Framed!

Margaret asks what they’re looking for, but Florian doesn’t know; he just has a hunch that they missed something. The museum is crowded with people wanting to see the stolen paintings. Margaret and Florian agree that someone had to have given the thieves inside information. Agent Rivers is also at the museum, but Florian must pretend not to know him. The two friends do not understand why the thieves needed a copyist who changed his identity. They also question how an artist from the Czech Republic would meet someone from the National Gallery.

They wonder why the copyist painted Woman with a Parasol when copying another painting would give him a better view of the doors and the guards’ movements. They conclude that his painting may not have been a ruse to watch the room. Florian realizes that the footage of the copyist at the airport shows that he does not have a painting. They speculate that the painting on the wall is actually his copy. Florian calls Agent Rivers, and they go to his mother’s studio in the museum and tell the adults their theory. When the museum closes, they look at the painting but cannot tell whether anything is different. Florian’s mom suggests conducting a test that measures cesium. This element was left all over the world by the radioactive fallout of the first nuclear explosion in 1945. If the paint contains cesium, it was made after that date.

Margaret and Florian begin investigating her birth parents by going to the firehouse where she was left. The only things they know is she was left on August 6. She was wrapped in a yellow blanket with “Margaret A” embroidered on it. The fire truck has the words “The Hornet’s Nest” painted on the front. A young firefighter directs them upstairs to the Captain Joseph Abraham, who is making everyone lunch. He remembers Margaret and is almost as excited to see her as she is to hear about what he remembers. Captain Abraham explains that on the night that Margaret was found, a probationary firefighter answered the door to a young African American man who gave him the baby. Captain Abraham doesn’t think the man was Margaret’s father, but by law, they aren’t allowed to ask questions, so he doesn’t know for sure. He says that all the firefighters took turns holding her through the night; he shows her a picture of them standing around her. When Margaret says that she wishes she knew what the A on her blanket stood for, Captain Abraham said they decided it meant “Angel.”

Captain Abraham asks about Margaret’s life. After the visit, Florian and Margaret leave with two things to help them: the names of everyone on duty that night and a snapshot of the photo that Captain Abraham showed them. Before they leave, Captain Abraham warns Margaret it may not be wise to look too deeply into her birth parents’ identities. As they walk away, Florian zooms in on the photo and shows Margaret the onesie that she was wearing as a baby. The garment has a picture of a bison on it; he points out that the picture matches the banners for Howard University. They decide that Margaret may have been born at Howard University Hospital. They go into the lobby and see pictures of newborns wearing similar onesies. At home, they make case boards inspired by the those at the FBI and name the case “Hornet’s Nest.” They look up the names of the firefighters on duty but cannot find any who are available to talk on the phone. Florian says that he can’t work on the case tomorrow because Agent Rivers is making him do FBI training.

Agent Rivers drives a nervous Florian to Quantico, the Marine Corps base in Virginia that is also the FBI training center. Rivers shows Florian the schedule, which includes classroom study, self-defense, and hostage preparedness. The name Johan Blankvort is on the top of the schedule; this is Florian’s cover name. In the glove compartment is a wallet with Florian’s fake IDs and cards. Even the FBI officially does not know who Florian is because they won’t want him on the records. The story is that Florian is receiving training because he won an essay contest.

In Gymnasium 4, a small woman who looks like a kindergarten teacher is stretching and waiting. She is Agent Kayla Cross. When Florian acts on her instructions and tries to attack her, she flips him in the air and slams him onto the mat. She continues to teach him self-defense for the rest of the morning. At lunch, he uses TOAST and impresses her by figuring out that she is from Philadelphia and is a vegetarian. In the afternoon, they learn about hostage situations and then go to a fake town with actors to work on a pretend bank robbery. Kayla and Florian are teamed against smug, young cadets. They all inspect the scene, question witnesses, and report what they find. After the cadets give their answers, Kayla and Florian suggest a completely different idea, which includes arresting the bank manager. Because their interpretation is correct, they make the cadets look silly. Back at the car, Florian tells Rivers that he had a good day. He likes Agent Cross and deduces that she is River’s girlfriend. Rivers is surprised and wants to know how he figured it out.

Florian explains that the car seat was pushed far forward to accommodate her shorter stature. He also observed how she and Rivers responded to each other, and he noticed the coffee cups in the car and the nail polish in Rivers’s glove compartment that matches Agent Cross’s. Rivers says that this is also part of the training. In reality, Cross isn’t his girlfriend; Rivers wanted to show Florian that despite the use of TOAST, even he can be misled. Florian is embarrassed. Rivers apologizes for making him feel bad, but Florian admits that it is a good lesson. On the way home, they stop at a lab where an eccentric forensic scientist named Dr. Eduardo Gonzalez is running tests in the basement. He accepts baseball tickets from Rivers in exchange for quicky testing the paint sample that Florian’s mother gave Rivers from Woman with a Parasol. While Gonzalez analyzes the results, Rivers says that Gonzalez gives the tickets to the Boys and Girls Club. The results show the presence of cesium, proving that the painting hanging in the museum is a fake.

Florian’s parents and Agent Rivers throw a hasty dinner party for the people involved with the theft; they also invite Serena Miller (the head of the museum’s security) and Oliver Hobbes, who works for the museum’s insurance company. During dinner, Rivers tells them that a fourth painting has been stolen and claims that the director of the FBI will be calling their superiors to convince them to keep it quiet so that the culprit will relax. He states that the FBI is investigating EEL in search of the copyist Pavel Novak. Rivers and his team are also following leads on the custodian who went missing; they are questioning the employers who supply workers to other government departments.

This causes Florian to remember that the security guard, Earl Jackson, has worked for those employers in multiple places, but Serena is adamant that he isn’t involved in the theft. Hobbes declares that someone from Serena’s department is involved, and they begin to argue. Florian’s mom interrupts with dessert. Rivers continues talking about the three types of art thieves. They speculate that the thief of Woman with a Parasol seems more like an extortionist: someone who will steal it for the finder’s fee that the insurance company will pay. In the case of this painting, the amount would be over two million dollars. Rivers asks Serena to keep an eye on her staff, since someone had to leak inside information. Florian gives Rivers an eye signal, reminding him to ask for a record of museum staff who traveled to Europe in the last three years. Florian wants to check who had the opportunity to meet Novak. Hobbes agrees to see if anyone has recently contacted auction houses about acquiring a Monet or another major impressionist work but has failed to acquire one. That person may have resorted to stealing one instead. Rivers cautions everyone that secrecy is key.