In the nation's largest city,
the vicious and violent members of the underworld
are hunted by the detectives
of the Organized Crime Control Bureau.
These are their stories.
Congressman Kilbride is the one who hooked me up
with the Marcy Killers.
Is there anything else you want to tell me?
He's cultivating a relationship
with an up and coming NYPD sergeant
who will have his back
if he ever had to ask her for anything.
[dramatic music]
Malachi. His real name's Adam Mintock.
It's not against the law to create an app.
It's against the law
to knowingly assist criminal organizations.
- Will you come see me again? - I'll try.
Seems like she's getting worse instead of better.
What did they want?
I think you need to disappear for a little while, honey.
I wanna start fresh.
I don't wanna be your lifelong nemesis.
Wheatley, you're a free man.
I know what you are.
Hey, man, that's where I sit.
[tense music]
Move.
[all shouting]
Hey!
Leave him alone.
He belongs to me.
♪
Name's Floyd.
Just got here from Fishkill.
McClane, right?
Dude that hacked the Fed?
Read about you.
Pretty cool, hitting them where it hurt.
Not cool.
Somebody died.
♪
Close three.
[clattering] [people yelling]
[alarm blaring]
♪
[gunshot]
[indistinct shouting]
[gunshots]
Let me see your hands! Get down!
K-19 to Gate 15. K-19 to Gate 15.
♪
[tense music]
♪
Last night at 10:00 pm, cyber actors gained access
to Remsen Correctional Prison's computer network
and unlocked the doors of numerous cells
as well as hallways and exit doors.
25 inmates were released from their cells.
20 never made it off the prison grounds.
Five convicts remain at large.
[tense music]
Robert "Beanie" Price, Vance Ginsburg,
Cole Kocharian, Jacob Appleby, and Sebastian McClane.
All are felons serving upwards of 20 years.
They escaped individually and are not believed
to be coordinating with one another.
Governor Garcia's holding a press conference
to address public concern.
These men are possibly armed
and considered extremely dangerous.
Any ideas as to motive?
No ransom demands as of yet,
but we're not ruling out the possibility
this is ransomware.
It's possible one of the inmates
was working with someone on the outside
to orchestrate their escape.
Detective Slootmaekers. - Sebastian McClane.
Enlighten your colleagues, please.
He's the founder of the infamous black hat
hacking collective Crnobog.
His name came up roughly 40 times
in the TSC/terror nexus.
Which, of course, puts McClane high
on our list of suspects. Sergeant Bell.
The Organized Crime Task Force will take the lead
on bringing him in.
Detective Perez, Slootmaekers, Organized Crime.
Any idea how they got in to the system?
A prison employee's computer was compromised
when he clicked on a cross site scripted fraudulent link
while connecting to a fast food restaurant's website.
Was state correction's cyber team able
to isolate the script? - They just shared it with us.
- Wow. - Yeah.
Good luck tracking it.
I'm Sara Locke,
and you're listening to "Flexpoint."
My guest, Richard Wheatley, was a tech innovator,
son of a mafia don, and, most recently,
a cooperating witness for the federal government
after being accused of murdering
an NYPD officer's wife.
- Are you lost, or-- - No, no.
Thanks, Richard, for choosing "Flexpoint"
as the opening act on your redemption tour.
Always a cynic, Sara.
I'd appreciate you mentioning I've been fully exonerated
of those charges.
You've been cleared of them.
Is that the same thing as being fully exonerated?
Semantics.
But if you want to talk about the past...
It seems you don't.
I don't see any value in that.
It would be easy to wallow in self-pity.
To fixate on retaliating against those
who falsely accused me.
I lost my home,
my company,
and my fortune.
An ill-gained fortune, apparently.
Isn't that why you cooperated with the feds?
In exchange, all the RICO charges
against you were dropped.
I assisted our government because
it's the right thing to do. [phone ringing]
I care about this country and want to make it
a safer place for my children and yours.
Do you have children, Sara?
