44: Chapter 44 The Detective's Intuition: Who's Watching Me?

Queens, the former site of the 127th Precinct.

The once solemn and imposing police station building was now nothing more than a massive, charred crater.

The perimeter of the police tape was crowded with media reporters and onlookers, their camera flashes resembling a cheap fireworks show.

FBI Senior Agent Jessica Vance, wearing a dark blue windbreaker and shoe covers, stepped across the ruins filled with ash and rubble.

The air was still thick with the pungent smell of sulfur and scorched protein—the scent left behind by burning corpses.

"It's too clean."

Jessica crouched down and used tweezers to pick up a piece of twisted metal, a fragment of some kind of reinforced alloy door.

"The temperature at the center of the explosion exceeded two thousand degrees. This wasn't just C4; there was an accelerant, possibly thermite."

Ryan, the forensics expert beside her, adjusted his glasses, his tone grave.

"This used to be the underground morgue, and now you can't even find a single intact bone. All DNA evidence and ballistic traces have been completely incinerated by this fire."

Jessica stood up and looked around.

"But this doesn't make sense." She pointed to the collapsed ventilation shaft.

"If it were an accidental explosion or gang retaliation, they wouldn't need to go to such lengths. This method of destroying evidence..."

"It looks like a professional Cleaner," Ryan added, "even more professional than the CIA."

In Jessica's mind, the image of that young detective who was as calm as a robot at the charity gala flashed by—Robert Chen (Chen Mo).

The man who, when Councilman White was poisoned, immediately sealed the scene and identified the toxicological reaction at a single glance.

That night, when she asked about Chen Mo's identity, that intense feeling of unease still lingered in her heart.

"Have you found the whereabouts of George, the old coroner who guarded the morgue?" Jessica asked.

"No. He's vanished into thin air," an agent reported, running over.

"And we discovered that George's file is also forged. His social security number belongs to a Vietnam veteran who died thirty years ago."

Jessica narrowed her eyes.

An old coroner with a forged identity, and a young Chinese-American detective with exceptional skills who was content to hide away in a precinct.

There must be something wrong here.

"Pull the movements of all registered personnel at the 127th Precinct on the night of the explosion," Jessica said in a cold, hard voice, "especially Robert Chen."

"Officer, that's... a bit difficult," the agent said, looking troubled.

"Why?"

"Because Robert Chen's file has been sealed. Not by the police department, but..." the agent lowered his voice, "the CIA has placed him on a special watch list."

Jessica froze. The CIA?

Why would that agency, filled with lies and dirty deals, be watching a newly hired detective from the Major Crimes Unit?

"Give me access." Jessica pulled out her phone and dialed her supervisor's number. "I want to see that file. Now."

Half an hour later, at the FBI New York field office.

Jessica stared at the top-secret file on her computer screen, her brow furrowing tighter and tighter.

In the file, Chen Mo's photo was young and handsome, but his eyes held an indescribable depth.

However, the content of the file was vastly different from the "elite detective" in her impression.

[Name: Robert Chen]

[Rating: D+ (Low Risk/Controllable)]

[Notes: The target exhibits a strong tendency toward greed. Suspected of repeatedly embezzling evidence from crime scenes and accepting bribes from gangs. Short-sighted in character, lacking a broader perspective, and is a typical opportunist. Recommendation: Cultivate as a peripheral informant; no need for high-priority monitoring.]

Greedy? Short-sighted? An opportunist?

Jessica thought of the efficient and meticulous Chen Mo at the gala, and she couldn't reconcile these two images at all.

"This doesn't make sense." Jessica pointed at the screen.

"If he's just a greedy corrupt cop, how could he navigate such a high-end gala with ease? How could he walk away unscathed from the morgue explosion?"

"Maybe you're overthinking it, Jessica." Her supervisor walked over, carrying a coffee, and glanced at the screen.

"The CIA's psychological profilers rarely make mistakes. If this guy were truly a hidden master, the CIA would have recruited or eliminated him long ago; they wouldn't give him a D+ rating."

"But..."

"Listen, our priority is to find the organization known as Legacy, as well as clues about Ouroboros. Don't waste time on a small-time cop." The supervisor patted her shoulder. "Unless you can find concrete evidence."

Jessica bit her lip, not retorting.

As an excellent hunter, she trusted her intuition more than files.

Files can be forged, and personas can be acted out, but the scent of blood—the kind that reveals one of your own—that lingers beside a corpse cannot be hidden.

She picked up Chen Mo's file again and flipped to the back.

It was a transcript from Chen Mo's shooting assessment at the police academy: perfect scores across the board.

But in the final psychological evaluation section, the instructor had written a comment: "He was too calm when he fired the gun, as if he were processing a document rather than taking a life."

Jessica suddenly stood up and grabbed her coat.

"Where are you going?" the supervisor asked.

"Since the file is unreliable, I'll go see the person himself."

Jessica holstered her sidearm, her eyes sharp as knives. "I'm going to meet this greedy little mouse."

Walking out of the office, Jessica looked at the clues in her hand regarding a newly rising gang force, a new spark of hope igniting in her heart, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, as if she were being led by an invisible hand.

She frowned. "Strange... did these clues come too easily?"