I want you to think about
the mail for a minute.
Stop taking it for granted like some complacent,
sleepwalking sheep
and really think about it.
I promise you,
you will find the U.S. mail
a worthy object of your contemplation.
A piece of paper can cross a continent
like we're passing notes in class.
I can send you cookies from the opposite side of the world,
and all I have to do is write your name on the box,
put some stamps on it, and drop it in.
And you see, it only works
because every single person along the chain
acts like a mindless automaton.
I write an address, and they just...
obey.
No question.
No deviation.
No pause to contemplate eternity...
Or beauty...
Or death.
Even you, for all your protestations of free will,
if a box comes with your name on it,
you can't even imagine doing anything other...
Than obey.
- Morning. - Hey.
Here you go.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Well, it's not your fault.
Society made you this way.
Hey, Gil?
But you're a sheep,
and you're living in a world of sheep.
And because you're all sheep,
because all you can do is obey,
I can reach out
and touch anyone anywhere.
I can reach out
and touch you...
Right now.
_
You're trespassing.
This is private property.
Hey, Fitz.
Come on, let's go inside.
Congratulations, you are now officially
FBI profilers.
As profilers, you're going to
encounter a lot of skepticism.
A lot of agents, good agents,
think us quacks.
No.
We're pioneers in the frontier of law enforcement.
We're scientists of the mind,
and in the very worst cases
the FBI deals with,
we will be
our nation's last hope.
Welcome to the behavioral analysis unit.
Supervisory special agent Jessica Mcginity.
Wonderful work.
Thank you.
With accommodation for superior merit,
supervisory special agent James Fitzgerald.
Congratulations, Fitz.
Congratulations.
Yeah!
- Dad! - Whoo-hoo!
Dad, come on! Come outside, dad!
Come on, dad. Mom's gonna give us speech.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm coming.
- Come on! - I'm coming!
Okay. Hi, everybody.
Can you believe we're even here
celebrating my husband
the FBI profiler?
I'm still pinching myself.
You were a rookie beat cop when we got married.
Jim, you were determined
always to become what you saw
as the best version of yourself,
to become someone
that your family, your sons
could look up to and admire.
It's not easy being married to a stubborn man.
I'm talking about you.
But it's that damned stubbornness that got you
through night school, on to the detective squad,
into Quantico, and finally
into the elite of the elite.
I admire that so, so much,
so cheers, Jim, welcome home.
- Did you have fun? - Yeah.
You know I'm not great in crowds.
Well, I tried.
All right, look, who cares? Dan, clean up down there!
Listen, it... It was amazing.
Thank you.
Aww.
Look, I tried.
Thank you.
Well, you know, I... I...
What?
I had fun.
It's just hard waiting.
Oh, yeah.
You know?
No, I-i got soapy hands.
Put 'em on me.
Dad, there's two bald guys at the door!
- Oh! Put 'em up! - Dan, Dan!
- Look at this kid. - Hey.
- Hey.
- Guess we missed the party. - Look who it is.
No, no, we're just... We're just cleaning up.
- Dan. - We're trying. It's a zoo.
Ugh, you got to change him.
- Yeah, all right. - There you go.
Apologies, but...
It's all right.
...we have something urgent we need to discuss with you.
Right.
Yeah, come in.
Mcalpine says you're the best profiler in his class,
maybe the best he's got.
But you're 10 years older than the rest
of your classmates, and I look at your résumé,
and I see you languishing for almost a decade as a beat cop,
mostly on the graffiti squad.
You piss somebody off? What happened?
No. I wrote a parking ticket.
Mm. Chief asked me to make it go away
'cause it was for a friend of a friend, and I didn't.
So, what, you're like the Serpico of parking tickets?
Some people would call that being overly literal.
Yeah, some people might.
Take a look at this letter.
Tell me what you see.
You're making fun of me.
You're making fun of me, right?
Right? Here, take these upstairs.
How many times do I have to tell you?
You talking about the emordnilap?
"Dad, it is I"?
Explain.
Well, it's a word thing.
It's like a palindrome, except it spells one thing
forwards and another thing backwards.
The first letter of each paragraph... d, a, d,
I, t, I, s, I.
Okay.
D, a, d, I, t, I, s, I...
"Dad, it is I."
D-a-d, I-t, right?
D-a-d, I-t, I-s I...
"Dad, it is I," "is it I, dad?"
It's pretty cool, right?
I'm Andy Genelli. I'm head the Unabom task force.
I thought the... I thought the Unabom case was over.
Six years and not a peep.
They thought he was dead, but now he's back.
Three new mail bombs, more deadly than before.
The latest one yesterday...
A timber lobbyist, Sacramento.
The news is gonna break on these tomorrow.
We've been playing it pretty close to the vest
until we were sure it was him, and not a...
Hey. Okay.
...copycat, but it's him, and we need a profile.
Okay. Go on upstairs now. Now.
What are you doing?
- I have kids. - I want to send you.
It's one month.
You go out there, build a profile,
and come back to the B.A.U.
with a big gold star.
They say this is from him, from the Unabomber?
His most recent letter.
50 FBI agents have been going over that a fine-tooth comb
day and night for two weeks.
Not one of them saw the emordnilap, not even me.
I've had profilers working on this thing for 15 years,
and we're right back to where we started.
I need somebody that sees things differently,
and like it or not, that's you.
But I've been away for four months, and I just got back.
I can't just up and go 'cause of him,
so I can't do that to Ellie and the kids.
I can't do that to my family.
Here. Good luck.
Good night. Sorry to intrude.
- Do me a favor, Fitz. - Hmm?
Fitz, think about it.
Keep the photos.
The guy with this face blown off,
he had a wife and kids, too.
- See ya. - Not if I see you first.
Thank you.
- Are those for me from grandma? - Those are my cookies
from grandma.
- They're mine. - Yeah. Go and unpack.
