Manhunt: Unabomber

- _ - You said he had a personal philosophy,

some message he's trying to send. You were right.

Screw this up, we'll crucify you.

We need you to get into a room with Kaczynski,

break him down. Ted asked for you.

I need help.

They need me to get the guilty plea.

_

You tell 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?

10 years ago, computers were expensive toys.

Today, civilization as we know would fall apart without them.

You live in terror of a blackout, a computer crash,

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?

_

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 compete 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

that it will be sorted through one of these two facilities.

Meaning that we train those handlers and sorters

to identify a Unabom package.

Then we could intercept every bomb en route.

Never have to worry about a Unabom package again.

Cool, right?

Yeah.

You still want to tell us about "Dad it is I"?

Okay. Logistically what are we talking about here?

Okay, so you see 945 A and 945 B?

Those are the checkpoints right here...

"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.

Yeah, it's Cole.

What?!

Where?

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.

We're at about 30%, but it looks like

all the big databases are up and searchable.

IRS, USPS...

Social security?

_

_

Do you realize what this means?

This is gonna be the first major case solved by computer.

If this is the guy.

There's no if, it's driven by the data.

Think about all the data the government has on its citizens.

Addresses, employment, military, census.

Eighty years of data, 250,000,000 people,

but you can't do anything with it

because it's scattered across dozens of different systems.

That's why I built the MPP,

to bring all that data together in one place

for the first time. I mean look,

FC's authentication number looks a lot like

a social security number, right? So I did a search.

And 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.