Richard Wheatley's still working for the FBI.
Where are you?
Waverly Podcast Studios, watching some lady
kick Wheatley's ass.
Sounds fun, but I need you where I need you,
which is back in the task force,
and not where I don't need you,
which is where you are right now.
♪
Nicknamed "Constantine," a triune being.
Godhead, according to some of his fanboys.
Sebastian Thaddeus McClane developed an aptitude
for computers at a young age.
He served in the military, was honorably discharged,
and went on to work as a systems analyst
for the CIA.
McClane's family fell on hard times
when his sister's medical school loans
were incorrectly coded.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars
of debt repayment disappeared overnight,
and she was told she'd have to repay the debt
starting from scratch.
Unable to afford the legal battle it would take
to fight it, she killed herself.
Because McClane's parents cosigned the loan,
the debt was passed on to them.
McClane hacked into the banking systems computer
and erased his sister's debt.
Along with the student loans of dozens of others
he never met.
For that, he became something of a folk hero
in the hacking community.
He left the CIA, and, along with a fellow hacker
named Rogin Moon, formed Crnobog,
a decentralized hacktivist collective.
In 2016, they hacked the Federal Reserve
and inadvertently locked a janitor
inside a gold vault.
He suffocated to death,
and McClane and Moon were arrested.
Moon cut a deal and walked.
McClane is doing a five-year state bid
and still has a 30-year fed sentence waiting.
So the prison hack matches his MO.
McClane's been behind bars with no access to computers,
smart phones, or personal electronic devices.
This is guy is a master manipulator.
♪
[groans]
What about the communal computer in the library?
Does it connect to the internet?
No. It's offline.
Besides, there's no way McClane got near it.
He had an extra detail to keep him off that stuff.
Sloot.
Any idea what these could be, captain?
Looks like someone was sending him messages.
We might have just found out who.
I'm the only woman CO at Remsen.
Sebastian looked after me.
I really didn't think of him as an inmate.
Except you locked him in a cell every night.
Is that where you would hook up?
In his cell?
It was more than just a hook up.
Did Constantine tell you about his plan
to break out of prison?
Constantine?
That was McClane's handle on the dark web.
He was notorious.
I didn't know anything about this.
He would have told me.
He would have at least found a way to say good bye.
Men like him are experts at manipulation.
Sebastian wasn't manipulating me.
He cares about me.
Did you ever give him anything?
Besides the notes on the Sip O' Noodles lids?
No.
What about a contraband phone?
- I told you-- - What about your phone?
You ever let him use that?
It was only a few times.
His mother was sick.
He had to get in touch with her.
His mother? You're sure that's what he said.
Yeah, why?
His mother's been dead for seven years.
Not exactly what I was expecting.
Definitely doesn't look like the home
of a slacker kid in a hoodie.
Maybe he's turned over a new leaf.
Maybe he's hiding under one.
Can I help you?
We're looking for Rogin Moon.
That's my husband.
We need to speak with him.
- McClane was behind it? - You tell us.
I haven't spoken to the guy in over five years.
We didn't exactly part on the best of terms.
'Cause you cooperated with the feds?
It was the right thing to do. He had to be stopped.
Tell us more about that.
I was on board for the corporate level stuff.
You know, hacking companies, kneecapping the bourgeoisie.
You know, typical 25-year-old trust fund communist stupidity.
But Sebastian took it too far.
The Federal Reserve, that was his idea.
And for me, well, I wasn't looking to end up on the lam
in some embassy in Bolivia.
[phone buzzing]
[tense music]
You gonna answer that?
No.
But I gotta get to work.
What are you doing for work these days?
I'm a data analyst for an insurance company.
So much for Marxist idealism.
Well, parents cut me off.
Kids gotta eat.
Sorry I couldn't be more help to you.
Thank you for your time. Here's my card.
Call me if you hear from him.
♪
Fancy ride for an insurance analyst.
What kind of car is that? - Innovus.
