05x07 - Charlie Don't Surf

Episode transcripts for the TV show "Numb3rs". Aired: January 2005 to March 2010.*
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An FBI agent recruits his brother, a mathematics genius, to help solve crimes.
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05x07 - Charlie Don't Surf

Post by bunniefuu »

♪♪

♪ Careless in our summer clothes ♪

♪ Splashing around in the muck and the mire ♪

♪ Careless in our summer clothes ♪

♪ Splashing around in the muck and the mire ♪

♪ Now, hang me up to dry... ♪ MAN (over radio): The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory for Southern and Central California.

Large swells generated by a powerful North Pacific storm will approach the California coast during the next 24 hours.

♪ I'm pearly like the white, the whites of your eyes ♪

These swells will cause dangerous high surf along all west and northwest-facing beaches.

Beachgoers should be vigilant in avoiding large breaking waves.

Idiots.

Inexperienced surfers and swimmers are urged to stay out of the water until these hazardous surf conditions subside.

♪ Now hang me up to dry ♪

♪ You've wrung me out too, too, too many times ♪

♪ Now hang me out to dry ♪

♪ I'm pearly like the white, the whites of your eyes ♪

♪ Now hang me out to dry. ♪

Nathan!

He wasn't a daredevil.

He needed to be in control.

I know, I... I knew Nathan.

He... He was like that even as a kid.

(door opening)

Oh, hey, Keith.

I am so sorry.

CHARLIE: Hey, Keith, sorry.

Thanks.

Saw that piece in the Times.

CHARLIE: It must be some comfort knowing that he d*ed doing what he loved.

Yeah, and in the... the place that he loved.

DON: The high dive.

When we were kids, I'd be up there doing back flips off of the thing and Nathan would be frozen stiff.

CHARLIE: I remember that.

I jumped in before he did.

He told me that I had courage.

He used a more colorful term.

(chuckling)

Don...

I was hoping you'd look into it --

Nate's death.

CHARLIE: Keith, wasn't it an accident?

His thing for big waves... you know, it wasn't a death wish.

He never took stupid chances.

The bigger the surf, the more cautious he got.

He had enemies in the Channel Islands.

Some of the people he arrested.

He told me he had threats.

You know, Keith, if it looked like a crime at all, we would be all over it.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I understand.

Yeah, well, maybe you can, uh, take a look at the file, see if they haven't overlooked anything.

Yeah, I mean, we could do that.

Absolutely.

Hey, man, I didn't know you were into surf videos.

I grew up with this guy.

Really, you grew up with Nathan Watts?

Yeah, played baseball together.

Look at that, just a born athlete.

Yeah, man, you could see that when he competed.

This guy could out-hustle anybody in a heat.

What do you know about it, Idaho?

I learned when I was on Oahu at Schofield.

I mean, I got all right at it.

You know, nothing like this guy.

This guy was nuts, huge cojones. Yeah, I'll say.

When he dropped off the pro tour and took that Channel Islands ranger job -- must have been like five years ago now -- the surf mags were all over it, how he was out there surfing these giant, perfect waves by himself.

You got anything to it?

I'd say Park Service looks like they did a good job.

Blow to the head matches a dent in the board.

He's got fiberglass in his hair.

Swell of the decade.

He wipes out and gets conked and drowns.

What a waste.

Wait a minute, man, Nathan Watts wasn't a goofy foot.

I remember 'cause there was this famous sh*t of him pig-dogging this backside rail grab drop on the left at Mav's.

Goofy what?

He surfs with his left foot forward, which means that he'd put his leash on his right ankle.

That's the wrong ankle.

I mean, you always put your leash on your back foot.

Always, unless you're a beginner.

Someone put it on him?

Not a beginner.

If you had to label Watts, would you, uh, call him a cop or a surfer?

Oh, he'd have called himself a surfer, for sure.

Most surfers do.

Nathan was a serious ranger, especially when it came to protecting the Channel Islands.

He loved this place like nobody I've ever seen.

Made a lot of busts, including some folks maybe shouldn't have been busted.

