We rejoin the episode in a section of Baltimore one might charitably call unspoiled by redevelopment. If this is the marine terminals area, business does not exactly look like it is booming -- most of the warehouses seem pretty abandoned, which I guess would make them the ideal locale for staging the exchange of massive amounts of drugs for money. Or, if you look at it from the law-and-order perspective, it's also a good place for your surveillance team to assemble more or less undetected. That's where we find Freamon, who has beat feet from the detail office to find Sydnor parked in a lot where a bumper crop of weeds waits to be harvested. Chris Partlow is parked two blocks from here, Sydnor reports. Marlo showed up and the two of them talked -- Marlo and Chris, I mean, and not Marlo and Sydnor, which would have been awkward -- until Marlo split, presumably for less run-down surroundings. Then Chris headed to the warehouse, where he was greeted at the gate by a couple of white males, and where he remains even as Freamon and Sydnor are having this conversation. And now you're caught up to date on everything that happened while you dilly-dallied during the opening credits.

So, time for a game plan: If Chris leaves the warehouse, Freamon explains, let him go. He's just muscle, attending just to make sure everything's kosher with the shipment. If it is kosher, that's when you'll see the likes of Monk and Cheese. "So this is a re-up," Officer Brown concludes, quite wrongly, and Freamon lets him know: "Fuck a re-up, son. This, here, in the middle of nowhere, miles away from where any of these mopes meet? This is resupply." Freamon says that last sentence like he's explaining it to a very dim child, which, given the folks he sometimes encounters on the force, is perfectly understandable. Chris won't be carrying any drugs when he walks out of that warehouse, but just about any other Stanfield lieutenant will be; the cops should follow those cats back in to town to see where they go. And if they spot the cops, the cops should pull the perps over and make the arrest. And try to get their hands on Marlo's people's cell phones before they can erase anything incriminating. "The case is in the phones," Freamon emphasizes -- at least, it is until that evidence is thrown out because of the fraud and deceit used to bring us to this point. Speaking of which, Freamon takes his leave of Sydnor and the gang: "Time to 'fess up," he sighs. That conversation won't be awkward at all. "Say, boss -- got some good news and bad news about that serial killer case." "Well, you better give me the good news first." "The serial killer will never bother us again!" "Wha...that's terrific news! Does that mean you caught him?" "About that bad news, chief..."