If someone had told her a week ago she would for all intents and purposes be living with Raymond Reddington she would have laughed in their face and called them crazy. Now, less than a week after shooting U.S. Attorney General Tom Connolly that is exactly what she was doing.
The first two days of her new life as a fugitive were two of the most hectic, crazy days of her life. First, she was accused of being a spy and framed for the murder of the Orea CIA agents and a U.S. Senator. Once she managed to escape the Post Office with help from Red, Cooper and a reluctant Ressler she'd made the mistake of once again going to Tom because she was angry at Red for not telling her what she wanted to know about her mother. With Tom's dubious help they found and lost Andropov, recovered some data on a flash drive and then got into a gun fight where Andropov was killed by the Cabal. All in all, not the way she anticipated the day ending. Then to make the day worse she'd slept with Tom. She could try to excuse it away by saying she needed the familiar with everything around her falling apart. She knew better. She'd slept with Tom because she was still angry with Red and knew if he found out about her spending the night with Tom that he'd be angry in return.
The next morning, she realized how stupid she'd been when she found the flash drive had magically moved from her pocket to the pocket of Tom's button down. Would she never learn that he couldn't be trusted? As soon as as she could make her escape she'd hurried to tell Cooper what she'd discovered on the flash drive about his doctor's involvement with the Cabal. That was the best part of her day. She wasn't sure exactly what the records showed, but she felt there was a good chance that his whole illness had been something engineered by the Cabal to control him. She was only sorry that she'd let her emotions override Cooper's common sense when she'd pulled a gun on Connolly. His smug recitation of what he was going to do to her friends and Red caused her to react emotionally. It was while she held the gun pointed at Tommy Connolly that she remembered holding a gun on someone else a very long time ago. Just like she'd done back then she'd pulled the trigger and put a bullet in the chest of the man at the other end of her gun.
After Cooper told her to run she realized what Red had been keeping from her for all the time he'd been working with her and the FBI. The night of the fire when she was four years old she'd shot her own father for hurting her mother. The thought of Connolly hurting her friends and Red triggered the same protective reaction in her again. This time Red wouldn't be able to suppress the memories for her. She would have to learn to deal with them. Hopefully, he would be able to help her learn to do that.
She'd immediately called Red from a phone she'd stolen from some woman's stroller. Within minutes he was leading her into a van and into his world. She was now running from the same task force she'd been a proud part of the day before. The look on Red's face when she told him she remembered what she'd done on the night of the fire was one of profound grief. She knew he felt like he'd failed her and she would need to convince him that wasn't the case. He'd kept her secret safe for nearly thirty years. Now it was time for her to start bearing the burden of that night's events.
In the van they'd changed into Metropolitan Police uniforms and after an ingenious maneuver to escape the grasp of the police and FBI, they'd climbed into a police cruiser and escaped in the only way open to them. Once they were outside the police lines they'd driven to a bar that was already prepared to shelter them for a week. What neither Red nor his people knew was that the bar owner's sister would prove to be a more law abiding citizen than her brother and she called in a tip to the FBI. For most people this might have been a major setback, but not for Red. He'd just rolled with it and accelerated the next part of his plan. Ressler bless his heart had learned a bit about how Reddington thought over the past two years of exposure to the criminal. He'd figured out the diversion was drawing them to a certain part of town and reinforced the road blocks before she'd been able to get past them like Red did. With no other choice she ran to the Russian Embassy and climbed the fence just before Ressler and Samar managed to capture her. As she stared them in the eyes she'd declared herself a Russian sleeper agent seeking asylum. Not the best course of action she was to find out, but the only one open to her at that moment.
Again Red somehow managed to convince the right people to help get her away from where her own choices had lead her. By the time she'd found her way back to Red's side he'd already put into motion his next step in the plan to expose the Cabal. He'd taken cover in a diner owned by an associate. What she didn't know when she'd joined him was that everything that was going to happen was all a part of a brilliant prison break for an attorney Red wanted to help him take down the Cabal. To resolve a hostage situation that Red arranged with his own anonymous call to the FBI tip line, one of Red's demands was to have Marvin Gerard brought to the diner to act as negotiator. Once he'd been delivered and was inside the diner they made their escape via a devilishly clever freezer/elevator. It took the FBI hours to figure out where they'd gone.