Yeah?

Thing about having a giant moat surround your park... cuts down on the crime. Even this close to L.A.?

As far as L.A. is concerned, might as well be the moon.

Suppose that's a good thing.

We've got five islands, hundred and some-odd thousand acres, no roads.

Got endangered species, burial sites, a marine sanctuary.

But most of our visitors are the kind that tread lightly.

We get a few idiots, but compared to other national parks, this place is a church.

One question for you.

Who was Watts busting if there wasn't anybody out here to bust?

Otter K*llers.

Ought to what? Don't.

We did the Marx Brothers thing already.

Sea otters -- they're federally protected.

Nathan saw a couple of urchin divers g*n one down offshore.

NIKKI: Yeah, Nathan busts them, the divers made threats.

Yeah, these guys work out of Ventura Harbor, so I figured we'd head up there.

(door opening)

DON: What's up? Hey, Don.

CHARLIE: Here's what I was thinking.

With the proper data, I should be able to pinpoint where he drowned.

It's just a relatively simple analysis of near-shore currents.

It might help.

DON: All right, that sounds good.

And, uh, David's on his way back, so I think I'll go see if I can find, uh, Melissa Conroy.

Melissa Conroy?

COLBY: Nathan's girlfriend.

Surf instructor and part-time bikini model.

Nice of him to take the tougher interview.

Took me years to coax him into the water.

Scared him bad at first.

Well, he clearly outgrew that.

After the divorce, that's when it changed.

He'd paddle out on days that would scare the hell out of me.

It would be a different world if I hadn't torpedoed it.

Cecilia and me.

The marriage.

Oh, so he didn't have a fairy-tale childhood.

I mean, who does?

He was a good boy; a good man.

Because of you.

I'm not sure I buy it, but thanks.

Well, stuff rubs off on our kids.

Most of the time, we don't even know what stuff.

NIKKI: How could anyone k*ll a sea otter?

They're so cute.

The little whiskers; little smile.

Little teeth.

Those things are voracious.

They'll eat like 50 sea urchins in a day.

50 urchins -- one otter?

Yeah, which is why the urchin divers don't get too weepy when one turns up dead.

Problem is, they were almost wiped out for their fur coats, so Fish and Game transplanted a few dozen to the Channel Islands to try and repopulate.

And these guys get caught trying to take out the competition.

Hey, guys, FBI -- need to talk to you for a minute.

Go, go, go, come on, come on, come on!

Come on, come on.

Oh, whoa. No, no, no, no!

Thanks for running.

It's easier to tell who's guilty that way.

Turn around.

(camera clicking)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Oh, my God...

(sighing)

Like that. Better.

This is not how you hold a surfboard.

Why don't you take a little break, see if we can come up with something new.

Let's.

Sorry.

Hack.

That's okay, don't worry about it.

It sounded on the phone like you were thinking maybe this wasn't an accident?

Well, you know, it's possible.

I mean, I'm just trying to be thorough.

How long were you guys together?

Couple of years.

You spend a lot of time out there?

Wasn't really supposed to, but you know... love.

It's a beautiful place.

We pretty much had it to ourselves.

Not many visitors, anything like that?

This guy making a movie about big-wave riders came out once, did an interview.

Surprised me 'cause Nathan usually gave the finger to the surf media.

Did he ever talk about any crimes or investigations, anything like that?

Not really.

I know he nailed a few poachers and sometimes boaters would come ashore without permission.

Did he ever tell you about anyone who might have a reason to go after him?

We broke up a few months ago.

I haven't been out there for a while.

Yeah?

Different paths, you know?

Nathan lived the life that surfers pretend to dream about, but don't really want.

He hates this stuff.

You mean all the PR, stuff like that?

Nathan had a lot of words for it.

Riding waves, living in the ocean... it was like a religion almost.

That's why he moved off the grid.

But... a girl's got to eat, and Nathan, he wasn't gonna feed me.

I had to choose.

His world or the real world.

How about we lose the board?

Fine.

COLBY: So your urchin license has been pulled.

