The bottom corners of Hong Kangquan’s mouth quivered with rage, and he desperately wished he could denounce his actions.
Although he could obtain the proper authorization overnight, raising his rank to the security level necessary to gain access to the central control room was not something that could be accomplished overnight.
Huo Shaoheng using his security level to prevent him from entering was indeed effective, but Hong Kangquan would not be deterred that easily.
“Unauthorized? Well then, I think we have a problem here.” Hong Kangquan spread his hands with a calm expression on his face. “Then you really leave us no choice!”
As soon as he finished speaking, the Secret Servicemen drew their pistols and aimed them at Huo Shaoheng’s chest.
The central control room’s staff were further enraged by this turn of events and were tripping over each other, trying to rush in front of Huo Shaoheng and take the bullet for him.
Huo Shaoheng was not one to let his followers take a bullet for him. He raised his right hand and made a ‘stop’ gesture.
The crowd of staff members behind him stopped dead in their tracks. No one dared disobey his orders.
Huo Shaoheng shielded his subordinates behind him like a calm and sturdy mountain, and said steadily, “Don’t move. They wouldn’t dare shoot me, but as for all of you, I can’t say the same.”
The people in the Secret Service were no ordinary people. They had shot people to death in the past, and they were willing to again now if they were forced to.
For this group of experienced veterans, although they might not have had the nerve to shoot Huo Shaoheng, as for the staff of the Special Operations Forces, they might have impulsively wounded or killed a few in a fit of passion.
Hong Kangquan chuckled. “Major Huo, are you sure that my people wouldn’t dare touch a single hair on your head?” Then, his expression changed drastically as he said, “If you are a traitorous mole feeding someone information from within, then I don’t care if you are a Major General or a soldier! The punishment is the same, regardless!”
He also raised his hand and was on the verge of bringing it down to command his subordinates to fire. Yet he hadn’t yet uttered the word shoot before a loud and thunderous roar came from behind him and his people.
“Stop right this instant! Secret Servicemen, throw away your guns immediately! I will count to three, and whoever still has a gun in his hand by then will have their hands shot!” As soon as the voice ceased, a shot was fired into the air as a warning.
Huo Shaoheng breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Zhou Qiyuan has finally arrived with a heavily armed force.
They wore dark black military uniforms unique to the Special Operations Forces and had a labyrinth made up of a dark gold dragon hovering in the clouds tattooed across their arms.
Rows of dark semi-automatic submachine gun muzzles were aimed at the group of Secret Service personnel, and, coupled with the intimidating expressions they wore on their faces, they were on a whole other level in terms of formidability.
Hong Kangquan’s eyes started twitching uncontrollably.
Who was the S.O.B. who reported him?!!
He had already bypassed the guards at the gates of the station unimpeded, and had ordered the numerous sentries he encountered along the road to stay put!
Huo Shaoheng raised his hand and nodded to Zhou Qiyuan and the team on the other side of the crowd. “This is a critical place for the country, and it is also the Special Operations Forces’ headquarters. Those who do not possess the proper security rank and authorization, please leave immediately. Otherwise, according to military law, we can kill you all on the spot!”
Hong Kangquan’s facial expression changed. “Huo Shaoheng, you are out of your mind! I have authorization from Speaker Long! Or do Speaker Long’s words bear no weight in the eyes of your Special Operations Forces department?
Whoever dares to try to kill them will be accountable to Speaker Long!”
Huo Shaoheng stood with his back to the light source. The central control room’s light was bright, and when it shone from behind him, the blaze was too bright to look toward it directly.
His expression was hidden in the darkness, and even the Secret Service personnel directly in front of him had trouble seeing his face.
In actuality, it didn’t really matter whether or not they could see his expression clearly since it had not changed. He still had that same calm and inscrutable look plastered on his face.
Huo Shaoheng was also weighing his options.
Although there was indeed a military code that laid out the terms of kill-on-sight situations, it did not mean that those conditions could be applied to this particular group of people.