One of the new electric cars that's giving Tesla
a run for its money.
What's a Tesla?
Not a whole lot of insurance agencies in this neighborhood.
Yeah, I don't think he's headed to work.
♪
Can't see his face. Can you?
No, his hood is in the way.
Come on, McClane, smile for the camera.
His face is messed up.
[phone rings]
Hey.
Hey, Jet, I just texted you a photo.
You think it's McClane?
Facial rec can't ID him, but that's him.
No question.
He's on the move.
[siren wailing]
We're in pursuit of a black and blue Innovus.
The car is headed north on Ferris.
The second perp fled on foot. He's heading south.
Asian male, 30s, with his hair in a bun.
[truck horn honking]
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on, huh?
[car honks]
Move the truck! Police. Move the truck now!
[brakes squeal] [sirens wail]
♪
Get out of the car. Show me your hands.
Stop the vehicle now!
- Get out of the car now. - Out of the vehicle now!
Out! Get out of the car now!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
♪
McClane accessed the car's operating system
so he could control it remotely.
For someone at his level, it's an easy hack.
Run an extended video canvass.
Will do, but facial rec won't work
because his features are out of alignment.
I guarantee you, he messed up his own face
so we couldn't track him.
That's so metal.
You lied to us.
Look, Sebastian called me the night he escaped.
He told me to meet him with a car and bag of cash.
Said if I didn't, he'd-- he'd finish me off for good.
He threatened to kill you?
Not kill me, worse.
He's Constantine.
He still has a legion of followers
and they can touch everyone and everything
that's ever touched me-- - Okay, I got it.
Where is he now?
I have no idea.
Sure about that? You have no idea?
I--
This phone is from a prison guard at Remsen.
On April 17th, May 11th, and June 15th,
McClane sent you text messages from this phone.
Okay, yeah. He did.
But it wasn't anything illegal. - Mm.
Nothing about trying to escape.
He feels guilty about that guy who died
When we hacked the Fed.
- The janitor? - Yeah.
He wanted me to get in touch with the guy's wife,
try to make amends.
Sure she'd love that.
I told him I can't get involved.
I--it's all there in the texts.
[suspenseful music]
♪
Do you recognize this code?
No. What is it?
Don't worry about that, just answer the question.
- - I-- - I already did.
Do you think Constantine wrote it?
No, it's not his style.
The function calls, the methods--
That's what I said.
Form and end form don't match to Constantine's parameters.
It's unlikely he would change that up.
This is like nothing I've ever seen before.
What?
No. Do not make me do this.
- Jet, listen to me. - I don't need his help.
I can do this myself.
both: We know you can.
But the clock is ticking.
Look, we just want you to bring in Adam Mintock to help you.
How am I supposed to find him?
He lives off the grid. - Yeah, not anymore.
We have him under house arrest.
Ankle monitor and everything.
[knocking on glass] - NYPD, open up.
Mintock.
Maldonado, I'm right outside his front door.
Copy that.
He has an iris scanner on the door.
So predictable.
[door unlocks]
♪
I'm inside. - Standing by.
He hasn't shown his face yet,
but according to his ankle bracelet,
he's in here somewhere.
Looks like he's back to his old ways.
Evidence of identity fraud all over the damn place.
I'm coming in. [phone chirping rapidly]
Hang on, he's very close.
There's something strange.
♪
[cat meows]
What the hell?
You didn't answer the door, so.
So you just let yourself in?
You know I can have you arrested
for breaking and entering.
And I could report you for violating your parole.
'Scuse me.
Sorry, this is--
Kimiko. Uh, Kimiko, Sloot.
Sloot is a cop.
You're kidding me.
- It means-- - I know what it means.
You know, if you missed me, you could have just called.
I came to ask for your help with something,
but clearly it was a mistake
to think you would voluntarily help out the good guys.
Look, about the ankle bracelet--
I'm talking about the forged documents
you have lying all over the place.
Judgmental much?
