The Blacklist

Chapter 40: Unexpected Danger
That night, the SER team had another dinner to celebrate the successful completion of a new mission, and everyone was very happy. When they finally dispersed, Cooper announced that several agents would be given two days off to let everyone relax their tense nerves.

The next day at noon, Elizabeth received a call from Tom, saying that her adoptive father had died in the hospital, which made her very sad! Fortunately, the flight ban was lifted, so she was able to take an afternoon flight to Nebraska to deal with her adoptive father's funeral, and she took two more days off for this.

Everyone who heard the news called her to express their condolences and offered to attend her adoptive father's funeral, but she refused because she didn't want her family affairs to affect her colleagues.

On Thursday, October 10, after attending her adoptive father's funeral, Elizabeth and Tom returned to Washington. Cooper asked her to rest for two days and come back to work next Monday.
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That night, Carrie and Reddington met in the kitchen of a Western restaurant.

I've heard before that star chefs with unique personalities would set up a separate dining table in the kitchen to entertain their best friends, but this was the first time for Kerry to enjoy this treatment.

However, for him, foie gras, truffles, caviar and the like are really not his cup of tea. Fortunately, he still has good steak and beer, which keeps him from going hungry.

Reddington and Gina seemed to enjoy these things very much and highly praised the chef's craftsmanship. They also exchanged their views on the delicacies, and then despised Carrie and Dembe who had no manners and even ate two or three pieces of steak, which made the chef who was dining with them laugh.

After the meal, the chef had the tableware removed and freshly brewed coffee served, then he and the others left. Dembe and Gina also sat at the front and back doors respectively to stand guard, leaving the two behind to talk.

Reddington took out two cigars and handed one to Carrie. After they both lit up, he said, "Richard, I want to know why?"

"No reason. There are some things you can't interfere with." Kerry said directly, "No matter what you think, I now treat you, Lao Lei, as half a friend. There are some mistakes that you can't make!"

Reddington was silent for a moment, took a few puffs of his cigar, and suddenly asked, "Why most of my friends?"

Kerry smiled and said, "I have my own standards. For example, right now, Liz, Donald, and I are just ordinary friends and colleagues, while Cooper, Mira, and Aram are half friends and colleagues, and you can only be considered a half friend."

At this point, Reddington smiled, "So, my position in your heart is not low!"

"Of course, it's definitely in the top 20!" Carrie said, "If you didn't consider me a friend, our relationship might have improved a lot."

Reddington shook his head and laughed, sighing: "Richard, I really like young people like you, who are capable, courageous, bold and careful, dare to think and do, have principles, and dare to break the rules..."

"Stop!" Carrie said hurriedly, "In China, there is a term called 'praising to death'. Lao Lei, we can't do this!"

"Overpraising?" Reddington thought for a moment before he understood what he meant, and said with a smile, "You think too much, I'm just saying what's in my heart. There's one thing that's strange to me, with your ability, why were you unknown in the past few years?" "Ha! Old Ray, you investigated me." Carrie also laughed, "I wasn't as clear-headed as I am now in the past few years, and most of the time I was still thinking about life!" This is of course true, because this soul of his hadn't come before!

Reddington obviously understood it differently and nodded, "So you are pretty good. It only took you such a short time to figure out how you should behave and do things. This is definitely not easy."

Kerry rolled his eyes and didn't want to pay attention to him. He still had half of his life to live. Adding it up with this, he had almost lived 70 years. Although the national conditions in the two places were different, they both had to go through work and life and interact with many people. How could he not make progress? But he couldn't say that!
Reddington changed the subject and said, "Now I want to know, did you get the hard drive?"

"What do you think?" Kerry asked back. "An hour after the incident, the experts from the Mint and those institutions arrived together. After testing, they confirmed that the hard drive Wolfe was carrying was real. Do you think I have the special ability to successfully copy a copy in that hour?"

Of course Reddington knew that this was impossible, but he felt that it was not that simple, so he said: "I always feel that you do things in a special way. Many inevitable things happen to you, and... there may be more results!" He had no choice but to use a very imprecise expression.

Kerry frowned and thought for a while before he understood what he said. He couldn't help but said, "Lao Lei, when you say that, I don't know whether you are praising me or insulting me. What do you want to say?"

"I want to say that if you really didn't get the hard drive program, it would be a pity! You missed the opportunity for us to work together to control the underground world!" Reddington said, "But if you got it, it would be too dangerous! The danger I'm talking about includes the feeling you give to others and what others may do to you!"

Huh? Kerry was really confused and asked, "Lao Lei, what you said is so profound, I can't understand it."

Reddington looked at him for a while before saying, "If you take the program but others don't know how you got it, then you'll give others a very dangerous impression!

"If you didn't take it, you'd be at a big loss, because a lot of people would think you did. These people would continue to investigate and test you until they are absolutely sure that you didn't take it.

“So, you have to be prepared for a crisis.”

"What do you mean? I was solving a case and got into trouble!" Carrie was unhappy. "I was just waiting to see who would show up first! Give me a crisis, haha, come on if you're not afraid of death!"

Reddington had already believed that he didn't take the hard drive program. While secretly saying it was a pity, he still reminded him: "You have to be careful of two dangers. First, there are those who want to get the hard drive like me. They didn't get anything from Wolfe, so they will definitely trace back all the links. You are the most important node here. You should know what means those people will take!

"The second is your superiors. Some of them will assume that you have taken the hard drive program, and they will use public or private legal means to test you. They may even take extreme measures to detain or arrest you, conduct secret interrogations, etc. In addition, your relationship with Gina will be dug up by them and used as a weapon against you. They may even test you by hurting Gina..."

(End of this chapter)