The Blacklist s01e07 Episode Script

Frederick Barnes

Connecting trains to the orange and blue line at Farragut Street.
Bergman's, right? The store where you bought your hat.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't I didn't leave the tag on, did I? No.
I walk by there every day on my way home.
I saw the hat in the display window, and I knew I had to get it for my dad.
But in gray.
Gray's his thing.
That's very thoughtful.
Next stop, Woodley Park.
When's the last time you saw him? Sunday.
We both go to St.
Patrick's episcopal.
Good.
That's good.
Woodley Park.
It was nice to meet you.
You, too.
Please allow passengers to exit before boarding the train.
Sir, you forgot your briefcase! Sir, you forgot your briefcase! What the hell? I can't breathe.
- Are Are you okay? Call 9-1-1.
Miss, are you okay? Please help me! Please, I need help! Please! What is this? Café au lait unless you like the dark nut better.
- But don't decide yet.
- I'm sorry.
Let's start over.
Why is our dining room no longer dine-able? We're remodeling.
Clearly, and we're doing it at 7:00 a.
m.
Well, the guy at the hardware store said to hang the samples in the morning so that you can see what they look like throughout the day.
What do you think? I like this one.
Grandma's Pumpkins? Grandma's what? I know it's ridiculous.
Oh, I'm just so sick of this room.
Why? I like this room.
It's not the room.
It's just that someone invaded our lives, our house.
They put that stupid box in the floor.
It doesn't matter anymore.
They made me believe you were a monster.
I doubted you.
I doubted us.
Yeah, we're past it.
We're gonna be fine.
And I don't think that we need to destroy the dining room.
I think that we just need To move? I was gonna say we need time, but, uh, it's good to know where your head's at.
Keen.
Turn on the TV.
Babe, can you turn the TV on? Which channel? Any channel.
This is the scene at D.
C.
's Red Line Station.
Details are still sketchy, but rescue teams and emergency personnel are arriving on the Lady! You can't park here! Hey, officer! She's with me.
What do we got? Appears to be a biological attack on the red line.
- How many dead? - 37.
No survivors on the train car.
Agent Ressler! Agent Ressler, we got something you should probably see.
The transit authority gave us access to their closed-circuit feeds.
What am I looking at here? A man carrying a briefcase.
He boards the train at Dupont Circle.
Four minutes elapse.
The same man exits the train at the next station, Woodley Park.
- He's not carrying the briefcase.
- He left it on the train.
And moments later, at precisely 6:42 a.
m I think we found our delivery device.
I'll radio the evidence team.
I reached out to my contacts at the Agency.
Central Intelligence or National Security? - Both.
- What you find out? Nothing.
But that in itself has some value.
There was absolutely zero foreign chatter prior to the attack on the red line.
So, you think this was homegrown? If I had to put money on it, which I wouldn't, yes.
Where are we on that briefcase? I reached out to CDC, but they denied our request to release it as evidence.
- Why? - Because it tested positive for trace amounts of radioactive material.
We'll have to wait on decontamination protocols.
Excuse me.
We've got a caller into the tip line.
The person claims they can I.
D.
our suspect.
This is Special Agent Keen.
Agent Keen, I have a tip.
You're a winter, not an autumn.
Stop wearing olive.
You know, I don't have time for this.
You're not the one who had to listen to that God-awful hold music for 7 minutes, which wouldn't have been necessary if you'd take my calls.
It's a little snug.
Don't you think, Martin? You know, as much as I love our little talks, you're holding up a line for people that might have actual information.
This isn't a social call.
I can identify the man you're looking for, Lizzy.
Okay.
Who is he? Phones are so impersonal.
Why don't we meet for show and tell in 30 minutes? Dembe will forward you a location.
If you care to hear me out, wonderful.
Otherwise, good luck with your case.
The man you're looking for is named Frederick Barnes, a former defense research scientist out of ARPAX systems in Annapolis.
You may not be familiar with his name, but you're likely familiar with his work biochemical agents such as cytochlorin, black phosphorus, paratoxin.
Barnes headed the project team that developed all of them.
But he was more than just a research scientist.
He was gifted, a savant of government-sanctioned mass killing.
What do you mean, "was"? Five years ago, the man quit his job, sold his house, and entered the free market.
Started selling his creations to the highest bidder autocrats, terrorists, me.
Betraying your country and auctioning off its secrets.
Where have I heard that before? You want to compare him to me? Be my guest.
I'm perfectly comfortable with what I am.
But, please, make no mistake Frederick Barnes is a very special animal, one with the tools and know-how to kill thousands and thousands of people all at once.
