Original subtitles

Tonight, on The Sentinel.

The cause of death was a sudden reduction of pressure in the dive

other words, he blew up.

Basically, yes.

You're crazy.

I know my crew. They're not killers.

You know something.

You better tell me. I've got a job to do.

Not much to do out here when you're not working, except read.

We should get together and talk books over coffee.

I'd like that.

You ever feel someone welcomed in a place?

The guy wires in the radio until he has to snap from the wind.

This didn't snap. This has been cut.

In the jungles of Peru, the fight for survival heightened his senses.

Now, Detective James Ellison is a sentinel in the fight for justice.

Seeing before others see.

Sensing what others can't.

An ever -vigilant watchman in the war against crime.

Buchanan. Yeah.

I'm checking the dive system now.

Look, I know the situation.

I told you how I feel.

So we contact the authorities and let them handle it.

But can we talk about this later?

I've got a job to do.

Hey, Jim.

What's going on, man? You got a hot date tonight or something?

Time to get organized, Chief.

This mess here is starting to drive me crazy.

What mess?

Three weeks ago, this was a peanut butter and sprouts on whole grain.

Now it's an experiment in germ warfare.

Oh, hey, hey, hey. Be careful with that.

This is a rare devil mass from the Onkantu tribe in Kenya. It's on loan to

university. I'm using it for my research.

Why is it lying around?

It's not lying around.

It's been in the same spot since last Thursday.

These papers on the TV, they've been here since April.

Well, that's how I work.

I go back and forth with things when the music drags.

You got your own bedroom back in chief. Use it up all you want.

Don't you think you're getting a little territorial here?

Territorial? Yeah, territorial.

Let's take the refrigerator, for example.

You've got the leftovers color -coded. You've got yours in the blue, mine in

red. And let's talk about your house rules a little bit here. I can't flush

toilet after 10 o 'clock. I can't play any music that you can hear out here in

the living room. Who can live like that?

I can live like that.

Allison. Yeah, Mr. Simon.

About an hour ago, the Coast Guard received a call from an offshore oil

production rig. There's been a death.

Wouldn't that be the Coast Guard's jurisdiction?

Normally, but there are a few questions here that they need some answers to.

Besides, the captain's a buddy of mine. I told him he'd help out.

There's a storm alert all along the coast. They're really strapped for

Who got killed?

Details are a little sketchy. You'll have to fill in the blanks when you get

there. Now, the name of the rig is the North Star 5. It's owned by Cyclops Oil.

Company chopper will take you there.

Exactly how far out are we talking?

I don't know, 40, 50 miles.

All right, nutty.

Yeah.

Would you look at that ocean?

So raw.

So primal.

So deep.

I'm sorry.

I love this stuff. You know, it's an adventure.

It's something Hemingway or Jack London, you know?

Men against the sea.

Just men, huh?

Oh, hi.

They reversed the bubble, Captain Ahab. This is the co -ed operation.

I didn't mean anything.

Look, we're going to be on that rig in another five minutes. That storm front's

moving in pretty fast, so it's going to get kind of bumpy.

Strap in that tight little putty or it's going to be tough.

Need any help down there, Tom?

You too be sick.

You boys head to the mess hall. See that first store on the third floor from the

deck.

You'll be sick.

If I was you, I'd wrap up my business fast. It'll be dark soon, and that

storefront's moving in pretty quick.

Right.

Jim.

Jim, you okay? What is it?

Nothing.

involved here. There are certain tribes on the Amazon that newcomers actually

have to strip down. I'm Detective Ellison, Cascade Police Department.

We'll be in charge here.

I am.

Ben Crilly, rig foreman.

Hi, Ben.

There's been a death reported.

It was an accident. I understand why the police are involved.

We've been requested to investigate.

Investigate what?

Hi, Ben.

I'm sure you're just as anxious to get us out of here as we are to leave. Yeah,

sorry.