First of all, there were countless precursors that were necessary to use that particular military code, such as during states of emergency or natural or man-made disasters. It could even be used during times of war.
None of those conditions included authorization to kill-on-sight because of some minor disagreements about someone overstepping their jurisdiction.
After all, they were within national boundaries, and the Special Operations Forces were in the process of cautiously exercising checks and balances on their authority. Therefore, they couldn’t operate as they had overseas, where as long as it had helped them complete the task, there were practically no limits to their jurisdiction.
At the time, both sides were positioned in the wide corridor at the entrance of the central control room, and neither seemed to have the intention of budging an inch.
Huo Shaoheng refused to hand command of the central control room over, and Hong Kangquan refused to leave empty-handed.
Zhou Qiyuan had a different idea, and he began to order the team to surround and barricade the Secret Servicemen.
He raised his hand up and down repeatedly, commanding each of the personnel one by one.
The type of hand gestures he was using was also unique to the Special Operations Forces.
He told Huo Shaoheng that he had already informed General Ji when he had arrived. As long as he was willing to hold up for another half an hour and wait for General Ji to speak to Speaker Long, this crisis would be resolved.
Huo Shaoheng impassively deciphered Zhou Qiyuan’s hand gestures, nodding his head slightly, but had his eyes focused on what was in front of him, not showing the slightest sign of retreat.
…
General Ji was woken from his sleep. When he received Zhou Qiyuan’s call, it happened to be a little past four in the morning.
While initially still drowsy, the sound from Zhou Qiyuan’s message suddenly jolted him to wakefulness. He sat straight up in bed, now completely alert.
With a deeply aggravated expression, he yanked off his covers as he spoke to Zhou Qiyuan over the phone. “You guys hold up just a little bit longer!” he said, sounding furious. “I’ll go find Old Long right away!”
Hurriedly dressing himself, he called Speaker Long’s home phone and said aloud, “I am Old Ji from the military! I have something urgent to discuss! I need to see Old Long right away! Ask him to get up and wait for me in the reception room. I will head there immediately!”
…
At 4:30 in the morning, General Ji arrived at the guest room of Speaker Long’s house.
Speaker Long sat there waiting for him, frowning. He wore an expression of weariness and exhaustion written on his face.
“Old Long! What on earth do you mean by this?!” As soon as General Ji closed the door of the meeting room, he began relentlessly interrogating Speaker Long. “I told Shaoheng to monitor that Hong guy, and you provided your signature as permission, too! Yet now you give that same guy your signature on permission to search our premises, the central control room? Are you totally out of your mind?!”
“You’re the one out of your mind!” Speaker Long said, enraged by the accusations. He stood up from the sofa with his fists clenched tight. “I’d like to ask you something instead. You and Huo Shaoheng want to surveillance Hong Kangquan on suspicion that he is a mole working for the enemy, but where’s the evidence to suggest so?! None of you provided any evidence regarding your suspicions in order to warrant surveillance on him, yet I signed the authorization anyway because I trusted you and Huo Shaoheng! If I misjudged, do you know how much this potential mistake could have cost the nation?!”
General Ji blinked in confusion. He did not understand what Speaker Long was trying to say. “Old Long, can you please elaborate further? What on earth do you mean when you say if you misjudged this?”
He was definitely insinuating something!
Speaker Long held back his rage and pointed to the opposite sofa. “Let’s sit down and talk.”
Seeing how Speaker Long’s face had twisted and turned purple with rage, Admiral Ji decided that he should sit down. After taking a seat, he asked furiously, “Can you finally tell me what you mean now?”
Speaker Long printed a photocopy of the evidence that Hong Kangquan had shown him and then thrust it towards General Ji for him to read. “Look at it! This is the evidence that Hong Kangquan gave me! He accused Huo Shaoheng of being held as a P.O.W. by the Americans before he eventually switched sides and defected to them!! He also has the evidence to back up his claim as well. Now, after seeing something like this, how could I not sign the search warrant?!”
