Burn Notice Noble Causes

At Michael Westen’s meeting with Gilroy, he was introduced to Claude, "the best thief in the western hemisphere." Gilroy wanted them to break into the Chilean Consulate for some documents supporting the “big job” that he was doing.  Back at the loft, Sugar, the drug dealer who used to live below M, pulled up in his moving “boom box” and said he had “come in peace, bro.” Sugar wanted to hire M to help his “slow” cousin get away from some gangsters. A big time robber named Lynch had targeted his cousin, Dougie, for some unknown reason and had beat Sugar up when he had tried to get Lynch to back off. M refused to help so Sugar left and, as Fiona was just raising her eyebrows to start ragging on him, Madeline called; so M jumped at the chance to leave. Madeline was getting the “take a bite out of crime” award from the police for reporting cars that M had stolen and was finished with. She wanted M to attend the chief of police ceremony with her and would listen to absolutely no reason. Equal to Madeline’s self-absorption, Fiona claimed she "just couldn’t remember" anything she had found out about Claude due to worrying about Sugar and Dougie. Eventually, she revealed that Claude was just an alias of former Australian S.I.S. member: "Tomas Smalling" and that "Gilroy isn't your problem either." So… M met Sugar who brought what he thought M needed in the trunk of his car: guns and duct tape; and was disappointed when M said that if he wanted his help he had to get out of town and wait for his call.

 

Sam found out that Lynch hit everything from banks to car washes, and never got arrested "because they never leave anyone behind. He’s a public health hazard." Fiona broke into Lynch’s compound and planted a bug in the TV remote as well as finding a room full of scuba air tanks, dive watches, vests and machine guns. M followed Lynch and realized that he and his guys were going to Sugar’s house to kill him – Sugar had not left town. Instead of getting out, like M warned him, Sugar ignored Ms instructions and shot back, which then required M to come in and haul him out... and to the hospital, wounded. Gilroy gave M and Claude synchronized watches telling them that "by the end of the day our hearts would beat as one," and that Claude was lead on the job. Claude told M, "just you make a diversion and I’ll do the job." Sam pretended to be Chuck Finley at the flower mart in order to check to see what Dougie knew about Lynch’s job – he was just a “helper” on the loading dock of a florist warehouse. Lynch gave a party, which Fiona crashed and saw them making fun of “the retard.” The bug revealed that Lynch had just gotten off the phone with a man named Bolo, who would find them a thief to get the last piece of hardware they needed. Barry told M and Sam what Bolo looked like so they could intercept the guy and plant M in with Lynch pretending to be the thief for Lynch’s job. They pretended that they had injected Bolo with a poison for which he would receive the antidote after helping them. Ms cover was "D.J." a “procurement” expert and he was asked to obtain a “jaws of life,” which could only be obtained from emergency personnel. They could not figure that just dealing with flowers would make it worth such an effort, so Sam went back to obtain a delivery schedule from the company thinking that a delivery might just be a ruse to launch a heist.

 

Fiona found that Claude’s preferred M.O. in his past jobs was to use free-climbing up sides of buildings. M went to Madeline’s to get a city inspector’s shirt that his dad always used when he was stealing equipment. Madeline revealed a secret panel in the closet that M never knew about. She also had bought M a silly tie on clearance and when M told her that something had come up and he couldn’t attend her award ceremony "because people might get hurt" she sulked and played the martyr. M scouted the location of Claude’s future heist and dripped some oil on one of his future hand-holds. Then he went to a fire training center and got their jaw’s, pretending he was taking it for needed maintenance. Sam and Fiona surmised that expensive art at the Hotel Milano must be Lynch’s target next week; but, when M delivered the Jaws to Lynch he discovered that the job was on for today. Sam then realized that it wasn't a delivery they were after but an armored truck was due to pickup receipts almost immediately; so they had to wing it. Mike took out a guy on the roof who was going to pump gas into the air ducts… for which they had needed the air tanks. Fiona set an explosive in a garbage can to warn the armored truck away. Sam went inside to extract Dougie, but he wouldn’t come. Lynch began firing so Dougie tipped a rack over on him in order to save Sam. They both got out as Sam blasted shut the door lock. M turned on the gas then answered Lynch’s frantic phone call to his man on the roof. He told Lynch that his man was not available and that the cops were on the way.  He said that he "hoped they get there before your air tanks run out." Sugar told M that he wondered how many times he had to get shot before he started listening to him.

 

At the heist with Claude, M caused a car to smoke for his diversion and Claude took to the walls. However he fell off of oily hand-hold and broke his ankle on the ground. That made M able to finish the job early and he showed up at Madeline’s award ceremony in his new tie.  That made her finally see reason so she let M leave. Later, Gilroy told M that Claude “didn't survive his injuries,” and that the documents were now Ms responsibility. He said "you should consider it a reason for living… as it were.”