What he's lacked until now has been the desire.
So, what's changed? Well, that's the question.
Barnes has always operated with a certain level of detachment always the designer, the seller, never the delivery agent of his own weapons.
But if Barnes is now willing to use his work to kill indiscriminately, then he is, quite literally, the most dangerous man in the world.
Hey, Dr.
Buckner? We've managed to I.
D.
The other 6 presented with pseudoaneurysm of the internal maxillary artery, making them unrecognizable.
Can you translate for the medically challenged? The arteries in their face exploded.
That was the cause of death? It was just a symptom of the larger condition Kurz disease is what killed them.
Oh, I've never heard of it.
No one has.
It's a vascular disorder, extremely rare.
Causes the veins and arteries to harden until the body's starved of oxygen.
Odd thing is, it usually takes about a decade for this disease to run its full course.
In this case, it took two minutes.
Either of you eat lunch yet? No.
Good.
Follow me.
Children? His name is Ryan Demsky, He was here on vacation with his dad from St.
Paul, Minnesota.
You said this disease is rare.
How rare? In the last 5 years, there have been a handful of Kurz infections worldwide.
We've seen almost 600 new cases since July, which seems impossible, since the virus isn't particularly contagious.
Unless someone was intentionally spreading it.
That's the conclusion we came to, as well.
A few months back, Atlanta opened up an investigation tracking large infection clusters.
Our suspect has a background in biological and chemical warfare.
Is it possible that he weaponized this disease and somehow modified it to make it more lethal? Technically? Sure.
But he'd be operating on the frontiers of fringe science.
One thing's clear, though your man has access.
Access to what? Strontium 90, a radioactive isotope.
We found traces of it on the delivery device.
He probably used it as an immunosuppressant.
Strontium 90 isn't something you can just pick up at your local piggly wiggly.
It's a waste by-product of nuclear reactors toxic, highly regulated.
There's only a handful of people in the world who can procure it in sizable quantities.
Let me guess you happen to know one of them.
Actually, I happen to know three of them the first of whom was apprehended by Russian authorities last month, the second, vaporized by a drone in Quetta, courtesy of your colleagues in the five-sided foxhole.
And the third? Is likely Barnes' supplier.
Cut to it I want a name.
I'm afraid it wouldn't do you any good.
The FBI has no jurisdiction where he operates.
In any case, I've already set a meeting with him for this afternoon.
And what makes you think he knows how to find Barnes? He knows how to get paid by him.
That should be sufficient.
And he's just gonna willingly hand over this information? We'll cross that bridge when we get there, Donald.
Look, we're wasting precious time.
You want to catch a mass murderer before he strikes again, and for that to happen, I need to catch a plane.
You should come, Lizzy.
We could have a therapy session on the way, talk out our problems.
Have you ever been to Cuba? I'm sorry.
All my tropical wear's in the wash.
You'd look positively radiant in a Guayabera dress.
I know a little shop in Reston.
We could stop before our flight.
There is no "our flight.
" You have something more pressing than finding your suspect? Actually, I was able to track down.
Barnes' old research partner, so I'm hoping she can fill in some of the missing pieces.
So, I guess you're on your own.
I'm sorry you're upset with me.
That would imply I care enough to be angry.
I might do the same in your position.
It's easier to blame me for framing your husband than face the truth of what he is.
Tom teaches 4th grade.
He's overworked and underpaid and still wakes up every morning with a smile on his face.
You know why? Because he knows nothing of the terrible world you and I live in.
End of story.
Oh, that's not the end of the story.
I'm confident you'll come to see that.
But in the meantime, we need to find a way to move past this.
Because for me, there's just no fun in it unless you're there.
And if there's no fun to be had, I'm not interested.
? I'm awake ? no, I'm not scared shouldn't I pull off my head Fire and ice, all in between ? of this world we should probably get going ? and all unseen if you want to make Havana by noon.
No one knows just why we're here embrace the doubt and face the fear Quick, say something nice to me.
It's been a dreadful morning.
Would good news suffice? You wanted to know if it ever went on the market? I'm going oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-o-oh is it really for sale I take that to mean you'd like me to move forward with the purchase? ? Oh-oh-oh-oh Hmm.
I'm going oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-o-oh Perhaps this day can be salvaged after all.
? Oh-oh-oh ? oh-oh-oh-oh.
Mrs.
Forrester? Special Agents Keen and Ressler.
We'd like to talk to you about Frederick Barnes.
He was brilliant, ahead of his time.
He he was a rising star at at work.
I-I was never quite sure why he decided to leave.