Go, go.
- Hi, guys. - These are mine.
You need to share!
I'm definitely not sharing.
Sorry, buddy, 'cause grandma made these cookies just for me.
Yeah, but you need to share.
- These are my cookies. - Hey, guys.
Don't pig out on grandma's cookies.
Look at you. You're living like an animal now, huh?
Jesus.
You kill those yourself?
What are you doing in my house, Cole?
Well, I don't want to be here, believe me.
But the boss needs you.
We need you to get into a room with Kaczynski,
interrogate him, break him down,
get him to plead guilty.
We need someone who can speak the Unabomber's language,
someone, uh, that he connects with.
Besides,
Ted asked for you.
The Unabomber asked for me specifically?
Specifically for you, and only you.
Why me?
He says he'll only talk to the person
who actually caught him,
and for some reason, he thinks that's you.
Well, that is me.
You were chasing your tails for years before I came.
This guy... You got some nerve.
I found him, I caught him, I put him in jail.
You know what? I got my life back together.
I'm just gonna stay right here. Tell Ted I'm busy.
Listen, we have enough evidence to convict
Ted Kaczynski 10 times over,
but if this goes to trial,
he's gonna make it a media circus,
then we would be giving the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski,
the biggest microphone in America,
and his message is dangerous.
We need him to plead guilty.
Look, Fitz, we're asking you,
but we can order you if we need to.
You can order me. Right.
You still work for the FBI, you remember that?
Now, hold on, Cole?
I get the forestry service out here...
- Take it down, Cole! - Get out of here.
Get out of here.
Hey, Fitz.
Think about it.
Fitz!
You have that new-profiler smell.
Tabby Milgrim.
- Hi. - I'm your new partner.
Well, I'm the UTF's whole behavioral unit.
Come on. Let's get you out of this craziness.
PB today. Sorry.
Flight schools sucks.
Plus U San Raffaele is about a fart and a half away
from losing it's accreditation, but whatever.
As long as I squeak out a masters before they go under,
we're all good.
So, you're a profiler.
You trained at the B.A.U.?
Hell no, bruh.
I'm just a street agent.
You ever worked on a big op before?
Some big bank robberies and a D.A. homicide task force
in Philly had, like, 20 full-time agents.
It was pretty huge, pretty intense.
Hmm. Well, welcome to the Unabom task force.
Whoa.
Fresh meat, you're with me.
Big bad Stan Cole.
Come on... briefing's about to start.
All right.
I'm gonna rip the band-aid off quick.
Most of you are TDY'd here for 60 days...
Want to get you on the playing field,
except of course for Tabby whose been here for two years
and somehow still shows up late.
We are hunting the deadliest serial bomber in history...
The Unabomber.
For 17 years he's been planting and mailing bombs,
16 bombs, three people killed, dozens injured,
and we really have no friggin' clue who he is
or why he's doing this.
We call him the Unabomber because his early targets
were universities and airlines...
"Un" for "university,"
"a" for "airline," Unabom.
He calls himself "FC" for "Freedom Club."
It's how he signs all his letters.
It's also how he signs his bombs.
17 years of bombs
all signed by FC.
He's a sick bastard.
Northwestern, 1978, another one there in '79.
November '79... nearly takes out
American airlines flight 444.
The bomb was sent via air mail rigged with an altimeter...
22 passengers injured.
1980, United Airlines president
gets his face blown in.
More university bombs, '81, '82...
Computer science professors, engineering professors,
one poor secretary at Vanderbilt
opened a package addressed to her boss.
More universities in '82,
'85, '85, Boeing in '85,
two computer shops, '85 and '87.
The second one, he got his first fatality.
And this is where we got our first eyewitness.
She gave us this now famous sketch,
and then nothing for six years.
So we figured he was dead or maybe finally got laid.
But then he is back...
Epstein at U.C., Gelernter at Yale.
In his hiatus, he developed much more powerful
and sophisticated bombs, and they keep coming.
Exxon Valdez’s PR guy, Mosser,
and just last week, Gil Murray in Sacramento.
It took three body bags to collect the parts.
Why these targets? Why now?
No clue.
So, what forensic leads do we have?
Basically, we have no forensic leads.
No DNA, no prints.
But we did have a couple good ideas.
We discovered that he gets his addresses out one particular
edition of "Who's who," so we interviewed just about
every librarian in the country... nothing.
Makes his bombs out of junk,
so we did a national junkyard canvass... no dice.
But we figure eventually he is gonna screw up,
and maybe he already did.
Over the years, he's been mailing typed letters...
Nothing worth reading until this letter that he wrote
to the New York times.
Now, the letter itself is blah-blah-blah,
but forensics found this on the envelope...
"Call Nathan R."
We figure he wrote himself a post-it note
on top of the letter.
And that is our first real lead.
FBI agents are interviewing everyone called
"Nathan R-something" in the country.
Plan B is to find Nathans with "R" middle names.
10,000 Nathan Rs.
And that is it.
Enjoy your afternoons.
Don't forget to tip your driver.
It's not much to go on.
Nope.
This is why they need us.
The profile's gonna focus the entire search.
It's a big responsibility.
It's exciting. Yeah, right?
Mildly.
Come on. S.A.C. Ackerman wants to meet you.
It's an honor, sir.
I feel privileged to be under your command.
I studied your cases at the academy...
The Russian river killer, Hartford abduction.
Under any other agent, that would have ended
in a murder-suicide, and, agent Cole,
Ohio Seven Sting, busting the Bad Axe Militia.
I can't believe I'm standing here.
I am... I'm eager to learn form you both.
Well, I love this guy already.
So, Fitz, we sent Genelli to bring back the best man
he could find, and that is you.
Welcome aboard.
And here is what you're gonna be working on.
