Red had been driving all night, much preferring to wait until Lizzie woke up before he found somewhere for them to stop and rest. He hadn't slept in what was close to thirty hours, and was running on black coffee and willpower alone. He had gone much longer without sleep in the past, though, he had been held captive by a raving lunatic, who had only gotten the jump on Red through sheer dumb luck. By the end of that ordeal, Red was not necessarily in a coherent state of mind, though the madman was much worse off. He had the pleasure of spending the rest of his rather short life choking on stale cemetery dirt from within the confines of a one hundred and fifty year old casket.

Red was exhausted; he sincerely hoped that Lizzie would regain consciousness very soon.

He had received a phone call, or rather; Lizzie had received a phone call from Agent Ressler.

Turning down the radio volume, he answered, "Agent Keen's phone."

"Reddington?" Ressler sounded surprised, "Where's Keen?"

"Let's just say she's having a bit of a nap, she was awfully tired after our lunch yesterday."

"What have you done to her?" Ressler demanded.

"I just gave her a little something to help her rest. We have a potentially exhausting journey ahead of us, Agent Ressler."

"What are you playing at Reddington? Where are you going?"

"Lizzie and I are going on a trip. I do not need to tell you where, as I'm sure you're tracing my whereabouts as we speak. You need to listen carefully to what I'm about to explain to you."

Red took the silence as a sign to continue.

"Lizzie and myself are currently going after one of the most truly horrendous blacklisters, a man who goes only by the pseudonym 'The Manager'. He trusts no one, and would most definitely detect your FBI scent before you managed to get within one hundred miles of him."

"The tricky part to this operation lies in the fact that the Manager knows the details of my deal with the FBI. So, with Keen acting as my hostage, I will convince him that I have been simply using the FBI to take out my enemies, and I am now double-crossing you, taking Agent Keen as my insurance."

"Once I have persuaded the Manager enough that he will not suspect me, I will surreptitiously contact you and you can assemble the team to come 'capture' me, arrest the Manager, and 'rescue' Agent Keen."

"Can I trust you to allow me the space to complete this operation, Donald, or am I going to have to destroy the tracking chip in my neck? Don't doubt that I will do that," he said seriously.

Ressler absorbed the information Reddington had just given him. When he had been put in complete charge of Reddington's 'self-serving need to eliminate the competition' by Cooper, he could never have predicted this to be a decision he'd be forced to make. While he had been working with Red and Keen for almost a year now, he was still unsure of his stance with Red. He had endangered his life more than once, calmly watching him as he desperately thought up a cover story to save his own life. The man made no secret of the care he felt toward Keen, but he had also put her in danger more times than Ressler could count. Only going through the box file of case reports would give him a number, though he knew there were lots of them; he'd had to sign off each report before archiving them.

"Has Keen even agreed to be the 'hostage'? What did you drug her with? Why? How do you know that you can gain his trust? How does he know about the deal?"

"Lizzie and I believed it would be beneficial to begin our act early on in the trip, so we would be comfortable in our roles by the time we met with the Manager," Red lied.

"I'm the only people who would have a snowball's chance of attaining his trust; after all, I recruited him into the business. He assisted me in planning my 'infiltration' of the FBI."

Ressler sighed, unsure of why that surprised him. Reddington had his mark on everything.

"Alright, I'll agree to your terms, if you agree to mine," he didn't seem to have a choice in the deal.

Red chuckled.

"It wouldn't be an FBI agreement without you imposing your conditions on me, now would it Donald?"

Ressler pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a huff of frustrating.

"Did I strike a nerve, Agent Ressler?" Red asked mockingly.

"I have one condition for you," Ressler started, decidedly ignoring Reddington's remark, "You will report in with me, on this cell phone, every evening, between six and eight o'clock. If you fail to contact me, understand that I will dispatch a team with the order to bring you in or take you out."

Red chuckled in amusement, "I'd like to see them try, Agent Ressler."

He continued, "I agree to your terms, though you must understand that you must not have contact with Agent Keen, as she is my hostage."

Ressler hesitated for a moment, then conceded, "Yes, I know. You have a deal. I'll expect a phone call tonight."

"Is that all, Donald?" Red asked, glancing over at Lizzie as she shifted in her sleep, allowing the soft blanket he had draped over her to fall away.

Ressler sighed; the man could read him like a book. "Just keep Keen alive, ok?"

"You have my word, I'll look after her," Red murmured before ending the call.

What good is your word anyway, Ressler thought. He felt awful for leaving Liz in this situation with Red, though he supposed it would be better for Liz to know that they have the FBI backing them. He knew Red wouldn't hesitate to actually kidnap her in order to take out a blacklister.

Red gently placed the phone back in the centre console box. He reached over to Lizzie, and pulled the edge of the yellow blanket up to her shoulder, tucking it behind her back, before turning his attention back to the road.

Liz became aware of the world slowly. The robust bitterness of coffee filled the air, overwhelming her senses with its rich and heavy scent. She could hear soft music playing and the low murmur of someone on the phone. Tom. Distantly, she wondered who he was talking to so early in the morning. Surely not anyone from the school, not on a Sunday. Tom was tucking the blankets around her. Liz felt at ease, and was more than happy to doze in the mid-morning sunshine that shone on her face and warmed her cheek where it pressed against the window.

Window? Liz forced her eyes open to be welcomed by a rush of colour. Blurry. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, and the interior of a car came into focus. My car?

Red sensed movement next to him, and glanced over at Lizzie, who was gazing vacantly at the dashboard. "Good morning Lizzie, how did you sleep?" he asked affably, reaching for the plastic bag that was on the back seat and placing it on her lap, "You must be starving."

Lizzie flinched, startled, and looked toward the direction of the question, then down at the bag. "Red? What-?"

"Do not stress yourself with questions. Eat."

Liz looked inside the bag; there was a big chocolate chip muffin, a container of fruit salad, and a bottle of water. She pulled out the muffin and unwrapped it before pulling a chunk off it and popping it in her mouth.

Red's mouth twitched, "I want you to listen very carefully, and no harm will come to you."

He took a moment to enjoy the puzzled look that crossed her face as she stopped chewing.

"Excellent. I'll get straight to the point, shall I? I've grown bored of the FBI and its tedious antics; breathing down my neck with the help of this damn tracking chip. It was... amusing, while it lasted, but it was never a long term objective of mine. It's time to move on."

Liz shook her head, "So you're saying that you want out of the deal? Why would you surrender yourself in the first place if you knew you'd want to back out? You know the FBI isn't going to let you walk."

Red smirked coldly, "There's no backing out of a deal you were never part of. Let's just say I had my fingers crossed behind my back while we 'shook hands'. You know that I've been performing criminal acts on the side, keeping up appearances and such. You need to adjust your perspective, Lizzie; I've been working for the other side this whole time.

"As for why I surrendered, Director Cooper's assessment is accurate; I have a blacklist of competitors, enemies, nuisances; all individuals that I'd like eliminated. The FBI was simply a tool to get the job done with little effort on my part. The FBI has taken care of enough blacklisters that I no longer require its assistance."

Liz looked at him, "Why am I here then? You could be out of the country by now, if you didn't have me with you. Why did you drug me?"

Red glanced at Lizzie, briefly watching her as she picked at the muffin, before delivering the final blow; "You're my ticket out of their grasp. As of right now, Lizzie, you are my hostage."