Without a Trace

Sierra Tango 205, descent to 500, bearing 158.

Sierra Tan, do you copy?

Burkhart Tower, this is Hotel 33,

Foxtrot coming up on runway two for takeoff.

Coming up on Runway two for takeoff.

Hotel Foxtrot, please stand by.

Burkhart Tower, this is Sierra Tango, descending to 500.

Whoa, it's bumpy up here.

i have trouble to hold...

Sierra Tango, please repeat.

He's headed into crosswinds.

Yeah, I know.

What do you got?

I'm having trouble holding it.

I see him.

Neil, you've got him coming in to runway two.

Burkhart Tower, this is Hotel Foxtrot on runway two.

Mayday, Mayday. He's flying right at us.

Tower, this sierra tango

Get him out of the way, Neil.

Sierra Tango, turn south to 170 immediately.

One-seven-zero.

Get him off the runway.

Take over, Matt.

Burkhart Tower, this is Hotel Foxtrot, please advise.

Hotel 333 Foxtrot,

take evasive action!

Take evasive action immediately.

We're taking evasive action. ???

He missed. We're okay.

He missed.

Burkhart Tower, this is Sierra Tgo.

We are safe and on the ground.

Neil, you all right?

What was that about?

I'm sorry, man.

I just lost track of my ground positions.

You froze up. -Yeah, I know.

I, uh... look, I'm not feeling too good.

You mind if I go home?

And Patrick's here; he's already in the chair.

Yeah, go ahead.

Um, okay.

Can you get that message through to my cell phone?

Thank you. -Sorry I'm late.

It took me two hours to get here from the city.

What do we got? -Neil Rawlings, 38.

His son, Owen, 17.

Neil is an air traffic controller

work at Burkhart Regional. - Is the mom around?

Not anymore, she died in a car accident a year ago.

Who called it in? -The security company.

When the alarm went off at 10:18 last night,

the security company called here.

This is a recording of that call.

Hello?

this is on-site security. may i have your password please?

It's, it's P-2571.

I'm not going anywhere, you understand me?

I'm warning you, man. - We need to talk.

You need to go. - You need to fix this.

Hold on, hold on. - Sir, is everything okay?

You need to fix this!

Are you there, Sir?

That's it.

PD showed up within the hour.

Nobody was here, nothing's been taken.

I thought you should know

the lady across the street saw a blue Mercedes

peeling out of here when the alarm went off.

Did she get a license plate?

No, but she thinks it was a man driving.

All right, get me a description.

This guy should have stayed in the control tower.

sync:FRM@stiffler

Neil's one of my best guys.

Military trained handy with computers.

So were you surprised when he called in sick yesterday?

Yeah, he never misses work.

What time was that?

Around 6:30 a.m.

Now, has he been acting strange lately?

How do you mean?

Odd phone calls,

fights with coworkers, things like that.

I thought somebody broke into his house.

Yeah, but it doesn't look like it was a robbery.

We're actually trying to determine

whether someone had it out for Neil or his son.

He did have a tough time landing a plane his last shift,

which is out of character.

But in Neil's defense, it was bitch of a snowstorm.

Are you telling me he made a mistake?

Look, you got to understand,

at any given time

an ATC has a dozen different factors affecting each plane.

You add to that the lives in your hands,

and it's a pretty unforgiving job.

That still doesn't answer my question.

He froze up for a second,

but considering all the scrutiny my guys have been under,

I'd say he deserves a break.

What do you mean "scrutiny"?

We had an incident the other day.

Echo Charlie 527, turn southwest at one-niner-five.

Winds at 220, at one two.

Report airport in sight.

Chris.

You mind taking over?

Ken.

Come here.

What's up?

I'm not sure.

But you know Ghalib Al-Nian?

Yeah? What about him?

I just landed his twin-engine Piper,

but before he came in,

he was... he was circling the power plant at Green.

You tell him it was restricted air space?

Yeah, yeah, but he kept going below minimum altitude.

Whew! That's not good.

He had a passenger with him.

Every time he called in, I heard Arabic on his frequency.

We're going to need to report this.

What if it's, what if it's nothing, though?

What if he was just being stupid?

That's a risky what if.

It's going to kick up a lot of dirt, Ken.

We've got to cover our asses, Neil.

I called it in.

The next day DHS was here grilling us.

And this guy, Ghalib...?

Ghalib Al-Nian.

He's been flying out of here

for a couple years.

Now, did DHS arrest him?

Not that I know.

But he was furious we reported him.

Is there any chance

that he knew Neil was the one who turned him in?

Wouldn't have been hard to figure out.

Hey. - Hey.

We found Neil's son at his aunt's house in Tarrytown.

He's been there about a week.

They're on their way in.

Do we have anything on the, uh, blood

that was found in Neil's kitchen?

Yeah, it's O positive.

I'm waiting on his military records to see if it matches.

Okay.

Ghalib owns a blue Mercedes

just like the one seen leaving Neil's house.

And does DHS still have him in custody?

No, it turns o

he had authorization to fly over that power plant,

because his engineering firm is retrofitting the site.

Paperwork never made it to the tower,

but they did detain his cousin who was with him.

Why?

He's been donating money to a mosque in Beirut

that houses Shi'ite radicals.

That would do it.

Yeah.

Do we have any idea where Ghalib is right now?

Yeah, he's on an aerial survey in New Jersey.

We got people waiting to pick him up as soon as he lands.

Okay.

Agent Malone? Uh-huh?

Owen Rawlings is here.

Okay, uh, thank you.

Hey, Jack.

Mm-hmm. Um...

I called up to Anne's office

to get some help with this aviation stuff, and uh,

they said she don't work here anymore.

That's right.

Um, from now on you should contact Agent Vasquez,

he's taking care of it.

When was the last time you saw your dad?

Four days ago.

He came by my aunt's

to drop off some stuff I left at home.

Why are you staying at your aunt's?

Because my dad's an ass.

Owen,

stop.

We haven't gotten along since my mom died.

Did you have a fight?

One of many.

Anything different about this one?

I don't know.

Tell him what you told me, Owen.

This guy came by the house.

I'm done, okay?

You need to find yourself somebody else.

You think it's that easy?

I really don't care.

Dad?

What's going on?

Just, just go upstairs, son.