Low I.Q., formerly employed by an airline mechanic
or technician, no higher education,
possibly little to no high school,
grew up in Ohio... Cleveland or Cincinnati likely...
Currently resides in the bay area.
So, what is this?
It's our current profile, my own summary of it.
Where's the rest of it?
That's exactly why you're here.
I want you to take that, flesh it out.
I'm gonna need 15 pages that can directly on
Attorney General Janet Reno's desk.
So make us look good.
Yeah, I will. I will. I'll do my best.
It's just a little different than I'm used to,
'cause in terms of a profile, they were a lot more scientific
and a little bit longer.
Welcome to the real world.
Quantico's a long way away.
What S.S.A. Cole means is that that summary
is a distillation of 10 years work,
so it's got a solid foundation and we don't expect it
to change except for the wood thing.
Mm.
The wood thing?
There's a theory FC is obsessed with wood.
Maybe he has erectile dysfunction.
Since he blew up this Mosser guy... moss...
It's like a plant, so that can go in your profile now.
That's gonna play very, very well with the press,
so I want you to dress that up a bit,
uh, "a propensity for softness in the genital region,"
something like that... But nothing crude.
I can definitely do something.
I was excepting a support team.
Nope. It's all you, Fitz.
But I know you can handle it.
Okay.
15 pages, clean, no typos, and wood,
a lot of bullet points, a lot of big words,
a couple weeks, get it turned in,
get you back home.
If you want to hear some war stories,
come out for a beer tomorrow.
We're going to Freddy's... Old-school San Francisco.
You'll like it.
- Sure. - Yeah.
I just don't see it.
I just don't see the wood thing.
They want me to do a thing about FC's erectile dysfunction.
What is it with men and their dongs?
You should write it.
Write that report... You'll be on CNN tonight.
It's B.S.
This profile... This profile is B.S.
I think it's got to go.
Let's just start over.
What, just toss it all?
I don't know, man.
They've been saying "airlines, mechanic from Cincinnati"
for years now... Consistently.
There must be some reason.
Come here.
What's the first trap we watch for as profilers?
Inherited assumptions.
So all these preconceptions we just toss out,
come at it clean.
We know nothing about nothing about FC
except what the evidence tells us,
so if we don't assume that he's a airline worker,
what else points to Cincinnati?
All the bombs that he planted at the universities...
Was it because he's a resentful outsider
or because that's where he felt most safe?
And here... All right? Okay.
When he talked down on people with advanced degrees,
is he actually low I.Q. with no higher education,
or is he really smart, maybe he has a bunch of degrees
and knows we're gonna read this letter and is hoping
that we don't think too hard about it?
I... Wow.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Exactly.
We don't know.
We don't know anything.
But you go by this profile,
your mind is just gonna go like this.
So we start over.
Make the list, everything we need.
Yes!
Respectfully, this is what I need to start over
and build a profile we can all stand behind.
I know it's a bump in time and in resources,
but this is going on the Attorney General's desk,
it's going in the press with your name on it,
so we have to get it right.
How many profiles have you created,
outside the classroom, I mean?
This is my first.
Well, there you go.
So let me explain to you how this works.
Your job is to fulfill the duties
laid out to you by S.A.C.
That's Ackerman.
He gave you parameters, now go execute.
Respectfully, all I'm asking for
is the freedom to do excellent work for you.
That's all.
Otherwise, your profile is gonna hamper your investigation.
It's not gonna help it.
When your only tool's a hammer, son,
everything looks like a nail.
You're a profiler, you think the profile's gonna catch him.
Genelli's a gearhead.
He thinks it's all about his computer.
We got a guy that's been working on the Unabomber
stamp selection for the last five years.
To him, a $1 Eugene O'Neill stamp
is the key to everything.
Now, I inherited that guy and I allow him to pursue that avenue,
'cause, uh, well, you never know.
But when I tell him to do something,
I expect him to do it.
Well, I'm not your stamp guy.
I'm your profiler.
Even the stamp guy doesn't think he's the stamp guy.
All right, let me walk you through it.
You know what these are?
These are profiles of the Unabomber,
and we've got them all.
You want to know where he lives?
Okay.
In a house with a room that his wife and kids
know never to go into.
Or maybe with his mother...
a Norman Bates thing going on.
And this is a classic.
It's 20 full pages by the legendary John Douglas
about how the Unabomber maintains his car
right down to the air freshener, which is royal pine.
Now, we've had every top profiler in the business
come through here, and every single one of them
says he's got to start all over, and every one of them
says something completely different,
so pardon me if I'm a little skeptical
of your profession.
Now, Ackerman brought me in here
to keep this investigation focused and on track.
We've been running around in circles for years,
and it's time for that to stop.
So instead of 100 different contradictory profiles,
we're going with one
backed up by concrete forensic evidence,
and that's the profile that I gave you.
The only way we're gonna catch the Unabomber,
same way we catch anybody, that's forensics.
It's plain and simple.
Now, you could spend six months coming up with
the world's most accurate profile,
but that's not what we're looking for.
We're looking for 15 pages, no typos, and wood,
and we want to take it to the press next week.
Now, I understand that you're a brilliant guy.
I do.
Mcalpine says you can all kinds of stuff hidden in letters,
and that's great, so take the Unabom letters
and find wood.
Okay?
So right now, all that's required of you
is obedience.
Understand?
Okay, on Tuesday, we discussed regional dialects
and linguistic prescriptivism.
See you next week.
Natalie.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just show up.
I just didn't know where else to go.
What happened to you?
Where'd you go?
Where have you been?
You know, I tried to find you.
I called your office, your home.
I talked to your wife... Everything.
The Unabom case is over.
It was over two years ago.
It's not over, and I need help.
You have to have some place you can go...
Family, somebody other than me.
Hey. Look, look... We got a friend!
What's your name?
Winston and Jasper.
Look, I-i have to defend my dissertation in a couple weeks,
so I have to work tonight.
