Burke’s Seven – White Collar Episode Summary 2.10

Synopsis: Having been shot, Mozzie is rushed to the hospital.  Neal and Peter work to catch his shooter, but their plan works against them as the assassin implicates Peter in evidence tampering causing the FBI to suspend him.  Without a badge and a gun, but with trusted friends willing to help clear his name, Peter forms Burke’s Seven with the main goal of luring Mozzie’s shooter out of hiding, and catching him in the act of criminal activity.  Mozzie makes a miraculous recovery, and vows to decrypt the code that almost cost him his life.  Doing so, he inadvertently reveals the identity of the man behind it all.

Episode Summary: Mozzie is rushed to the hospital, and is now in a medically induced coma.  There is nothing Neal can do to improve Mozzie’s condition, but he can very well help find the man who shot him.  Peter learned from Fowler the identity of Mozzie’s assassin as Julian Larssen, the right hand man of the person causing Neal grief.  Larssen had gone underground soon after the shooting, and Peter believes that he will soon leave the country unless they catch him.  Peter’s plan is to burn all of Larssen’s aliases forcing him to create a new one complete with a forged passport.  Moreover, he plans to lure Larssen into buying a forged passport from their chosen forger.  As Peter uncovers Larssen’s known aliases, Neal gathers the forging community to inform them that Larssen will be knocking on their doors soon, and instructs them that they must use the name Justin Springer as his new identity.  The forgers are reluctant about the request, but become more than willing to help when they hear that Larssen is the man who shot Mozzie. Continue reading...

Mozzie comes out of his coma, but is too traumatized to identify his shooter.  Neal informs Peter of the good and the bad news, and soon finds himself assaulted by Larssen.  The man having learned that his aliases have been burned seeks Caffrey’s help.  In exchange for his escape, Larssen offers the identity of the man who ordered to kill Mozzie and Kate.  However, instead of making a deal with Larssen, Neal surprisingly runs to Peter to inform him of his encounter.  The next morning, the FBI gets word that a certain Justin Springer has bought a one-way ticket to Samoa, and the bureau has tracked his address to an apartment in Queens.  Soon after, Larssen is taken into custody, and the FBI is engaged in the search of his apartment.  They find the murder weapon hidden in a potted plant.

Mozzie’s condition has gotten better, and is now bent on decrypting the code from the music box.  He is convinced that the code is an equation that builds something, and the formula is now in the hands of the person who ordered to kill him.  Mozzie vows that this will be the last case he will be working on, and he will be retiring as soon as it is solved.  However, the reason for his decision to retire is out of guilt.  Mozzie went beyond his principles, and snitched on Neal by telling Peter that he was going after Fowler.  To his surprise, Neal thanks him instead of being angry with him for what he did, because if not for Mozzie, Neal would have killed Fowler who turned out not to be the person responsible for Kate’s death.

FBI Director Hughes interrupts Agent Burke’s interrogation of Larssen to inform him that the man had made it impossible for them to match the bullet with his gun.  Agent Burke is surprised to find Agent Roe from the Department of Justice at their offices, and is even more startled to learn that ballistics was able to find a single print inside the gun, and that the fingerprint matched Agent Burke’s.  Given this new development, Agent Burke is put on leave with charges on evidence tampering, and Julian Larssen is set free.  Peter is sent home without a gun and a badge, and soon learns that all the cases he has closed are now under close scrutiny.  Peter expected this given the charge made against him, but is baffled as to how Larssen got his fingerprint.  He surmises that the man got his prints from his coffee mug that had gone missing at the office.  He believes that Larssen sneaked inside the FBI building and took his mug, and if this were true then the security cameras would have his presence recorded. Agent Barrigan and Agent Jones finds a man dressed as Caffrey enter Agent Burke’s office, and leaves with the mug in his hand.  Moreover, the man had accessed Agent Burke’s computer. Peter shows Neal a picture of Larssen posing as him inside the FBI building, and informs him that the man logged in Peter’s computer to erase the name Frederick Bilal from his own file.  Bilal is a Nigerian prince who likes to race horses internationally, owns a number of shipping companies, and handles a lot of import and export out of New York Harbor.  Knowing that the prince likes to spend his time at the Rogers Yacht Club, Peter and Neal plan to meet him there.

Because the Rogers Yacht Club is open only to a privileged few, Peter calls in a favor to get them access.  Sara Ellis pulls through with the favor, since Sterling Bosch insures a couple of the club’s yachts.  Sure enough Prince Bilal is at the club, and Peter knowing the man’s interest in horse racing manages to charm the prince.  Meanwhile, Neal pretends to be Frank Wellington, the owner of the club, and Sara his wife.  The two of them manages to get the captain to have Neal review her logbook.  He soon learns that every time Larssen is in New York, one of Prince Bilal’s yachts is rented by one of Larssen’s aliases, Brian Blitek.  Peter is convinced that Larssen and Bilal are smuggling something, but with his suspension he cannot order a search warrant for the docks and do a wire tap and surveillance on the two men.  Neal, however, has another idea, and manages to convince Peter to take part in a con.  Peter and Neal begin to organize Peter’s crew.

