Murdoch arrives at the Eastside Inn crime scene and realizes the unidentified victim was killed by a uniquely skilled criminal.

The forensics team finds papers hidden in hotel plumbing, and Murdoch identifies a phone number traced to Bodrum, Turkey.

Murdoch recalls being ordered to assassinate his mentor and boss, the head of the Division's European operations, in Moscow's Red Square.

After the September 11 attacks render his agency obsolete, Murdoch decides to retire and build a new life in Paris.

New York detective Ben Bradley tracks Murdoch to Paris by decoding clues buried in his pseudonymous forensics book.

The director of national intelligence, Whisperer, summons Murdoch to the Oval Office to brief him on a bioterrorism threat.

Murdoch chooses the code name Pilgrim and accepts a covert mission to identify the Saracen's contact in Bodrum, Turkey.

Murdoch arrives in Bodrum and discovers that American billionaire Dodge's clifftop death has already been ruled an accident.

Uffizi Gallery technicians develop the French House library mirrors like film, revealing a hidden figure and proving Dodge was murdered.

Murdoch searches old VHS security tapes at a gas station and identifies Detective Leyla Cumali as the woman on the recordings.

Murdoch traces Cumali's maiden name and discovers she is al-Nassouri by birth, directly linking her to the Saracen.

Saudi intelligence confirms the Saracen's real identity as Zakaria al-Nassouri but reveals he faked his death and left no trace.

Murdoch devises a desperate plan to kidnap al-Nassouri's young son to use as leverage and force a confession.

Cumali shows her brother a video of his endangered son, and a badly wounded Murdoch successfully interrogates al-Nassouri about his plot.

Murdoch passes the details of the smallpox plot to the president and sails away from Turkey to recover from his wounds.

Retired spy Scott Murdoch is pulled back into the world of intelligence when a bizarre murder at a New York hotel leads him to a coded phone number traced to Bodrum, Turkey. He is summoned to Washington and given a covert mission to identify a bioterrorist, code-named the Saracen, who has engineered a vaccine-resistant smallpox virus intended to kill thousands of Americans. Using a suspicious death as cover, Murdoch travels to Bodrum and painstakingly proves that American billionaire Dodge was murdered, identifying a Turkish detective named Cumali as the Saracen's contact. He traces her maiden name and travels to Saudi Arabia to uncover the Saracen's true identity as Zakaria al-Nassouri, only to find the man has left no trace in any living record. In a last desperate gamble, Murdoch uses al-Nassouri's love for his young son as leverage, enduring torture to force a confession that allows the United States to avert catastrophe.

The headline events of Pilgrim's mission to stop a bioterrorist attack.

Murdoch orchestrates the kidnapping of Swiss banker Bucher's daughter to pressure him into exposing corrupt intelligence agent Christos Nikolaides.

Murdoch oversees the assassination of Nikolaides using female operatives, unknowingly insulting his family patriarch and earning his lasting hatred.

Ben Bradley is gravely injured rescuing people on September 11 and nearly retreats into grief until his wife buys Murdoch's forensics book.

Murdoch meets hacker Battleboi and enlists his help to erase and protect his digital identity from further discovery.

The young al-Nassouri's father is publicly executed for criticizing Saudi Arabia's ruling family, forever shaping his son's path toward extremism.

The young al-Nassouri secretly enlists in the Soviet-Afghan war and leaves his mother a note explaining his disillusionment with her.

Al-Nassouri kidnaps Syrian institute official Tlass, removes his eyes, and uses them to pass a retinal scanner and steal the smallpox vaccine.

Al-Nassouri injects three hostages with his engineered smallpox virus in Afghanistan and watches all of them die in terrible pain.

Australian Lieutenant Keating discovers suspicious quicklime at the massacre site and reports a possible nuclear threat to trigger a full investigation.

Whisperer's surveillance team intercepts a coded satellite call from Bodrum and spots Murdoch in the background of a crime-scene photograph.

Murdoch discovers a secret passage and hidden staircase inside the French House, revealing it was once a postwar Nazi escape station.

Murdoch forces musician Ahmet Pamuk to confirm he is the man playing a çığırtma on al-Nassouri's coded phone recordings.

