The tranquil rooftop scene disintegrates as diners kick back chairs and draw weapons. Waiting staff dive for the floor or hustle for the exit.
"Good evening, Adad." Red stands, buttoning his coat. "Do you have what we agreed?"
All around, staff and apparent diners are engaged in miniature Mexican standoffs, faces distorted in the eerie blue and green light. Lizzie sees Dembe in a black suit facing down two men dressed as waiters. Liz reaches for her own weapon but Red's fingers close around her wrist and she stops.
"Do you have what I want?" demands the Syrian.
"Of course." Red gestures with his free hand at the scene. "Was all this really necessary? I was hoping for a quiet dinner with my accountant and instead you've brought Uncle Tom Cobley and all."
"The FBI are outside," says Adad.
"If they are then perhaps your Embassy colleagues are not as careful as you thought. Think about it, Adad, why would I want the FBI to witness our transaction?"
Adad turns to Lizzie. "Who's she?"
"My accountant, Adad, were you not listening? Really I'm starting to doubt you have the capabilities necessary to manage what I'm about to give you." Red shakes his head in great disappointment.
"No. I want it. But I want a little insurance along with it." He directs his weapon at Lizzie.
"No," says Red, but Lizzie slips from his grasp and takes a step towards Adad. Adad grips her arm, his expression revolted. He clamps her like someone obliged to clutch an eel.
"Make the exchange," Lizzie says to Adad. "Mr Reddington will honour his side of the deal. You know he will. "
She holds out her hand - hoping that the exchange is something that can be passed to her and that she is not making a total ass of herself - but Adad presses the muzzle of his gun to her head. "She's wearing a wire," he says. "She's FBI."
"For pity's sake don't be ridiculous," says Red. "Do you think I don't know my own staff? What do you take me for?" He picks up his napkin and wipes his mouth with it. "Now what do you have for me," he says, the napkin still dangling from his fingers.
"The locations of Chinese agents in the United States," says Adad.
Lizzie keeps her face impassive. Her heart beats rapidly. This intel alone justifies the operation.
"I'm afraid that's insufficient," says Red. "What do you have on Berlin?"
Lizzie concentrates on not showing surprise. Berlin. Ressler tailed Red there once. But what have the Germans got to do with anything?
"Stop wriggling," says Adad, and casually hits Lizzie across the face. "Nothing," he tells Red. "The Chinese have no word on Berlin. Now where is your part of the deal?" Adad says, tightening his hold on Lizzie.
Red flicks the napkin at Adad. "I assume all these people here are yours?"
Adad nods.
"As I thought. The service tonight was terrible."
Red stares at Lizzie, then says, "Well. Let's do this."
He casts the napkin into Adad's face, Lizzie twists round and disarms him, and Red pulls out a pistol and jams it into Adad's gut.
On cue, Ressler and his team burst from the kitchen and overwhelm the rooftop. In moments, their leader held hostage, Adad's people are vanquished.
Red leans over Adad as Lizzie is cable-tying his wrists. He holds his hand up to Adad's face and speaks softly. Lizzie catches a glint of gold in Red's palm. Adad glowers at him, and then closes his eyes. Red steps back, offering his arm to Lizzie. "Shall we?"
"Did you get all that," Lizzie says to Ressler, tearing the wire from her bodice.
Ressler takes a sheet of paper from Adad's pocket. "Heard every word," he says to Lizzie. "We're done here." He averts his eyes as she refastens her dress. "Good job, Keen."
Lizzie shrugs and cautiously touches her cheek where Adad smacked her.
"I have ice in the car," says Red. His gloved hand is in the small of Lizzie's back. "Let's get you down there."
He draws Lizzie towards the elevator, and Ressler, scowling, watches them go.
Lizzie climbs into Red's car. "You didn't need me for that at all," she says.
"Not so," says Red. "I have been surrounded by plug ugly men all day - no offence, Dembe - and needed an evening in the presence of beauty. And you have been staying up late every night, torn between hoping and fearing that your former supposed husband will come back, and needed a decent dinner. The evening has been mutually beneficial."
She huffs at that, but when his car stops outside her house, she turns to him and reaches out her hand.
Red is not sure where the gesture was intended to go - his shoulder? His cheek? But in any case he catches her hand and puts it to his lips. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she returns.
They are both, he realises, staring at her hand in his. Red's skin tingles like coming indoors after collecting the post on a Minnesota morning in February. It is a long time and worlds away that he has known that particular sensation. But of course, this is her, and it does make sense.
He wants that tingle against his mouth again, but Lizzie slides her hand free.
The door closes and Red lies flat across the back seat of the limo.
"I am in love," he says.
Dembe says nothing. It is not his job to comment. Also Red says a lot of things in the car and many of them are completely fatuous.
Dembe has many times heard Red say that their only job is to protect Elizabeth Keen, and the rest will follow. Perhaps love fits with this agenda, perhaps not. Dembe does not speculate.
Red looks at the cream coloured ceiling and imagines kissing Lizzie in a very non protective way indeed. And then he imagines her outrage and immediate armlock, overpowering him with ease, demanding an explanation.
"Even better," he says out loud with a chuckle.
The bedroom light goes on in Lizzie's house and the limo pulls away.
