Original subtitles

Previously on The Hot Zone Anthrax.

The person who called 911, Thomas Morris,

he's dead, so is Joe Kercy.

This investigation now falls under Operation Noble Eagle.

I'm forwarding you Bruce's email, so you be careful.

When Bruce gets into these moods,

he sees everyone around him as a threat.

So tell me more about your lone wolf theory.

All signs point to our perp being a

highly-educated American citizen with scientific expertise.

Bruce can snap.

You don't know what Bruce is capable of.

So what should I do with the report?

Just file it.

The results came back, it's Ames.

Ames strain?

I didn't think it existed outside of high security research labs.

It doesn't.

This administration is not afraid

of saying the word Iraq.

Iraq has been on the terrorist list for years.

That's USAMRIID, one of only 16 labs in the US that

has the Ames strain which means the anthrax came from

the most respected biodefense lab in the country.

♪ ♪

Sometimes I go places.

Bad neighborhoods in Baltimore,

hoping somebody will pick a fight.

No one's cleaning up the streets.

There's no justice out there.

Justice?

Are you saying that you carry a loaded weapon?

Bruce, in those moments are you considering

doing bodily harm to someone?

People harm people for bad reasons all the time.

If I wanted to do real damage,

every day I work with deadly diseases

no one's never even heard of,

USAMRIID's full of them.

One vial from my lab, I could contaminate the water supply,

wipe out a whole city.

Obviously I'm not that person.

I wanna help people and save lives like my anthrax vaccine.

Why don't they see that?

Who?

The FBI, they subpoenaed anthrax samples from us.

Keep poking on our labs like we're the suspects, us,

the good guys, when there's terrorists out there.

I'll tell you, Lisa,

senators here on Capitol Hill are frustrated

by the FBI's sleepy response to the anthrax attacks.

Five Americans have lost their lives and

yet no terrorists are in custody.

I'll make sure we get a call on the Southwest today.

What's going on?

Copak's adding two more teams to the investigation.

Miller and Reilly,

you'll join Sykes' team as well.

Senate just voted to send our troops into Iraq,

people's husbands, sons, wives, daughters

will be risking their lives to fight terrorists.

We owe it to them to find the terrorists here on our soil.

They've been out on the streets too long.

We need results.

Everyone, run down your own leads, stay in your lanes,

too easy to influence each other, pull focus.

Whoever gets me a smoking gun first

I'm shifting all resources to their team.

America needs to see someone in handcuffs dragged into Guantanamo.

I need to talk to the head of the labs.

Chris, why don't you pull access records?

Okay. I'll flag anybody who was working unusual hours

in BSL three and four around the time of the mailing.

Yeah, start with the day after 9/11.

After? Yeah.

The powder in the attack letter is cruder than in

the second batch like it was made in a hurry,

probably in response to the towers.

You're turning the microscope on the same scientist

you're asking help solve this.

Got everybody on edge.

Dr. Livingston, why did you team drag its feet

submitting samples under subpoena?

Do you have any idea how overtaxed this place has been since 9/11?

I got a pretty good idea.

Our samples should be arriving at

your repository in Arizona today.

Other labs submitted to the subpoena days ago.

Yeah.

I've spoken to some of those labs.

They don't have agents running all over their facility.

Why do you think that is?

We wouldn't be here if we didn't have evidence

leading us back to USAMRIID.

We're gonna need to see psych evals on

all personnel with access to level three and

level four hot suites.

Psych evaluations?

I mean, we don't do those.

You're telling me you have scientists working with

every lethal pathogen on this planet,

and no one ever thought to monitor their mental stability?

Okay, well, then we need every personnel file.

♪ ♪

I've got another one, left the lab a little late,

entered the hot suite alone,

stayed for two hours.

Add the name.

I'll go see if Dani has flagged anyone on the list.

You delayed submitting your anthrax samples for weeks.

Arizona says you kept calling for clarification

on how to submit.

So?