I work with a network that helps abused women
escape domestic violence.
Arrest me.
So how can I save your ass this time?
You heard about the prison break upstate?
Assume I didn't.
I assiduously don't watch the news.
Security system was hacked.
Hackers unlocked a bunch of cells remotely.
Bravo. Brave warriors taking down
the prison industrial complex brick by brick.
Poetic.
We're fairly sure the hack was orchestrated
by Sebastian McClane.
Constantine?
The feds are stepping things up.
They're under a lot of pressure.
Not just from Garcia.
The White House is breathing down their necks.
FBI is bringing in their own specialist
to coordinate with the OCTF. - What kind of specialist?
Sergeant Bell, Detective Stabler,
Sanford Bennington from the FBI.
And, well, you already know...
[tense music]
♪
Elliot, hold up. You can't just walk out.
- I just did. - Stabler, I'm sorry.
I know how you must feel.
My feelings have nothing to do with anything.
He's making a fool of you.
Out of all of us.
Wheatley helped the FBI arrest Vladimir Mikhailov,
chief architect of the 2020 U.S. election hack.
He's been their ace in the hole for several high profile busts.
You could have given us a heads up, Lieutenant Brewster.
You wouldn't have showed up for the meeting.
Look, I know you don't want to be anywhere near him.
Well, that's not entirely true, is it?
Detective Stabler has been stalking me.
Think he might even be a little obsessed.
Which belies the premise he doesn't want to be
anywhere near me.
But I do believe the man is capable
of managing his emotions on behalf of the greater good.
Detective, I don't expect you to accept
or even believe that you and I are on the same team.
But nonetheless, I've been engaged by the FBI
to help solve this most important case.
I doubt you did it out of pure altruism.
Well, they are paying me a boatload, that's true.
But I would do it for free.
Unlike Elliot here...
I don't hold grudges.
I don't hold a grudge.
Here's how it gonna work.
You're gonna work with our tech team.
I'll have a detective pick you up at 4:00 p.m.
Just make sure Lieutenant Brewster
has an address for you.
You want my home address?
Well, I know you're not gonna tell us the truth
about where you're living these days,
so just make sure it's an address where you'll be waiting
for the pickup.
♪
[tense music]
♪
Detective Stabler, there you are again.
Make sure he's not carrying any tracking devices.
Empty handed.
Feel free to pat me down again.
They brought me here in a blackout van.
I have no idea if I'm in Brooklyn or Singapore.
We're good, Detective Stabler.
You do all your work on this machine?
Yeah, why?
It is clunky AF.
It's powerful.
[computer chimes]
Well, hello evildoers in Saratov, Russia.
Jet, you remember Richard Wheatley.
He's now working with
the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Talk about sleeping with the enemy.
Shut up.
He's here to help you find the hackers.
We already found them. They're in Russia.
Saratov, to be exact.
I doubt that.
Let me help you.
How are you?
Well, rehab is a bitch.
But I'm recovering. Slowly.
And you?
We're coming to terms.
Thanks for asking.
- Hi. - Hi.
- What can I get for you today? - Nothing for me.
But have anything you want.
I'll have a cappuccino, please.
I want to ask if you knew anything
about what Richard Wheatley was up to
since becoming a free man.
I have no idea.
But even if I did,
I wouldn't tell you.
♪
That's an interesting thing to say to me.
Not as interesting as "pack your bags
"and get out of the safehouse.
"The NYPD is no longer offering you protection.
"You're on your own.
Hope your ex-husband doesn't try to kill you again."
I'm very sorry. I know it happens.
He's no longer facing trial, and the government
just won't pony up the funds to protect you.
I know, I'm sorry. I tried.
I did too.
- I did the-- - I did my best in that courtroom.
- I know you did. - Do you?
At that time...
I truly believed in you.
[sentimental music]
I thought you did the best you could.
And now, Sebastian McClane.
That name ring a bell?
- - No. I-- - I don't know.
Used to go by Constantine.
