2011
Mac and Charlie are driving through Gardez, Afghanistan. Reports come in of soldiers finding IEDs throughout the city, and they've already defused 17. The two men arrive at the rally point, and the officer in charge tells them that one of his guys spotted a device up the ally. Mac and Charlie check the wooden box and open it, and find an IED inside. They remove the front of the box and discover that it's powerful enough to destroy the block and the bomb maker is an expert.
Now
At the Veterans Annual Charity Dinner, Mc and others look on as a wounded veteran talks about the event that broke her but didn't get the best of her. Afterward, Mac joins Riley at the bar and tells her that he and Nasha are taking time apart so she isn't endangered by his career. Riley takes the drinks to the table, and Eileen Brennan sits down next to Mac and orders a drink. She introduces herself and says that she's with British Intelligence despite her American accent. Eileen says that she was in 2011 and knows Mac, and she came looking for him. She tells him that the Ghost killed people that they love and she knows where he is, but she needs his help.
With Jack on an op in Brazil, Mac, Matty, Riley, and wilt meet in a side room with Eileen, and Matty confirms her credentials. She wonders why her outfit isn't acting on her intel, and Eileen tells them that her bosses don't think her intel is solid enough so she came to Mac. The Ghost has been selling his services at hotspots across the world, and Eileen realized that if the Ghost came after Mac then the bomb maker thinks that he's a threat. She believes the Russian military captured him with a group of Czech rebels and stuck him in a military installation without knowing who he is. She show them an audio of a man telling the interrogator that he knows nothing, and explains that it's the same voice she heard before one of the Ghost's bombs killed her parents.
Mac talks to Matty privately and figures that Eileen is convinced. Matty says that they should take the ghost down no matter how shaky the intel is and tells Mac that he has Phoenix behind him.
The next day at Phoenix, Mac watches the Ghost's video of his trainer Alfred, who died while trying to defuse one of the Ghost's bombs. Charlie arrives in response to Mac's summons, and they talk about Charlie's new job as EOD instructor replacing Alfred. Mac figures that they've found the Ghost and he'll take whatever he can get. Charlie wonders why Mac needs him there, and Mac figures that he's too close to it and needs somebody to remind him of it.
The team heads to Grozny, Czechoslovakia with Charlie and Eileen, and approach the Russian checkpoint. There are four dead soldiers in the forest nearby, and they hear high explosives in the distance. Charlie and Mac identify it as ANFO and figure that someone is rescuing Charlie. Matty is running satellite surveillance and says that two vehicles are approaching them. Mac lays out the chains that crossed the checkpoint and snags the first truck. The second one goes by and Mac sees the Ghost in the cab. He drops several small pellets on the road, and Mac gets everyone to cover just as they go off. The team finds a survivor in the first vehicle and Eileen identifies him as Patrick Quinn, a member of the IRA.
Mac threatens to hand Patrick over to the Russians. Patrick responds in Irish, but Eileen confirms that he can speak English. She takes a bomb out of the truck, triggers it, and puts it on Patrick's chest. He quickly cracks and Mac disarms the bomb. The team drives off and Matty reports that Phoenix agents picked up Patrick. Patrick told them that the IRA is taking the Ghost to a warehouse outside of the city. Eileen apologizes to the others and explains that her parents died in when she was 8. Her parents were arguing in the next room, and a man in the hall yelled at her to get out. Eileen figures that the Ghost was using an apartment in the building, and the Ghost was behind the explosions taking place in the city that day. She tells the others that she has been obsessed with the Ghost and couldn't see him slip away. Mac says that wo weeks before Alfred's death, one of the Ghost's bombs killed twelve people including children.
Mac and Charlie continue driving around defusing 41 bombs, and realize that that the bombs are more sophisticated than typical. They arrive and find another squad working on a bomb, and take off when they get a report of another bomb.
Finishing his story, Mac says that twelve hours later a second bomb went off. Charlie says that they defused 126 bombs that night but remember the one that they didn't get.
The team arrive at the warehouse and feel heat from a methanol fire that is invisible in day light and smokeless. They figure the Ghost is burning whatever he left behind to cover his tracks. Mac rigs CO2 canisters so he can deprive the flames of oxygen and get inside. He goes inside, tossing the canisters so they explode, and gets to a workshop and grabs a group of papers. When Mac gets outside, they put the fire on his clothes out and move back. There are shipping documents showing that the IRA is ending tons of chemicals to Paris.
Traveling to Paris, the team goes to the shipping address. Mac breaks into the building, and Eileen confirms that the building isn't big enough to hold the chemicals. They find a dust-free room and figure the IA covered their tracks. Mac releases water from a tank and they hear it dripping into a passageway leading down into the catacombs. Wilt and Riley go to alert Matty while Eileen and Charlie go with him, and Charlie warns that the Ghost has had plenty of time to plant traps.
Mac makes a can designed to roll back, rolls it down the first catacomb, and confirms that it's clear of explosive chemicals. Wilt and Riley warn the police and Riley warns that the others are moving slow because of the need to check for traps.
