole set of these coins had been sold earlier that day and that a phone call had been made to a number in the West Village.
When Reese arrives at the apartment, he finds Hauffe dead. He also finds puncture marks on the dead man’s neck and a needle and deduces that the man had been interrogated before he was killed.
Meanwhile Finch has been researching Kohl’s old team and informs Reese that he was part of a four man team, with a team leader called Steiler, a document forger called Wernick and a case officer named Heinrich Hauffe. While also finding out that the apartment is leased to an unmarried architect named Andrew Honem, Reese finds a pin of the Volks American Society in the dead man’s desk and a box hidden in the floor underneath a cupboard. The box contains some medals and a certificate for faithful services issued by the Ministry for State Security and also prove that the man really is Hauffe. Just in that moment the man, who had been looking for Kohl at the train station, appears in the apartment, pointing a gun at Reese.
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He says that Kohl would most likely kill again just before Reese knocks him unconscious and discovers that the man is a German intelligence agent. He steals his phone and calls Detective Fusco with an anonymous tip about a murder in the West Village. Leaving him the German agent as a "care package“ he wants Fusco to find out what the agent knows.
Kohl has now tracked down his next victim, his former team mate Wernick who is living as a wall street lawyer under the alias "Julian Werner". Not knowing for sure why Kohl re-appeared and is hunting down his former team members, Reese suspects that he might be seeking revenge for the death of his wife Anja.
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Kohl finds Wernick having lunch at a restaurant and immediately injects him with a poison. Wernick recognises him and knows that he will most likely die very soon. Kohl asks him whether he remembers Anja and what had happened to her. Wernick feels regretful about what had been done to Kohl and what they all had done when the poison kicks in leaving him unconscious. Reese arrives at the restaurant seconds after Kohl left. When moments later the EMTs are about to take Wernick to the hospital, Reese hijacks the ambulance and takes off. He stops in an empty street and offers Wernick to save his life in exchange for some information. Kohl had injected him with hydrocyanic acid and Wernick would surely die in a few moments if Reese didn’t give him an antidote. Despite having trouble to breathe Wernick starts talking. He tells Reese that the Americans wanted Kohl dead because he was killing all their informants and that his team betrayed him and traded him for a new life in the U.S. Kohl then ran to the Soviets together with his wife Anja, but the Americans intervened and so the car accident happened. Reese injects Wernick with the antidote. He tells Reese that Kohl might go after the third team mate named Steiler next, but passes out before he could tell Reese his alias. When Reese searches for Wernick’s wallet he finds the same pin on his jacked that he had found in Hauffe’s apartment earlier. Talking to Finch on the phone and sending him a picture of the pin they find out that the pin is from the Volks American Society, an organisation for Americans of German heritage which would have been the perfect chance for the former Stasi team to meet in public, even after they defected, and if so, Steiler could be a member, too.
In the meantime the crime scene reports about the incidents in the West Village and near Wall Street, where a senior citizen in a suit was seen fleeing both locations have reached the 8th precinct. Fusco also tells Carter about her guy in a suit who hijacked an ambulance and that a German agent, Heinlein, was found unconscious at the first crime scene.
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Fusco and Carter try to question the agent but all he says is "phone call“ among other demands in German. They show him pictures of the first two victims but the German agent is not cooperating well. Carter assures him that they both want the same thing and the agent starts talking. He tells Carter and Fusco about Kohl being a prisoner who was arrested 24 years ago in an operation between the U.S. and German governments. When they were trying to send him to a minimum security facility he escaped. He also tells them that Kohl had been jailed without trial and that he isn’t supposed to exist and therefore the U.S. authorities could not be involved without causing an international incident.
Before he can tell anything else, a liason sent by the German consulate arrives with orders to extradite the agent.
Finch has now cracked the German society’s website, which didn’t even have an open SSH proxy, and browses through the membership list. He discovers a man named Michael Stegans, a construction foreman whose background information points to him being one one of Kohl’s former team members.
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Stegans is really Steiler who is now running a construction site in Brooklyn. Finch finds a cell phone number to go with the name and calls Steiler to warn him. Steiler thinks it is a joke and doesn’t believe Finch. He is sure that Kohl is dead but changes his mind quickly when he sees Kohl standing in front of him with a gun pointed at him. He is not completely surprised by Kohl's appearance because he knew that this day would come eventually. Steiler was the one who trained Kohl and knew him well but he realises that Kohl has changed due to the things he did. Kohl blames him for what happened to the team, to himself and to his wife. Just as he prepares to shoot, Steiler asks him to stop so that he can make a phone call. He tells Kohl that he was the only one who knew when Anja on the other end picks up the phone leaving Kohl speechless. Steiler tells him that Anja had been afraid of Kohl and that she contacted him a few years later after they had defected. Telling him that his revenge was all for nothing. Steiler then attacks Kohl and tries to grab his gun. In the course of a fight Kohl pushes Steiler from the edge of the building and leaves the site.
Reese arrives just a few seconds later and finds Steiler dead. He phones Finch telling him that they need to find Anja because he is sure that Kohl would go after her next. Finch concludes that the car accident was fake and that she betrayed Kohl. Reese figures that this would make her as much a target as Kohl’s former team mates.
Meanwhile the German agent is being released and deported – much to Carter’s frustration.
