The Blacklist

Chapter 372: Solving the Case and Celebrating the Success with Hotpot
After investigation, Elizabeth and others learned that 15 years ago, the chemical plant located here, which belonged to Atria Chemical Co., Ltd., caused serious pollution to the local area due to production emissions, resulting in an area of ​​ square miles of land being designated as unsuitable for living by the environmental protection department.

For this reason, local residents filed a lawsuit against the company, but due to loopholes in the environmental protection law at the time, the company only closed the factory and paid a small amount of compensation. However, in the following years, the residents who once lived here died of cancer one after another, and no one sought justice for them.

Elizabeth and Nawabi also discovered that among the nine bodies that had been found, except for Gorman who finally made the cheap pistol, six were once executives of Atria Chemical Company, one was the judge who tried the case that year, and another was a lawyer for the chemical company!
They believe that this should be the main motive of the "Invisible Hand" organization for killing.

In addition, they found an environmental monitoring probe facing the entrance and exit passage in the abandoned area. The probe only took one photo a day to compare the surface changes of the contaminated land.

Knowing that the surveillance camera only takes one photo a day, no one had high hopes for it. However, Elizabeth still asked the NYPD forensics personnel to extract the photo data and sent it all back to SER for Alam to analyze, hoping that, just in case, if they could find the suspected vehicle that transported the body, they would have a target.

What no one expected was that this move brought even greater surprises!
Alam conscientiously spent a whole day checking the 730 photos he received one by one, and unexpectedly found a special photo - there was a man walking in the contaminated area without wearing protective clothing!
Elizabeth and others were excited to learn of this and instructed Alam to use the facial recognition system to find the man's identity.

Elizabeth was so excited that she called Carrie to report the situation.

Of course, Kerry had to give her some pointers to save her from taking detours, so he said, "This person should be related to the lawsuit against the chemical plant. Ask Aram to check the case files. It should be faster than facial recognition!"

"I see." Elizabeth was surprised. Yes!
Many things are actually very simple, the premise is to choose the right direction, especially one step ahead! Originally, according to the law of development of things, even if Carrie didn't remind them, Elizabeth and others would eventually think of this, but now after his reminder, they immediately got a major clue!

Aram checked the federal court database, but found that the prosecution file from 15 years ago was sealed by the state court. To unseal it, strict legal procedures must be followed. However, three years ago, one of the original plaintiffs tried to reopen the case. Although it was rejected by the court, there was a photo of the plaintiff in the records at the time. He was the man who walked into the abandoned area, named Stephen Altman! ——
After receiving the message from Aram, Elizabeth, Nawabi, Demby, and Brian changed into biochemical protective suits and entered the abandoned area with the NY-CTU field operations team.

Soon, they found signs of human habitation in a house on a less polluted plot of land. There were also professional tracking equipment and target information in the house - the former CEO of the former chemical plant, Ina Hopkins! They immediately concluded that this was the next target of the "Invisible Hand".

Nawabi quickly found out that Aina was currently at the Braxton Hotel in Harrington, recruiting new employees for her current company...

When Elizabeth and her men arrived at the hotel, they saw several people putting the unconscious Ina into a van. Just as they were about to step forward to stop them, they didn't expect the other party to open fire first!
After a gunfight, two of the five suspects were shot dead and one was captured alive, but Stephen and an injured suspect fled the scene in a van.

Through interrogation of the arrested suspects, Elizabeth and others learned that the "Invisible Hand" was composed of five small town residents who grew up together. They once lived near a chemical plant, but were forced to move away due to pollution. Two and a half years ago, because a childhood friend died of bone cancer, the five reunited at the funeral and began to take revenge on the culprit. Later, according to the arrested suspects' confession, SER rushed to the abandoned area again, captured Stephen, and rescued Ina who had just been buried in the center of the abandoned area. The injured suspect had bled to death!

The case was solved, and the suspects were either dead or arrested, but Elizabeth and the others were not in a good mood - although this case happened 15 years ago, the power of capital was above the law, innocent people were killed, but the capitalists were able to get away with it! The things behind it made them very uncomfortable.

Carrie did not comfort the SER agents because he had figured out this matter a long time ago. Elizabeth and the others had to change their minds too. This kind of change in thinking could only be achieved by oneself.

In any case, the SER director had just been replaced, and he quickly solved a major case. This result is acceptable, and Elizabeth's personal performance is also remarkable. This is enough!
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When the group returned to the post office in Washington, they were warmly welcomed by Carrie. Because the agents missed the weekend due to the case, Carrie gave them credit for the work and gave them a day off on Monday and Tuesday!

Carrie was quite satisfied with the process of solving this case. If this happened a few more times, Elizabeth's position would be secure.

After get off work that night, he set up several tables of hot pot banquets in the post office restaurant to celebrate the success of the SER agents. Of course, he would not forget his brothers and sisters in SLR...

Now both departments are actually under his control. If it weren't for the need to maintain the IRS Special Audit Office, the two departments could be directly merged. However, Kerry knew that there were some chaos within the US law enforcement departments, and was afraid that if something unexpected happened at the top, they would be completely controlled by the IRS or CTU and be manipulated by others, so he insisted on maintaining the relative independence of SLR and SER, so that he would have sufficient room for maneuver.

Hot pot is a very strange way of eating for ordinary Americans, but for the old people in SLR and SER, they have eaten it many times with Boss Kerry. Only the Brian team who just joined and the Tom team who were called back were eating it for the first time. Fortunately, it was not difficult to learn this way of eating and they quickly adapted to it...

Of course, only a few people at the scene were able to use chopsticks skillfully, but it was also possible to use forks and spoons to scoop up food and drink soup, which was not bad.

The dinner was very lively, everyone was very happy, laughing and joking all night long...

(End of this chapter)