But somehow your hold is full of spiny round purple things.

Well, no license doesn't mean I don't got a mortgage to pay.

You must've been plenty pissed off when Nathan ran you in.

Pissed don't cover it.

Like getting busted for k*lling a rodent.

They're in the weasel family -- otters.

When was the last time you saw him?

Hell, I don't know. When'd he pop us?

It must've made your life a whole lot easier when Watts turned up dead.

My kid lost his medical insurance 'cause of that n*zi.

But I don't go out to the islands when the swells are big... especially when it happens the same day as my wife's birthday party.

Got a computer?

I'll show you the photos she posted online.

Fish and Game will chew 'em up, but these guys didn't k*ll any rangers.

NIKKI: Hey, any luck on determining where Nathan d*ed?

No, not yet.

CHARLIE: Given the complexity of the currents associated with this particular part of the island, it's actually a very, very difficult problem to solve without any direct data.

We know Nathan was a big wave surfer, so can't we assume that he was where the biggest waves were that day?

That's exactly what you said.

So I started building an analysis of the wave heights around that island on the day that Nathan d*ed.

How can you do that when the swell's gone?

Magnifying glass.

It's transparent, right?

But when light passes through it, the focal point becomes encircled by shadow.

You see that there?

The curvature of the glass bends and focuses the light waves away from the dark areas into that one blinding point.

COLBY: There's a science behind fried grasshoppers.

Ocean waves are quite similar to light waves in that they can be refracted or focused.

So, I used the swell data from NOAA buoys, combined that with detailed bathymetric readings, and I was able to create a color-coded, time-lapse animation of that swell on Nathan's island.

Yeah, the surf forecasters do that on their websites.

What do the colors mean?

What are they, wave heights?

Yeah, you see, light blue means flat or small waves up to a meter.

Ankle-slappers. In surf-speak.

Thanks.

Yeah, like here -- Kraken Cove...

The ocean was totally flat that day.

Yeah? How does that work?

It's the underwater topography.

Now, purple are medium waves, they're up to two meters.

Head-high.

Yellow are big waves, those are up to four meters.

Double-overhead.

Red means waves that are over ten meters.

Those are as high as five-story buildings.

And what's that in surf-speak?

Clench time.

DON: So this would be the spot that Nathan found a couple of years ago, right?

COLBY: Yeah, that's Wilma's.

And there were a lot of surfers out at that spot that day.

And no one saw Nathan.

All right, so...

Where was he?

Charlie?

I'm going to need a more hands-on approach.

That's surfboard fiberglass, hardened by polyurethane resin.

Found in the victim's head wound.

We matched it to the surfboard.

Now look here.

This came from the same wound.

Small, harder to find, uh, deeper -- under the surfboard residue.

That's an aircraft-grade epoxy-carbon mix.

Well, I seriously doubt he was hit in the head by an airplane.

Aircraft-grade.

Found in many products.

We think it came from a paddle.

Like a canoe? Kayak, more likely.

All right, so he was hit by the paddle, then he was hit again by the surfboard to make it look like an accident.

CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah, this is weird.

You said that already.

Yeah, last time you said that, we dropped another six sensors in the ocean.

Well, there's got to be some factors I'm not accounting for.

I mean, the waves are still pretty big, so the currents must be similar to the way they were before.

What's the glitch?

Well, according to this data that I'm getting back from the sensors, the spot where Nate's body was found experienced an eddy effect.

So, his body circled in the same area for hours.

You're kidding me.

What? What does that mean?

Well, his body was found in Kraken Cove.

CHARLIE: And since the current kept him in the same place -- that's got to be where he was k*lled.

Kraken Cove?

Isn't that the place where there were no waves?

Exactly.

So you're telling me the guy who surfed this island more than anybody else paddles out on the swell of the decade, with his big-wave board, to a spot that has no waves?

What the hell was he doing out there?

Hey. Hey.

So I tracked down the guy that interviewed Nathan for his surf flick -- check this out.

INTERVIEWER: We never see you out there at Wilma's, uh, do you ever get out there anymore?

