Burn Notice Trust Me

Instituting a reconnaissance con at the Pakistani consulate, Michael Westen told Sam that one perk of being burned was that his crimes were just plain crimes and not acts of war. While Sam diverted everyone’s attention by complaining loudly, M posed as Rich Franklin of the Miami Harold who was of course ushered back into the offices. Then when Waseem, the director of “security,” went to handle Sam, M stole some documents from Waseem’s desk and left a note. M tried to clandestinely obtain some car parts from his mother’s garage but he was caught and forced into the card game she was having with her friends including Phyllis and Fiona. His telling her that Fiona and he were no longer “seeing” each other just set her off on another "got-to-know-everything" tirade. Phyllis was talking about her friend Diane whose son Andy was in trouble with a loan shark, and just to annoy M Fiona volunteered his services to help, with a smirk – as usual a referendum on their relationship (or what she thinks is the lack thereof). It turned out that Andy had been swindled by Zeke, the owner of a club in South Beach called Velvet, into making an investment in Cuba which was only a con. After giving the money, they were rousted by mock FBI men who then kept his money for “evidence.” M explained to Andy and his mother that it had been a commonly used con and devised a plan to get the money back. Fiona went to the Velvet in order to get invited into the back room and crack the safe, while M went to visit Waseem.

 

Michael struck out because Waseem said he’d rather take his chances on a document leak than to ask for an eyes-only dossier on a foreign operative, even from 15 year ago. At the Velvet, Fiona did get into the back room by flirting, but found that the door needed a key card which Zeke kept on him all the time. And, to make things more complicated, the loan shark came to muscle Andy into paying so M had to intervene by knocking Baranski's two goons for a loop. Baranski agreed to extend two days. Back with Waseem, M crashed his picnic with his girlfriend by saying: “What’s up, Waseem?” Then M made a show of giving the stolen package back while Sam took photos. Andy paid M for helping with a bag full of cell phones, then let Madeline in the door even though M called out: “No.” As usual Madeline just came to stick her nose in Ms business wanting to know what had happened between him and Fiona. He wouldn’t say, so Madeline said "well I'll just talk to Fiona." M posed as Davis Cullen, some oil baron’s kid, and Fiona introduced him to Zeke. Fiona lifted Zeke’s key card and M excused himself to go to the bathroom only to find that the safe was wide open and filled with fake wads of cash. So, M used his cell phone to plant a bug in Zeke’s computer, just as Zeke’s partners arrived. Sam came to Zeke posing as the sole executor of the Cullen trust and set the stage for M being unstable and causing incidents. When Sam heard that it was about Cuba he walked away saying that "it was out of the question."

 

Madeline manipulated Fiona into a "talk" trying to worm information about their relationship. She appeared to believe Fiona when she basically said that she couldn’t be second fiddle to a job. M put the bite on Waseem using the photos that Sam had taken as blackmail and offered the rationale that: "if your superiors realize that you've been approached by a burned spy, and possibly compromised, you would probably be relocated." Back with Zeke, Sam came to him again pretending that M had forced him into doing the deal, and asked for paperwork "not mentioning Cuba"; but, also demanding to see matching money from Zeke in the escrow account. Zeke, who had previously refused to put any of his own money into the deal, eventually agreed but his partners vetoed the idea, telling him to "cut him loose."  Back with Baransky, M called to get more time and was granted some; but found that the shark was holding Diane hostage. M asked Barry to make $200,000 appear in a numbered account to help the con; but Barry said that he could only make it appear to bounce it in for only about 5 minutes before it was caught and removed.

 

At Zeke’s house, M came to do the deal and had the money transferred while they watched on the computer. Then, as usual, Zeke notified his partners to come pretending to be FBI for the "kiss-off"; but before they could Sam posed as the Miami Dade Police to arrest the posers. He and Fiona captured the partners and blew up their car so M could tell Zeke that the people he had borrowed the money from had ID’d two FBI men closing in and killed them. Zeke got all flustered and told M that "the deal was off!" However, M said that "his backers" would be coming after him next if he didn’t give the money back with interest. Zeke took M to his real safe, which was right behind the bar at the Velvet all the time, and gave him all the money he had ($246,000) which M then paid back to Baranski: "$200k, plus the vig, minus $300 for a lifetime subscription to Cat Fancy magazine to remind you to keep your hands off people’s mothers." Andy offered his services to M "if you ever need them." And, finally, Madeline told M that she understood about him and Fiona, and wouldn’t talk about it any more; except that she kept on talking anyway. She said “life is hard if you have to live it alone…and having kids just makes the ride more fun.” Lastly, Wasseem brought M a folder with info about Carla, including a photo, although it had been heavily redacted. M gave his blackmail photos and negatives back to Wasseem which seemed to surprise and relieve him; “you’re a man of your word,” he told M. After looking at Carla's photos, M told Sam that he thought he had just found her cover.