All right, I'm gonna take these guys to the kitchen.
Why don't you... why don't you take a shower?
You can sleep on the couch.
Come on! Come on!
They want me to go in and interrogate Ted.
They need me.
They need me to get the guilty plea.
I think that...
I think I need to confront him and get some answers.
You have the answers.
You proved that Ted's the Unabomber.
Answers for myself, so I can understand
what happened to me and where I should go from here.
And what makes you think that he has answers
to any question that matters?
What do you think?
You wanted this.
You wanted him in your life.
Secretly, somehow you wanted this.
That's the answer.
That's the only way I can make sense of what happened.
You wanted him in your life
more than you wanted anyone or anything else.
Why would I want that?
What kind of person would want that?
They interview 10,000 Nathan Rs,
and then they turn to me and say that profiling's
a waste of resources. Think about that.
You're a cog in the machine, Fitz.
Embrace it, bruh.
Oh-oh! There he is.
It's our head shrinker come to mingle with the commoners.
- Hey, where you going, bruh? - Sacramento to do my job.
They want you to obey.
They want you to be a sheep like they are sheep...
Obedient, unquestioning piece of machinery.
Sit when told to sit, stand when told to stand.
They want you to give up your humanity, your autonomy
for a paycheck, gold star, bigger TV.
The only way to be human,
the only way to be free, is to rebel.
They'll try to crush you.
They'll use every tactic they have to make you obedient,
docile, subservient, but you can't let them.
You have to be your own master, whatever that takes.
Better to die a human being
than to live as a purposeless cog in their machine.
You dropped it in the mail a week ago.
Gil.
This just came.
You want to be here.
You want to be here,
touching this, savoring it.
But you can't be here.
You can't be here.
Ever... for any of them.
Why is that enough for you and not any other serial killer?
Never to see it,
hear it, taste it,
never to see Gil Murray's body.
Because it's not about him.
It's not about him as an individual, is it?
These aren't people to you.
They're symbols.
You're sending a message.
That's why you use the mail, 'cause it's a message.
It's a hidden message.
And what does it symbolize?
What does it represent?
So, what are you trying to tell us, FC?
What are you trying to tell me?
"Dad, it is I."
What are you trying to tell me, FC?
What are you trying to tell me?
Your whole profile is built on the assumption
that FC was one of the airline mechanics
that United Airlines laid off in Cincinnati,
and that he targeted American Airlines flight 444
and United president Percy Wood out of a personal grudge, right?
Right.
But let's think about mail bombs.
He can't hear them, he can't see them, he can't visit the site,
he can't view the bodies, anything.
It's none of the satisfaction of revenge.
But he keeps bombing anyway.
Why?
Because these aren't personal targets.
They are representational targets.
Gil Murray was a symbol of something for him.
All of his targets symbolize something for FC.
We have done every kind of victimology.
His victims are random,
totally unconnected to each other.
All right.
So he spends years perfecting the most untraceable,
sophisticated mail bomb ever created,
and then just picks random targets from a phone book?
I don't think it was a random coincidence
that these letters spell "Dad, it is I,"
and I don't think it's a random coincidence that he's targeting
airlines, scientists, computers, forestry people.
I think it only seems random
because we don't know what connects them.
We can't... We don't know his code,
and the reason that we don't know his code
is because we're still assuming he's a low-I.Q. pissed off
airline mechanic when he's actually been
outsmarting us the whole time.
We've got hard forensic evidence
that he's a trained airline mechanic.
Look.
Batteries soldered in series, encased in a wire cage
just like airplane power bricks,
he's an expert at casting and shaping aluminum,
and look... look at this new switch he's developed.
It looks exactly like an airplane tail stand on a 747.
We've had pilots confirm that.
That only looks like a tail stand
if you're looking for proof of the supposition
that he's an airline mechanic.
If you're objective about it, it's just a switch.
Do you ever think that the reason you haven't got him
in 17 years is that you're underestimating him?
There is a powerful intelligence at work here,
a deep personal philosophy underpinning
all of FC's actions.
Now, you figure out the philosophy,
you can figure out the man, you can crack the code.
But not with this.
We have to start over.
Get rid of that and start over.
Fitz, buddy,
you're breaking my heart.
You are part of a world-class orchestra here.
Lots of instruments, lots of virtuosos,
and out of all of these players, I'm pointing to you,
and I'm saying now is the time for your solo.
Stand up, play your heart out
so the whole world can hear you.
But you got to play with the sheet music that I'm giving you.
Because you may be a once-in-a-century talent,
but if you can't harmonize with the rest of the orchestra,
I'm gonna have to send you home.
Dude, where have you been? Why ain't you downstairs?
Didn't Genelli tell you?
I'm going home. I'm not writing that B.S.
Fitz, you got to get down to forensics now.
You said he had a personal philosophy,
some message he's trying to send.
You were right.
The New York Times called it in.
They got a package.
Another bomb?
No, it's something else.
They're calling it the "Unabomber manifesto."
If you screw this up, we'll crucify you.
_
Hey, we just got handed a 56-page manifesto
from the most elusive criminal in the world,
something so important he wants both The Post and The Times to
have it, and I just want five minutes in the lab to read it.
I'll gown up, I'll look over their shoulders.
- It's five minutes. - There's a system here, a process,
a process that begins with a complete forensic analysis...
Thorough, unhurried, uncorrupted
- by meddling rubberneckers. - Yeah, I know, but it's
a big break in the case, and I'm here to be a word guy, all right?
You are here to wait and to do what you're told.
A big break in this case comes when we pull
a fingerprint off one of those pages, when we find another Nathan R.
A single strand of hair would be far more valuable
than anything you are gonna get from reading the guy's rant.
Well, "Dad, it is I"... He got that from reading.
Yeah, case friggin' closed. We wait for forensics...
A month, a year, however long it takes.
