Episode 1 :
A woman and three children play hide-and-seek in the snow outside a patrician brick mansion. Inside, her husband opens the morning paper and discovers a fresh four-leaf clover, moments later, he points a gun at his head. Outside, his wife hears a single gunshot. The same day in Lower Manhattan, Will Travers arrives at the American Policy Institute, a federal intelligence agency. Tanya MacGaffin, a fellow API analyst, asks for help solving a crossword entry. Will supplies the answer: Marsilea Quadrifolia, the Latin word for four-leaf clover. From his office window, Will observes a man (David Hadas) exit a car and sidestep the "13" painted on the adjoining parking space. Will's coworker Maggie Young enters his office and quizzes him about the date. It's his birthday, Will realizes. Maggie invites him to lunch.
Will and three other analysts -- Tanya, Miles Fiedler, and Grant Test -- enter a conference room. Grant chides Tanya for failing at what he considers her "most important job," remembering the doughnuts. David Hadas, the team’s boss, and the superstitious man Will observed, bustles in bearing the team’s assignments. Will's involves a Russian missile broker named Yuri, two unknown men. At lunchtime, Will declares himself too busy to join Maggie, then sets his work aside to peruse several daily papers' crossword puzzles. Later, he informs David he has found identical references to the three branches of government across several papers. The clover entry, Will theorizes, is related. "What or who does that fourth leaf represent?" he asks. David dismisses the references as a joke among crossword editors, but notifies his boss, Kale Ingram. "Anybody else see this?" Kale asks. "No," replies David.
In the cafeteria, Miles and Grant give Tanya, a recent hire, the lowdown on her colleagues. Truxton Spangler, the agency's unapproachable director, for instance, eats cornflakes for lunch every day. "Why is Will Travers so mopey?" Tanya asks. Miles replies that his wife and child died on 9/11 and Will had been scheduled at the World Trade Center that morning, but arrived late. "He's never been late for anything since," Grant says. Will grabs lunch at a street cart where David joins him. Will expresses doubts about his job and hints at resigning. David gives him a birthday present, a guide to road food. "I don't blame you for taking stock," says David. The problem isn't his work, Will says, but rather being unable to discuss it. "That's the hardest thing in this job," David replies. David invites Will to dinner. Will declines. "Days like these," he says, remind him of his family. "I miss them too much." As he departs, David hands Will an envelope and says, "Don't open it until you get home." Outside his apartment, Will opens the envelope to find a key attached to this note: "Drive away. Don't look back. It's time." Will notices a Norton motorcycle parked curbside and calls David. "I can't keep this," he says. "I can hear you smiling," David replies. "Why now?" asks Will. David says that he'll explain everything in the morning. He's taking an early train out of Putnam station; Will is to meet him at a bar. The next morning, a man dressed similar to David (but whose face is never seen) walks down a train's aisle. Seconds later, a train speeding in the opposite direction switches onto the first train's track. Will drinks coffee at a bar. On the TV news, coverage of the death of the mansion owner, revealed to be Thomas K. Rhumor, is followed by word of a train collision near Putnam station. Kale delivers the eulogy at David's funeral. David, it turns out, is Will's father-in-law. After the funeral, Kale offers David's position to Will, who expresses hesitation. "Think it over," Kale replies. “If your mind doesn't change, I'll accept your answer -- and your resignation." That evening, Will sits in David's office. The phone rings. "Knight to king's bishop three," says the caller, who hangs up after realizing that David hasn't answered. Will locates a chessboard (inside a globe) with a game in progress. An inscription on the board reads, "From one pawn to another -- E.B." Still that night, Will rings a doorbell. "Are you Ed Bancroft?" he asks the weary man who appears. "David's been killed," Will informs him. Will tells him around the office that people say, "You were a genius at cracking codes, until the codes cracked you." Will presents the crosswords but Ed claims not to recognize them. "They showed up the day before David died," Will replies. "Coincidence?" Ed abruptly asks Will to leave. As Will heads home, a man in black shadows him on the Putnam station platform. Will notices David's car in the lot. The man shadowing Will drives away. David's car is parked in space 13. Will visits Maggie in her home, apologizing for the hour. The superstitious David would never have parked in space 13, Will maintains. "His remains were identified," counters Maggie. Will needs to accept David's death and move on. At work the next day, Will informs Maggie that he's resigning. This ensures Grant's promotion, she replies. Miles corners Will later and insists that David would want him to "pick up the torch." When Will unexpectedly accepts the position, Kale reacts curiously and asks "What changed your mind?” "You know what? I don't care," he continues. "Let's introduce you upstairs." Upstairs, an aide tells Will that he’ll meet Spangler tomorrow. Spangler disembarks a ferry and is driven to a country home. He enters a meeting in progress. "Anybody double check that Tom is actually dead?" he asks. "He blew his brains out," "I saw his body." "Good," says Spangler. "We're back on track."