Yeah, only on the junky off-days when... when nobody else wants it, really.

INTERVIEWER: Must be kind of a bummer to see this place that you love so much turn into a circus.

Oh, it happens.

I mean, really, there's nothing you can do.

I mean, for me, really, it's kind of dead.

I heard you, uh, you chased off a pretty famous tow-in surfer on the best day of the year, uh, last winter.

Pat Drummond.

Uh, well, he came... coming through the line-up with a Jet Ski.

It's just... that place is a marine sanctuary.

There's no Jet Skis allowed.

I mean, he's lucky I didn't arrest him really.

Did you guys have any sort of altercation?

Nothing physical, but, uh, definitely something verbal.

Words were exchanged. Words were exchanged.

So, I asked around.

And it turns out that Nathan and Drummond were ships on a collision course.

And the day that Nathan was k*lled, Drummond was completely off the map.

What do you mean? How so?

Wasn't there at Wilma's; wasn't at Maverick's.

Ghost Trees, Todos -- none of the places he should've been.

Well, so what? I mean, he could've sat it out.

No.

Big-wave surfer like that, a swell that big -- there's no way he stayed home.

He's going out, hunting down big waves, and getting photographed -- that's how he makes his sponsors happy.

He's got a little surf shop out in the Valley.

I figured I'd go surprise him.

All right, that sounds good.

You know, I can't see him playing baseball.

Yeah, well, neither could he.

Gotta hand it to him, though.

Sure found a way to get paid to do what he loved.

Yeah, we had a couple of confrontations.

But if I got hurt or something, you know, I knew Nathan'd help me out.

I'd do the same thing for him.

Even if you hate a guy, it's... you know, it's like a code.

I actually drove my Ski in one time to grab him before he got washed up into the rocks at Maverick's.

That was heavy.

You both almost got clipped.

And where were you on the 18th -- the day of the big swell?

Ready to k*ll myself.

Yeah, we tried like hell to get out to Channel Islands that day, but, uh, our engine d*ed.

And, uh, we ended up at Rincon, of all places, just before dark.

Rincon must've been crowded.

No, not as bad as you'd think.

Even a zoo like Rincon, a triple-overhead swell -- it's gonna thin the herd.

Clench time.

You surf?

Charles, did you know that a cork bobbing on the ocean describes a near-perfect circle when a wave passes beneath it?

I did know that.

And that same cork will return to its original position no matter how high the wave -- one foot, hundred feet, because the ocean is merely the medium.

Waves aren't the result of moving water, they're the result of energy moving through water.

That's that.

So is it also fair to say that ocean waves resemble sound waves, light waves?

That's fair, yes.

Sound waves travel at 761 miles per hour.

At sea level. Light waves travel at...?

186,000 miles per second.

An ocean wave... near shore... moves at just about the same speed as that of a running man.

Put that man on a surfboard, on a wave, and he enjoys the unique experience of being propelled by an individual pulse of wave energy straight through the universe.

Given our disparate investigations -- one cosmic, one criminal -- might it be in our joint interests to spend some time among them.

Uh, time among "them"?

Waves.

KEITH: If someone would just say something.

I mean, I don't know what to believe, what not to believe.

Hey, Keith, uh, how old was he here?

Sixteen.

(chuckles)

It's Baja. Mm-hmm.

Our last father-son trip.

It's strange, you know, the day you realize your son surfs better than you do.

You're proud, you know, but, um...

Mm... it's humiliating.

Yes, I'm very familiar with that one.

Charlie was only four years old when he first embarrassed me at chess.

Don, 11, when he first said that he needed a "real pitcher" to toss batting practice.

Don -- he reminds me of Nate.

Focused.

Fearless.

Yeah, well, maybe a little too fearless.

You worry about him? No.

What's to worry about?

He only gets sh*t at once every week.

Our kids...

...they're not supposed to die before we do.

It happens, you... you can't help but think, you know, if you'd just done one thing differently, he'd still be here.

If I had just called him, you know, maybe...