And meanwhile, if you want to see some real police work,
step inside.
Fitz, dude, you got to check this out. It's friggin' sweet.
- You're up. - We analyzed the postal steam
of the whole West Coast, and we traced the path
of every Unabom letter and package
from the moment it dropped into a mailbox
to sorting and distro to
final delivery, where we identified two critical choke points.
So, if Unabom decides to keep
dropping his mail in the Bay Area, there is a 95% chance...
"Dad, it is I" tells us he likes
word games and puzzles,
and that he thinks he's smarter than everyone,
and that he can be sneaking on by us.
- _ - It's kind of true, 'cause
no one here noticed
'cause you all underestimated him.
He has problems talking people.
That's why he resorts to cyphers.
- _ - And he's probably got Daddy issues.
Now,
I got all this from a one-page letter.
- _ - Imagine what I would get
- _ - off a 56-page manifesto.
Oh, yeah.
Now, that's my partner, right there.
You'll get your 56 pages after forensics is finished.
Goodbye.
You're telling yourself
that you're the ones in control.
They obey you,
your technology,
your machines.
But what would you do without your car,
your telephone?
What if all the airplanes just stopped?
Ten years ago computers were expensive toys.
Today civilisation as we know would fall apart without them.
You live in terror of a blackout,
a computer crash and a car won't start
a phone doesn't ring.
So you construct your lives,
your whole society so that won't happen.
Everything revolves around their needs, not yours.
They buzz, you jump. They beep, you answer.
So ask yourself.
Who's really in control?
You?
Or them?
I opened a letter from the Unabomber.
You work at the San Francisco chronicle...
You're the only person who touched this?
I'm just an editorial intern.
I just open letters to the editor as they come in.
But I-I could have died.
I could have been, like, blown up or something.
Yeah, but you weren't and a lot of people might be,
so count your blessings and shut up.
- What do you got? - Chief, you ready?
It's bad. "Warning...
"The terrorist group FC", called 'Unabomber' by the FBI,
is planning to blow up an airliner out of
Los Angeles International Airport
sometime during the next six days.
To prove that the writer of this letters knows something
about FC, the first two digits of their identifying number
"are 55." Is that number a match?
What's the number he sent The Times?
What's the authentication number FC sent The Times?
553254394.
It's him.
Trisha, get Director Freeh on the phone,
L.A.P.D. Commissioner, FAA, and alert Janet Reno's Office,
and make it clear we have
a potential mass-casualty situation.
When a letter arrived at a San Francisco newspaper
threatening to blow up an airliner...
They say it bears all the marks of the Unabomber.
Federal officials believe the sender is the terrorist
who has been sending bombs...
The Unabomber appears to be ready to strike again.
This time the threatened target is a jetliner
flying out of Los Angeles.
Frederick Benjamin Isaac Wood, FBI Wood.
Uh-huh, but those were planes with depleted fuel tanks.
- Return address 549... - Here we're talking about
fully fueled jetliners within a shrapnel radius
of an explosive device of unknown size and power.
How much fuel is in a 747 that's about to take off?
Phil, now tell me where we are on refraction beam scanners.
- Uh-huh. right. So now you see... - No, it's got to be mobile.
You can't bring items into the airport to be scanned.
Jesus, Phil.
You got to do it on the runway.
We got to just do it plane by plane.
- Unbelievable. - Okay, two-one breach...
Lucas. hey, can I... can I borrow your pen, please?
- Thank you. - Two, one, three.
So, you can read it.
Yeah.
What is this?
The forensic report.
300 pages that say we found nothing.
I don't want the report. The document, his document, his manifesto.
Yeah, over there. No one else wanted one.
What?
Well you're talking about 3 different dossiers and I don't have them.
Hold on a second.
For 17 years, the Unabomber has been trying to say something
with these bombs, trying to send us a message,
and now he lays it out, everything he's been trying to tell us,
and you don't want to take the time to read it?
We're dealing with a major airport shutdown here,
so write up a three-page synopsis, clean, no typos,
and we'll give it a look.
Yep. All right.
We're at about 30%, but it looks like
all the big databases are up and searchable.
IRS, USPS...
Social security?
_
FC's authentication number looks a lot like
a social security number. So I did a search.
It's a match.
The number belongs to a guy named Alan Meeks.
40-year-old white male.
Then I crunched the USPS data.
Look where Meeks has been living for the past 30 years.
Oakland, San Francisco,
Salt Lake City, Sacramento.
It's all the key locations associated with Unabom activity.
- Where is he now? - He's already in custody.
They arrested Meeks right here.
Recognize the place?
Yeah, Rentech... it's the site of the Hugh Scrutton bomb.
The Unabomber's first kill
returning to the scene of the crime.
They're getting Meeks ready for interrogation right now,
and I got to know if Meeks is the Unabomber.
What was he looking for here?
Why'd you come back? Why this place?
Computer rental store.
Computers. Technology.
What did these people symbolize to you?
You got to work early, you didn't expect them to be there.
10 seconds, 20 seconds... That's all you needed.
But she looked, and suddenly the Unabomber was flesh and blood.
A man, not a concept, and that's why this scared you so much.
That's why you stopped for six years...
Hey, Hugh?
Phyllis, do you have that invoice
from Phoenix Games and Hobbies?
I'm trying to get this stuff out the door before we open.
Phyllis?
Are you in the bathroom?
... Even though it felt good to finally succeed.
He was reliving it, savoring it.
Which he never got to do in '85 because of the eyewitness.
Meeks is ready! Let's get over there.
This could really be him.
"Pure Wood." Read 'em and weep, Fitzy.
That's the Unabomber.
T-h-e-n.
Thicker than water.
It's not him.
It's a spelling mistake. So what?
You get drunk, you get a tattoo...
I don't remember seeing a spelling mistake in all those letters.
