Unforgettable

All right, we got a hostage situation.

The place is a private storage facility for high-end art.

We got three guys inside.

We're looking at a minimum of nine hostages.

We believe one of the bad guys is posing as a hostage.

Which one?

You know, posing? Indeterminate.

"Indeterminate." That's a, that's a tough word.

What do you think, Al?

I think we better make some determinations soon

or we could lose a lot of people.

Did you do your homework?

Oh, yeah. Here we go.

Move, move, move!

Get in there.

Open that door.

One here, one here!

Down now!

Get down!

Down!

You, back up!

All the way back.

Everything's gonna be all right.

I want everybody to stay down.

All right.

You're done. Drop the gun.

Get up.

Give me your hands.

All clear. All clear.

Nice job, everybody. Good work.

Whoo! That was nice.

Not bad. We beat our old record by 25 seconds.

What do we get,

a gold star in our homework books or something?

Ah, you probably filled yours up already.

Okay, seriously, though,

don't you ever question the value of these things?

I mean, honestly, when was the last time

we had a hostage standoff in Queens?

What about the convenience store, 31st Ave?

- They're the ones. - Yes.

Right? The old lady who wouldn't leave

until they fixed the slushy machine.

- That's right. - Besides that.

That was touch and go. Come on.

(Conversation continues indistinctly)

Unforgettable 02x01 Big Time Original Air Date July 28, 2013

All right, let's just go over it one more time.

I told you, it was a phone call.

Guy calling himself Deputy something-or-other says

he wants to see us at One City Towers.

Please tell me you took care of those parking tickets.

I brought the receipts right here just in case.

Good.

Wow, what kind of cops live here?

Not our kind of cops.

Lieutenant Burns.

Eliot Delson, Special Deputy to the Mayor.

Nice to meet you.

And you must be Carrie Wells.

Yes, actually.

- You have questions. - Let me guess.

You have answers.

Nothing but.

Ah.

Welcome to the Major Crimes Section of the NYPD.

I've heard of it.

- You have? - You haven't?

Not like I read Police and Security News

every morning with my cornflakes.

Maybe you should.

You handle big stuff, citywide stuff,

extra jurisdictional.

Exactly.

How about something I don't know?

Have either of you ever heard of Ari Sonnenland?

I have. He's a developer, a big one.

Sunny Meadows Complex in Elizabeth, New Jersey,

the Sterling Tower in the Navy Yards,

and his brother is a beekeeper.

I have no idea how I know that. Yes, I do.

Well. What you don't know is that his daughter was kidnapped

this morning in Central Park.

We're not sure, but we believe this might not be

an isolated incident, but one in a series of kidnappings

targeting affluent families on the East Coast.

Central Park. Last I checked,

we don't have one of those in Queens.

Look, it's pretty simple.

The word's out on you guys.

A 92% solve rate?

You're the top of the class.

So that's why you were there this morning.

What was that, a final exam?

Yes, I remember you.

I liked the yellow tie better,

by the way.

Uh, I spilled tzatziki on it.

There's a lesson in that: Never eat a gyro unwrapped.

As for the exam,

I'm pleased to report you passed with flying colors.

Thanks in part to that astonishing memory of yours.

What about our cases?

Our real cases?

Taken care of... while you're working with us.

And this case is very real.

Lara Sonnenland is 11 years old.

She's the starting sweeper for the Darby Diggers.

She has a cat named Maisie. She needs your help.

I promised you answers.

Now, I, uh, I'm not sure

what your setup is like in Queens, but...

I know guys who work Major Crimes.

They never described anything like this.

What'd you do, raid a Best Buy?

As I persuasively explained to the mayor,

after 9/11, the feds descended on this city

with all their fancy toys.

CIA, Department of Homeland Security,

all here to take care of us.

Well, it's time we took care of New York ourselves

like we used to.

So, five months later, a little more persuasion, and

behold... toys of our own and

the authority to use 'em.

Anything big goes down between Fort Lee, Block Island,

and Stamford, Connecticut, it's mine.

Ours. And, hey, now yours.

Lara Sonnenland.

Carrie, Al, anything I can do for you,

you know where to find me.

Delson.

I don't recall agreeing to all this.

Oh, I do... we didn't.

Wouldn't matter.

Eliot's not an asker, he's a teller.

In fact, he told me to catch you guys up

on the Sonnenland kidnapping. How you doing? I'm Jay.

In addition, I'm gonna be your guide

to the wonders of the operations center.

Just 'cause I'm Asian, they assume

I know all about computers and stuff.

Which you don't.

No, actually I do.

Worked for a while for a little company

in Redmond: Internet security, scareware.

But I missed New York.

Anyways, uh, this is the crime scene.

You can almost read the license plate.

Want to read the license plate?

No, that's okay.

Okay.

So, Lara Sonnenland, on her way

to a soccer game on the Upper East Side.

Kidnappers created some kind of diversion

to get the car onto a service road.

Bang-bang, they shoot the driver, snatch the kid,

and exit the park, we believe,

on the north side in an as-yet-unknown vehicle.

Driver's listed as critical at Mount Sinai.

What about security video from inside the park?

Al, we're looking,

but there are a lot of ways to blend in and hide, even from us.

Eliot mentioned other kidnappings.

Two of them, actually.

Brookline, Mass, 2011, and Westport, Connecticut.

That was just nine months ago.

May I introduce Cherie Rollins-Murray,

the Cherie Rollins-Murray, late of the FBI?

Just Murray, please. It's less of a workout.

So, uh, Brookline, Westport.

What makes you think it's the same guys?

East Coast targets, same M.O.: time of day,

- street diversion. - You I.D. anyone?

This is all we have.

From the last one in Westport.

Birdwatcher inadvertently shot

what we eventually learned was their hideout.

The Westport case

ended badly.

The victim's family relied on

a professional hostage negotiator,

guy named Paulson.

Said he could do a better job than the Bureau.

Imagine that.

Huh. Well, he didn't.

Something went wrong at the money drop.

The kidnappers panicked and pulled out.

But first they killed the child.

His name was Ethan. He was nine years old.

What went wrong?

According to agents on the scene, Paulson screwed up.

You said they handled it privately.

Why were there agents at the drop?

Well, I wasn't there.

But the Bureau handles these things by the book.

Well, maybe the book needs to be rewritten.

I got all the forensics from Brookline and from Westport.

Plus about a half a gig of high-res photos

from the Central Park crime scene.