It's just that it's tough on the crew when you lose a guy, you know.

How can we help?

We need to see the medic's report and the body.

I'd be in the infirmary, C -deck.

Medic's name is Weaver. You have to show yourselves around, though. We've been

setting risers on the wellhead around the clock. We're shorthanded as it is.

All roustabouts.

Rotary table in three minutes.

I want that 30 -inch casing at the ready. Excuse me, gentlemen.

Let's go. I guess we gotta go find C -Deck.

Either of you gentlemen direct us toward C -Deck?

Two levels down.

Infirmary's right out the main corridor.

Thanks.

You okay, partner?

I will be.

Hot water to my suit crapped out during the dive this morning.

A damn body loses heat quick when you breathe in helium, oxygen, and 40

water.

Yeah.

You're the rigged diver.

Yeah.

The only water man out here now that Buchanan's gone.

His name's Lacey Billings.

How you doing?

Buchanan. Is that the guy who died in the accident?

Mm -hmm.

Can you tell us what happened?

I was asleep.

Who found him?

I don't know.

Do you know who called the Coast Guard?

No.

If you guys don't excuse me, I'm gonna go take me a hot shower.

Try to get rid of this chill.

Cause of death was a sudden reduction of pressure in the dive system, causing

massive tissue and organ damage.

So, in other words, he blew up?

Basically, yes.

How did it happen?

The saturation dive system.

Buchanan was making a routine check on it.

And? And there was an accident.

And what kind of an accident?

Oh, I couldn't tell you. I wasn't there.

Who was?

He was alone.

Who found the body?

I don't know.

Who put the call into the Coast Guard?

I don't know that either.

There were 12, 13 men on this rig.

Man dies, nobody knows what happened.

Look, Detective, I'm just a medic.

If you don't know who found the body or how it happened, how do you know it was

an accident?

Maybe you should talk to the rig foreman, Mr. Crilly. Crilly told me to

you.

I'm going to need to see the body.

I don't think that's a good idea.

I do.

Are you sure you want to do this? Open it.

Oh, man.

Tell me something, Mr. Weaver.

How does a man do that to himself accidentally?

You ever feel so unwelcomed in a place?

We're invading their territory, Jim.

These guys work out here for weeks at a time.

They develop their own society.

If you ask me, there's something much bigger than resentment going on here.

Check it out.

Whoa, man, that's weird.

What is it?

Check it out. My fingers are all burning and itching. You don't feel it.

Open it up.

For Buchanan to die in here, this hatch would have to be closed and all the

pressure would have to be pumped out of here.

So what do you get, man?

For one thing, he can adjust the pressure any time he wanted to.

This release valve looks like it works just fine.

Well, even if it didn't, all he'd have to do is unseal the hatch.

Freak accidents happen.

Sure they do.

I think we just have the jackpot here, Chief. You see this mark?

And this one here?

I think we just blew that accident doing right out of the water.

We need to get a crime unit out here ASAP, and until we do, nobody leaves

rig. Well, you got the second part right. That storm front is right on us,

until it blows over, we are completely cut off from the mainland.

Nobody on this rig is going anywhere.

here as soon as possible.

Okay, Jim, but from what I hear, it'll be a while.

Storm's really hitting the coast hard. You and Sandburger are going to be stuck

out there in the meantime.

I've never told you this.

Hell, I never told anybody this. I always had this thing about open water.

Deep water.

What, like a phobia?

But you're in special forces, covert ops. I mean, you had to parachute over

water and stuff like that. Yeah, but that was different. I was always inside

land. I mean, out here with all this water around, I mean, that's all I can

It's just starting to get to me a little bit. All right, just take it easy.

You don't look so good there, beef stick.

Come on. I got a cup of coffee that's guaranteed to take off the chill.

What is this place?

My operations room.

You guys are welcome to use it. I don't mind the company.

This is good.