So, it's pretty simple, Bruce.

I sent in the samples.

They should have them by now.

You used the wrong slants.

They won't accept it.

Because those generic slants they want a malarkey,

mine are better.

They don't care, Bruce.

Well, they should care.

Does no one give a darn about quality anymore?

Just follow their protocol, Bruce.

You're making us look like we've got something to hide.

I've told Arizona to dispose of your submissions.

We've promised that you would comply and

re-submit right away.

I'm not surprised, Adya,

since you've been best buddies with

every FBI agent who's walked in here.

Jesus Christ.

I didn't wanna be the one to tell you but people are

beginning to wonder what side you're on.

We're all on the same side, Bruce.

We should all be careful.

These are not glorified cops with badges.

Some of these agents are scientists.

And if you don't submit,

they will sweep in and do it for you.

How's your anxiety?

The Valium should help get a handle on that.

Have you noticed a difference with the new dosage?

We're under attack!

There's no meds that will fix that!

We're here to handle how you react to those situations.

And was Baltimore the only long drive you've taken lately

or have there been others?

We're almost out of time.

You missed group therapy twice.

Were you on one of your drives?

I went to see Mara.

You said she lived in upstate New York.

Why did you go see her?

I must have been really mad.

Did you have your gun?

What did you do, Bruce?

I might have put something in wine.

But I didn't give it to her.

I realized...

It's like that poem,

and all those emails,

I find after I've sent them and

I don't remember.

This is all confidential, isn't it?

Yes.

Unless I feel that you are becoming a threat to yourself,

or to others.

Thank you so much for agreeing to sit down with me today.

I understand how disruptive this is.

And I know you guys are all professionals protecting America and

it's exactly what this interview is going to prove today.

So let's start by talking a little bit about

some of your coworkers.

Tell me about Dr. Kurz.

Does he have any connections overseas,

maybe the Middle East?

Not that I know of.

He is very dedicated, doesn't joke around much.

What's it like, uh, working for Dr. Livingston?

Do you ever hear her criticize the government?

Well, no more than anyone else nowadays.

Not sure, uh, honestly it took a while to get to know her.

She's made some amazing breakthroughs here though.

I have heard nothing but good things about, uh, Dr. Ivins.

Ivins, what can you say?

Bruce is Bruce.

He's always quick with the joke,

he's a seriously good researcher.

I had to cut this tree down in my yard and who shows up on a,

on a Saturday with a chainsaw.

Helped me out with some vaccine research.

And nobody has a better sense of humor.

I have heard nothing but good things about Bruce Ivins.

Bruce, he's kind of a...

I mean...

Um, he's, uh, how do I say it?

And odd duck?

I don't know what to tell you.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Have you guys come across Bruce Ivins?

Uh, yes, he was on the late-night access list.

Why, did he say something?

I haven't interviewed him yet but

it's more what everybody isn't saying.

The men really love this guy but there's something with the women,

and I've talked to several and

he makes them really uncomfortable.

Okay.

So he's not exactly smooth with the ladies,

how does that link him to terrorism?

Well, it doesn't.

I'm just looking for any behavior that flags.

Did you guys get into the emails yet?

Yeah, they're scattered in there.

We have 20,000 of them.

Server pulls them in chronologically.

Be my guest.

Sykes, you up to speed yet on Amerithrax?

I've been following it for months, sir,

glad to be on board.

Mm-hmm.

I just, uh, I'm wondering if first team

isn't maybe veering off-course?

Heard Ryker's been taking up a lot of resources and...

We tend to be more direct within these walls, Sykes.

What do you got?

A tip from some sources overseas.

I know when they were record sniffing.

Take a look.

If you see something there, I wanna head up this team.

You could put Ryker back on petri dish duty.

I think I just found something.

What's it say?

"I'm a little dream self, short and stout.

I'm the other half of Bruce when he lets me out."

Is that good enough for you?

Can I do a preliminary inquiry now?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Sorry, Helen.

