The Blacklist

Chapter 375: Revenge with a Virus Attack
April 4th, Tuesday. SER has plenty of work to do during this period, so Carrie doesn't have to worry about it for the time being. She focuses her energy on SLR. After arranging various tax collection matters, she begins to pay attention to Reddington. The new enemy, the Nash drug cartel, exposed in the previous incident is no small gang!

He and Reddington agreed that the latter would be responsible for investigating the whereabouts of the Nash Group, and he would be responsible for attacking it militarily, using public equipment when appropriate, otherwise acting privately - in fact, it was almost the same, SLR and SER were all his people, a group of quasi-combat partners, and it would be no problem for them to carry out missions and keep secrets!
In addition, there is Tom, who has been a little quiet since returning from the London mission. If he hadn't reported the situation on time, he would have thought that he was controlled by Susan!
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At the end of April, Reddington gave the post office a heads-up and said that a South African black market businessman had asked him about a certain infectious pathogen. Although he refused, he suspected that someone might try to use the virus to launch a terrorist attack, and reminded Carrie to pay attention.

After hearing about this, Kerry immediately reported it to the CTU headquarters and told Donald to inform the state bureaus and branches about it and to be more vigilant about intelligence related to virus attacks...

No one expected that at noon on the third day (May 5), a restaurant in downtown New York City would experience a highly contagious and lethal virus outbreak. Including waiters, diners, and the first batch of medical staff, 2 people developed severe symptoms such as coughing, blood rashes, and internal bleeding in a very short period of time...

NYPD and CDC were dispatched urgently. After isolating the infected and sending them to the hospital, they also blocked the restaurant and more than a dozen surrounding streets as if they were facing a major enemy!

After a quick test by experts from the CDC, they could not find a cure for the disease for a while. They only determined that it was a pathogen virus infection that could be transmitted through the air!

Because they suspected it was a virus terrorist attack, the NY-CTU State Bureau immediately reported the case. Since the CTU headquarters had just reported the possibility of a virus attack three days ago, and it was verified at this time, they naturally took control of the investigation of the case.

The matter was of great importance, and CTU Director Cooper specifically instructed Kerry to take action personally.
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That afternoon, Carrey and his agents rushed to New York to take over the investigation of the case.

Abby quickly found clues from the restaurant's surveillance. Before the disease control personnel arrived, a young white woman left the restaurant. After reviewing the video, it was found that the woman only drank a cup of coffee from entering the restaurant to leaving, and used an asthma inhaler from time to time during the process.

Everyone thinks that this woman is a major suspect and it is very likely that she was the one who released the virus, and the sprayer should contain the antidote to ensure that she herself will not be infected with the virus.

Just when Carrie asked Abby to investigate the identity of this woman, an accident occurred in the hospital that treated the infected people - a briefcase spewing smoke was found in the elevator!

The CDC treated the situation as a major threat and isolated parts of the elevator and hospital. However, surprisingly, testing proved that the smoke emitted from the briefcase was actually the antidote to the virus, and those infected were saved!
This time, the surveillance camera in the hospital elevator captured the suspect's face, and it was the woman who left the restaurant!
Except for Carrie, everyone was confused by this woman's behavior. She first poisoned the patient and then gave him the antidote. What was her purpose?
Carrie had already remembered this plot and had no intention of interfering, let alone arresting anyone in advance. She just let the agents conduct the investigation step by step.
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The small program that Abby developed last time greatly accelerated the speed of facial recognition in the database, and the identity of the woman was found that night - Captain Patrice Edwards, former director of the U.S. Army Center for Infectious Disease Research.

In the conference room of the NY-CTU State Bureau, Abby introduced: "Patrick is a talented biologist with a promising future, but because of her husband's involvement, she was forced to resign and is currently missing!"

Kerry nodded and said, "Tell me about her husband." "OK!" Abby immediately pulled up the information, "Patrice's husband is Navy Captain Dennis Edwards, a member of the Navy SEALs, with a clean resume...

“However, according to the information, Colonel Dennis was shot dead on the spot by another Navy SEAL when he tried to steal a truck loaded with confiscated opium while on a mission in Syria last March!
"After the military court ruled, the SEAL who fired the shot was found to have acted in self-defense and was not at fault, thus confirming that Dennis was guilty! For this reason, Patrice was also suspected of loyalty and had to resign..."

Gina, Jiva, Jeffrey, Elise and other agents present were all extremely surprised. They all thought this was very strange. How could a naval colonel with a clean record suddenly steal drugs?
However, this does explain why Patrice released the virus - to take revenge on society for her husband's death!
Carrie did not comment, but ordered the investigation of Patrice's whereabouts to continue.
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On the same night, the NY branch of the CDC discovered another abnormality - after uploading the virus DNA sample released by Patrice to the headquarters, the branch's server actually crashed!
The CDC initiated emergency security procedures to prevent the virus from leaking, but found that it was a false alarm.

Carrie took Gina and Abby to the CDC to investigate and solved the mystery of the server crash - Patricia was indeed a genius. She added special fragments to the virus DNA. When these fragments were analyzed and uploaded to the server, they were converted into a computer virus composed of "0" and "1"!

But what is the purpose of this?

At first, everyone suspected that Patrice was trying to get more viruses for revenge attacks, but Carrie disagreed and "suspected" that Patrice had other purposes.

After Abby carefully checked the CDC's server, she discovered that Patricia had used it as a springboard to hack into the connected DOD (Department of Defense) host before it went down, in order to search for the information of a soldier!

"I know!" Jiva shouted, "Patrice is looking for the murderer who killed her husband!"

Everyone also thought of it - the identities of the Navy SEALs are kept secret from the outside world, and Patrice must have gone to such great lengths to find the whereabouts of the murderer of her husband from the DOD.

Carrey personally contacted the DIS (Defense Investigative Service) and confirmed that the person who killed Dennis was Captain James Cronin, a Navy SEAL who is now retired.

After getting Cronin's address, Carrie immediately led a team there, but only found a crushed asthma inhaler on the floor of the room. Later, he learned from the neighbors that Cronin had forced a woman to drive away with a pistol.

(End of this chapter)