Does this guy look like the author of a manifesto
entitled "industrial society and its future"?
He sure does to me.
- I definitely didn't mean to kill anyone. That's for damn sure.
So tell me how to stop LAX.
What's LAX?
If you make this hard for me...
- I didn't mean to kill anybody. - ... I will make your life
- a living nightmare. - I can't take back what I did,
and I'll live with this the rest of my life.
I paid my debts to society.
Wait.
- Excuse me? - Eight years, Iowa State Pen.
I came out a changed man. I learned my lesson.
I never drove drunk again. Not once, I swear.
Meeks was in jail half the time the Unabomber was active.
- How come that wasn't in my file? - We pulled everything we could...
Cali, Federal. You're telling me you don't have
Iowa Bureau of prisons records in your MPP?
- Didn't we do this before? - It's just for our files.
Here.
What's "Pure Wood"?
Pure area in Peckerwood.
Their ain't no jungle-bunny blood in these veins.
Right.
She's thicker than water, right?
Thicker than what?
Thicker than water.
"Wudder"?
Well, where the hell you from?
And who talks like that? Y'all here that... "Wudder"?
Christ.
Fitz, let's go.
The extraordinary precautions come
because a letter was mailed to the San Francisco newspaper
from a man the FBI calls "the Unabomber."
Anything?
- Wudder under the bridge. - Damn. You heard that, too?
What Fitz has with his hoagie.
Wudder?
Tabster, stone cold.
- Come on. Philly. - Fitz,
- Burkhardt, conference room. - I've never heard you say pierogi,
but you do say wudder.
Water. Water.
I like wudder. It's part of who you are.
So, one word, one tiny slip, and you think you know who I am?
Are you seriously pissed off?
About what?
I said one word slightly wrong, and you can all peg me
as the Philly street cop out of his depth.
Fitz! Now!
Dude! Are you serious?
New Unabom letter sent to The Times.
- What? - New York is faxing it through.
Jesus! Greg, I got to go!
Look at page 3.
Is this guy jerking us around or what?
"Since the public has a short memory,
"we decided to play one last 'prank'
"to remind them who we are.
"But no, we haven't tried to plant a bomb
"on an airliner recently."
Recently is in parentheses.
He says it's a prank.
Yes, Sir. One last prank.
and we're certain it's from the Unabomber?
It's been authenticated, Sir.
It is definitely from the Unabomber.
And we will get you our recommendation.
What if he's just trying to get our guard down?
He's got a bomb in one of those planes,
just waiting for us to clear them for takeoff, and then boom.
We get another Lockerbie on my watch because
I took a serial bomber at his word.
Personally, I think this whole manifesto thing
could be a red herring.
We're dealing with a dummy here,
an airline mechanic with a G.E.D., Max.
So, who's to say he didn't retype somebody else's essay
to throw us off the scent, to draw us down blind alleys,
to keep us away from the real leads in the real world...
Forensics.
Sir, now that the manifesto has cleared forensics,
I think it's imperative that our agents read this document.
Okay, stop.
The Unabomber has threatened
to blow an airplane out of the sky.
I've got four Senators and Janet Reno on my call sheet,
asking me whether to believe this letter,
where he says he's going to kill a few hundred innocent people,
or this one, where he says the bomb threat is just a prank.
So, I'm not reading anything else.
I'm reading this and trying to decide
whether LAX can reopen for business.
And if I make the wrong call,
a few hundred people are gonna be blown out of the sky.
So give me a profile that answers that question.
If not, that's a stack of papers.
These are human lives.
Got it?
Okay. What do we got?
Dude, have you read this? In the manifesto? Listen.
"In modern society, all that's required of you is obedience."
Isn't that exactly what Cole said?
The manifesto has to wait. There are lives at stake.
The Unabomber and his bomb threat prank.
Which one's the truth?
How could we possibly know that?
_
You know, Fitz, whatever it is you're going through,
it didn't start two years ago. It didn't start with this case.
It happened long before the Unabom. It must have.
I know.
I just don't know when I started to feel so powerless.
Hey, we all feel that way. Everyone does.
If everybody feels that way, what do we do about it?
Nothing.
We like it.
We like feeling trapped,
crushed.
I guess freedom is far more terrifying than slavery.
But there's nothing to do.
It's life. You suck it up and you live.
That's not... that's not life. That's not living.
That's sleepwalking.
Watching TV, eating trash,
working to...
to become something for someone else.
And nobody does anything about it.
Nobody even tries. Nobody except for Ted.
Yeah, but, Fitz, he's the Unabomber.
He's evil.
Just down here.
_
You gonna be okay?
I don't know.
I have to go in there I have to face him.
Go.
_
Is there a bomb on a plane, FC, or is it a prank?
Boss needs these reports clean. No typos.
Cole wouldn't be happy, FC.
_
Excessive soldering.
This is the original letter.
Look, he punched right through the paper,
not just crossing out his mistakes... obliterating.
Profilers talk about signatures versus M.O.
M.O. is everything necessary to complete the crime,
but signatures are the extras.
They reveal the psychology, the character.
Damn. Like correcting the hell out of that letter.
Yeah, that's right.
But, uh, the Rentech bomb,
the forensic report says something about excessive soldering.
His signature, definitely.
How do you know that?
Don't worry. It's just a mock-up.
But it's the exact copy of the way that bomb looked before it blew up.
You built this?
What's wrong with you?
You sure you're not the Unabomber?
And all this as forensic evidence?
Yes, sir.
I built this and a few others.
Bosses thought it was a waste of time,
but I learned a lot by doing it.
He carves "FC" on the most indestructible component of each bomb...
The part that he's sure will survive the blast.
Just to make sure we know it's him.
Like the excess soldering,
he just floods all the connections like he's trying to hide them,
then there's tons of extra epoxy all at the joints that
no one seemed to report.
Totally unnecessary. Just slathered it on.