It's okay, I'll clean it up.

It should be fine.

I love it. You too?

Yeah, me too.

That lone wolf profile you sent to the microbiology community.

Yeah.

Remember that hit we got in Seattle?

Her name is Dr. Nancy Haigwood.

Thought that was a dead end.

Yeah, so did the superior who shelved it.

But there was a newer agent who did the right thing and

tried to send it up the chain but got shot down.

The point is, Dr. Haigwood claims that Bruce Ivins

stalked her in grad school, moved down the block from her,

and even vandalized her house.

And get this, at one point,

her dissertation notebook was stolen.

And whoever took it left a trail of clues for her

to find it using a USPS mailbox.

The problem is, all of this is anecdotal.

Oh, come on.

He screwed up his repository submissions.

He's clocking late night lab hours...

Mm-hmm. Alone.

All at the time of the attack letters but that

doesn't get us into court.

Well, I took some of the emails home for

little bedtime reading, no comments please.

This one, "My shrink says I have a paranoid personality disorder,

an early sign of schizophrenia,

I am becoming a person I do not want to be."

No, what we need is a direct link to the letters.

The language in his emails is eerily similar.

There's another one here to an old coworker,

"Osama Bin Laden has now decreed death on all Jews and Americans."

Those letters were published in all the papers.

He could just be mirroring the language.

No, look at the date, September 26.

We didn't find the first attack letters until three weeks later.

Dammit, Bruce!

You scared me.

Now step back, they're anthrax spores.

They have you working on the vaccine, don't they?

That used to be my job.

A lot of changes around here.

It's okay.

I'm the one that made you lose your grip.

I'll clean it up.

Does Copak know you're circling USAMRIID?

Do you even have a suspect or

you're just throwing a little gasoline on the weeds

to see if any snakes comes slithering out?

Eyes on your own page, Ryker.

We're all supposed to follow our own lead so

we don't influence each other.

That doesn't mean pitching a circus tent in

the middle of someone else's investigation.

♪ ♪

No one thought this was possible but you can see,

plain as day, different colonies of Ames with

identifiable characteristics.

How did you make the colonies morph?

It wasn't intentional.

It was one of our ongoing anthrax projects,

a colleague got busy, the cultures overgrew.

We never considered incubation time as a factor.

Arizona's been trying to sequence the genomes

all this time and you just stumbled upon this?

Even with all these minds and brains,

accidents are often how the biggest breakthroughs happen.

If we can identify a specific morph in the spores

of the attack letters then match it to the subpoenaed samples,

we've got our smoking gun.

Once I can get back into the BSL4 lab,

I will forward you my findings.

What do you mean back into the lab?

Well, we had a spill.

Bruce surprised me,

I didn't see him so I knocked over a tray.

Wait. Dr. Ivins was there?

He's been pretty edgy lately,

sees me as a traitor for working with the Bureau.

Did he leave the lab with you?

No, he took it upon himself to decon the area

and some nearby offices.

Including his? Yeah.

Brought in a whole team.

It's a little overboard if you ask me but that's Bruce.

Our number one suspect just cleaned up his own crime scene.

I got to bring in Ivins tonight.

What? No.

We don't have enough ammo to confront him.

He could literally be destroying evidence as we speak.

Let me just try to dig up something from his past,

something that can push his buttons, uh, a motive.

Go ahead and track down his childhood sled if you want.

If he knows we're circling him,

the cleanup might not end here.

He could head home and destroy anything incriminating.

We may only have one shot at a confession here and

he is not primed for it.

And if we give him more time,

we may lose any chance we have at nailing him.

He's making rash moves, I'm ordering a polygraph.

If you're determined to do this,

the way in has to be through his hero's complex.

He wants to prove how smart he is.

We get him talking...

It's not my first interrogation,

I got it.

Lebanon PD, how can I help?

Agent Toretti FBI here,

I am looking for some information on a former resident, Bruce Ivins.

