The Ledger

12.4 Soldier of Fortune

In this episode (12.4), a vicious gun battle in broad daylight ends with a couple of dead people and a kidnapped man with a connection to some missing diamonds. Briscoe and Green investigate.

The episode begins with a chaotic scene downtown as automatic gun fire is heard, people dive to the sidewalk, and a speeding car screeches to a halt in an intersection, and man runs into the subway. Once everything has calmed down, the detectives learn that one victim, an employee from a nearby bank, is dead, and someone else -- a white man -- was dragged into a van, which disappeared.

The kidnap victim is identified as a Mr. Powell, a diamond dealer. By the time Briscoe and Green show up to interview his wife, the FBI is already there, co-ordinating the investigation into his disappearance. Neither wife nor his father, also a diamond dealer, has any idea why he would have been kidnapped. At his office, Green checks the victim's PDA, which shows some cancelled appointments. They visit a diamond dealer whom he met with about selling some diamonds he expected to get his hands on. During this interview, the detectives learn that a van matching the one used in the kidnapping has been found. When they get there to check it out, the van is already hooked on a city tow truck, and the city marshal responsible for it refuses to release it until it gets to the tow pound. They have a heated debate, but Eddie Green settles it when a uniform points out blood dripping from the back. He picks up a crowbar and smashes in the back window of the van. (This scene is depicted in the L&O ad often shown on TNT.) When they look in the van, they find Powell's body and see that his hand has been dismembered, apparently so the perpetrators could get access to a briefcase he was carrying.

As the investigation continues, we learn that the perpetrators used Uzis and that Powell had bought the briefcase earlier that day at a gift shop across the street from a branch of the bank where the other victim was a vice-president. Surveillance tapes from that bank show Powell and the employee entering the safe-deposit box area of the bank and leaving a few minutes later. Bank employees explain that the safe deposit boxes contain the collateral for various loans, including....$100 million worth of diamonds, which apparently were carried out in that briefcase. They also learn that both cars used in the heist came from the same used car dealer.

This bit of evidence leads them to their next suspect. They talk to the car dealer, who says one of his employees (who fits the description of the man seen fleeing into the subway) hasn't shown up at work in a couple of days. The Emergency Services Unit swarms into this man's apartment, and finds a man from Sierra Leone who will only offer his name, rank, and serial number in the Sierra Leonian army.

After much arm-twisting and after realizing he has been abandoned by the people who sent him on this mission, the soldier admits that he was sent by his commanders to recover these diamonds, which are called "conflict diamonds" because they come from countries torn by civil war, where rebel armies use the diamonds as bargaining chips with each other and with their governments. He reveals that he and several other soldiers had conceived this plan to get the diamonds, but he won't reveal how he knew Powell would be at the bank at that specific time.

McCoy goes after the head of the diamond company who claimed ownership of these diamonds, arguing that he had learned of the planned heist and hired the Sierra Leonian army to his dirty work for him. The trial isn't going very well, but eventually Powell's own father reveals that he was the one who told the head of the diamond cartel about the planned heist -- not knowing his own son was involved. He had hoped to win the favor of the diamond cartel with this information. On the stand, the soldier tells a story about how diamond-hungry rebels had cut off his sister's hand after she took some of "their" diamonds, so he returned the favor on Powell. The head of the diamond company says he didn't know that the soldiers were planning to kill people, and at DA Nora Lewin's urgin, charges against him are dropped.

Quick casting note: the Sierra Leonian soldier is well-played by Lance Reddick who appeared in another episode as a FBI agent reluctant to turn over some files to McCoy, and who also went on to appear in Oz and The Wire.

Posted by adm at March 27, 2004 04:11 PM

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