Keith, Keith, you can't go down that path.

This, uh, magical thinking business.

You...

It was a bad guy.

Nathan was k*lled by a bad guy.

You know that.

Dorsal not ventral.

What are you talking about?

I'm fairly certain the zipper goes in back.

Well, whatever, I...

I know it's irrational, but...

I can't stifle the image of, like, a gigantic wave appearing on the horizon and crushing us both.

Listen, that fear may not be totally irrational.

I mean, physical events can occur which are beyond our current ability to explain or quantify.

Yeah, your "meaningful acausal coincidences."

John Eccles wrote of the "profound and enduring link

"between the dynamics of consciousness and the structure of the cosmos itself."

Right. So, in other words, if I think of a gigantic wave, I may cause one to come?

Eh, well, something like that.

Well, fortunately, the waves look small.

Yeah, I suppose all the real surfers have ventured elsewhere.

It's nicer this way, isn't it?

Just kind of having the ocean all to yourself.

Nathan's life revolved around that idea -- having the waves to himself.

And when the hordes descended on a favorite surfing spot -- a place where he had surfed alone for ages -- he opted to remain.

It's kind of strange, isn't it?

Maybe not so strange.

Turns out, at least one of Nathan's enemies was the focus of a DEA investigation up until about six months ago.

Drug task force had Pat Drummond pegged as the man behind a major pot-growing operation up in Humboldt.

Oh, yeah? What, the Emerald Triangle?

Yeah. Now, they couldn't bring the hammer down.

DEA figures he got spooked, took his cash and opened up the shop.

Yeah, word is he traded in his overalls, moved into distribution.

COLBY: Yeah, and here's the kicker -- local dealers have been buzzing lately about an influx of high-grade weed from the Channel Islands.

We know that it's all over federal land, but there's no signs it's moved out to the Channel Islands -- at least not yet.

Yeah, there's nothing in Nathan's file about a marijuana farm.

He never said anything to you?

About pot? Never.

All right. Drummond.

Hey.

Whoa.

Look what we got here.

Yep, somebody's bagging up some pot.

Looks pretty small-time.

(clattering)

(tires screeching)

Hey, dude, gnarly wipeout.

You did not just say that.

Selling pot by the baggie?

That's practically legal in California.

You're in it up to your neck and you don't even know it.

Right.

All it's gonna take is us finding Drummond and him rolling over on you.

Murdering a federal law enforcement officer is not practically legal anywhere.

Pat was getting weed from the Channel Islands.

I helped him move it.

I don't know nothing about how Nathan d*ed.

Drummond have a farm out there?

No. (pounds table)

No, he ripped it off.

Which island? He never said, I never asked.

Pot farmers, man.

They're not a bunch of tie-dyed stoners anymore.

They catch someone messing with their plants, you don't find the body.

Did Drummond k*ll Nathan? I don't know.

He went out there that day, during the swell, the day Nathan d*ed.

Got back late in the afternoon, was all, like, panicked.

Was all, "Let's get out of here, go to Rincon."

Remote public lands in Southern California -- that's where most pot in the state is grown these days.

Couple of years ago, National Park Services raided 250 pot farms on California parkland alone, and not all mom-and-pop either. You got booby traps, g*ns...

COLBY: And very few arrests.

I mean, the main guy'll generally hire a bunch of illegals to do the grunt work, and then if the farm gets raided and the workers get arrested, he's still protected.

And even if they do bust the ringleader, he skirts property-forfeiture law because he used public lands instead of his own backyard.

But I don't see anything here saying it was definitely being grown on the Channel Islands.

WILSON: Not yet.

Done some flyovers, but there's an awful lot of terrain.

Very few roads.

Well, you know, I've consulted with Homeland Security in their attempts to locate specific plant types using airborne spectral- sensing equipment combined with a cultivation-site prediction model.

Specific plants. You mean...

The kind used to make illegal dr*gs.

Well, keep working that, and I guess we should re-interview some of these people, huh?

You guys want to fight it out for Melissa Conroy?

DAVID: I always lose when we do that.