I'd be interested in anything from his early years in Ohio,

should narrow your search down to '50s and '60s.

I'll see what I can find.

Okay, um, I'll actually hold.

No problem.

Dr. Ivins? Yeah.

I hear you're one of us.

A microbiologist.

I am.

A microbiologist in the FBI.

Neat.

Uh, before they administer the polygraph,

I thought I'd ask you a few questions about

the samples you submitted to us.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I already got an earful about my misstep.

So you intentionally submitted

inadequate anthrax samples under subpoena?

Yes.

But only because the slants you guys requested were inferior.

And the weeks leading up to September 18th, 2001, uh,

the postmark date of the first attack letter,

did you work extra hours, unaccompanied hours in the

BSL4 lab with Bacillus Anthracis Ames?

After 9/11 everyone at USAMRIID was working late.

You recognize this post office?

Yeah.

Did you ever purchase pre-stamped envelopes

at this post office?

A couple of times I guess.

What about this email,

referencing anthrax and Saddam Hussein?

You read my personal emails?

You know that was a joke?

What about these?

Did you do this, Dr. Ivins?

You talked to Nancy?

How is a stupid thing that I did 20 years ago at all relevant?

Okay. Fine, yes.

When I was younger, I had obsessive behaviors linked to sororities specifically,

Kappa Kappa Gamma, of which

Nancy Haigwood was an alumna.

Is it peculiar? Yes.

Can I explain it? Nope.

Happy?

You know, that's not the only thing I did.

What else, Dr. Ivins?

I let myself into a sorority house,

two actually.

I stole their ritual book and a cypher to decode it.

No one ever suspected me.

But I didn't hurt anyone.

See, I'm not hiding anything.

Aren't you?

Didn't you email a colleague,

another friend on numerous occasions about a different, Bruce?

Saying that you were concerned about your psychological state.

Did you ever experience extreme anxiety, dissociation?

I know what you're doing.

Look, I may not be the most popular guy.

There might even be a few people who have said I'm odd behind my back.

But does that make me a killer?

I mean, when are you guys gonna realize I'm here to help you?

Yes. Fine, yes.

How'd you even end up doing this,

a microbiologist in the FBI?

Pathogen biology is a pretty competitive field.

We can't all be the ones making scientific breakthroughs,

I suppose, but.

I wanted to serve my country.

Is that what you tell yourself?

Because I can't imagine going in and see...

Ryker's already burned through most of what we've got on him.

Of wearing a suit at a desk.

You know, silver bullets.

That's not for everybody.

Oh, okay.

Maybe a splinter, enough to irritate him and

get his walls down.

I am curious, though.

What went wrong with your dissertation, Agent Ryker?

Mistaking a eukaryotic cell for a prokaryotic?

I knew plenty of guys like you in college.

Is that right? Oh, yeah.

Ivins is feeling empowered.

I can tell half a dozen in the halls around the labs...

He should get him to open up and if he loosens up

then maybe I can get some answers about his past.

This guy is just, you know, smart.

But it didn't matter how hard they studied,

they just didn't have the imagination.

It does take a unique blend of talents,

plus a willingness to skate on the edge which

I'm guessing is difficult for you.

But hey, would a sane person tie a key to a kite in a thunderstorm?

You know that Franklin didn't actually

fly the kite in that storm, right?

He had his son do it.

Even noble people do unforgivable things,

don't they?

You're missing my point.

Are you familiar with the Stentor Roeselii?

It's a single-celled ciliate micro-organism capable of making intelligent,

complex decisions all without the help

of a central nervous system.

Zero support.

No other organism on earth has such an innate gift.

Is that how you see yourself?

Some sort of gifted Stentor Roeselii?

What does that make guys like me?

Plasmodial slime mold?

Think about it, I know most Americans aren't paying attention,

but you guys had signs, that 9/11 was gonna happen.

Flight lessons, a warning of an attack on New York.

And now, you can't figure out who sent these letters.