Were you aware of any problems Barnes may have been having at work or in his personal life? What personal life? We worked 16-hour days.
Oh, that's an understatement.
He practically had Anne living in that lab.
He Frederick was obsessive.
Every research problem was like a puzzle that he had to solve.
When did you last speak with him? Five years ago? Last I heard, he was taking a teaching job at Purdue.
Is he in some kind of trouble? Hey, buddy.
This is our son, Ethan.
Is it okay if I go over to Caleb's? Mm-hmm.
Unh-unh.
Do me a favor.
Not right now.
Go upstairs.
I'll be right up, okay, sweetie? Go.
Thank you.
Do you have any contact info for Barnes? Even an old phone number could help.
Yeah, I might have something in the kitchen.
I need to ask you a personal question about your son.
Does he have Kurz disease? Yeah.
How did you know that? Because I just saw dozens of corpses infected with a weaponized variant of the disease.
Barnes released it on the red line this morning.
He killed 37 people, including a 9-year-old child.
And I have a hard time believing the coincidence that your son is infected with the same disease your former research partner is now using to commit mass murder.
So, if there's something you're holding back, now would be a good time to re-evaluate that decision.
Frederick is Ethan's father.
Does your husband know this? It just happened.
I thought it was best for the family to keep the secret.
Does Frederick know he's Ethan's real father? Yeah.
When Ethan was 5, he he developed Kurz, and they they told us it was untreatable.
Frederick wouldn't accept that.
He had contacts in the pharmaceutical industry.
He reached out to them to secure research funding into the disease, but everyone turned him down.
Why? Kurz is too rare.
Small disease means small profits.
That's why Barnes is killing.
He wants to infect enough people th Kurz disease that it gets on the public's radar.
Why? Because then it can't be ignored anymore.
The more people that die, the more attention the disease gets.
And the more profitable it will be to invest research dollars.
Putting aside how insane this sounds, if you're right, Barnes is just getting started.
Buenas tardes, Maria Rosa! Buenas tardes! Qué tal? Ahh, gracias.
Mmm.
Gracias.
Manny, as always, you look like hell.
Says the devil himself.
Come here.
So, what brings you to my neck of the woods, gringo? Just you, Manny.
It's all you.
Let's talk about strontium 90.
Strontium 90? Of course that's what you want.
Because you can't want drugs or Qassam rockets like anyone else.
A Qassam rocket is a fertilizer-filled trash can.
I wouldn't fire that eyesore at my worst enemy.
How much do you need? What exactly are you going to do with 12 kilograms of strontium 90? Bueno.
I've secured the funds on the purchase.
I'm ready to proceed on Red's word.
Good.
I'll let him know once he's done with Soto.
Excellent.
$6 million.
I need three weeks.
I need it now.
Not possible.
Fresh out, I'm afraid.
Then perhaps I could get in touch with your previous buyer and make them an offer instead.
Are you threatening to cut me out of my own business? Because we're not that good of friends.
What, are they gonna pull their guns and hold them all sideways at me? Manny, I'm sure we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
I'm listening.
Reach out to your buyer, convince them to sell back some of their purchase to you at a premium.
What kind of premium? My client will put up $10 million for immediate delivery, with a hefty transaction fee for yourself, of course.
Mm.
Did he take the bait? Like a trout to a butterworm.
He should be calling Barnes any minute.
Call's going through now.
Good, run the trace.
What do you need? A bottle of beer and a pork sandwich.
How about you? What do you need? How about Barnes' location? Sir? Are you with group 33? Yes.
I was actually hoping to reschedule my jury service.
I'll need your summons.
Yes.
You know what? I think I left it in my car.
I'll be right back.
Cooper.
Red got us a 20 on Barnes.
Where is he? The courthouse in Arlington.
We're on our way in now.
Federal agents! Federal agent! FBI! Move! Move! Move! Take the north stairwell.
I've got the second floor.
All right, everyone.
Single file.
Your tax dollars at work.
Help! Somebody help us! Federal agent, FBI.
I'm gonna need your tanks and your mask.
I need you to evacuate everyone in this hallway and get everybody out of here now, including yourself.
Go! Stop! FBI! Help me, please! Somebody, help! It's okay.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Stop! Stop! Stop! We're gonna get help.
I've got you.
Come on.
Out! Out of the way! Move! Freeze! I'm only gonna say this once drop the gun.
You first.
I'm gonna count to 3.
If that gun is not on the ground, I will shoot this man.
And you will be dead one second after.
You don't have to do this! All right! All right! Drop the gun and kick it away.
