The Blacklist

Buna?

You're new.

Oh!

Roll over.

Okay.

What's your name?

Zack. Zack.

Hi.

I see you're ready.

What happened to the new girl?

What new girl?

How much?

Smoll was cleaning over $200 million.

How much was lost?

All of it.

Thank you, Abe.

Problems? -Yes.

Transactions vital to my interests

failed to be tendered.

What kinds of transactions?

It seems a bid I made on the Whistler cruise line

wasn't tendered because my accountant dropped dead

before he could transfer the funds.

In addition, millions are missing

that the same accountant was in the process of laundering.

I think I've heard enough.

It appears my operation is under siege.

And this affects the fate of the free world how?

Not at all.

However, in order for me to be useful to your task force,

I have to maintain a certain stature

in the criminal underworld.

From time to time, I am compelled

to rely on your bureau's support

in that endeavor.

This is one of those times.

The interest I hoped to acquire from whistler cruise line

was sold to a long-standing rival, Baldur Magnusson.

Rumors have circulated

that he assassinated my accountant to secure the deal.

What do you need from us?

Some help to determine who murdered my man, Zack Smoll.

If I can't staunch the bleeding

Smoll's death has precipitated,

all of our work could come

to a grinding and permanent halt.

I'm under attack, Elizabeth,

and I need to find out by whom.

Roughly 14 hours ago,

Zack Smoll was found dead in the gentle bliss massage parlor.

ME's preliminary report

describes symptoms consistent with acute meningitis.

How does Reddington know Smoll didn't contract meningitis naturally?

He didn't say.

But if he's coming to us with this,

it means he's desperate.

You may feel you're paid enough

to serve the public's interest and Reddington's.

Personally, I don't.

If someone killed Reddington's accountant,

you think he's gonna want us to just put him in jail?

I mean, the second we find him,

he's gonna insist that we hand him over

so he can make an example by murdering him.

I agree.

Agent keen, tell Reddington he's on his own.

Guys, Smoll's body has just been flagged by the CDC.

They've rerouted it to a level four biocontainment lab.

What does that mean?

It means whatever killed Smoll is

a lot more dangerous than meningitis.

Get to the CDC. See what you can find out.

Any idea what we're dealing with?

Luschen's disease. It's a form of viral meningitis.

Symptoms include sudden high fever, stiffened neck,

reddish-purple rash, seizure, respiratory failure and death.

How contagious is it?

This strain's mutated such that

it's transmitted via physical contact.

Sweat, saliva,

even the lightest touch can be lethal.

Good news is it doesn't survive outside a host.

Symptoms present almost immediately after exposure,

followed by death in only minutes,

which is, ironically, the one saving

grace of the disease.

- How so? - It can't travel.

The victim's incapacitated before he can transmit it.

So how did Smoll get infected?

Lipstick.

We found traces of it around the victim's mouth.

Based on the sample,

whoever left it behind should have been dead

long before she had the chance to even kiss our victim.

So who is she? Why isn't she dead?

Well, for the moment, agent Ressler, that remains a mystery.

I found our suspect.

Good for you.

Okay, what's going on?

Nothing. I'm fine.

Really? Because you seem upset.

And before, with Mr. Cooper, about not getting paid enough...

I just lost it in front of the ladies in payroll.

They gave me your check instead of mine,

because, you know, we both have brown faces.

I'm sure that was a mistake.

You make 32% more than I do.

You opened my check?

I have a PhD from the London school of economics.

Maybe it's because you're on loan from Mossad...

I have the same clearances and responsibilities.

Actually, technically... And people actually shoot at me.

That is true. Okay.

You should probably say something to Mr. Cooper.

Say what?

Aram has a suspect.

Yes. The suspect.

The suspect, yes.

Okay, so, I found a partial angle

from a security camera behind the massage parlor.

Check it out.

Okay, now, CDC has only one other

recorded outbreak of Luschen's in the us.

A pawn broker in Maryland.

The local coroner wrote it off as natural causes.

But the weird thing is his pawn shop was robbed the day he died.

So, I dug up some security feeds and look who was there.

Same woman at both outbreaks.

One a robbery, the other an assassination.

And in a bad disguise at both.

What if it's not a disguise?

Look at the time code. It's July.

In Maryland, it must've been 90 degrees.

So either she's sick, she has fevers, chills,

or she doesn't want anyone else to get sick,

so she's using it as protective covering

to mitigate contagion.

So, she's not trying to start a pandemic.

Well, whatever she's doing, if we don't find her soon,

someone else is going to die in the process.

I wish there was another way.

It's okay.

But we need it for the next stage.

It's okay, you don't have to explain.

This is what we both want.

Just do it.

What do you want?

Are the rumors true that you're responsible

for the death of my accountant, Zack Smoll?

The truth doesn't matter.

It's about appearances.

And at the moment,

it appears to virtually everyone who gives a damn

that I killed Smoll,

and your failure to retaliate is proof of your weakness.

Whether I killed him or not is immaterial.

You have no choice but to come for me.

And you for me.

Which begs the question, why bother with a phone call?

Because we've known each other for a long time.

We understand each other's organizations.

If Cristobal acted without your authority

or if someone forced your hand, tell me.

We can try and sort it out.

After all, you're a bit long in the tooth for a street brawl.

You think so?

I've reviewed the case file you sent.

And you've got something?

You know, many ancient cultures shared a common figure,

a god or demon who brought disease to humanity.

The Finns called her loviatar,

the Yoruba people knew her as shapona.

The Greeks, of course, immortalized Pandora.

Odd that they're always women.

Have you ever heard of Mary Mallon?

Should I have?

She was a cook for the New York elite in the late 19th century.

When an alarming number of high-society swells

came down with typhoid fever,

a research scientist traced the outbreak

to a woman with the rare ability to carry the disease

without suffering its effects or

exhibiting any outward symptoms,

earning her the name...

Typhoid Mary.

Correct.

You're looking for an asymptomatic carrier of Luschen's disease.

To find your suspect,

you need to know when and where

was the outbreak that she survived.

And hurry. There's a reason the plague-bringers

were the most feared among the ancient deities.

You've got that little crease between your brow.

Right there.

That always happens when you're upset.

The spinal tap didn't yield the results that I was expecting.

And we still need specialized equipment.

Which means that...

More money.

More people.