All the hours you put in and you just can't measure up.

So instead, you are harassing hard-working patriots like me.

Have you even done your homework, Agent Ryker?

I mean, what about Thompson, Benjadi,

or even Kurz?

There are plenty of people with my same access.

But they didn't point the finger at their colleagues, did they?

You're the only doing that.

Here's what I think.

No. No. No, no.

Just like the clue you left Haigwood to find her notebook...

I think you wanna be found out.

This is some sort of twisted experiment, isn't it?

Uh, sorry, Agent Ryker.

Sorry I'm late.

Oh, it's okay.

We have a few more questions to go.

Good, I have another one, if that's all right.

Mr. Ivins... Doctor.

It's Dr. Ivins.

And you are who again?

Oh, I'm just another hunk of slime mold.

Doctor Ivins, in your own words,

can you describe your childhood for me?

I don't see what that has to do with any of this.

Maybe it's better we focus on one event in particular.

The police responded to a

domestic disturbance to your house.

Did you witness your mother's attack?

This was an accident.

Neighbors described your mother as unpredictable, irrational, and violent.

You were there, weren't you, Bruce?

Are we almost done here?

Childhood trauma can have a lasting effect

on a person.

Did your mother ever hurt you, Bruce?

My mother loved me.

She loved me very much.

♪ ♪

Now, Doctor Ivins,

you understand that your appearance here today

and taking this polygraph test is voluntary?

Yes.

To establish a baseline,

is your name Bruce Edwards Ivins?

Yes.

Were you born in Lebanon, Ohio?

Yes. Hmm. Okay.

Now, we are going to run something called a stim test.

To measure my adrenal response.

I'm gonna need you to lie

when you answer my next question.

That will give us indicators to look for if you lie in

response to a later question.

But I'm not gonna lie to you.

Are you a time traveler?

Sorry. Yes, I am a time traveler.

Last question, Doctor Ivins.

In the fall of 2001, did you mail letters containing Anthrax via the

United States Postal Service?

No.

You get any hits off him?

We got a good read on the baseline for comparison.

Where did he lie?

Some lines indicated elevated stress,

but no answer showed deception.

What about when you asked if he mailed the attack letters?

No, it looks like he's not your guy.

So, I told him exactly what I thought.

That he wasn't supporting me in my decision.

I used exactly the words that we discussed and

you know what?

He shut his trap for the rest of the night. It worked.

Oh.

That's really great to hear.

Yeah.

Bruce? Bruce?

Would you like to tell us about your week?

Yeah, it was wonderful.

Very productive.

Ryker, I made some calls and it's debatable.

It, it's not the easiest to trick a poly.

Unless he's a complete sociopath.

Hmm. What's your gut say?

I think he felt like he had the upper hand with you.

That might have put him at ease and

thrown his vitals off.

So, you're saying I screwed up?

No, it was a solid tactic,

but I think it is safe to say that your cracks were showing through

that perfectly pressed suit of yours.

All right, Sykes, what do you got?

Who the hell is that?

Steven Hatfill received his medical training in Africa.

Hatfill just happened to be on the ground in Rhodesia during

the most deadly Anthrax outbreak in recent history.

He trained first responders on bioweapon threats,

which would include anthrax.

Do you have a direct link between Hatfill and the letters?

It says right here he's a virologist.

A virus guy, not bacteria.

About his science background,

Mr. Hatfill claimed to have a degree that there's no record of.

And to be a part of a royal medical society

that hasn't heard of him.

A few people in this room have resumes that look better than reality.

You can't just pick up anthrax at a local drugstore.

Do we have proof that he had access to it?

Actually, Hatfill did work at USAMRIID.

For two years.

Now, we don't know yet what Hatfill had access to then,

but we do know that he tried to get higher security clearances.

One of which was suspended before 9/11.

And if he wasn't handling deadly bacteria,

wanna tell me why he was taking Cipro at

the time the attack letters were mailed?

