- Sterling asks Nate to steal a nuclear reactor component which someone intends to use to produce uranium which will then be sold to terrorists. Nate thinks Sterling is holding something back but he decides to do it. They figure out that the man selling it will hand it off while his step-daughter is competing in a chess tournament in Dubai. They try to proceed as planned but Sterling shows complicating things.—rcs0411@yahoo.com
- One has to hate an arch rival who asks for favors, unless one is Jesuit educated and believes in keeping one's enemies closer. In another episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, the well-hated Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard) entices the team to Dubai to steal a weight to be used in nuclear tech. Parker enjoys clunky boots, Parker smash! and sky diving; Hardison the Sheik plays Dance, Dance Revolution and croons for a lady. There is chess for Nate, mirrors for Sophie and nap time for Eliot. Sterling drugs the human Dynamo who can crawl in sewers and still achieve the impossible: Eliot Spencer is much man. Interpol's Least Wanted poster boy has lots about which to be humble.—LA-Lawyer
- Dubai Waterfront, United Arab Emirates
A red Ferrari chases a black SUV through the streets. The Ferrari pulls in front and screeches to a stop, blocking the SUV's path. We see who's driving the Ferrari: Nate.
Three days earlier In the pub with Sophie. They reminisce about Venice and a great dress she wore there. They're about to leave when a serious-looking man in a suit blocks the door. He has a gun -- and a friend. Nate pours shots. His visitor is Sterling, his old nemesis with Interpol.
Over a game of chess, Sterling tells him Kazhistan is developing the infrastructure to develop uranium, but Interpol doesn't believe it's just for power, so they sent a virus to knock their centrifuges off line.
Sterling hands him the file on Robert Livingston, an ex-pat nuclear physicist who designed the Kazakh centrifuges. They've learned the Kazhistani agents are visiting Livingston next week to get a piece of technology to get the centrifuges running again. Sterling wants Nate and his team to steal it first.
Interpol doesn't have time to build a case and arrest Livingston. Nate wants to know who his informant is in Livingston's outfit, but Sterling won't say. In exchange, Sterling will owe him a favor.
As they finish their chess game only two kings remain.
In the loft, Hardison explains the technology they need is a tiny weight to keep the centrifuge spinning on kilter. It's precisely calibrated to the centrifuge, so there's only one.
Nate's not sure they can trust Sterling, but he also doesn't want to let a country get a nuclear weapon. Livingston keeps the weight in his place in his Skyspire in Dubai, the second-tallest building in the world. Sophie asks how they'll get in. Nate hands Sophie a chess piece.
In Dubai, there's a giant chess tournament. Hardison is impressed by all the assembled chess masters. They see Livingston's step-daughter Olivia, whom he is grooming as a chess prodigy. She's under heavy security after a previous business deal led to a car bombing that killed her mother.
Nate says as long as Olivia stays in the tournament, Livingston's attention will be on her, so they plan to fix it so she is.
Sterling is there and points out they have a problem: the Kazhistanis are there early.
Eliot intercepts them and usurps Sterling's role, claiming to be the vp of operations for security. He tells them they don't feel the site is secure and relocate them.
Hardison is posing as the son of a Saudi oil minister with a business proposal. He tells Livingston he recently acquired art but doesn't think it's well enough protected in the hotel. Livingston shows him his vault elevator-accessible vault. It has invisible, unhackable security.
Eliot and Sterling tell the Kazhistanis they think Livingston has a mole, so they're switching to dead drops and shouldn't use their phones to communicate -- thereby cutting the Kazhistanis off from their own people and Livingston.
Hardison explains just how unhackable the vault is, but suggests they can introduce a gas to the chamber and it'll trick the system. They watch the footage Hardison got from his tour with Livingston, but don't see any keypads or security devices.
Nate realizes Livingston is the first one into the vault each time. The floor has a weight gait sensor, it measures how he walks on it. Nate tells Hardison to hack into the system and reset it before tomorrow.
At the chess tournament, Hardison rigs it so Olivia plays the easier players to advance, but that means Nate gets the hard ones. He's supposed to meet her in the final.
Parker poses as a photographer and gets Livingston to stand on a sensor that measures his body mass so she can mimic him to get into the vault.
Nate tells Eliot and Sterling to stay with the Kazhistanis and make sure they don't come back to the tournament.
Livingston kicks things off. They have five minutes per game. Nate sits down with his first opponent, and realizes winning will be harder than he thought. His opponent keeps napping between moves. Sophie distracts him with her phone number.
Livingston's assistant tells him the Kazhistanis have arrived.
In the car, Sterling brings coffee. Eliot complains that it tastes terrible. They see a Kazhistani take a call. Sterling reads lips. He says they're planning to make the exchange today, bringing the money in through the tunnel.
In the hotel room, Hardison pours weights in Parker's boots so she'll weigh the same as Livingston. He also got her Dance Dance Revolution so she can practice his walk.