Signatures. Not M.O.
He didn't want anyone to see the cracks.
What's your name again?
Ernie Esposito.
Thanks, Ernie.
This is my analysis on the LAX bomb threat.
It's clean, no typos, lots of big words.
Janet Reno will read it, and she'll be impressed by you.
What's the bottom line?
Well, in my opinion, it's a prank.
There's no bomb at LAX
FC cares about his reputation, his credibility.
He's ashamed of his mistakes, and he tries to obliterate them.
He tries to hide all the joints in his bombs
so we don't see the work.
He's obsessed with presenting this perfect public image.
He wants to be seen as intelligent, as logical,
as superior. But it's
a fragile self image, because he's really just
afraid that everyone's gonna see his flaws.
Now, the bomb threat, that services his need for power.
You know, he enjoys making us squirm, but his reputation,
that's the most important thing he has.
And he's not gonna give us the ammunition to go
to the press so they can hold up something that he wrote and say,
"this guy's untrustworthy, he's a liar,
"he's a blood-thirsty lunatic who has no credibility
"and will say anything to kill people."
It's just all my opinion, but, um,
you know, I can back it up. Including the physical evidence,
I stand by it.
The thing about Fitz...
He's no B.S.Er, for better for worse.
Okay, we're gonna read it and pass it up the chain.
Thanks for this.
This might cross Janet Reno's desk, so stay close.
You listen to me, you get a gold star.
A little obedience is all it takes.
I think FC says that in the manifesto, too.
You can put that in your three-page summary.
Leadership tips from the Unabomber.
Now we dig in.
He wrote 56 pages,
laying out his philosophy of the modern world.
He called it "industrial society and its future."
We call it his "manifesto."
So, he sends the bombs as messages.
He's struggling to make himself heard.
So, what's the message?
- Technology sucks? - All right, technology sucks.
And we are basically screwed.
The Unabomber just opened a door into his mind.
We need to step through it, so...
Opening line,
"the industrial revolution and its consequences
"have been a disaster for the human race.
"Technology was supposed to set us free, but it doesn't.
Like the car thing. Cars were invented, and then,
we're all suddenly free to go wherever we want.
But then, basically, it becomes mandatory to have a car.
So, instead of becoming more free, we've become more limited,
- more constrained. - I mean, every city
in society is all rearranged
around cars until you can't even buy food
without driving somewhere. I mean, they're forced upon us.
Yeah, TV seemed harmless, too, before we flipped it around.
We put CCTV cameras everywhere and turned it into a tool to watch us.
We can't even drive fast if we're in a hurry
- or slow if we want to chill out. - We started in charge.
Now we're slaves to our own technology.
"Human beings are being permanently reduced
"to engineered products, and mere cogs
"in the social machine, deprived of dignity,
"autonomy, and freedom."
The only option available to us is obedience.
- _ - We're being turned into caged rats,
distracted from the maze by the meaningless cheese
we're running after... Status, promotion, money,
nicer cars, bigger houses, more TVs,
blasted with entertainment, adjusted with therapy
and Prozac till you don't even want to be free anymore.
Or if you can't be adjusted,
the psych ward.
Or prison.
The only alternative, the only hope for us,
the only way to break free...
... is to blow the whole thing up.
I'm ready.
Kaczynski, you ready?
Ted, as your attorney, I'm begging you to reconsider this.
Do not go in there alone with Fitzgerald.
It is unthinkably reckless for the defendant in
a capital case to, "A," talk with the arresting agent,
and "B," do so without counsel present.
This is a huge risk for you.
And there's no reason to take it. Let me come in there with you.
I'll stay out of the way, just observe, and be ready to step in.
I'll be in the next room the whole time.
All you need to do to end the interview is to ask for me, okay?
We need a guilty plea from Ted.
This is our only shot.
You're our only shot.
Right.
Give us a second.
We know Ted Kaczynski's the Unabomber,
but we can't go to trial.
This case hangs on so many different technicalities.
If we go before a jury, if we roll that dice...
These are dangerous, uncertain times.
Look at Waco. Look at O.J.
Even the Menendez brothers hung their juries.
The Unabomber has an IQ of 168.
Think about that... 168.
If Ted Kaczynski goes to trial, he could walk.
If he walks, he disappears.
If he disappears, he's back in action.
Only this time, we'll never find him.
The guilty plea is the only way to make sure that doesn't happen.
Listen, Fitz.
I think Ted
asked for you because he recognized a kindred spirit.
Play into that.
Make him feel smart, understood, sympathized with.
Build a connection, but stay opaque.
Don't give him too much.
He knows you as well as you know him. Better.
He's gonna be probing you for weaknesses all the time,
looking for anything to go against us.
Get him talking, build a connection,
then start to steer him towards the guilty plea.
You're trying to help him,
trying to save him from the electric chair.
You're his only friend, but do it gently.
Don't spook him, okay?
Get him there.
Okay.
Agent Fitzgerald?
I am so glad to make your acquaintance at last.
When would be a good time for you?
I already talked to Kim about taking the days
Nancy says she can cover for me, and Mom would watch the boys.
So,
just tell me when. But I took it.
Good to hear it.
That's great.
Uh,
why don't you just call me back when I won't be
- just talking to myself. - Oh, no. No, no. I'm here.
I'm here. I'm listening. I am.
It's just,
you know...
You know...
What's going on with you?
I'm just gonna call you back.
Okay. Okay, bye.
Um, that's for today.
Fitz. Right now.
We've looked at the FAA reports,
L.A.P.D and airport briefings,
read the material S.A.C. Ackerman sent.
Based on what we've seen,
A.G.'s office is good to sign off on reopening LAX.
How about you, Bill?
FAA is good with that.
FBI Director Freeh here.
I'll confirm that from our end
and give the green light to flight control.
Flight control,
I see the green light here, good to reopen runways.