Episode 2:
Will Travers stands atop the API building, peering at the cars and pedestrians below. Closing his eyes, he places both feet partway over the roof's ledge. He pauses a moment, then jumps back onto the roof. A man in black appears to be watching from afar. Tanya arrives at work, eyes bloodshot. In the women's restroom, Maggie hears her retch into the toilet. In his office with Maggie, Will admits to feeling nervous about replacing David. "Don't be," she says. "Everyone's rooting for you." Will visits the basement sanctum of Hal and asks for help researching the crossword patterns -- off the record. "That would be against the rules," Hal replies. Will arrives late to Kale's office for an intake meeting. After the API teams receive their updated intelligence reports, -->Spangler. "Don't let me down," says Kale. "I recommended you for this job." Kale enters Spangler's office without Will. "How was D.C.?" he asks. "Usual cockfight," Spangler replies. "Any more noise about the crossword thing?" “Quiet as a mouse,” replies Kale before departing.
Spangler shows Will a photograph of the Russian missile broker Yuri Popovich with the two unidentified men, something Spangler wants remedied fast. "Twenty-four hours," he says. "Seem fair?" "Very fair," Will responds. At a law office, Katherine Rhumor attends the reading of her husband Tom's will. Her inheritance includes a townhouse that she was unaware her husband owned. Katherine also finds Tom edited his will the week before his death to leave her a company. Grant arrives late to a team meeting -- he was attending Career Day at his child's school -- and complains about the doughnuts Tanya brought. He prefers beignets. They need to concentrate on Popovich, says Will. "Why?" sulks Grant. Katherine visits the townhouse and examines evidence -- a monogrammed bathrobe, books on the nightstands -- of his life there.
In the employee cafeteria, Maggie tells Will that Kale wants him to occupy David's office "to keep you closer." Will pays for Maggie's meal -- about as close as she's likely to get to a lunch date, she comments. Eating with his team, Will learns that one of Popovich's companions has been identified as George Boeck. Will asks Grant about Career Day. "My kid thinks I'm unemployed," Grant grumbles. "I tell my kids that I write secret video games," says Miles. Hal informs Will that in 1983 multiple international newspapers published identical crossword clues. He hasn't determined who wrote them or why. "Keep looking," says Will. Hal objects that doing so could get him fired. Katherine quizzes Tom's friend James Wheeler about the townhouse. "Tom wasn't cheating on you," he tells her. "Believe me." "I really don't," she replies. Will goes through David’s things packed in boxes and finds a picture of himself, his wife, his daughter, and David. Will then discovers a sheet of paper in David’s typewriter with letters typed in groups of three. Will visits Ed Bancroft. "The morning of that train crash, David's car was parked in spot number thirteen," says Will. "Impossible," Ed responds. "Somebody else parked it, or he wanted us to know something was wrong," says Will. "What if he knew that train was going to crash?” Will shows Ed the sheet of paper he found in David’s typewriter. "This is really old-school," says Ed. The letters correspond to a book's pages, lines, and letters. Ed admits that he wrote the crossword code. It was a go code.
"To start what?" asks Will. Will applies the code to the road-food guidebook David gave him. "They hide in plain sight," the code spells out. Walking by Miles's office, Will hears a television report about a Nigerian uprising. "No one listens,” says Miles, distraught as much that his advice on Nigeria was ignored as by his personal life. Will turns the TV off and recommends that Miles spend time with his family and return fresh the next day. After Will leaves, Miles turns the TV back on.
On the street, Will notices the man in black following him. While walking home, he drops a rabbit’s foot that he had taken from David’s office as a memento, and, as he bends to pick it up, he narrowly escapes being hit by an out-of-control taxi. Working in his apartment, Will hears footsteps outside his door. He grabs a baseball bat, but the sound subsides. A subdued Maggie meets Kale in a hotel room the next morning. "What you got for me this week?" he asks. "Grant is jealous of Will," Maggie reports, something is freaking out Miles, and Tanya may have a "drinking issue." Kale asks if Will seems "distracted by David's death, anything like that." Maggie says no. At the office, Hal informs Will that the 1983 crossword clues were published after the bombing of a marine barracks in Beirut. The day after the clues appeared, supporters of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, the attack's sponsor, disappeared. “Go code initiates revenge killings," says Will. At her home, Katherine finds a four-leaf clover left for Tom "Lucky, lucky, lucky," she says.
James Wheeler expresses concern to a man he calls R.C. that Spangler is becoming overzealous. "He knows what he's doing," says R.C. "He's getting older," says Wheeler. “We all are.” Spangler interrupts a conversation between Will and Maggie. "You'll have something on my desk this morning regarding Yuri?" he says. Absolutely," Will replies. Will meets with his team. Miles lies about relaxing with his family. Grant extols British colonial institutions, specifically their standards of behavior." "Doughnuts every morning?" chimes in Miles. "Exactly," says Grant, just as Tanya appears with beignets. When Grant responds flippantly to Will’s questions about Yuri, Will responds furiously calling Grant a "lazy, pompous piece of shit" and demands information by the end of the day. The team slinks silently away. Will again stands atop the building. "Maybe he'll jump this time," says the man in black. "No such luck," says his partner also dressed in black "He's looking right at me," says MIB1. "Relax," replies MIB2. "He's going back down."