Drop the gun! Now! Let him go.
Cindy Wright.
You must be Lew.
Is that short for Louise? No.
Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.
Oh, not a problem.
As I'm sure my assistant told you on the phone, the house is in escrow.
We're only accepting backup offers.
I understand.
Why don't we head inside? I'll give you a tour of the property.
Oh, that won't be necessary.
My client's prepared to make an offer.
Double the asking price In cash.
I'm sure you can find a fair commission for yourself assuming your escrow falls through, that is.
I just got off the phone with Dr.
Buckner.
She's coordinating triage teams at D.
C.
General.
How bad? but it looks like the attack was contained to the jury room.
And your survivor? Too soon to tell.
But given her level of exposure, Dr.
Buckner's not optimistic.
- What have you got? - Casualty lists.
I keep asking myself, "how is Barnes choosing his targets?" And that got me thinking a courthouse and public transportation.
What do these two things have in common? They're both managed by the state.
Right, but more importantly, they both contain random groupings of people various ages, genders, ethnicities.
I'm not sure I follow.
Well, it seems like Barnes is targeting large cross sections of the population.
You don't get a more random sample than a jury pool.
SoBarnes wants to kill different types of people? I don't know.
Is it possible these aren't just attacks? Could Barnes be conducting some kind of demonstration or experiment? Agent Keen? A word.
You're on duty, correct? Are you carrying your badge? Of course.
Why? Because it's protocol.
Then would you care to explain why you would surrender your firearm to a suspect in the middle of a hostage situation? It was a judgment call.
Barnes was going to kill that officer.
I realize you're new at this, Agent Keen, but some rules don't have exceptions.
And giving up your weapon, that happens to be top of the list.
I am fully aware of our field regulations.
And since you willfully ignored them, your actions will be subject to a formal review.
What does that mean? It means an administrative panel will decide whether or not you'll be sanctioned.
And we'll see where we go from there.
You mind telling me what the hell that was? If you're asking whether I reported you, the answer is yes.
Why would you do that? Look, Keen.
I like you.
I respect you.
But that moment back there with Barnes showed me that you're qualified.
You would've taken the shot? Is that it? It's easy to make the tough call after the fact, isn't it? It's what any trained field agent would've done, which is precisely the point.
And that hostage would be dead.
Then I guess that's just what happens.
That's a man's life you're talking about.
Yes.
One man's, which you traded for hundreds, possibly thousands, by letting Barnes get away.
And if you can't understand why that's a bad call, you don't belong in a tactical unit.
You're a very lucky girl.
Please tell me that's the last one.
The last one, I promise.
What are the tests gonna tell us? Whether you have any infection in your body.
What happened to those people at the courthouse, is that gonna happen to me? Not if I can help it, sweetheart.
You just hang tight, okay? If you're here for more blood, I'm pretty tapped.
Nothing that exciting, I'm afraid.
I'm just here to change out your I.
V.
bag.
How are you feeling? Uh A little, um Light-headed.
Either you accidentally dialed the wrong number Or you're calling because you've hit a dead end.
So, which is it? Barnes got away, and the trail's dried up.
You g-men are top shelf.
Let me guess.
Ressler slipped on a banana peel? Do you know how to find him? I'm not a gumball machine, Lizzy.
You don't get to just twist the handle whenever you want a treat.
We can't keep doing this little waltz.
Don't hang up.
I'm listening.
The reason Barnes is still out there is because I let him slip away.
And it's only a matter of time before he kills again.
So, please, I need your help.
Ah, music to my ears.
What was that last part again? I need your help.
All you had to do was ask.
I saw in the coverage there was a survivor from the Arlington attack.
You should assume Barnes knows that, as well.
Which means what? Has he been to see her yet? Uh, no.
Are you sure? Why would he? Barnes may be a scientist, but he's also a killer.
And in that line of work, a survivor is considered unfinished business.
- Maybe we beat him to it.
- Or maybe Red was wrong.
What's going on? We have reason to believe Ms.
Rubin is in danger.
From what?! Ms.
Rubin? Elisa? Who's had access to this room? Just Dr.
Buckner and the nurse.
Lock down the hospital.
No one gets in or out.
I want every single employee identified.
Is she okay? Help me with her.
What is that? Looks like a bone marrow biopsy wound.
I didn't authorize this procedure.
You were right about Barnes.
They weren't just attacks.
They were experiments.
He was searching for someone with a natural immunity for Kurz disease.
You mean like Elisa Rubin? That's why she survived the attack.
Her test results just came back.
She has zero sign of infection.