One part Colombian, one part espresso, one part chocolate, and two parts rum.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gravity's Rainbow, The Painted Bird. Are these

yours? Not much to do out here when you're not working except read.

I'm impressed.

Surprise.

A little.

Ah, you figured I was just one of these blue -collar love novels.

Yep.

You know, if you have some time, we should get together and talk books over

coffee.

I'd like that.

Oh, don't worry. That's just from the store. Rick can handle it.

It gets a little noisy sometimes, though.

All right, let's move out.

I'm not waiting for the forensics team to show.

Give the killer too much time to cover his trail.

Where do we start?

Uh, Buchanan was a lead diver.

I'd like to take a look at the diver's ready room.

Why would anybody kill Buchanan?

I mean, I work with some of these guys. I'm not seeing their saints, but I don't

see any of them committing murder.

You have any idea who found the body or put the call into the Coast Guard?

When it happened, I was in a supply run to the mainland.

What doesn't make sense to me is why would someone call the Coast Guard and

leave a name?

There's a lot of things about this case that don't make any sense, Chief. I

mean, that's why I was thinking that... What is it?

I smell smoke.

Must be your imagination. We've got state -of -the -art smoke detectors on

rig. They'd smell it way before you.

Where'd you go?

Look what?

He's telling me his nose is more sensitive than the smoke detector.

Go figure.

Down here.

I was ready from all the peers in there.

Hello? Hello?

The hell is in here that can burn like that? And if I know.

This is ours.

Somebody wanted to try and destroy these diver suits.

That's nuts. Why would anybody want to burn this stuff?

You tell me, Crilly.

It's your rig.

Anybody see anything?

No. Of course not. Everybody, back to work. Come on.

Why would somebody set on fire and leave those cans behind and give it away?

They're probably in an awful hurry.

Who the hell was that?

I think it was Chuck Brown.

What are you doing on this rig?

I work here since when? Three months ago.

You guys know each other? You can say that.

I help a truck away.

I did my time, man. I got a real job now.

That's roustabout.

I learned welding in a pre -work program. They set me up with it.

Other workers know about your past?

Clearly does.

I didn't tell nobody else because I'm trying to make a clean start.

What do you know about Jackie Cannon's death?

Nothing.

What about the fire in the radio room?

What fire?

You're sweating, truck. What's wrong?

It's hot in here.

It's 60 degrees.

Look, I don't got time for this. I got a job to do.

Why don't you make the time?

What were you doing outside the operations room just now?

Looking for Maggie.

I got to see my parole office on Friday. I'm trying to hitch a ride to the

mainland.

We'll talk again.

Yeah.

Right.

You busted him?

Yeah.

He used to work as a knee -breaker for a loan shark named Eddie Coogan.

He's kept out of trouble here.

It's Bryce.

Maggie, it's Ridley over in the radio room. I'm looking for that detective.

You seen him?

Yeah, I'm right here.

Your captain wants to talk to you. He says it's important.

All right, I'm on my way.

We must have disconnected the external antenna.

It's not from before.

All right. We'll check it out. You keep trying to release it. All right.

You got a nasty gas on your head, but I don't think you're going to need

stitches.

Don't be worried there, Chief. What happened?

Sky wires in the radio antenna must have snapped from the wind.

This didn't snap. This has been cut.

What? What are you saying? That someone meant for that antenna to fall on us?

Somebody didn't want us to get through to Simon.

Maggie, is there another radio on the rig?

Damn.

You're crazy.

I know my crew. They're not killers.

What about Trump, Ralph?

He's got a couple of guys. That doesn't make him a murderer. He's a good man.

They all are.

Somebody killed Buchanan.

And it seems as if somebody's tried to kill my partner and me.

So as of this moment right now, I'm ordering you to shut this rig down until

further notice.

Who the hell are you to give me orders?

I'm a police officer in charge of a crime scene. That's who I am.