I'm sorry.
My memory still isn't what it used to be.
Thank you.
- Hmm? - Mm? No.
- I can-- - I--no, I can do it. Thank you.
Angela, be careful.
I'm okay.
I'm actually getting better.
I'm talking about your ex-husband.
I know what he promises.
We both know what he delivers in the end.
Be well.
♪
It's almost like witnessing a miracle.
- Am I late? Have I missed it? - No, right on time.
So nice to see so many friends here today.
When I was a boy, I read everything
I could get my hands on.
Books, magazines, even the Sears catalog,
which some of you probably don't even know
what I'm talking about.
Tells you how old I am, eh?
[laughter]
Having grown up in this very neighborhood
where scarcity is a way of life,
I hope that this library we're finally building here
will be a source of all kinds of abundance.
Gentlemen.
[applause]
Leon Kilbride Community Library.
My hope is that this library will nurture
the next generation of readers, dreamers,
and doers.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
Hey.
Denise, Ayanna, thank you so very much for coming out.
We wouldn't miss this for the world.
- Aw. - Congratulations, Congressman.
Leon, please.
Well, Leon, I'm from this neighborhood too.
And you don't know what it means to me
to see you doing what you're doing.
Thank you.
Can you please take a photo of me and these two lovely ladies?
Excuse me, Congressman.
We have to get going to your next appointment.
Always, always. Denise. Always good to see you.
- Of course. - Ayanna.
I hope to see you soon.
[suspenseful music]
Wow.
Sorry.
He asked me to get lunch with him and his wife
at the Red Rooster.
Perks of being a VP.
I guess.
He's fronting like this library like it's something
he's doing on his own.
But I recognize a lot of the guys there.
They work for Preston Webb.
Yeah, that's Julian Adams.
He's Webb's construction foreman.
I don't know much about him
other than he doesn't like gays.
Well, I imagine that's not an anomaly in Webb's circle.
Look,
right now all you gotta do is watch and listen.
Kilbride trusting you enough to make you his aide,
that's huge.
All right, I gotta get back. Stay safe, okay?
Yeah, you too.
♪
Congressman. You're right on time.
Always, Julian.
Everybody here? - They are.
First things first.
Now I'm ready.
Wait here.
Listen up, fellas.
Every year, New York City awards
30% of its government contracts to minority owned businesses.
That works out to about a billion
in the pockets of construction companies
like Preston Webb's.
That's why I made sure his firm
was awarded the contract to build my library
and he, in turn, hired all of you.
Now, they tell me if things work out according to plan,
this library will cost about 15 million to finish.
Now, the thing is...
We're not gonna let them finish it.
I want delays. I want work stoppages.
I want anything that will drive the cost up.
Blame it on China, blame it on the supply chain,
whatever.
Just make sure Webb has reason to keep going back
and asking for more money.
Do you follow me?
- Yes, sir. - You got it.
♪
That's some nice work, getting inside the VPN chain.
Did you borrow an override command code
from the Department of Defense?
You told me nothing illegal.
It wasn't illegal.
It was quasi-legal.
I'm willing to bet that Saratov, Russia's a misdirect.
That your hacker's right here in New York.
Oh, and your smug certainty is based on...
The fact Sebastian McClane is here in New York.
That's a smart man.
All right, Mr. OG, what do you suggest?
We run an OS INT on the Russian IP?
That's not gonna work here.
Try tracing all the sockets form the Saratov system.
We might be able to find out who's on the back end.
♪
[thunder rumbles]
[voice distorted] Hello, friends.
We've been waiting on you.
It's about time. - What the hell is happening?
Now that we have your attention,
we command you to deposit $500,000
in nontraceable cryptocurrency
to an account that will appear on your screens
in exactly 30 seconds.
If payment is not received within 12 hours,
many more inmates will be released
from many more prisons across the East Coast
of the United States of America.
What is that?
The Slavic black god of chaos.
Crnobog.
♪
I doubt I can get there in time to get the socket info.