Al-Nassouri infiltrates a German pharmaceutical company and arranges for his engineered smallpox virus to be shipped to the United States.

Bradley holds al-Nassouri's son and his nanny hostage while Murdoch endures waterboarding and a broken foot at the Theater of Death.

A newspaper report reveals that Cameron has died with Ingrid Kohl as her sole heir, exposing Ingrid's true motive as revenge.

Long before the bioterrorism crisis, Murdoch's career was defined by ruthless operations against corrupt agents and organized crime, including actions that earned him an enemy in the powerful Nikolaides family. At the same time, the Saracen's transformation from a grieving Saudi teenager into a deadly bioterrorist unfolded through war, radicalization, and a series of increasingly monstrous acts, culminating in the theft of a smallpox vaccine and a lethal test on innocent hostages in Afghanistan. American intelligence stumbled onto the threat almost by accident when Australian troops discovered evidence at the massacre site, triggering a chain of surveillance and analysis that led Whisperer to both the Bodrum phone call and, crucially, Murdoch himself. In Turkey, Murdoch's investigation uncovered hidden rooms, forced confessions from reluctant witnesses, and exposed the parallel murder plot involving Dodge's wife and her accomplice Ingrid. The pool concludes as both crises reach their resolution, with al-Nassouri's son used as a bargaining chip and Ingrid revealed as the true architect of Cameron's death.

The key supporting moments that shaped Pilgrim's world on both sides of the mission.

Foster father Bill takes a young Murdoch to a former concentration camp, where a photograph of a doomed mother changes him forever.

Murdoch retires to Paris and writes a forensics book under the false identity of a recently deceased FBI agent named Jude Garrett.

After surviving the Soviet-Afghan war, al-Nassouri receives a perfectly forged passport and new credentials from warlord Abdul Khan.

A radical Palestinian woman convinces al-Nassouri that attacking the United States is the key to toppling the Saudi monarchy.

Murdoch visits the World Trade Center site and finds a handmade plaque commemorating Bradley's heroic rescues on September 11.

Moved by the evidence of Bradley's selfless courage, Murdoch decides to participate in the criminology symposium to honor his friend.

A retired virologist warns Murdoch that all government bioterrorism plans assume one infected person, not a contaminated vaccine supply chain.

Murdoch recalls a Buddhist monk in Thailand who told him that freedom comes only from letting go of his burdens.

After leaving the French House, Murdoch has a sudden epiphany that the library's giant mirrors could be developed to reveal Dodge's killer.

Murdoch notices that Cumali's home contains no childhood photographs of the boy she raises, suggesting he is not her son.

DNA testing of the boy's cup and Cumali's utensil confirms he is Cumali's nephew and therefore al-Nassouri's own son.

Murdoch plants fabricated evidence on his hotel room laptop to trick Cumali into alerting her brother to the boy's danger.

At the Theater of Death, al-Nassouri confronts Murdoch and reveals the Nikolaides patriarch is present to personally oversee his torture.

Cumali deduces the incriminating laptop evidence was planted and rushes back to her brother to stop Murdoch's torture.

Al-Nassouri chooses to save his son over his mission and dies by suicide after Murdoch completes his interrogation.

From a childhood visit to a concentration camp to a dying man's interrogation in flooded Roman ruins, this pool traces the decisive moments that shaped both Murdoch and his adversary. The Saracen's journey from grieving son to bioterrorist pivoted on a forged passport from a warlord and a single conversation with a radical woman, while Murdoch's return to service was triggered by his recognition of another man's selfless courage and a sudden epiphany about photography and mirrors. Each man's weakness was the same: an unconditional love for someone beyond his reach. Murdoch identified this vulnerability when he noticed the absence of childhood photographs in Cumali's home, confirmed it with stolen DNA, and then exploited it by manufacturing a crisis threatening the boy's life. The pool ends as those twin forces of love and sacrifice collide at the Theater of Death, where it is ultimately a detective's analytical mind, not a spy's endurance, that saves Murdoch's life and ends the Saracen's mission.

The discoveries, decisions, and emotional shifts that determined Pilgrim's fate.