After their escape from the the diner Red had sent Marvin off to Tahiti with his fiancé and they'd headed down to the harbor. Once there they'd been lead onboard a freighter and into one of the nicest shipping containers she'd ever seen. She'd once heard Red tell someone that he'd spent weeks in a shipping container on a ship held by Somali pirates. If that container was anything like this one she felt a lot less sympathy for him. The container was beautifully decorated, with a sitting area along with an amazing sound system, a small kitchen, and behind the kitchen was a bedroom with a queen size bed and full bathroom.
Finally, she'd been able to take a breath and relax. She'd been shaken after the scene in the diner where she'd fought off a customer that tried to disarm her. If she'd simply fought him off she knew she wouldn't be as affected by the encounter. But, she'd beat the man so severely his ribs had been broken and a lung punctured. Everyone in the diner had looked at her like she was someone to be feared. Everyone that was except for Red. He'd calmly stopped her and disarmed her.
When she'd asked Red how he dealt with people looking at him like that he'd dodged the question. He'd distracted her briefly with a story about how he'd wanted to be a ship's captain as a boy. When she'd told him that he would have made a good captain and then asked him why he didn't pursue that when he'd been in the Navy. He'd dismissed her question telling her that we can't do every little thing that we want to in this life. But, then he'd come back to her question about how to deal with the look of fear from others. After a pause he'd told her that when he looked at her he saw . . . and without another word he smiled at her. He'd opened the doors of the shipping container then and lead her outside. He pointed out the North Star and with a statement that took her breath away, told her that she was his North Star and that when he looked at her he saw his way home! He'd quickly retreated back into the container, obviously uncomfortable after revealing so clearly his feelings to her.
"Lizzie, why don't you go ahead and lay down. You've got to be exhausted. You've had a busy couple of days," he told her gently and led her to the bedroom.
Looking around the room she realized that there was only one bed.
"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked him confused.
"I don't sleep much and I have a few calls to make yet. I'll take the couch if I get tired," he said with a slight smile.
She wanted to refuse, but she was exhausted. If this was what Red's life has been like for the past twenty plus years she understood the dark circles that often appeared under his eyes. This kind of pace could burn a person out.
"Alright, but if you do get tired promise me you'll come in here and lay down. The bed is big enough for two and I think we are both adult enough to be able to share a bed to sleep," she told him.
"I promise to think about it. Good night," he told her before walking back into the front of the container.
She knew that he wouldn't be joining her to sleep. He was always so careful to answer her in such a way that would keep him from lying to her. After tonight she'd make it a point to get him to rest more, even if that meant forcing him to do it somehow. Tonight she was too tired to keep her eyes open any longer.
When she woke up a few hours later it was to find the container swaying in the air as it was unloaded from the ship and placed on a flatbed truck. Once she was fully awake she questioned Red about the change of plans.
"We were out. We were heading to Spain. What happened . . .what changed your mind?" she asked him as he put their breakfast dishes back in the kitchen area.
"I received some news that concerned a company that the Cabal uses to fund a large portion of their operations. There has been an attack on one of their locations and data was stolen that if released to the public could cause the company to go bankrupt. We are going to go in and get that data from the thief. It will allow us to use it as a lever to force the Cabal to clear your name and hopefully they will turn the director over to us as well."
Liz was amazed once again at the reach and resources Red commanded. There he was in a shipping container in the middle of the ocean and he'd discovered this information. Within hours he'd devised a plan to recover the data and put additional pressure on the Cabal, all while she slept. Now she understood why he didn't sleep much, you missed too much!
The motion of the truck as it rolled along the highways leading from Norfolk to wherever their ultimate destination was almost as soothing as the motion of the waves had been aboard ship. It almost caused her to doze off, but she was determined to stay awake if Red didn't sleep. She'd tried to convince him to get a couple of hours of sleep before they headed out. He'd told her that he'd managed about three hours on the couch before she'd woken up. This was the first patently false statement he'd ever made to her, at least to her knowledge. She considered it a white lie and let it pass.