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Fusco suggests that she could send Reese after Kohl but Carter disagrees saying that they couldn’t send a killer after another killer. Fusco sticks to his idea and sends information about the car model and license plate to Reese’s phone. Finch who is with Reese in the car, wants Fusco to send the GPS tracker number fort he consulate car so that they can trace the route. Finch quickly finds the exact position of the car but he is not sure about how Reese wants to intercept. He finds out soon after when Reese unpacks a sniper rifle and asks Finch to be his spotter. To Reese’s surprise, Finch exhibits proper knowledge of windage and ranging allowing Reese to shoot off the hood of the consulate car to make it stop. Ignoring the complaints of the liason that is accompanying Heinlein, Reese grabs him and asks him where he can find Anja Kohl. Heinlein pretends he doesn’t know but slips a small piece of paper with Anja’s address into Reese’s hand without the liason seeing it. Finch and Reese instantly head off.
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Kohl has also found out where Anja lives and goes to her apartment only to find Reese sitting at the dinner table waiting for him. Pointing a gun at Kohl, Reese informs him that Anja isn’t there but that she is safe and that he cannot get to her. While trying to talk him out of killing Anja, Kohl manages to knock out Reese by pressing both external carotid arteries on Reese, obstructing the blood flow from the neck to the head so that Reese passes out.
In the meantime, Finch has reached Anja and prepares to take her to the police station and leave her under Fusco’s care. She is surprised to hear that Kohl is back, but she knows that he would be coming for her, yet she insists on making a phone call.
Back at Anja’s house Reese has regained consciousness but is now tied to a chair with Kohl sitting opposite him at the dinner table inspecting a small surveillance camera he dismantled before breaking into the house. He asks him again where Anja was but when Reese remains silent Kohl unwraps his needles. Reese tells him that when he was in Kandahar he was tortured with electricity just for his name, but Kohl stays unimpressed when he punches a needle into Reese’s elbow. In the 8th precinct, Carter is informed about the interrupted transfer of the German agent to JFK. She tells to Fusco that a guy in a suit had shot the car off the road and heads off to the scene to take a closer look. Fusco receives a phone call from a worried Finch telling him that Reese went to Anja’s house but hasn’t contacted Finch again ever since. Fusco complains to Finch that he is not a bellhop, but doesn’t have a choice when Finch sends him Anja’s address.
Reese is still tied to a chair in Anja’s house and hasn’t cracked yet. Kohl tells him that he used to be very good at killing people and that this is why the Stasi recruited him in the first place. He tells Reese that he was sent out to kill people wherever he’s been sent to in the name of his country. Reese notices that this is very much his story but doesn’t manage to keep Kohl from taking out another needle.
Finch and Anja are still on the road. She tells Finch that Kohl was always away for work but when he was with her, he loved her. When his team mates turned on him he took her with him to flee the country. For safety reasons, however, they travelled separately to the Soviet Union and that was when the Americans caught up. She tells Finch that the Americans showed her photos of the assassinations and that first she thought it was all a lie but eventually they staged the car accident to keep her away from Kohl. While Kohl believed that she was dead, Anja could start a new life.
In the meantime Kohl realises that it could take all night to bring Reese to talk. When he walks around the house he finds a photograph of a young girl pinned to the kitchen cupboard. He notices that the girl has his mother’s eyes and quickly starts searching for more information about the daughter he never knew. Before Kohl showed up at the house, Reese hid everything connected to the girl named Marie, including a photo album and a letter from Columbia University. Reese warns him that it is too late for both of them, but Marie could still have a normal life. He begs Kohl to leave her be but Kohl prepares to head off.
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He tells Reese, from one professional to another, that he cannot have Reese following him and points the gun at him. Just when he is about to pull the trigger Fusco intervenes. He unties Reese and Reese runs after Kohl who is on the way to find his daughter. Kohl finds Marie at Columbia University where she is just about to go home. She checks her phone and finds 11 missed calls when Kohl appears before her asking her at gun point to call her mother. Marie calls Anja and tells her that the man wants to talk to her. Finch, who is still with Anja informs Reese that Kohl wants to meet in a park and that he wouldn’t hurt Marie if Anja came alone. On the way to the park Marie asks Kohl how he knew her mother and Kohl replies that he knew both, her mother and her father. He also asks her if she knew her father. Marie tells him that her mother told her that her father was a soldier in Germany, a brave man who died a hero before she was born. She explains that her father helped her mother break free when the Berlin Wall fell. Meanwhile police units communicate about a possible abduction in Central Park. When Kohl and Marie arrive at the meeting point in the park they meet Anja and Finch. Reese comes up from behind and points a gun at Kohl. Carter and Fusco along with other police officers are also in the park due to an anonymous tip about the shooter. Carter suspects that her man in a suit would also be there so she takes some of the police men with her and heads out.
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Back at the meeting point Anja reveals to Marie that Kohl is her husband and Marie’s father. She explains that Kohl wasn’t the man she married once and that she felt alone and trapped. With a baby on the way it wouldn’t leave her much choice than leave Kohl and start a new life. She feels sorry about what she had done and asks Kohl for forgiveness. Kohl replies that he had to see both of their faces and that a part of a part of him was always with her.
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Then he points the gun at Anja. Reese points his gun at Kohl and warns him not to pull the trigger. Kohl wouldn’t let go leaving Reese no choice but to shoot him. Kohl breaks down and tells Anja that she was right all along to be afraid of him. Reese asks Finch to take Anja and Marie away from the scene. When he checks Kohl’s gun he finds it empty. Kohl confesses that he would have never shot Anja but he knew that Reese would shoot because he was a soldier, too. Despite everything had been taken from him, a part of him survived in Marie.
When the police arrives they find Kohl dead. Reese is watching from afar.
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After Kohl’s funeral Reese and Finch meet at his grave. Finch remarks that now Kohl is buried under a name that wasn’t even his and that the German government is covering up the whole story, making it as if Ulrich Kohl never existed. Reese wonders if anybody would ever remember their names when they die. Finch replies that he thought they already were dead.