Burn Notice (TV Series)

Hard Bargain (2007)

Jeffrey Donovan: Michael Westen

Quotes 

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  The art of turning someone into a double agent is delicate. The target has to be put into a fragile psychological state.

  [Fiona zaps bad guy with taser and he screams] 

  Lucio Velasquez : Get this crazy bitch away from me!

  Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Fortunately, fragile psychological states are a specialty of Fiona's.

• [Sam drives Michael to a meeting with a new client] 

  Michael Westen : New car?

  Sam Axe : [smiling]  Yeah. It's a gift from the ladyfriend. I got it yesterday. It's like driving on a cloud.

  Michael Westen : What exactly do you do for these women, Sam?

  Sam Axe : Well...

  Michael Westen : Never mind.

• Reyes : I take 20% of my price, I'll give you 20% of the girl.

  Michael : Hostage negotiators hear that one a lot. It's funny the first few times.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  If you can't get through a door without attracting attention, the next best thing is to attract a lot of attention. Once everyone is looking at the door wondering what's going on, you can pop in a flash grenade and they won't see anything for a while.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Running a double agent is a relationship; there's a give and take. Mostly take, but sometimes you have to give.

• Michael Westen : [whistles]  Place like this, you could call Halliburton to help you out.

  Nick Lam : Halliburton? I don't know him.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Bureaucrats live for respect. East of the Balkans, that means a bribe. In the West... it's more about showing you know they're in charge.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  A kidnapping is a business deal. The bad guys have negotiating power since they're selling the life of a loved one. But then again, they have a market of one, so they *have* to work with you.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  About forty percent of kidnapping victims are released safely. These statistics are affected by a number of factors, including the nationality of the kidnappers, the age of the victim, and whether a hostage negotiator is employed.

  Nick Lam : I can't do this, man! What's the point? They want, like, five million bucks!

  Michael Westen : [voice-over]  The odds go down sharply if no one has any money to pay the ransom.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  The thing about doubling anyone is that the more they do for you, the deeper they get. The deeper they get, the more you can make them do. Great if you're running them, but hard on the source. The suicide rate is - above average.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Working with untrained amateurs introduces an element of risk. It's a risk you have to live with in a lot of operations, although you often found yourself wishing everybody went through Green Beret training in high school.

• Nick Lam : [agitated]  So, what? I'm supposed to just sit here?

  Michael Westen : [calmly]  No, you're going to get me the Yellow Pages and tell me where the nearest pharmacy and gardening store is. I have to pick up a few things.

  Nick Lam : [incredulously]  Yellow Pages? Bro, I have a computer.

• Michael Westen : [to Lucio about some doctored documents]  Sam's pretty good with a computer.

  Sam Axe : Well thanks, Mike - it's just Photoshop.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  There's no way to anticipate every danger; you need a backup plan for when things go wrong. That's why home-court advantage is so important.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  The longer you've been in the game, the more you have to be careful about underestimating an opponent. Say you don't think much of bureaucrats, don't feel they're worth your time or attention. Then a bureaucrat is the perfect person to send to kill you.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Rescuing a hostage isn't about battering rams and guns. Charge through a door with a gun, and chances are the person you're trying to save, will be the first person lying on the floor dying of acute lead posioning. So you come up with alternatives. Ingredients from the local pharmacy, mixed with aluminum foil, powdered in a coffee grinder, will make a serviceable flash grenade that'll stun anyone for a good twenty feet. Thermite is another handy tool; with a surface temperature of a thousand degrees, it's used to weld together railroad ties. It will make pretty short work of most locks, too.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  GPS devices are becoming more and more common these days. Mostly they're for nervous parents tracking children, but they're perfectly good for other purposes.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  From Karachi to Bogota, every kidnapper's favorite resource is a corrupt employee... An employee can handle alarms, police, you can get financial information, bank accounts. You even got a fall guy if anything goes wrong. To a professional kidnapper, a good man on the inside is worth a lot... and a bad man on the inside is worth even more.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  It's always easier to turn someone who works for a criminal gang into a double agent. The more secretive and ruthless their side is, the better. You work on their fear that any hint of disloyalty, will get them killed by their own people.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Once a kidnapper knows you're on to him, he'll try to contact his partners, to have the hostage killed. At that point, you have a choice: you can start choosing wreaths for the hostage's funeral, or take a hostage of your own.

• Michael Westen : [voice-over]  Work around spies for a while, and you learn to be careful when it looks like you're getting what you want. You tend to let your guard down - get careless. Calling the cops on someone can teach you a lot: a foreign agent will run, so might an armed assassin. A bureaucrat's gonna... act like a bureaucrat.

• Fiona Glenanne : Isn't there some part of you that's beginning to like Miami?

  Michael Westen : It's fine.

  Fiona Glenanne : Fine? There are people who come here from all over the world! They don't have waterfront like this in Afghanistan!

  Michael Westen : Doesn't rain as much, either, there.

• Nick Lam : I don't own this. I'm a housesitter. I work three or four estates on the island.

  Sam Axe : That's a job, housesitter?

  Nick Lam : Yeah, these people are only here a few weeks out of the year.

  Sam Axe : OK, so, do you need an application for that or...

  Michael Westen : [firmly]  Sam.

• Nick Lam : Jesus! Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!

  Michael Westen : [calmly]  OK, stop saying that.

  Nick Lam : Oh, God! I screwed everything up, bro!

  Michael Westen : Seriously, stop talking.

  [Nick begins hyperventilating and wailing simultaneously] 

  Michael Westen : Stop moaning now. It's the moan. Stop moan - Nick! Stop moaning!

• Michael Westen : [walking in on Fiona torturing Lucio with a Taser]  Where's Sam?

  Sam Axe : Had to get some air. It was getting a little, uh, loud in here.

• Lucio Velasquez : You know what? Go ahead and Taser me all you want. I'm not goin' to tell you nothin'.

  Michael Westen : Taser? Oh, no. We have something much better than a Taser. We have an instant camera.

• Michael Westen : You broke your foot walking down the stairs at the mall. You forgot to call.

  Lucio Velasquez : Broke my foot? I didn't break my foot.

  [Fiona stomps on his foot, making a sickening crack] 

  Lucio Velasquez : Aaaagggghhhh!

• Michael Westen : We need to find out where Dawn is being held. Lucio doesn't know. His job is just to find targets for Reyes. So we're going to have Lucio bring him a new target: a rich society wife...

  Fiona Glenanne : Enchanté.

  Michael Westen : ...and a disgruntled bodyguard.

  Sam Axe : Ya bitch!