You know? I think you cheat.

How do you cheat at roshambo?

DON: Hold on, hold on. Let's see. Maybe Charlie...

Well, no, uh, I wouldn't call it cheating.

But chaos school advocates a purely random distribution of rock, paper, scissor, while probability analysis has shown that a mixed strategy of preconceived gambits...

You know what? (chuckles)

I'm gonna keep my roshambo strategies to myself, just in case I have to throw down with one of you guys someday.

Did he just say "throw down"?

KEITH: Marijuana.

O-On the Channel Islands.

Yeah, I mean, I have to ask. Is there a chance...?

That Nate was involved in some pot farm? No, no way.

Don! Look, I know that you didn't agree with some of his choices.

Keith, that's not what this is about.

He was a priest when it came to dr*gs!

You ask anybody who knew him.

And that's the way I read it, too, but I have to ask.

I mean, you asked me to look into this.

You're wasting your time, Don.

That's what you're doing, you're wasting your time.

Keith, he's trying to find your son's k*ller.

He has to look under every rug.

Now, that's what he does.

I'm sorry.

I know, I know.

If someone made the same accusation about one of your boys...

Good point.

LARRY: Huh.

The spectral range of a marijuana leaf is...

Is often not that different than native species growing nearby, and that's why it's so hard, using spectral imaging, to pinpoint them.

So, deconvolution algorithms?

Yeah, I combined those with the hyperspectral aerial images.

I mean, I was able to identify several large areas on that island that might contain marijuana fields.

That is a lot of land.

I know, I know.

I need a new idea.

Well, I'm thinking maybe we need to go surfing again.


Did we surf?

'Cause I wouldn't call it that.

I feel like we kind of just bobbed in place.

Yeah, I think maybe we were more like buoys.

Yeah, like... like buoys.

Dude.

I thought models didn't need to have real jobs.

NIKKI: L.A.'s a competitive market for hotties.

If you stop at your knees like this, you'll never get all the way up.

Words to live by.

I'll be right back.

I already talked to some FBI guy.

Yeah, he sent us.

Did Nathan ever mention anything about a potential marijuana bust?

Pot? No.

How often did you visit the island?

When Nathan first got the job, a lot -- like, every couple weeks.

Less toward the end.

I'd always hoped it was a temporary thing, him living out there.

Turned out he wasn't going anywhere.

He have other visitors? Not really.

Nathan was the kind who didn't mind being alone.

Look, I'm sorry.

I don't know anything about pot farms or any stuff like that.

I better get back before they bail.

Sure.

You say anything about pot farms?

Nope.

Me neither.

INTERVIEWER: This is a painful question, but it's something everyone's asked about, and you and the tour and... people really want to know why you dropped off.

NATHAN: I just lost interest.

INTERVIEWER: Tahiti, Indo, J-Bay --

I mean, how do you lose interest in that?

NATHAN: I mean, the truth is I just got tired of surfing for points.

INTERVIEWER: You know, all kinds of pros these days -- they don't surf contests, but they still make good money.

Well, really, I got tired of surfing for the corporations, like selling their T-shirts and flip-flops and... the little watches with the tide calendars.

The only reason to turn pro is to... surf good waves and get paid for it.

I mean, out here, I get all the good waves I want.

I get paid to protect a beautiful, spiritual place.

INTERVIEWER: You got to be stoked on that.

NATHAN: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: There was this rumor that you had a fear of big waves.

So how did you overcome that fear?

NATHAN: Well, when I was a kid, I was --

I mean, the ocean scared me to death.

It was my dad who got me into the water, taught me how waves work, how to relax when things go bad.

You just -- you really have to just go out there and do it.

Be alone and, um, you make a lot of mistakes, and those mistakes are things that you learn -- you learn from that.

That's why someone can't just... be a good surfer in six months.

But if it weren't for my old man, I mean, I'd probably be driving a bread truck in Wichita.

(interviewer laughing)

CHARLIE: So, my initial analysis -- a relatively simple filtering of hyperspectral images -- produced several large areas on the island that most likely contain marijuana farms.