We're 40 miles offshore, mister, and your authority stops at the mainland.

only voice I answer to is Cyclops Oil. Until they tell me different, this rig

keeps pumping, right on schedule.

When the storm is over, you and your pal are out of here.

You make accusations, make them to my face.

If you're involved with anything that's happened on this rig, Brower, you're

going down.

I said it once, I'm clean.

You know something.

You better tell me.

Guys, I know Ben Curley. I mean, he can be hard -headed sometimes, but basically

he's a decent guy.

Maybe if I try to talk to him.

It's a waste of time. And then what do we do?

Just keep digging.

Look, I'm just a pilot, but it seems to me that the smart thing to do would be

to lay low until the storm blows over and then bring in more cops.

Just you and your friend trying to handle this by yourself would get real

dangerous. She makes a lot of sense, Jim. We give this guy too much time, he

cover his tracks permanently.

Now, I'm going to go down to the diver's ready room. There's probably something

there that we missed. The fire was set for a reason.

You stay put, Chief. You took a nasty wound to the head. I want you to lay

And that's an order.

At least take a radio.

Yeah, I was just checking to see if the radio worked.

It does.

Jimmy, I was thinking, I'm going to have to call you back.

Jim?

Jim? Jim, are you there?

Yeah, Jim.

That diver, Lacey Billings?

I found him dead in the store down on Seadeck.

Jim, you're fading.

I'm following you. It might be the killer.

Jim, I can't hear you.

Jim, can you read me?

Jim! I gotta go find him.

No problem.

Just, uh, don't touch me.

I was following somebody and trying to track him with my hearing.

Next thing I know, this machine kicks in, totally blows me out, and then,

lights out.

See, that's why you need me to back you up.

Did you see the guy who hit you? No, but I got a good look at the body of that

diver, Billings.

His face and his hands were covered with these lesions, you know, these burns.

What could cause that? I don't know. I felt something like that when I was in

the military.

Some chemical warfare weapons.

What? Yeah. How could he come into contact with that out here on an oil

Maybe he wasn't on the rig.

I mean, think about it.

Billings was a diver, right?

Something he found at the bottom of the ocean.

Yeah, maybe a classified dumping site or an old wreck. Some kind of military

transport that was carrying chemical weapons.

That's probably why I had that weird sensation in my fingers in the dive

chamber. If it was chemical weapons, why try to hide it? Are you kidding me? You

know how many countries would love to get their hands on that sort of thing?

Okay, so Billings goes down, finds the stuff, and somehow gets exposed to it.

Maybe one of the containers was leaking. That's probably why they had to burn

the dive suits.

They were probably covered with this stuff.

Fine. Why kill Buchanan?

Maybe he didn't go along with the plan.

And I thought cops were supposed to be dumb.

But you're smart, Beefstick.

Too damn smart.

You too, Lamb Chop.

So it was a ship.

McKenna found it during a bottom survey.

Best we can figure, she went down in 71 in a big storm, headed for Vietnam.

This was one of those secret CIA things, your tax dollars at work.

Ben, you there?

It's Bryce.

Yeah, Maggie.

I got our friends.

Get me down to the ready room.

I heard the man.

Better put on some clothes.

Well, I got two brothers. Don't be shy.

I've got to get off this rig and get me a boyfriend.

Who are you selling this stuff to, Maggie?

I'll just say it's a group of people who pay very well.

Don't worry, they're involved in their own political struggles, so they won't

use it on the good old USA.

They'll use it on each other.

When I was in the military, I saw what this stuff can do to people.

Get serious, Ellison.

Nobody cares about little third -world countries and what they do to each

The way I see it, I'm providing a very valuable service.

War is population control.

You're quite the philosopher, aren't you, Crilly?

Yeah. How are we going to handle this?

Take him upstairs to the generator room.

There's more noise.

I knew there was something squirrelly going on around here, but I just didn't

know what.

You must be the one who called the Coast Guard about Buchanan.

