Tilt

To help bring down Ezekiel, a world-class assassin wanted by the Bureau, Conrad zeroes in on Peter Carrick, a British money launderer whose penchant for high-stakes poker may be just the right bait to catch the killer. In exchange for immunity, Carrick agrees to play in a multimillion-dollar card game where everyone expects Ezekiel will be playing, too. Though Carrick doesn't want any law enforcement present, Conrad sends Barker and Ellis undercover to an abandoned Chicago warehouse where the game is being held to take their places at the table alongside Russian Andre Pachenkov, a local mob queen, a Spanish religious cult leader, and Billy Fischer, an American who is always in the neighborhood of a big poker game. When the organizers get word that Fischer is a cheat, he's beaten and confined to a back room while the others continue to play. When Carrick's girlfriend, Marla, expresses concern about Fischer, Barker uses it as an opening to quiz the injured man about the others. And when Fischer asks for an inhaler from his briefcase, Barker spots another bag with an insignia he recalls from a recurring dream about a botched assassination years ago in Macedonia. Suspecting that Pachenkov is actually Ezekiel, Barker then orders Ellis to lose the next hand and get back on the streets to learn whatever he can about him. After narrowly avoiding an attack by the Russian's bodyguards, however, Ellis discovers that Pachenkov is really an intelligence agent investigating the Russian mob. Tasked with telling Barker that Pachenkov isn't their man, Ellis has Todd hack into the organizer's computer to send a coded message to Barker. As the game narrows to two playing for the $20 million prize, Barker sees Marla bringing Carrick the bag with the insignia and realizes that he is actually the one they're after. Revealing his FBI connections, Barker proposes a side bet that will either set Carrick free or nab him. When Carrick grabs a gun and takes out the game's security team, he makes a run for it, and Ellis stops him. But once Barker catches up with them, he threatens to kill Ellis to get custody of Carrick. Finally, after taking Carrick back to the bar, Barker explains how Carrick was responsible for the assassination of the American ambassador and his 5-year-old daughter in Macedonia 15 years ago – and then kills him, but only after getting his taped deposition about the rogue agents responsible for the hit, code-named Red Gauntlet.