That's still a lot of ground to cover.

Hence the term "initial."

It occurred to me that spectral images are merely an imprint of electromagnetic waves -- in this case, light reflecting off of leaves -- and as we know, light waves work the same as ocean waves.

And as with all waves, it's very difficult to detect a significant pattern -- what surfers like to call the dominant swell -- amid other swells.

Now, what surf forecasters do is they use math to filter out noise of surface chop from buoy data to detect serious ground swells.

In a fundamental way, it's similar to how polarized sunglasses filter out reflected sunlight.

So I applied a deconvolution operator to filter out spectral interference from other plants known to grow on the Channel Islands, and then created a neural network algorithm to learn to recognize known spectral patterns based on training sets.

(chuckling) That was the cool part.

Yeah. Sounds cool.

Anyway, um...

(typing)

There's your marijuana farm.

Five miles from Kraken Cove.

♪♪

♪♪

NIKKI: Not exactly organic.

Better bag anything that even looks like evidence.

Already harvested.

You guys, over here.

Kind of looks like evidence, huh?

NIKKI: He was sh*t.

Execution style.

Hmm.

Take a look at this.

Maybe he was planning on opening up a second store --

Drummond's Surf and Toke, huh?

Looks like our guy here was trying to mix some business with pleasure.

Seems he missed out on the pleasure part.

Yeah, we'll turn it over to the techs -- maybe they'll be able to tell us something.

Wait a minute. Maybe it already has.

DAVID: Ah.

This is a clean-air thing, I just got certified.

Nope. Nothing like that.

Did you shape this board?

Unless some idiot's trying to sell knockoff Hagens.

That'd be a good way to go broke.

So, there's a number on the stringer.

Five, eight, four, three?

5,834th board I shaped.

I'm up over six K now.

Any idea who you made it for?

If it's a custom order, I'd know for sure.

I keep the dimensions of all the boards I shape.

In case someone wants you to replicate their magic board?

Surfing G-man.

So, why does the FBI want to know who I shaped a board for?

It's part of a crime scene.

Plus, I figured while I was down here, I'd put in an order for a fish.

Maybe a six-oh, six-one.

Yeah, good choice.

Fish are my specialty.

Yeah, I know.

All right, here we go.

Yeah, 5843. Okay.

Yeah, I remember this guy. Cameron Wilson.

Made him a seven-foot pintail.

Park Service ranger? That's him.

Yeah, said he needed a board that could handle some juice.

You know him?

I checked with the Park Service.

They said Wilson's gone AWOL.

Hey, I need to point something out to you guys.

Yeah? What's that?

All right... this is Wilma's the day that Nathan d*ed.

Yeah, but Nathan never made it out there.

Right, so I expanded this animation to include more of that island during the swell.

This spot right here experienced bigger waves than Wilma's that day.

Nathan had another spot besides Wilma's.

Right.

I mean, look, you'd have to go by here.

DAVID: Right, okay. We know that Drummond was out by that way.

So, maybe Nathan runs to Drummond.

Drummond hits him in the head, knocks him out, drops him in the ocean to drown.

Wilson keeps a sailboat in Ventura.

Harbor Master checked. Gone.

Now, he's probably halfway to Fiji by now.

DON: I don't know.

Look. I mean, as far as he knows, we didn't find the farm.

DAVID: He's in the wind.

He knows we're monitoring his credit cards.

What, you think he goes back for the dope, tries to turn it into cash?

Well, the forecast calls for another big swell tomorrow.

So, that's the perfect time for someone familiar with that spot to go grab the hidden stash.

DON: I mean, he's spent his whole life out on these waters.

NIKKI: He'll know where to land.

Somewhere sheltered from the waves.

CHARLIE: Yeah, you know, and this wave animation does more than show us previous swells.

It shows us what incoming swells are gonna do.

It's like, for instance, let's say, there's a big storm below New Zealand.

Okay, and it's headed the right way.

Southern California's almost guaranteed to have a major swell about a week later.