Yep. Why didn't you give your name?

And set myself up as a troublemaker?

Look, I'm an ex -con, man, and I already got one strike against me. And I like

this job.

You want to keep it?

Give me the gun.

I don't think so.

Big mistake, Bauer.

The other one is making a mistake.

Yeah?

Looks like my business partner's got you just in time.

I want you to separate from the others.

Down. Come on.

hands up.

I'm sorry about this lamb chop.

I guess we're not going to have that coffee after all.

Always had bad timing when it comes to men.

You don't have to do this, you know.

You mean give it all up and go straight for you?

You're cute, honey, but you're not that cute.

Storm over, your friends from the mainland will probably have you out in a

couple hours, so in the meantime, keep it warm.

How long did you set the timer for?

Twenty minutes.

Maggie, it's the only way. When that explosion hits this rig and sends it to

bottom, they're going to figure we're dead, too.

You want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?

Huh? Come on.

Maggie didn't fasten his handcuffs too tight.

I just wanted to see if I could, uh... Ow.

Ow. Ow.

Ow.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Ow.

Let me have a little bit on my wrist.

Here we go.

Let's get the hell out of here.

If I can get to that ship before they get underway, maybe I can stop.

I'm a pretty good swimmer.

Maybe I should go with you. Negative. I want you to stay here and try and get

that radio working to get some help out of here.

Even with that antenna down, it's possible to reach the Coast Guard ship

area.

You sure you want to do this?

No.

I got an idea.

You know the zone out factor where you get so focused on one sense you block

the others out?

Yeah. I think you can use that to your advantage here.

Use your sense of sight to focus in on that ship.

It'll block out all your other senses. You won't be so aware of the sea.

Good shot.

Coast Guard, Coast Guard, come in. This is the oil rig North Star 5. We have an

emergency. Please come in.

What's longer?

Four minutes and 19 seconds.

North Star 5 is going to go sky high.

Those oil drums are going to give us some real fireworks.

Coast Guard, Coast Guard, the oil rig North Star 5, we have an emergency. Come

in.

Star 5, do you read me?

Jim, is that you?

Sanford, listen to me.

There's a bomb on the rig.

What? You've got to get out of there right now.

Well, what about the rest of the crew? They're still locked up.

It's set to go off in three minutes.

Do you know where it is?

That really said something about an oil drum.

G -Deck, I'm on my way.

Sanford.

Which oil drool is it?

Forty seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Ten. Nine.

Seven seconds.

The rig should have flown. I don't know what the hell happened.

The explosive didn't go off. Then we better get on the way.

We can't leave the rig standing. We've got to go back and reset the explosive.

I'm not waiting for the American Coast Guard to show up. We're all leaving.

Those guys on that rig told the Coast Guard what happened. They're going to

out for the Navy.

I'll take that chance.

You're not going to deal.

No.

They're not any weapons.

I'll take command of this ship.

I couldn't raise you on the radio. I got worried and decided to call in a coast

guard. Well, your timing isn't impeccable as always, sir.

Allison!

Somebody said you won't see me.

I guess I owe you an apology.

I guess you do.

Sorry.

I hope you're kept.

Why don't we step over here and you tell me your version of where we're down

here tonight, huh?

Okay.

You must be feeling pretty good.

I mean, you did it. Did what?

You conquered your fear of the water.

Oh, yeah, I guess I did.

Yeah. Now I'm ready for the really big challenge.

What's that?

Hell's breaking you.

We got a couple rules around the house that we're going to attend to.

Like what? Well, first of all, there's not going to be any shoes allowed in the

apartment. On the premises. They're going to be kept out the door like they

in Japan.

Come on. Next, there's not going to be any of those smelly foods that you have

from foreign countries that aren't even on the map. You're taking this a little

too far. No, no, no. And I'm also thinking about getting some of those

covers for the furniture.

What? Well, maybe not. I mean, I...