Episode 3:
As Will walks through Lower Manhattan one Sunday, he sees a stranger who appears to be following him. Arriving at API, Will greets David's wife, Joan Hadas, who has come to retrieve her husband's belongings. She's never seen his office before. "David always used to say, 'church and state,'" she comments. "I just never knew which one I was." Back on the street, Joan asks Will to meet with her son, Evan. Though reluctant, Will agrees to. After Joan departs, Will again spots the man he noticed earlier. Elsewhere, Maggie and her daughter Sophie walk together. "Pumpkin!" a man calls out. "Daddy!" cries Sophie as she jumps into his arms. Later that week, Katherine lies in bed gazing at a photo of a young Tom at the beach. The phone rings. "I don't like you hating me," says James Wheeler, inviting her to dinner.
At a team meeting, Miles reports that BND, Germany's intelligence agency, isn't cooperating on the Popovich photo. Tanya has learned that George Boeck is a banker. His mother was German, his father Syrian. Boeck westernized his name while in college. "He's a member of a mosque," says Tanya, "but it's pretty moderate."
"A Russian thug and a German banker -- this isn't really our playground," argues Miles. "We do the Middle East." He hasn't a clue about the identity of the photo's third man, he says. Will tells Kale that the team needs more time to analyze the photo. Will shouldn't have agreed to Spangler's 24-hour deadline, Kale responds. "He was testing you. You failed." Kale offers to "give BND a nudge."
Outside the office, Maggie informs Kale that Sophie's father just showed up. "Stay away from him," Kale replies. "What if Sophie could have her dad again?" she asks.
Will meets Evan at a café, and the two talk about the mental health treatment center in Vermont where Evan lives. Unlike his mother, Evan remarks, his father never visited. David promised him the Norton motorcycle, says Evan. "I'm his son, not you." At work, Tanya and Grant hypothesize about Boeck's choice of a first name. "Why not Heinrich, or Georg?" Grant asks. Miles leaves, saying it's to call Berlin. Instead he phones his wife, Maureen, but gets her voicemail. Will works through the night dismantling the Norton. At daybreak, he pulls some duct tape off the seat cushion. The adhesive side of the tape appears to contain rows of numeric code, and stuffed into the seat is a gun. At the office the next day, Will tries to interpret the code. Miles views footage of Boeck and his family passing through security at London's Gatwick airport, and stares hard at a sequence of Boeck with his daughter. "Are you okay?" Will asks. That evening on the way home, Will feels he is being followed once again, and confronts the man. The man punches Will in the stomach and flees. Back at API, Will's team analyzes Boeck's vacation patterns. "Cruises," says Miles. "Who does that?" Boeck belongs to numerous charitable, business, and other organizations, Miles point out. Will visits Ed Bancroft to seek help with the numeric code. "David gave me the bike," says Will. "Told me to ride away."
"Maybe a code," Ed replies. "Something you know a lot about." "Do you think he knew he was gonna die?" Will asks. "Do you mean, do I think he was murdered?" Ed replies. "Yes." At a restaurant with Katherine, James denies knowing about Tom's secret townhouse. "What was he up to?" she asks. "True friendship," replies James, "is forgiving someone in ways you would never forgive an acquaintance." After dinner, James slips into the townhouse. He picks up a framed photo of seven young men at a beach and leaves. Miles replays the Boeck airport footage. He calls his wife Maureen and tells her he's booked a Mediterranean cruise for her and their children, he says. Maureen rejects the idea, but suggests perhaps he can take the kids later on. When Miles replies that he wants to see her too, Maureen changes the subject.
Evan, meanwhile, comes to Will's apartment to retrieve the Norton. The two men reassemble the bike. His dad actually hated riding it, Evan claims. "I don't think we ever had an honest conversation that wasn't about baseball," he says.
Will rushes to Ed's house. "David knew I hate the Yankees," Will says. Most of the code rows represent the Yankees' World Series wins. The others, Will suspects, refer to people. Ed decodes a row that refers to a pitcher named Travers. "Why did David leave my name in a code?" Will asks. "So you'd know when you'd broken it," Ed replies. Miles spends the night examining Boeck's financial transactions but finds nothing unusual. Miles initially speculated, for instance, that Boeck had rented a London apartment as a love nest; it turned out to be for a sister who was undergoing chemotherapy. "This guy is a saint," he tells the team. BND has started cooperating, Miles adds, but "they kept asking me what we had." Kale introduces Will to Special Agent Ryan Farber, who it turns out is the man who has been following him -- he’s a federal agent. "Part of the vetting process for your new security clearance," explains Kale, which has been approved. The next time Will is being followed, Agent Farber recommends, he shouldn't challenge his pursuer. That night on the street, Will calls Daniel Burns and reads him seven names he'd like run through a database. As Will speaks, he keeps an eye on a man keeping pace with him across the street.
In his apartment, Will inserts the magazine into the chamber of the gun from the motorcycle. The man Will observed, ducks into a laundromat. "He's made me," he admits to another, who is waiting inside. "He saw me just now." The FBI has stopped tailing Will, the man reports. "He had another meeting with Bancroft last night," he says. The second man makes a call to someone. "It's Travers," he says. "He's still digging."