So, he's going to use this genetic immunity to synthesize an antidote, then, if Barnes believes he has the cure He's going for the boy.
Come on.
Come on.
Hello? Mrs.
Forrester, this is Special Agent Keen.
I need you to listen to me very carefully.
Is your son, Ethan, with you? Uh, yeah.
Why? Is something wrong? Take your son and get out of your house immediately.
We have reason to believe that Frederick Barnes is on his way.
I need you to get Ethan to a safe place.
Anne! Anne, are you there? What are you doing here? We need to talk.
Mrs.
Forrester? The police are already on their way.
Well, then, I don't have a lot of time.
Please, I need to see Ethan.
It's true, isn't it? What happened to all those people on the subway It was you.
I didwhat I had to do for our son.
And you'll understand soon enough.
No.
Get out of our house.
Anne Stay away from him! Anne! No! Ethan.
Don't be scared.
I'ma friend, and I know you haven't been well.
And I'm here to help you.
But I need you to trust me.
Can you do that? Can you trust me? Ethan? No, Ethan! Ethan! Stop! Stop! Stop! Ethan, it's okay! Ethan! No! No! No! Ethan! I'm not gonna hurt you.
Just relax and breathe.
It's okay.
Anne, we're here.
Step away from him! I can't do that.
I think you're probably well aware of that by now.
I know what you think you have in that needle.
Yes, my son's future.
Your cure is experimental.
It could just as easily kill him.
If I do nothing, he dies anyway.
You don't know that.
Yes, I do.
There's no other treatment.
There's no universe in which I let you stick that thing in his neck.
Thisis his chance.
This is the only chance that he'll ever have.
And I don't think you're gonna stop me.
Ethan? Ethan? What are you doing here? I brought you a souvenir.
What's your feeling about guava? Anxiety.
Oh, you're in for a treat.
I take it from the coroner's van that Barnes is no longer with us.
Pity.
Tell that to the families of the people he murdered.
Every cause has more than one effect.
Say what you will about Frederick, but someone who's willing to burn the world down to protect the one person they care about That's a man I understand.
Is that meant to be directed at me? Aren't you presumptuous? Is that how you somehow justify your actions, by some misguided notion of protecting me? From whom? My husband, I suppose.
I don't need your protection.
Maybe not.
But I do need you to do this job.
I've accepted that.
And believe it or not, I appreciate what you do for the bureau.
And at work, you and I are partners.
But that's where this relationship needs to end at work.
I don't want you in my personal life.
I don't know how to make that clear.
You know the problem with drawing lines in the sand? With a breath of air, they disappear.
You may not like me.
You may not understand how or why I do what I do.
But I'm here because you want answers to questions you haven't even thought of yet.
Now, if that doesn't matter to you, the solution is simple I get in this car and I disappear.
You have a deal with the government.
You have a tracking device in your neck.
You don't believe Raymond Reddington could cease to exist in 60 seconds? I offer that particular package to clients.
You're offering to walk away? I'm not going to beg you to allow me the privilege of helping you.
So, say the word, and I'm gone.
Tell me to go, Lizzy.
Then I guess I'll see you tomorrow.
Hard to believe, but I'm just about finished up here.
Yeah, I'm done.
That was a difficult call you made with Barnes.
Would've been tough for anyone in that position.
I keep going over that moment in my head, wondering what would've happened if I'd just let him go through with it.
Given what we know, that drug was probably the real thing.
What made you do it? Because you were right.
Barnes needed to be stopped.
And if the cure's genuine, it'll be vetted through the proper channels.
If it's too late for Ethan by then? Then I guess that's just what happens.
What is this? We're remodeling.
Clearly.
Long day? You have no idea.
It's killing you, isn't it? Did you really get rid of all our stuff? Do you seriously not remember? What? Wow, okay.
It was Friday night.
We'd just driven in from Rochester and picked up the keys to this place, but our furniture wasn't coming until Sunday.
So, we drove to the store, and we got Ike.
Oh, yeah, the lamp.
Remember, that "a" was scratched off the finish? Poor guy was in the clearance bin.
And on the way back, we stopped at that little Chinese place and got takeout.
That was our first night in this place.
Yeah.
That's all we had.
It's all we ever needed.
Just you, me, and Ike.
Strange.
I remember it being bigger.
I don't understand.
Of all the places Marigot, Doha, Florence, Seychelles why this place? I raised my family in this house.
It's lovely.
No, it's not, but it used to be.
Time to go.
Did you prepare everything the way I asked? This place must hold a lot of memories for you.
I spend every day trying to forget what happened here.
This should help.

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