Jones catching wind of a case Diana and Peter have been secretly working on insists on being part of it, and learns that Peter had kept him out of it to protect him.  However, he soon gets his wish, and becomes part of Burke’s Seven.  Meanwhile, Neal recruits Sara, and tells her all about the music box that belonged to Catherine the Great.  Both Jones and Sara learn that the music box contains a code that they need to decrypt before Larssen’s boss, a man they know to be very powerful and connected does so.  Sara’s role is to provide the equipment necessary to take down a murderer and save Peter’s career, since they currently do not have access to FBI resources.  All are willing to be part of Burke’s Seven except for Mozzie, but the man is surprised to hear that Elizabeth has paid him a visit only to bring his care package, which includes the bendy straws he requested.  Before you know it, Mozzie has a change of heart, and decides to join Burke’s Seven.  Elizabeth managed to con a con.

Peter briefs his team, and informs them that Larssen is using Prince Bilal as a smuggler.  Their plan is to spook Bilal into calling Larssen causing the man to make the delivery to Burke’s Seven.  Having observed Bilal’s routine, Diana is to apprehend him in front of a specific phone booth, frightening the man with the idea that the FBI is on to him.  This will cause him to make a call to Larssen, a call he needs to make using the phone booth that Jones would have installed a transmitter to that will reroute any call to Neal who with the help of Sara’s voice modulation software will sound exactly like Larssen.  Mozzie is to pose as a panhandler on a motorized wheelchair that hides a cell phone scrambler in order to force Bilal to make the call through the payphone instead of his cell phone.  If all goes well, Peter believes that they can flip Bilal into implicating Larssen.

The con is on, and they encounter a hiccup early on with the phone scrambler working on a passerby’s cell phone forcing the man to use the rigged payphone.  The man makes his call twice, and receives either Neal or Peter, but unfortunately the man was in conversation with a woman before it was cut.  Elizabeth steps in, takes charge of the situation, and manages to get the man off the payphone in no time.  Diana’s threats worked as Bilal wastes no time to give Larssen a call, but finds his cell phone not to be in service.  Using the nearest payphone, he dials Larssen’s number unaware that Neal is the one on the other line.  Bilal informs him that the FBI is looking into his shipment, and that he plans to get rid of it.  Neal manages to talk him out of it, and to meet with him for the exchange instead.

Bilal arrives at the designated meeting place with the shipment and finds Neal instead of Larssen.  Moreover, he is not alone.  Diana rounds up Bilal’s men, and Peter opens the shipment only to find Nazi dinnerware.  Under Peter and Neal’s supervision, Bilal makes a phone call to Larssen, and informs him that he has moved his crate since Agent Burke has been looking for it.  Bilal gives Larssen half an hour to get it, and threatens him with cutting a deal with the FBI.  Larssen takes the bait.  Meanwhile, Sara drops by the FBI and speaks with Agent Roe about a harassment complaint against Agent Burke she received from a client.  Agent Roe convinced of Agent Burke’s guilt wastes no time to accompany Sara to the place where Agent Burke is.  Hughes is in disbelief of the complaint, and learns from Agent Jones that it is a plot to get Peter off the hook.

Larssen meets with Bilal, and replaces the contents of the shipment with guns tampered with Agent Burke’s fingerprints.  Unfortunately for him, the FBI arrives just as he is putting the guns inside the crate.  Moreover, Larssen is caught with the latex fingerprints on his hands.  Peter’s team watch from a distance as Agent Roe brings out a cuffed Larssen, and watches in horror as Larssen manages to get out of his handcuffs and assault Agent Roe.  Peter borrows a mounted policeman’s horse, and goes in pursuit of Larssen who has made his escape through the park.  Peter single-handedly catches Larssen.  Neal calls Mozzie to give him the good news, and gets better news in return.  Mozzie has built the equation using bendy straws, because the equation is a fractal design.  At seeing it, Neal immediately knows the identity of the man they are dealing with for he has seen it before.

The FBI is still unsure as to why Larssen is smuggling Nazi dinnerware to Argentina, which is a shame since Argentina is outside of FBI’s jurisdiction.  Lucky for Peter, it is within Sara’s for Sterling Bosch has clients in South America, and she offers to look into it.  With his name cleared, Agent Burke returns to his office in time to lead Larssen’s interrogation.  Larssen is ready to cut a deal, but Agent Burke has changed his mind for the only deal he is willing to make is one that will protect Larssen from the mastermind.  Nonetheless, Larssen reveals the identity of the man as that of Vincent Adler.  Adler is the man who made Neal who he is today.

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