“Old Ji, I want you to answer me honestly. What really happened when Huo Shaoheng went to the United States to rescue Tan Guiren?! Has our side ever lost communication with him? Was he captured by the C.I.A. after we lost touch with him?”
General Ji had originally intended to have a closer look at the documents handed to him. However, after hearing Speaker Long bring up the crisis Huo Shaoheng had experienced when in the United States, he suddenly felt like he didn’t need to look at them at all. He shook the documents mockingly, then sneered and said, “Old Long, since you are in the Senate, staying impartial is of the utmost importance. I respect your professional attitude concerning this matter. But how can you jump so quickly to the conclusion that my subordinate was captured and then defected just from reading this crap?! I’d like to see if that S.O.B. would dare to spin such lies in front of me!”
“All you are doing is threatening everyone,” Speaker Long said, sounding even more dismayed. “All Huo Shaoheng told me was that he had some suspicions concerning Hong Kangquan and that he would like to request permission to surveil Hong Kangquan in order to obtain evidence that confirmed his suspicions. Yet Hong Kangquan made a direct claim stating that Huo Shaoheng had been captured and defected afterward. Who do you think I would believe? Of course I would believe the one with concrete evidence to back up his claims!
“I understand how hard this must be for you to take in, Old Ji. After all, Huo Shaoheng was like a son to you. You have trained him from the very beginning. But Hong Kangquan had also been your trusted right hand back in the day as well. It seems as though you are holding a grudge against Hong Kangquan for refusing to take over the Special Operations Forces that you had established and choosing to retire instead. He was right. You do indeed bear personal grievances against him, and you are using this as a chance to get even!” Speaker Long shook his head.
General Ji clenched his fists tightly and gritted his teeth. “Using this as a chance to get even?! How absurd! As if I would go to such lengths for him!”
Speaker Long was profoundly furious. “Wow, you are a true piece of work, Old Ji,” he guffawed. “You are saying that he is too insignificant even to deserve you putting any effort into retaliation? How demeaning!”
“Then what would you say?!” General Ji stood up from the sofa and paced around Speaker Long’s parlor room, clearly agitated. “You really can’t do something like this. The thing is, even if Huo Shaoheng really is sketchy, Hong Kangquan isn’t innocent either. You asked him to take over the central control room? Aren’t you afraid that you would be leading the mouse right to the cheese?!”
Did General Ji really need to emphasize how crucial the central control room was?
Speaker Long let out a deep sigh. “My hands are tied. Old Ji, the situation at hand is that both sides have accused the other of being a mole that is secretly damaging national interests, but neither has any clear-cut evidence to prove it.
“Huo Shaoheng said that he found out from the Tan family that Hong Kangquan had orchestrated his rescue mission in the United States in order to carry out his nefarious agenda. Hong Kangquan claims that the cyberwarfare that occurred this morning was not coincidental, but rather an elaborate scheme planned by Huo Shaoheng and the United States! It was Huo Shaoheng who seized this opportunity to stir up the commotion, and we have no idea how much of our nation’s confidential information has been leaked to the enemy during the process!” Speaker Long explained.
“We absolutely cannot let someone who has joined the enemy’s camp continue to sit in such a high ranking and crucial position!” he continued.
“Old Ji, Hong Kangquan provided the documents concerning the United States. He claimed that as long as he obtained control of the monitoring software in the central control room, he could prove what Huo Shaoheng did it.”
Speaker Long wearily tried to reason with General Ji, saying, “Do you know how conflicted I feel and how distressed I am? Hong Kangquan said that the information obtained by the Secret Services shows that Huo Shaoheng was captured by the Americans, and was only let free and allowed to return after reaching a compromise with them. Otherwise, considering what the Americans are capable of, did you really think that Huo Shaoheng has the Herculean ability to single-handedly fend them off in their own territory and escape unscathed? You think this is some cheesy movie?!”