Mac gets a reaction in the next hallway and the trio proceed slowly. There's a light switch on the wall next to a door, and Mac opens it and confirms that the wiring is new. They go in and find one of the Ghost's workshop, and search the place for any indication of his target. Charlie finds DVDs labeled with names and Mac realizes that they're bomb techs. There are almost a dozen of them with Mac's name on the, dated 2011. One of the discs shows Mac and Charlie from the second EOD team's point of view, and Mac realizes that they were the Ghost's men setting the bomb.
Eileen finds the police uniform that Jack saw on the Ghost at the UN two months ago. They figure that the Ghost's MO is dressing up his men are locals. Eileen sets off a bomb when she hangs the uniform back up, and Mac tells Charlie and Eileen to run. He's unable to defuse the bomb and uses another cabinet as a shelter as the Ghost's bomb goes off. The Ghost comes in and introduces himself, and punches Mac unconscious.
Charlie and Eileen get out and say that the tunnel collapsed. Wilt calls Matty and says that Charlie took the brunt of the blast and is sidelined. Riley is unable to track Mac's phone GPS, and Matty compiles a list of potential targets in Paris. One of them is Owen Douglas, who is giving a speech at the French National Assembly Building. Douglas is the newly elected Prime Minister of England, and 20 years ago was targeted for assassination by the Ghost. The bomb detonated in an apartment four bombs away, killing a young couple and orphaning Eileen. Wil and Riley figure that the Ghost is finishing the job he didn't complete 20 years ago, and Matty calls British Protection Command.
Three bombs go off in Paris but none of them are at the Assembly Building. Matty figures that since the Ghost can't get at Douglas directly, he detonated the bombs to get Douglas' protection detail to take him to their safehouse. As they get the safehouse's location, Matty tells Wilt and Riley that they have to trust that Mac can handle himself.
Mac wakes up in the basement of the safe house and finds a massive bomb armed to detonate. The Ghost is there holding a dead man's switch on a detonator, and thanks Mac for making him better. He admits that Mac is the best EOD tech that he's ever faced, forcing him to improve. The Ghost tells Mac that he can't defuse the bomb, and Mac realizes that it's a fuel air bomb. The bomb maker says that he doesn't care about the thousands who will die, and Mac figures that the Ghost is in it for the money. The Ghost tells Mac that he was trying to set a record, and decided that day how good Mac was. Two weeks later he hid a device in the section of the city that Mac was covering. Disarming the device triggered a secondary device, but Mac's bomb robot broke and Alfred went in instead. Furious, Mac charges at the Ghost, who reminds him of the detonator. He says that he's killing Douglas for free.
Wil, Riley, and Eileen arrive at the safehouse and search the tunnels below the place. They split up, Eileen going north while Wilt and Riley head south.
The Ghost tells Mac that he doesn't remember all of the bombs that he's planted, and Mac asks for the name of the man he isn't going to stop hunting once he defuses the bomb. The Ghost says that his name is Connor and he knows Mac won't leave the bomb and come after him. He explains that he hid a bomb out in the world in the hopes that Mac would have found it, but he never did. The Ghost says that years ago he had a cause and was fighting a war like Mac, but he built a bomb that took away the one thing that in the world that he loved.
Eileen comes in and the Ghost calls her by name. She tells Mac that Connor is her father, reverts to her Irish accent, and says that her mother didn't want Connor involved with the IRA. The IRA relocated Connor from Belfast to London, and when her mother brought her home early from school, they found him building a bomb in the kitchen. Connor and his wife argued, and then Connor yelled at Eileen to get off just before the bomb went off. The Ghost says that he mixed the chemicals wrong and he was rushed because the raids were coming, and Eileen tells him that he was wrong. Eileen hugs Connor and says that she forgives but can never forgive the Ghost. She stabs him in the chest, and Connor drops the dead man's switch.
The bomb arms with three and a half minutes. Eileen tells Mac that she only came for Connor and runs off. Wilt and Riley arrive and insists that they're not leaving their friend. Mac explains who Eileen is and warns that the bomb is too heavy to lift up and get at the components. Riley tells him to focus, and Mac grabs a nearby rope and tarp. He rigs them to lift the bomb when Wilt and Riley lift, and Mac slips under the casing as they hold it up. They start to slip while Mac works on the circuitry. The tarp starts ripping, and Mac manages to cut the wire and get out just as the tarp rips, dropping the casing down on the floor.
Later back in LA, Mac meets with Charlie, Wilt, and Riley at his home and they drink a toast to the Ghost's defeat. Wilt wonders if Eileen was looking to avenge her mother's death, and Matty arrives. Mac goes out to talk to her, and she tells him that Eileen disappeared. He tells Matty that Alfred died in his place, and Matty says that nothing that happened in Gardez was his fault. Matty assures Mac that Alfred would be proud of the man Mac had become, and says that Mac can't be obsessed with the Ghost and he just mentioned the final bomb to get inside of his head. Jack calls from a bar in Brazil and Wilt calls Mac over to hear Jack's stories.
Written by Gadfly on Nov 17, 2018