The Blacklist

Chapter 440 De La Cruz's Gold
The De La Cruz was a cargo ship that transported gold between the American continent and Europe during the War of Independence. Legend has it that it sank somewhere on the East Coast in the 18th century due to a storm at sea. For more than two hundred years, countless people have wanted to find it because it was said to be carrying gold bars and gold sand worth hundreds of millions of dollars!
People who grew up in the United States have all heard of this legend to some extent. When they heard that Wisco might have found the treasure and faked his death to escape, they immediately became interested. The question now is whether the body brought back is Wisco?
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That afternoon, Felix returned from Cuba with the remains. After getting off the plane, he sent them directly to the Forensic Identification Center in New York. Nawabi and Demby, who had been waiting there for a long time, had already completed the expedited procedures and conducted a DNA test comparison against the information retained in the FBI federal felon biological database!
On Friday, the forensic test results came out, showing that the bones dug out from Wesco's grave belonged to a man named Anderson Monte. Although he was once a well-known gangster, he was just a small fry compared to Wesco!

Elizabeth and the agents all thought that if Anderson was buried in Wesco's tomb, then Wesco must have impersonated Anderson's identity!
With Alam's efforts, he found out that Anderson Monte now lives in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada, which is less than 600 kilometers away from the eastern city of Portland in the United States.

After some coordination, Elizabeth, Nawabi, Demby, and Julian rushed to Truro to investigate, but when they arrived at the target address, they saw Wesco running out of his apartment and getting into a police car on the side of the road! When the police car drove away, Elizabeth clearly saw: Felix was driving, and Reddington was sitting in the back seat!
Elizabeth, who was furious, immediately called Reddington and accused him of using SER for his own benefit again!
Reddington smiled and said, "Liz, I'm teaching you another lesson. Let you know that in the face of huge interests, don't easily believe what others say! How about it, do you understand now?"

After hearing this, Elizabeth was so angry that she laughed and warned, "Old Lei, just go ahead and do it! I will tell Lee about this right away and see what he says."

"Hey! Didn't Lee come with you?" Reddington asked in surprise, "This is a bit strange. Isn't he tempted by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold? This is not Lee's style! Liz, tell me the truth, did Lee come here secretly and act alone?"

"I don't know!" Elizabeth said angrily, "Unless the gold is in Canada now, Lee won't come! Humph, Lao Lei, you can do whatever you want, but be careful that you will end up with nothing! Well, this is an old Chinese saying, said by Lee."

"Haha! Liz, you admire Lee too much!" Reddington said proudly, "I bet that Lee will have to run behind me this time. Then I'll make fun of him!"
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After Reddington hung up the phone with Elizabeth, he turned to look at the already very old Wesco, and first asked him with a smile if he had found the treasure, otherwise how could he fake his death and retire early?

However, Wesco refused to admit that he had found the treasure. He said that he faked his death and hid in Canada. Initially, it was to avoid being hunted by his old enemies. But after the limelight, he liked this low-key and peaceful life. He never got involved in crime again and is now just an ordinary old man.

However, Reddington didn't believe him at all, and angrily demanded the money that was defrauded from him. If he gave it to him, he would hand it over to the US officials!
In desperation, Wesco had to tell the truth: he really didn't find the gold treasure, but after so many years of research, he already had some clues...
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Carrey did not go to Canada this time, not because he did not want the gold, but because he knew the treasure was not there at all.

After trying hard to recall the plot, Carrie took Gina to the Library of Congress in Washington, which houses the world's most complete collection of original materials about America and is also the key to finding clues to the treasure.

After some research, he found a book called "Poem of the De La Cruz" in the library's collection. It was a poem written by an opera singer to praise the De La Cruz. It was about the story of this Spanish cargo ship transporting gold and treasures between America and Europe during the War of Independence. There was a line in the poem that said: The cargo ship sank in a storm off the coast of the Florida Peninsula.

The poem describes that the cargo ship sank in the spring of 1778, but Carrie and Gina searched the weather records at the time and could not find any record of a storm of this scale! He guessed that the storm might be a metaphor, referring to other catastrophic things or people.

Looking into the original route of the cargo ship, it was found that it had to pass through a place then known as the "Gate of Hell". The origin of this name was not due to natural factors, but because before May 1778, a big pirate named Hidalgo robbed merchant ships in this area, making this sea area full of dangers.

However, after May of that year, Hidalgo disappeared!
This led to a guess in Carey's mind: Did the pirate steal the gold and then escape to shore?

After finding out this, Carrie and Gina couldn’t investigate any further and the case became an unsolved mystery again!
At this moment, Carrie received a report from Elizabeth and learned that Reddington had taken Wesco away. Well, he didn't bother to check it, and let Reddington do the rest. As long as he followed these two guys, the gold would not be able to escape!
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Carrie's judgment was correct. Reddington and Wesco reached an agreement to search for gold together. They took it to Washington, D.C. on a private plane and also to the Library of Congress, where Carrie's search process was repeated!
However, after finding out that the great pirate Hidalgo disappeared at sea, Reddington had his own channels. He found out through the Navy Department's archives: in the summer of 1778, the US Navy captured and executed Hidalgo and his men near New Orleans, but no treasure was found at that time.

Wesco, who can be Reddington's master, is indeed different from ordinary people. No one knows how he knows it, but he just knows: during that period, Judith Snell, a famous opera singer active in New Orleans, liked to hang out with bad boys, and Hidalgo was one of them. The two had a very close relationship.

Wesco believed that if Hidalgo stole the gold, he would hide it somewhere no one would expect, such as: Judith's dressing room at the New Orleans Opera House!

(End of this chapter)