Law & Order: Organized Crime

- 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.

- The K-O and the Marcy Killers are going after the Italians.

- Nice to set eyes on you, Nova.

Good to see you too, boss.

Penda!

Why is she here?

She works for me.

- You are walking a very tight rope.

I had to prove my loyalty.

- You're gonna use this to keep in touch.

You're in our circle.

- I wrote this. Just read it.

Liv!

Elliot.

What the hell happened?

- Drugs. Someone--someone dosed me.

- Okay, we need to get you to a hospital immediately.

- No, no. - Yeah.

- I need-- I need you...

To let me in.

Let me in.

Come on.

There's a protocol

when a UC is forced to take a controlled substance.

- I felt I had to come here.

You felt?

We never talked.

We never talked about what happened.

I have nothing more to say

about what happened with Navarro.

Not Navarro. Us.

- Elliot, now's not the time for us to talk.

Now is the time for us to figure out what you ingested

and have it vouchered and lab-tested,

so I am gonna call it in.

I didn't write the letter.

What?

I didn't write the letter.

- The letter that you gave me when you came back from Rome?

Kathy.

Kathy, your wife...

Wrote the letter that you told me that you wrote?

- Yes. It was her idea.

It would be easier to talk when...

We see each other after so much time.

I tried and I tried, and then...

Kathy helped dictate.

- That what we were to each other was never real.

And that we got in the way

of each other being who and where we needed to be.

That was Kathy.

- And if there was a man in my life,

you hope he's the kind, faithful, and devoted

man that I deserved.

Kathy.

- "But in a parallel universe...

- "It will always be you and I."

I wrote that.

I slipped it in there before sealing the envelope.

Liv.

Hey.

- He is a grown-ass man, Ayanna.

And grown-ass men should have friends they can turn to

when they need them in the middle of the night.

He was drugged.

He did what he had to do to not blow the operation.

You're lucky you're cute.

That's right, I am cute.

- Here, tell him we're fresh out of oat milk, or soy milk,

or whatever the hell white people are into these days.

Was it something you ingested?

Did they spike your drink?

No.

I barely drank anything.

Um, it was administered orally

by a girl who slipped it in my mouth.

With her mouth.

- Did you blow your cover? - No, I kept it together.

Until you got to Benson's.

- Why? What'd she say?

- Just that you were pretty messed up.

Well, that's true.

- You know what would have happened

if she reported this.

- Yeah, I'd automatically be taken off my UC assignment

and given a drug test.

- And hospitalized to monitor you

for unforeseen side effects.

- Ayanna, you can't pull me out of there.

We're almost where we need to be to bring down Kosta.

- You don't have to tell me twice.

But it's on me to decide

if it's safe for you to go in the field, and I--

That's not our burner. - Present from Jon Kosta,

and AB is Albi Briscu.

And I'm going off to see him.

Mm. Tell your wife I like it black.

- Jesus, Eddie. You had great night, no?

- You wanted to see me? - I need favor.

Personal favor.

I want you to make it look like he died in a fire.

Well.

You want me to build a fire hot enough

to get rid of the fact that he's got a bullet in his head?

I mean, you want temperatures that high,

you're gonna have three fire departments at the scene.

Why you bring me problem?

- You want to dispose of a body quick and easy

where you don't have to answer no questions.

I got the place.

The hell is this place?

- Used to be a mental institution.

This is where they buried all the John Does that died there.

All right. Yeah.

That's deep enough. That's good.

- There's a reason I pay you off the books for this.

- Okay. - This never happen.

You was never here. And you never saw that body.

What body?

- Any idea who the guy was? - None.

- And definitely not the K-O's usual MO.

When they kill, they want their enemies to know.

- That's why I think it's personal.

And, by the way, if Albi trusts me,

it means I'm one step closer to getting face time

with Jon Kosta.

That's the goal.

- Oh, just the person I want to see.

- This better not be a meeting that could have been an email.

- The K-O put me on their friends and family plan,

but I can't make calls,

only incoming and outgoing texts.

- I can clone it to my laptop and do a deep dive

when I get back to the city, where I belong.

At first glance, it looks like an ordinary smartphone,

but it's been stripped of its GPS, Internet,

camera, and microphone.

You can't even make calls on it.

- And you can't track it. Clever.

- I was able to retrieve some deleted texts

from the phone's trash,

but as you can see, they're heavily encrypted.

- How long will it take you to crack the encryption?

That's the bad news.

This level of sophistication is basically unbreakable

without a decryption key, but there's good news too.

I was able to isolate a recurring portion

of the encryption code.

At regular intervals, it mimics a World War II-era

British signal's intelligence algorithm.

- Translate? - It's like a signature.

When you're this good, you want to take credit for your work.

Malachi. That's his code name.

Nobody knows his real name or even what he looks like.

- Well, how do you know he's the one

that made the texting app that the K-O use?

- He's who I'd hire, if I were them.

And I'd bet that's his signature embedded in the code.

Sergeant, request permission to attend the Capture the Flag

competition in Queens this weekend.

- The who? What is that?

Ah, I've heard about those.

Hackers and members of the cybersecurity community

get together and see who can backdoor their way into banks,

government agencies, and media sites for fun.

There's booze and prizes.

- Guys like Malachi travel all over the world

to compete in them.

It's a can't-miss opportunity.

Okay.

- Maldonado, you'll go with her.

- If you don't mind me asking, Congressman Kilbride,

what's your interest in Damon's case?

- Frankly, Sergeant Bell, I fear you're facing

a real uphill battle with this case.

Oh, we're well aware of that.

They've already tried to get Ayanna

to back channel a lowball offer to me.

- I want you to consider partnering with my old firm,

Kilbride, Weathers and Douglas.

They'll take the case pro bono.

- Congressman-- - I have no financial stake

in the firm any longer.

I just know where this is going,

and I want you to have the muscle behind you

that you're going to need to ride it out.

And what's in it for you?

Besides a little social justice warrior street cred?

Ayanna.

- Sergeant Bell, I carried the NYPD badge for 26 years.

I earned my street cred before you were even born.

- Pop that now. Pop that, pop that, pop that.

There you go.

Reggie!

- Oh, it's about time. - What?

- Turn my back for a second at the restaurant last night,