The Blacklist (TV Series)

Frederick Barnes (No. 47) (2013)

Diego Klattenhoff: Donald Ressler

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Quotes 

• Raymond 'Red' Reddington : Strontium 90 isn't something you can just pick up at your local piggly wiggly. It's a waste by-product of nuclear reactors - toxic, highly regulated. There's only a handful of people in the world who can procure it in sizable quantities.

  Donald Ressler : And let me guess, you happen to know one of them.

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : Actually, I happen to know three of them. The first of whom was apprehended by Russian authorities last month, the second vaporized by a drone in Quetta, courtesy of your colleagues in the five-sided foxhole.

  Agent Meera Malik : And the third?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : Is likely Barnes' supplier.

  Harold Cooper : Cut to it. I want a name.

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : I'm afraid it wouldn't do you any good. The FBI has no jurisdiction where he operates. In any case, I've already set a meeting with him for this afternoon.

  Elizabeth Keen : And what makes you think he knows how to find Barnes?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : He knows how to get paid by him. That should be sufficient.

  Donald Ressler : And he's just willingly hand over this information?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : We'll cross that bridge when we get to there, Donald. Look, we're wasting precious time. You want to catch a mass murderer before he strikes again, and for that to happen, I need to catch a plane.

• Raymond 'Red' Reddington : The man you're looking for is named Frederick Barnes, a former defense research scientist out of Arpax Systems in Annapolis. You may not be familiar with his name, but you're likely familiar with his work - biochemical agents such as cytochlorin, black phosphorous, paratoxin. Barnes headed the project team that developed all of them. But he was more than just a research scientist. He was gifted. A savant of government-sanctioned mass killing.

  Donald Ressler : What do you mean "was"?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : Five years ago, the man quit his job, sold his house, and entered the free market. Started selling his creations to the highest bidder - autocrats, terrorists, me.

  Elizabeth Keen : Betraying your country and auctioning off its secrets. Where have I heard that before?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : [laughs]  You wanna compare him to me? Be my guest. I'm perfectly comfortable with what I am. But please, make no mistake - Frederick Barnes is a very special animal. One with the tools and know-how to kill thousands and thousands of people all at once. What he's lacked until now has been the desire.

  Donald Ressler : So what's changed?

  Raymond 'Red' Reddington : Well, that's the question. Barnes has always operated with a certain level of... detachment - always the designer, the seller. Never the delivery agent of his own weapons. But if Barnes is now willing to use his work to kill indiscriminately, then he is, quite literally, the most dangerous man in the world.