As long as you know where the wind's blowing, for how long, and in what direction -- and that's all readily available data from satellites -- you should be able to predict whether the surf's gonna to be big or small.

And this is the only place on that side of the island that's gonna be protected from the surf tomorrow.

It's the perfect place to go ashore.

(engine revving)

Stop!

Cut the engine.

I'm thinking "circumstantial" probably isn't the right word.

And I'm thinking you didn't need to blow me off my Ski with a bean bag round.

We've got your fingerprints all over the marijuana operation, and we have the b*llet that k*lled Drummond.

Now how much you want to bet it matches one of the g*ns on your boat?

Then what do you want from me then?

Nothing, really.

Now, see, we know why you k*lled Drummond, and we got a pretty good idea why Drummond k*lled Nathan.

Maybe I can give you something.

Yeah?

What?

Drummond didn't k*ll Nate.

Are you confessing to k*lling a federal officer?

No. Not me.

Drummond had a partner out there.

Didn't you guys know that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we did.

Nice. Good job. That was great.

DON: Melissa?

Sorry. One second.

Can we can make this quick?

I don't know, Colby, can we?

So, we ex*cuted a search warrant on your apartment.

Forensics found blood specks on your shoes.

And we're pretty sure we know whose it is.

Nathan found out you and Drummond were ripping off Wilson, is that it?

Now's the time to make it easier on yourself.

Pat tried to talk him into a three-way split.

I knew Nathan wouldn't bite.

So, instead, he arrested you.

Just like that.

Didn't matter how close we'd been, how much we'd shared.

He knew how things were for me.

All the stuff I was doing to try to get by.

I'm just trying to make a little cash without hurting anyone.

Pat saved his life once.

I was his damn girlfriend.

Tell us what happened.

Nathan had his g*n on Drummond.

He turned his back to me to grab the kayak.

Like I didn't matter.

Like I was zero thr*at.

I mean, the-the paddle was in my hand.

What did he think I was gonna do?

Just go off to prison quietly?

(handcuffs rattling)

Next thing I know, Nathan's facedown in the water.

And Drummond -- he's freaking like a little bitch.

(handcuffs clicking)

A real good thing you did for Nathan, huh?

For Keith.

You know, when he quit baseball for surfing...

I told him he was making a mistake.

Turns out to be the thing he loved most.

I got that wrong, huh?

Telling you, Larry, I got another board in my car if you want to give it a sh*t.

LARRY: Nope. Today I choose to experience the raw power of waves, free of all accoutrements.

Uh, is he about to get naked?

(laughing)

You know, Timothy Leary said that surfers represent the pinnacle of human evolution.

Only a surfer truly lives in the moment, riding that ever-moving wave between past and future.

Dancing with the Universe.

LARRY: Yeah. Hey, who said that?

Was that Feynman or Penrose?

I think it was Bodhi.

Bodhisattva.

Patrick Swayze.

Point Break?

The movie?

Colby, what are you doing? Come on!

CHARLIE: All right, dudes.

We gonna surf or not?

Show us how it's done, Colb.

INTERVIEWER: Your worst wipeout.

NATHAN: That's Jaws.

INTERVIEWER: I've seen the film.

Seen the footage of that.

NATHAN: Couple years ago, I got spanked.

I mean, the thing wouldn't let me up for a long time.

And I'm almost at the surface, and boom, the second one just shoves me even deeper.

INTERVIEWER: So, wait, wait -- two-wave hold-down?

Wow!

The second one won't let me up, either.

And now, I'm... I'm thinking, you better get up there soon, 'cause the third one...

I mean, I never met anybody who's lived through three.

So now I'm starting to thrash.

I mean, what you don't want to do -- panic.

And, uh...

And then I hear my dad's voice, like, right here, like...

I mean, like I'm wearing headphones.

"Relax, son.

"Every wave lets you up eventually.

Only way to get through it is relax."

Once he said that to me in Baja.

So I relaxed, it let me up, I got a breath.

Saved my life.

INTERVIEWER: Your dad saved your life?

Yup. My dad.
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