The Fly Team hit a cruise trip, but this was not The Love Boat.
After solving a murder case in France, the FBI: International team headed to Vienna, where a deadly killing on a cruise ship led to a complex case.
Meanwhile, Forrester had some rough sailing in a new relationship, making On These Waters a tricky episode.
A romantic cruise turns deadly
On the Danube River in Austria, guests enjoyed a nice cruise. Captain Leon Bauer (Nick Boraine) was doing a speech when the lights went out. Suddenly, a pair of masked gunmen burst in, firing their weapons.
One chastised the other for beating on the captain. A passenger attacked and was gunned down as the men escaped by a waiting speedboat. In the wake, a pair of parents were agonized to find their young daughter had been shot.
Forrester and Sara talked on a rooftop about her artwork and agreed to a date. Forrester had Sara thinking he worked at the airport, but he confessed he worked for the FBI. He wanted to be honest with her to make this relationship work. Sadly, a phone call ruined any chances of another date.
With Vo stateside testifying on a case, the team was told of the attack with one passenger dead and the Polish girl in critical condition. As the ship was owned by an American company, that gave them jurisdiction.
Bauer met Forrester and Raines, not sure what those men wanted on the boat as robbery didn’t seem a motive. Jaeger warned it would be tricky to track anything in Austria’s black market.
Seeing the spray patterns of bullets, Raines suggested whatever plan the men had gone off the rails fast. The closest thing to a motive was some ransacked lockers. Forrester suggested they bring in their top agent: Tank.
The girls’ parents were worried about their daughter and couldn’t explain what had happened. None of the passengers were high-profile, with the murdered man being Joseph Corbin, a French investment banker. Interestingly, he was the only passenger whose native country hadn’t checked on him.
The gunmen had been looking for something and panicked when they couldn’t find their target. Kellett met with the cruise ship company’s CEO, Jeremy Wilcox (Kieran Roberts), who was more worried about how this would affect his already tricky bottom line.
Wilcox admitted his budget cuts included no security cameras and looser background checks. He added that he trusted Bauer, but a background check showed the captain was deep in debt. It also turned out Corbin’s background was faked.
Tank arrived and quickly sniffed out heroin hidden in the ship’s kitchen.
Cruising into trouble
Jaeger’s old friend Agent Thomas Richter (Stephen Plunkett), a United Nations drug officer, arrived to identify the drugs as belonging to a local cartel. Forrester figured the gunmen wanted to steal the drugs but didn’t know where they were hidden.
It turned out “Corbin” was actually a cartel thug overseeing the drugs and killed trying to protect them. That left who tipped the gunmen off to the drugs being on board in the first place. Forrester suggested they keep the drug discovery quiet so as not to scare away any suspects.
Raines suggested Sebastian Klein (Luca Molinari), a kitchen worker with a criminal background, could have been the inside man. He also happened to be Bauer’s half-brother.
Bauer admitted he wanted to help his brother, asking Forrester, “do you turn your back on your family?” He was honestly shocked to learn about the drugs and realized Sebastian had gotten himself in serious trouble.
Jaeger theorized Sebastian used one of the local ports to help smuggle the drugs with an accomplice not listed on the ship’s manifest. He’d fallen into this by visiting cartel casinos, got in debt, and was working it off by helping them smuggle.
They raided Sebastian’s home with him gone, not surprising given he was being hunted by the cartel, the cops, and the robbers. A search showed he’d frequented a local pub several times.
Jaeger shared a photo with Forrester of the woman who’d boarded in Budapest and Sebastian’s possible accomplice. When he opened the phone, Forrester was stunned to realize the woman was Sara.
Forrester is in for more heartbreak
Forrester was right at Sara’s apartment, demanding answers. She claimed she simply helped with private tours thanks to her language skills. Forrester found it highly suspicious Sara had been asking him to skip work before all this.
When she asked what he was talking about, Forrester snapped that “I have been burned by everyone close to me.” He demanded to know her tour contacts, which she would give but ordered him out of her house.
Kellett and Jaeger hit the local pub, the hostess playing dumb, but it took just a few threats from Jaeger to get her to back down. A waitress related Sebastian had argued with some men a few weeks earlier about the cruise as he wanted to pay off his debt with the drugs, but they beat him down.
Forrester tried to be calm as he asked Jaeger to look into Sara’s background. Raines and Richter found Wilcox complaining about the police impounding the boat for the investigation. They quickly let Wilcox know he was in serious trouble over the smuggling happening under his nose.
The agents saw a man watching them. They chased him down to realize he was a cartel enforcer also looking for Sebastian, with Raines noting the man had “nothing left to lose.”
Sailing through choppy waters
The cartel thug wouldn’t talk, but Bauer shared that Sebastian had sent him a private message asking for help. They “encouraged” Bauer to bait Sebastian into a trap.
With the team watching, Bauer met Sebastian at his flat. The agents heard the pair struggling and a gunshot. They raced in to find Bauer with a gun, claiming Sebastian had tried to kill him and he’d shot his brother in self-defense.
Bauer defended himself against Sebastian snapping to attack him and blaming the team. Forrester felt something was wrong and played the audio from Bauer’s wire that picked up a sound in the background.
Forrester confronted Bauer with the cleaned-up tape revealing that Bauer had shot Sebastian in flat-out murder as his dying word was “why?” Bauer had been in on the entire drug smuggling for the money and killed Sebastian to cover his own tracks.
Kellett got the good news the girl would pull through, giving her a new stuffed elephant to replace the one shot up. She also assured the parents the river thieves were already being arrested.
Raines mused “the world sees the headline but never the mess behind it.” Jaeger shared Sara’s file, proving she was clean of any involvement.
Forrester admitted that his mother’s treason had shaped his viewpoint into never trusting people. Jaeger pointed out that it was worth trying to rebuild what was broken.
With flowers in hand, Forrester stopped by Sara’s to apologize for his actions and wanted to be honest with her. Sara cut him off by flatly stating, “I need someone stable,” and shut the door in his face.
That sent Forrester to Kellett’s as “I could really use a friend now.”
While the case was thrilling, the real drama was on Forrester’s suspicions ruining a great relationship.
FBI: International airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on CBS.