All right. Our top suspect is Hatfill.

Ryker, I'm putting you on Sykes' team.

He's short a science guy.

Does that include me?

No, he's already got a behavioral analyst.

Head up to the fifth floor for reassignment.

You too, Agent Moore.

Well done. Thank you, sir.

I'm staying on Ivins. Really?

I mean, the guy passed his polygraph like a valedictorian.

They don't have any more on Hatfill than we do

on Ivins and the science doesn't add up.

But, you know, if they make Hatfill the target,

we are gonna catch hell for veering off course.

No, I'll be the one to catch hell

because I'm the only one who is reassigned.

All right. I'm in.

What's the plan?

What do you think about seeing if one of the people

that Bruce confided in, emailed,

would be willing to contact him?

I don't think he's gonna confess like that,

but it is worth a shot.

Chris, I need you to surveil him.

See what he does in his downtime.

Especially if he thinks he sailed through the polygraph,

he might make a misstep we can use.

Okay.

And what about you?

Looks like I'm stuck playing science guy for

Sykes's wild goose chase.

I'll check in when I can.

All right.

♪ ♪

Excuse me, sir.

Have you found the Anthrax Killer?

Is the suspect in custody, sir?

The citizens deserve to know, are we in danger, sir?

Another inexplicable leak to the press,

complete with a circus.

You're going to let the public indict this guy before

we have any physical evidence?

Where is Hatfill, anyway?

Got him at a motel.

He thinks we're doing this to everyone who's worked at USAMRIID.

Come on.

Meet Tinkerbell and her cohort.

Let's give them the scent.

I just need visual confirmation on air sample 23-Q37

from the letter that Senator Daschle received.

Confirmed.

All right, boys.

There you go.

Okay.

All right, boy, you got it.

Find it, find it.

♪ ♪

What do you know?

Hatfill's place.

Suit up.

So, I'm in the back of a truck in freakin' Rhodesia, right?

And who ambushes us?

Marxist rebels.

You're kidding me.

What choice do I have?

I leap off the back of a truck,

but I forget that I have a pack on,

I fall flat on my face and break my damn nose!

I, I couldn't breathe right for years!

I just went under for sinus...

That's my house.

Ongoing since October.

You said routine search.

Agents in Hazmat suits are searching the home

of the person of interest in the Anthrax murders.

We haven't been able to get confirmation or more details from the FBI,

but this could be the first real breakthrough we've seen

on the Amerithrax case in months.

A new development in the Anthrax investigation,

FBI agents today searched the home of

a former government researcher Steven Hatfill

is a specialist in infectious diseases

who's done research for the government since the '80s.

Got it, pulled up a photography unit right out front, so.

Yeah.

Second degree until something's detected.

We might need to process this.

None of our rapid test are picking up spores.

In fact, we're not finding anything that points to where

Hatfill cultured his Anthrax.

So, what do you think?

He's got some sort of secret lair somewhere?

No, a storage unit.

We're trying to locate it and get a warrant.

Agent Sykes? Yeah, what do you got?

It's an unpublished novel.

There's a synopsis.

It's about a terrorist who unleashes a deadly plague

on Washington D.C.

♪ ♪

Excuse me, where's the computer?

FBI took it.

Saved up a year to upgrade those.

Hi, Agent Ryker,

this is Dr. Livingston. Hmm. Yes?

Just got off the phone with the repository in Arizona.

They ran our new morph test on samples from different labs,

USAMRIID's among them.

Everything came up negative.

All the USAMRIID samples?

None were a match to the Anthrax used in the letters.

Hope that answers any questions about the integrity of our team.

Thank you, um, I'll, uh, I'll be in touch.

We got the warrant for the storage unit.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Holy crap.

Hatfill has a map to Camp David.

I got one here, too.

It's hand drawn, don't know by whom,

but it looks like it leads to a remote location in the woods.

You still think we got the wrong guy?

♪ ♪

.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.