[suspenseful music]
- He's playing us. - Mm-hmm.
He definitely was not expecting me to invite him here.
He's scrambling.
Yeah, let's see where he's gonna take this.
Balls.
Question. The ransom.
Why was it only 500,000?
- Oh, it's common that-- - Oh, it's a typical--
Jet.
It's a typical ransomware ploy.
The lower the initial dollar amount,
the higher the likelihood the mark will pay up.
If you pay up, they'll hit you up again
and demand another 500K over and over
until they bleed you dry.
- So what do we do? - That's easy.
We pay them.
Assuming we can even get the money in the time
that they're giving us, why?
Inmates outnumber guards ten to one.
I don't think you want an incident of that scale
on your hands.
Detective Stabler spoke to me not long ago
about my proprietary coin.
That's right, the one that your daughter Dana
only has access to.
Cryptocurrency transactions need a third party service
to convert money back into U.S. dollars,
or any other global currency,
then transfer that money into a bank account
they can draw from.
My coin contains a geotag that can trigger an alert
when it's converted and deposited
anywhere on the planet.
So you're saying?
Let me pay them.
Your assets are in forfeiture.
Well, $500,000 doesn't rise to the level of assets.
I think I can scrape it together.
May I have my phone?
♪
All the tracking features have been disabled
so don't even think about dropping a pin.
[phone chimes] - Done.
The ransom's paid.
How long before we know if it worked?
It's up to them.
Could take days, hours, minutes.
In this case, they've already accessed the money.
- I'll need the geotag... - Just sent it to you.
Information.
Holy Cooter Brown.
Someone just withdrew $800 of the ransom money
from an ATM in Queens.
Where is that in relation to Saratov, Russia?
♪
[indistinct radio chatter]
Tracked the suspect from the ATM.
He's inside the house. - I have the warrant.
Is the block secured?
[gunfire] - Shots fired! Shots fired!
Everybody take cover!
Central, shots fired.
1365 Wichita Drive.
I repeat, shots fired-- [gunfire]
Anyone stationed in back?
Let's go.
[tense music]
♪
Police! Don't move.
Don't move.
The hacker's name is Carlos Martinez.
He's no mastermind.
He worked billing at a dentist office.
The prison hack originated from his computer,
but he was just following a template.
Hired by a computerized cypher, paid in Bitcoin,
claims not to know who created the template.
It's unlikely it was McClane.
We know exactly where he was at the time of the hack,
and he's had no computer access.
Who just paid the ransom?
Who just got a commendation from the FBI
for helping them nail Martinez?
Wheatley.
You think Wheatley hired Martinez then sold him out?
Man starts fire to take credit for putting it out.
♪
You can take the hood off now.
Well.
What do you think, my friend?
Did I make good on my word or what?
You did. Kudos.
Now this is a recipe I learned from my grandmother
back in the old country. Napoli.
Mmm, molto bene.
I chose a simple Brunello di Montalcini.
Sebastian, this is Angela, my wife.
Ex-wife.
Angela, this is-- what do you prefer?
Sebastian? Constantine?
Sebastian's fine.
It's an honor.
I've heard much about you.
Did I tell you how Sebastian and I met
on a-- - On a prison transfer bus
on your way from MCC to Rikers, yes.
Ah, you remembered.
Your ex-husband said that he had a plan
to bust me out of prison.
I thought he was crazy.
Oh, Richard's many things.
But he's not crazy.
But I can't take all the credit.
I lifted some of the code written by the man himself
to accomplish the hack.
I wish I could have seen the look on your face
when those cell doors started popping open.
So what happens next?
First, we eat.
Then we talk.
You can stay here tonight, but after that,
we're gonna have to keep you on the move for a while.
Right now, you are the most wanted in America.
Chernobog. Is that how you pronounce it?
Close enough.
[dramatic music]
♪
Man starts fire.
I'm gonna prove it.
[dramatic music]
♪
[wolf howls]