First plane should be up momentarily.
Flight control, this is S.A.C. Ackerman,
permission to stay on the line?
Affirmative, agent.
The Unabomb device that almost blew up
American airlines 444 was triggered by an altimeter
set to blow up at 20,000 feet.
American flight 7 is airborne.
United 732 airborne.
TWA one-niner-niner airborne.
This is American flight 7.
We are climbing to 15,000 feet.
Climbing to 20,000.
Check in uniform 7.
We're approaching 10,000.
KLM 206, we're climbing now.
KLM 206, cruising altitude, over.
Approaching cruising altitude.
American flight 7,
we're at 25,000, reaching cruising altitude now.
Approaching cruising altitude, over.
All clear. All clear. You hear that, agent?
Loud and clear.
Thank God.
- You made the right call. - I shouldn't have made any call.
All those people on the plane,
and it was based on what, on some letters?
It was the right call.
You really think you can get something good
out of this manifesto? Something worthwhile?
Yeah. yeah, I think I can.
Okay.
I'm giving you an office.
And a team, if you want it.
Maybe you'll even read the manifesto now.
I will. We all will.
Actually, I already tried to read it.
Oh, no, I did.
But, come on, end notes and all these dead sentences.
Who writes like this?
Fitz?
Who writes like this?
_
When I say "wudder,"
you learn everything about me.
One tiny word, one tiny mistake,
and you can tell I'm from Philly, blue-collar, local school,
fan of Dave Schultz. Just like when you say "bruh,"
it could only be from San Francisco, right?
What if there's a wudder or
bruh in here, in the manifesto?
I mean, how do we even start to look for that?
I don't know. Read it again.
And then what?
Read it again.
Oh, boy.
Get some coffee on then, bruh.
_
Agent Fitzgerald.
Long way from Montana.
Oh, yeah, well,
most people carry their cage with them wherever they go.
At least if I remain disgusted by this place,
I know I'm still alive.
Still free in here.
So why me?
Why you? You wrote the document that put me in here.
Your linguistic analysis of the manifesto
got them the search warrant, the search warrant
- got them the evidence... - The document that put you
in here you wrote.
I am becoming very
well-acquainted with your work.
It is the product of great imagination.
What I really appreciate about you is that most people
take language for granted, but not you.
You saw it differently, and that is the first step
toward becoming free... A shift in perspective.
Manifesto, for instance...
I never liked that moniker.
It makes it sound like an unconsidered rant, and
you and I both appreciate the power
and specificity of words.
Manifesto versus article,
insanity versus enlightenment,
mental breakdown versus
unextended leave from active duty.
You have had a change of life
circumstance,
since your work on the Unabomb case, am I wrong?
- Yeah, I have. - Because of what I allegedly wrote?
- Yeah. - What was it?
Just between us.
When did it all click?
No?
Well, for me, uh,
it all began in Chicago.
One day, this mockingbird began singing in the backyard there,
you know, that puffed-up confidence
just belting out his song, and
I began to realize
that the mockingbird is singing the car alarm.
Ba-beep, ba-beep. You know the one?
Rrr, rrr. And I... I just sat there,
listening to that poor, dumb bird for maybe
an hour straight, thinking,
"what have we done?"
How wrong that was, and
it stuck with me.
I kept coming back to it, just trying to figure out
where in the world we had gone so wrong
that it had ended up here.
For me, it was the part about driving.
Every time I got in the car,
I thought about it.
The more I drove, the more it made sense.
Like, there was this one night I was driving home from work,
and there was nobody on the street, I mean, nobody.
And I'm sitting there at a red light,
just waiting, waiting.
And there's no cars anywhere.
But, still, I sat there. I obeyed.
That's when I realized it's not about technology,
it's not about machines.
It's about what they're doing to us.
It's about what they're doing to us. What they do to our hearts,
'cause our hearts are no longer free.
- And you wanted to be free. - Right.
You wanted your human dignity, your autonomy.
- Yeah. - Everybody wants that.
People want it so badly, they're dying by the thousands
every day, just trying to salvage some of their humanity.
- Okay... - Think about this,
more people have died from suicide in just the time
we've been talking than I allegedly killed in my entire career.
More people died from anti-depressants,
plastic surgery, fast food. Why...
W-why is everybody so terrified of me?
And ask yourself this question...
Why are these men in suits so desperate
to prove that I'm crazy?
I will tell you.
It's because they know that I'm right.
I'm awake.
- They're asleep. - Yeah.
And they're terrified they might have to wake up, too,
and turn off their cellphones and their TVs
and their video games,
and face themselves the way that you and I have.
You and I?
You and I.
Ted, I came here 'cause I believe in what you wrote.
Good.
I think you asked me here 'cause you need an ally
to help save your life, so you can spread your message
and change things.
Really change things. Right?
Right.
Now, I've gone through all your options. I think a guilty plea...
No.
And he was doing so well.
I can talk about my options with any one of these
barbary apes watching through the cameras.
But I chose you
because I thought you were different.
Next time,
you might bring me some writing paper and some stamps.
They're so stingy in here,
and I have so much correspondence.
It's really quite overwhelming.
Thank you.
- _ - I do know the Unabomber.
Be smart, patient...
extremely precise.
And he's angry.
I know him like I know myself.
No more feelings. No more theories. Hit him hard with the facts.
James, do you really not have any idea why I brought you here?
We've got 24 hours before this blows up.
Fitz!
That's the option that we're neglecting to mention
while I get all this evidence for now.
And I walk away a free man.
They both are*** Do you understand me?
Now I know he's got 10 PhDs and a 500 IQ...
but he's still a serial killer, right?
*** every piece of writing that came in.
I mean thousands of possibilities
only knocked on one door.
F.B.I., freeze!
You can only study the manifesto down to the letter
and the best that you'll ever be
is a feable imitation of me.