After about ten hours the truck stopped and she heard the driver rap on the door. After that she heard the truck pull away, leaving them parked somewhere. Red grabbed his duffle bag, opened the door and lead the way down the ramp that had been setup. But, not before clapping his hands to turn out the lights. Only Reddington would install a "Clapper" in his custom home away from home.
"Welcome Lizzie to the land of the double bacon corn dog!"
It may have been a failing in Sam's education of her, but she had no idea where the home of the double bacon corn dog was exactly. A quick scan of the cars parked in the lot around their shipping container led her to place them in Iowa. As she followed Red through the lot towards someplace only he knew she listened to him fill in the blanks of what had taken place over night. He had just reached the end of his story when he came to a stop still in the middle of the parking lot. She noticed him looking around in confusion.
"What's wrong?" she asked him.
"Dembe. He was supposed to meet us here. This is the rendezvous point. We are going to need a car," he told her as he reached into the duffle to grab the satellite phone.
While Red tried to find out where Dembe was she made use of her hot wiring skills to get them some wheels. Listening to Red talk to Glenn, the frustrating little man from the DMV she was concerned that if Glenn didn't quit fooling around and find Dembe he might not get a chance to frustrate Red again.
Red threw the phone back into the bag and tossed the bag into the back seat. She could tell he was worried. In the two years that she'd worked with Red Dembe had never been far from his side. It had been a surprise to her when he'd left Dembe behind when he'd come to help her escape. This simple action told her just how important she was to him. Of course it was still nice to hear him call her his North Star, she wasn't afraid to admit that at least to herself.
The two of them were quite the team. Between the two of them they'd managed to track down Eli Matchett and determine what his plans were for the data he'd stolen. They'd then sent the FBI to stop him from releasing the vectors that would have crippled the world's food supply. After a brief delay they'd sent their copy of the Verdant data to Aram, via fax to let him know about the new seed stored in the Verdant warehouses. The delay allowed Red to deliver a message to the Cabal via Verdant's CEO. All in all, a successful trip to the heartland. Even if they barely managed to stay ahead of the FBI and Lizzie shot yet another man in defense of Red. The difference this time was that they managed to get the wounded man treatment in time to save his life.
They were headed out of Iowa as fast as their stolen car could carry them. Red once again doing his best to reassure her that she was still a decent person. It was during this conversation between the two of them that the satellite phone rang. She could tell that whoever was on the other end was sharing news that Red didn't like. After he hung up he'd pulled off the road. He then dialed a number from memory.
"Kate, Dembe's been taken. Find out everything you can about the man in the video that Glenn has uncovered. He's on his way to you with it now. Then I want a plane ready for us outside of Omaha. We are coming back and I want information on the man with Dembe when I get there," he told her without giving her a chance to say a word.
"What did Glenn say about Dembe?"
Red pulled back onto the road before answering her. He'd been driving down the local back roads trying to get them out of Iowa. Now it was obvious they didn't have time to continue creeping along hoping to find their way out of state. They had a destination now and an urgent need to get there.
"He said that Dembe's been taken. Somehow the Cabal found a way to make him come to them. They are going to try to get him to give up our location. They don't know Dembe. He'll die rather than give us up. I won't let that happen," he said showing an anger that she'd never seen in him before.
"How would they have drawn him out? Would they have been able to convince him that they had you?" she asked.
"He would have verified anything they told him before surrendering himself to them. Hell, call Kaplan back and tell her to check on Dembe's family. Make sure they are all okay."
"Okay . . . where is his family? I didn't realize he had a family,' she said reaching for the phone.
"They are in New York City. Dembe met someone when he was in college. They had a daughter. She moved with the daughter to New York from London. The mother passed away a couple of years ago. His daughter is working in the fashion industry in New York or was until she had a daughter of her own a few months ago. One of the good things about us being in the U.S. so much is that they've gotten to see a lot of each other. The granddaughter is an absolute doll. My guess is that he gave himself up to save them. Now he won't give us up to save himself," he huffed exasperatedly.
Hold on Dembe, we are on our way, was all that kept running through Red's mind as he drove them to Omaha.