Burn Notice (TV Series)

Partners in Crime (2010)

Jeffrey Donovan: Michael Westen

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Michael Westen : [narrative]  When you need to locate a foreign spy office, it's all about the food. Spies like home cooking just like everyone else. Find out who serves their regional delicacies, tip the bartenders and delivery boys well, and they'll usually tell you who placed the big orders on the last national holiday. If some of those orders head to an office with tight security and scowling workers with short haircuts, you're in business.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  When dealing with a pathological liar, don't go looking for signs of a guilty conscience. True deceivers enjoy the lie. They know to look you dead in the eye and usually shed a few tears on demand. So if you want to know when they're lying, look for the little smile when deceiving a room full of people.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  It's tough to get someone to compromise their values in only a couple of meetings. The only way to do that is to compromise a few values of your own.

• [last lines] 

  Fiona Glenanne : [gives Michael the flight file]  You were right. It's bad.

  Michael Westen : [reading the file]  It's a rendition to a black site in Poland. Someone's high-risk enough to be flown alone.

  Fiona Glenanne : [reads]  "Do not engage in conversation with prisoner under any circumstances." Sounds like a sweetheart. This kind of treatment is reserved for world-class bad guys, Michael.

  Michael Westen : I know. And somebody wants my help to break him out.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  When you're conducting surveillance from a dusty cave in Afghanistan, you daydream about air conditioning, swimming pools, and iced tea, but spend a little time waiting for a socialite to hand off her tiny dog to a canine beautician, and that Afghan cave looks a little better.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Recruiting an asset is about making your target feel important. Everything from the clothes you wear to the location of the meeting should communicate how vital the mission is. Wear the right outfit, pick the right deserted bar, and your target will be ready to engage in some good, old fashioned espionage.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Some assets work for money, others believe in a cause. The most effective incentive though is a combination of the two.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  If you're dealing with a trained operative, there are hundreds of places to hunt for documents. If you're searching a desk jockey's office, it's a far shorter list. Before you can say "in the cabinet, behind the bookshelf, or under the desk," you've usually found what you're looking for.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Spies are trained to keep track of multiple conversations at the same time. Standing alone as you eavesdrop is too obvious. You need to engage in a cover conversation near your target.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Pure lip-reading takes years to master, but confirming what you're hearing by checking lips is a much easier skill to pick up.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  It doesn't take long working in combat situations before you start paying a lot of attention to little things.

  Tim Hastings : Isabella?

  Michael Westen : [narrative]  Things that don't feel right, like an open gate or a pampered dog running around loose, often lead to much bigger things...

  Tim Hastings : Oh my God! Isa- Isabella? What the...

  Michael Westen : [narrative]  like a body floating in a swimming pool.

  Tim Hastings : We have to call an ambulance.

  Michael Westen : Yeah, it's too late for that.

  Tim Hastings : Or the- the police.

  [a siren is heard in the distance] 

  Michael Westen : Somebody already called them.

  Michael Westen : [narrative]  Of course, knowing something's wrong and being able to do something about it are two different things. Sometimes, the damage is already done.

  Tim Hastings : That's my gun! What the- the hell is happening?

  Michael Westen : You've been framed. Someone set you up.

  [Tim reaches down for the gun] 

  Michael Westen : No, no! Don't. Don't touch it.

  [Michael take's Tim's pocket square and uses it to pick up the gun] 

  Tim Hastings : You have to believe me, I didn't shoot her.

  Michael Westen : Yeah, obviously! We gotta go out the backyard.

  Tim Hastings : The backyard won't work. There's a- a wall. We'll be trapped.

  [Police car stops in front] 

  Michael Westen : I vote the backyard.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  When you make an approach as a spy, you need to choose a role that puts you in the center of the action and explains why no one's ever heard of you before. Claiming to be a criminal can kill two birds with one stone. You throw around some names and places and dates to confuse them, show them some account books to make it sound credible, and make the dollar figures big enough to play to their greed.

  Damon : Did you say 4 million a *week*?

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Law enforcement cover IDs are tricky. Pose as a lead detective and you'll have unlimited access, but a single call to the station and you're caught. You need to think smaller. Nobody questions the credentials of a lowly crime scene investigator.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  One of the many weapons in the spy arsenal is sabotage. Your enemy can't fight back when their vehicles won't drive and their weapons won't fire. If you're handing a bad guy a gun and you need it to jam "accidentally", fatiguing the trigger assembly to break under pressure is probably your best move. It's undetectable, so nobody gets suspicious, and nobody gets hurt.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Playing on people's loyalties is an art, especially when those loyalties can be murky and malleable. Poke around too much and you'll look suspicious. Sometimes your best move is to just commit... Of course, commit too hard to the *wrong* side, and there's not much wiggle room. Instead of an instant ally, you just made an instant enemy.

• Michael Westen : [narrative]  Contact microphones pick up sound vibrating through walls, allowing you to eavesdrop on conversations. Pair one with a little wireless transmitter and you have a bugging device that doesn't need to be in the same room as your target... Of course, bugging a room from the outside makes it impossible to see potential pitfalls. Just as a cellphone reacts when it's placed too close to your alarm clock, a room full of speakers can create radio frequency interference if you're spying on someone with a wireless signal.

• Michael Westen : You know, there are a lot of things greed and coworkers do, but hunting with guns for someone on docks? Not one of them.

• Michael Westen : Low on the totem pole at work, short on cash, bad divorce, he's perfect, we're meeting later today.