Sophie flashes her mirror in the eyes of Nate's next opponent, irritating him. He tells a tournament organizer about it and loses his cool. Nate wins by default when he's kicked out.
Parker takes a break with her heavy boots. She's frustrated by being weighed down, saying she travels quick and light. Hardison assures her she doesn't have to travel light anymore because she's not alone, she has a team -- and him. Next, he has her try slow dancing with him to practice the rhythm, giving them a moment.
Nate takes care of his third opponent, making it to the final to meet Olivia.
Sterling takes Eliot down the service tunnel. Eliot gets suspicious and takes a limp swing at Sterling, but falls on his face, passed out. Sterling confesses he put something in his coffee.
Parker hobbles to the vault elevator in her heavy boots. Hardison notices Eliot's comm is offline and no one has heard from Sterling either.
It's time for Nate's match against Olivia, and for Parker to break into the vault. She makes it into the elevator.
Eliot wakes up in the service corridor to see his comm has been smashed.
Sterling finds Nate's second opponent and tell him he has info for him.
Hardison hums over the comm for Parker to encourage her on in the vault. More warm fuzzies.
Nate continues his game against Olivia. She mentions her real dad, and that he's the one who taught her how to win. Nate notices her tapping her chess piece.
Eliot tries to break out of the room where he ended up.
Hardison gets weird readings from Parker in the vault and one of her boots spills out the ball bearings that were weighting her down. He tells her to hold still.
Nate's second opponent points Sophie out to security and busts her for flashing the mirror in his eyes. They take her away as she protests loudly. Nate sees the Kazhistanis come in. Hardison struggles to come up with a plan.
Nate offers his queen up to Olivia and Livingston thinks it's a trap -- a guy who beat two grand masters wouldn't give up his queen so easily. Olivia sees the offering and debates what to do next.
In the vault, Parker has gone back to more familiar footing- hanging in a harness from the ceiling.
Olivia takes Nate's queen. Sterling pushes the button for the vault elevator. Parker notices the doors to the elevator, and her escape route, just closed, but she continues on trying to get the weight out.
Nate continues his game at a furious pace, but finally folds to Olivia. In the elevator, Sterling deliberately sets off the alarms.
Alarms blare and all the tournament goers clear out.
Olivia's security whisks her away. Nate yells at Livingston and punches him for a distraction, drawing the attention of the Kazhistanis, who all pull guns on him. Eliot appears and takes them on.
Hardison tells Parker the elevator is on its way, but it'll only go to the top, per security protocol. Parker pries open the elevator shaft doors and looks down the gaping shaft. She jumps down to the top of the elevator and rides it up.
Out front, Sterling hops in a black SUV. Nate steals a red Ferrari from the valet and heads after him, explaining to the team that Sterling is escaping with the real target.
Hardison finds Eliot and they clear a path of Kazhistanis to free Sophie.
Nate tears down the street after Sterling, finally pulling in front of him and stopping. Sterling screeches a halt and gets out.
Parker ends up on the roof of the building with no way down. Hardison tells her there's another way and tells her to check her pack. He packed her a parachute. Then she worries she'll get tossed around by the windshear from that high up, but he reminds her of her weighed boots. Cut to Parker leaping off the side of the super high building. She meets the team on the ground in a van, jazzed from her jump.
Sterling tries to claim that Olivia is only an informant, but Nate says he knew she was Sterling's daughter from before the first match.
Flash back through the clues: they both tap their chess pieces between moves, Sterling making a point of emphasizing Olivia is Livingston's step-daughter. When security escorted her away, Livingston called them off to lock down the weight instead. They put her in a closet and Sterling found her.
Nate wants to know why Sterling never told Nate about his wife and daughter before, when they were friends. He says because it was his fault they left. Olivia gets out of the car and tells Nate her dad didn't have a choice, that she was in danger and he had to come for her.
Sterling says he came to Nate because he's the best thief he's ever seen and he couldn't risk anything less.
In response, Nate gives Sterling a name and tells him he wants everything there is to know about him. Sterling checks that this will make them even. Nate walks away.
The Kazhistanis trade Livingston a suitcase full of cash for the weight.
Back at the pub, Eliot is bitter that Sterling took advantage of them, but Nate tells them to take the win. They think the Kazhistanis got what they wanted.
He shows them news footage about an explosion at a nuclear plant, caused by an improperly calibrated centrifuge.
Flash back to Nate putting salt into the gas that Parker sprayed on the weight -- it's so sensitive that one grain of sand is enough to ruin it. The salt did it in.
Sterling wanted a distraction and a team that would also stop the nuclear plant. The salt was plan M. Hardison recognizes that as one of the ones he usually dies in. Nate admits he's right and says he dies in C,F and M through Q. Nobody dies in any of the other plans, but there is one where Eliot comes out with a cool scar. The team ends the night talking shop and careful planning.
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