78: Chapter 78 There are no innocent people on Wall Street.

The air in the Times Square subway station was always a mix of stale urine, cheap disinfectant, and spoiled hot dogs.

An old R46 train pulled into the station, its steel wheels screeching against the tracks with a teeth-grinding wail.

The doors opened, and the bloated crowd surged out like toothpaste from a tube, instantly filling the narrow platform.

Elizabeth Wayne—or as she was now called, "Nightingale"—wore an oversized grey hoodie and a red baseball cap with "I Love NY" printed on it, pulled down low.

She looked like just another homeless person or a down-on-her-luck tourist.

No one gave her a second glance. Not even the patrol officer who had just brushed past her.

She walked to the row of graffiti-covered yellow lockers, C-104.

The keyhole was half-blocked by chewing gum, and the area was covered in scratch marks left by crowbars.

It seemed some amateur thieves had visited, but this old-fashioned mechanical lock was actually harder to crack than an electronic one.

Nightingale slid a thin wire from her sleeve.

In those hands, covered in calluses and fresh wounds, the wire seemed to come alive as it slipped into the keyhole.

Click.

Less than three seconds.

The locker door popped open a crack. A wave of moldy air hit her face.

There were no bundles of cash inside, only a package wrapped in black waterproof tape like a mummy.

Nightingale quickly shoved the package into her coat and turned to blend into the crowded platform. She took a detour at the 7th Avenue exit, confirmed there was no tail, and slipped into a black Chevrolet parked at the corner of 42nd Street.

The moment the door closed, the noise outside was shut out.

Chen Mo was sitting in the passenger seat, flipping through a newspaper about housing trends in the Upper East Side.

Old George was driving, a cold pipe clamped in his mouth.

"Got it."

Nightingale tossed the moldy-smelling package onto Chen Mo's lap.

Chen Mo put down the newspaper and picked up the package, weighing it. It was light, the weight of an ordinary notebook.

But he knew this thing was heavier than a trunk full of C4 explosives.

He tore off the waterproof tape, revealing a black leather-bound notebook.

Chen Mo opened the first page.

It was filled with dense lines of numbers and code names.

No names, only aliases. "Eagle", "Chef", "Postman".

Each line was followed by a long string of numbers, along with transfer dates and paths.

Tucked into one page was a folded sheet of printer paper with several blurry photos.

The background of the photos was a dock, with trucks unloading cargo.

The crates were stamped with the Astor Bank logo, but they weren't armored transport trucks. The armed guards standing nearby all had clear skull tattoos on their necks.

The Sinaloa Cartel.

These people didn't just traffic drugs; they had their hands in the avocado and lime trade, and now, it seemed, they had found a more efficient channel for money laundering.

"Astor Bank is bolder than I imagined."

Chen Mo tapped his finger on the skull tattoo. "They aren't laundering money; they're helping drug dealers move house."

"Can this send those bastards to prison?" Nightingale asked.

Her voice was slightly raspy, a lingering effect of her vocal cord surgery.

"Prison?" Chen Mo laughed, as if he'd heard a joke.

"Send them to prison, let them write their memoirs in a single cell, and then get medical parole in a few years?"

He closed the notebook and tossed it to Nightingale in the back seat.

"We aren't here to play judge."

Chen Mo took out his phone and dialed Jack Martin.

The sound of frantic keyboard clacking came from the other end.

"Boss, you'd better have good news. I'm about to puke looking at that bank's K-line chart."

Jack's voice sounded anxious.

"Stop what you're doing." Chen Mo watched the flickering neon lights outside the car window.

"I registered an account for you on the Silk Road forum on the dark web, ID: Whistleblower 1999."

"Huh? The dark web?"

"I want you to make a post." Chen Mo's tone was relaxed.

"Say that someone is selling the core accounts of Astor Bank from the past three years, especially the part regarding South American clients. Don't put out the smoking gun, just post a few screenshots of that ledger page, and mosaic the key numbers."

"Boss, are you trying to blackmail them?" Jack hesitated. "With evidence of this level, if we handed it directly to the FBI..."

"Jack, you're still too young." Chen Mo interrupted him.

"If we hand it to the FBI, Astor Bank's legal department has a hundred ways to turn this evidence into scrap paper, or make the witness 'accidentally' disappear. But if we turn it into a rumor..."

Chen Mo paused, looking at the towering building of Astor Bank in the distance.

"Fear is the best catalyst. When the sharks on Wall Street smell blood, they'll investigate more thoroughly than the FBI ever could.

They'll stir the water until it's muddier than sludge, either to protect themselves or to fight over the carcass."

"Then... what's the price?"

"No money." Chen Mo sneered. "Free trial. Tell them if they want the full version, they better prepare for this Friday's headlines."

He hung up.

"Drive." Chen Mo said to Old George. "To the cafe downstairs at Astor Bank headquarters."

"Why go there?" Old George raised an eyebrow. "To watch the show?"

"No," Chen Mo adjusted his collar, "to add some fuel to the fire."

...

Half an hour later.

In the boardroom on the top floor of the Astor Bank building, the atmosphere was as congealed as a lump of three-day-old dead dough.

Chairman Lawrence Astor slammed his tablet onto the expensive rosewood conference table.

The screen shattered, but the title of the dark web post was still visible: 《Old Money's Dirty Gloves: Astor Bank and Its Mexican Affairs》.

The post had only been up for twenty minutes, and it already had over five thousand views.

What was worse, the bank's stock price had suddenly plummeted in after-hours trading, dropping three points.

"This is libel! This is slander!" Lawrence roared, the veins on his neck writhing like earthworms.

"Who can tell me where that damn ledger is?! Didn't that idiot Samuel say it was handled cleanly before he died?!"

The dozen directors and executives sitting on either side of the table hung their heads like schoolchildren who had done something wrong.

Except for one middle-aged man sitting at the end.

He was the senior manager of the credit department, Paul Pierce.

His face was paper-white, and cold sweat dripped from his forehead onto the table.

His hand, hidden under the table, was trembling violently.

He had been responsible for the ledger after Samuel died. He wanted to use it as a life-saving talisman and had hidden it with his mistress. But the mistress had died, and the ledger had vanished.

"Mr. Lawrence," the Chief Security Officer was a former Navy SEAL.

"The technical department can't track the poster's IP; they used a military-grade jump server. But these screenshots... they are indeed in our internal format."

Lawrence panted, his eyes scanning every face like a hungry wolf.

"A mole." He spat out the two words through gritted teeth. "We have a mole among us."

Everyone shivered.

"Find them." Lawrence grabbed the crystal ashtray from the table and smashed it against the floor-to-ceiling window.

"Find me that leaking rat! I don't care who it is, I want them silenced before tonight! Silenced forever!"

Paul Pierce's body jerked violently.

He felt a gaze pinned firmly on him. It was the security officer's eyes.

The look of someone looking at a dead man.