92: Chapter 92 Thermite and Millions of Dollars

Lu Chen pulled a silver lighter from his jacket pocket.

With a crisp "ding," the lid flipped open.

He pressed his thumb against the flint wheel, and a flame sprang up. Lu Chen lit the double happiness cigarette hanging from his lips, took a drag, and exhaled a cloud of grayish-white smoke.

Baldy Zhao completely collapsed.

He stared at the lighter in Lu Chen's hand. Beside it lay a mountain of aluminum powder. If even a single spark fell into it, the two-thousand-degree heat would burn them all to ash, flesh and bone alike.

"Director Lu... Grandpa Lu!" Baldy Zhao smashed his head against the mud.

Muddy water splashed into his mouth, but he didn't even dare to spit it out. "It wasn't me! I don't have the guts to burn down a national project!"

Lu Chen held his cigarette and looked at him.

"Who gave you the money?" Lu Chen asked.

"It was a foreigner!" Baldy Zhao shrieked, his voice cracking. "In the back alleys of the South District! He was sitting in a solid black Mercedes van with no license plate! He wore gold-rimmed glasses and white leather gloves!"

Baldy Zhao panted heavily. "He gave me the money and the blueprints! He said this stuff was high-temperature thermite powder! He told me to burn through the load-bearing platform! He said that as long as I destroyed the foundation, there would be another three million later!"

Lu Chen took a drag of his cigarette.

A foreign man, gold-rimmed glasses, an unplated Mercedes.

Morgan's Jason had just been intercepted back in Jiangcheng, and David had fled back to New York; the opposition had immediately sent a new white glove.

Lu Chen ignored Baldy Zhao on the ground, pulled out his phone, and dialed Director Li Jianguo's number.

The call connected after one ring.

"Old Li." Lu Chen stood in the mud.

There was the sound of papers rustling on Director Li Jianguo's end. "Calling me in the middle of the night—what happened?"

"There's some trash at the North City construction site." Lu Chen held his cigarette, his leather shoes stepping over the pile of US dollars. "Bring a few police buses to haul it away."

Director Li Jianguo's voice dropped instantly. "What exactly is going on over there?"

"Sabotage of a major national anti-seismic project, plus a significant illegal foreign exchange transaction." Lu Chen kicked one of the urea bags on the ground. "There are several tons of military-grade chemical thermite here. They brought this stuff into the excavation pit, intending to destroy the production equipment that's about to come online."

There was silence on the other end of the line for three seconds.

Director Li Jianguo's breathing grew heavy.

"I'm on my way." Director Li Jianguo hung up.

Lu Chen put his phone away and nodded at Da Biao.

"Round up this trash in the corner and keep an eye on them," Lu Chen said.

Da Biao nodded.

Three hundred security guards dragged the fifty mud-covered thugs to the wire fence at the northernmost edge of the excavation pit.

No one dared to look up at the US bills scattered in the mud.

Half an hour later, red and blue police lights flashed on the outskirts of the North City Development Zone.

The sound of tires grinding against the mud echoed as four police buses pulled up above the trench.

The doors pushed open. Director Li Jianguo, not even wearing his uniform tie, stepped down the muddy slope in a black overcoat. Behind him followed thirty-some heavily armed SWAT officers, holding riot guns.

Director Li Jianguo walked over to the load-bearing pillar.

He didn't look at the thugs crouching in the corner; his eyes were locked onto the things in the mud.

Fifty urea bags and high-purity aluminum powder scattered all over the ground.

The suitcase soaking in the muddy water, filled with US dollars.

Director Li Jianguo's facial muscles twitched twice.

He walked over to the suitcase and crouched down. He picked up a mud-stained US bill and rubbed it between his fingers.

Real cash.

Director Li Jianguo stood up, walked to the edge of the load-bearing platform, pinched a bit of thermite with his fingers, and sniffed it.

A pungent, acidic smell rushed straight to his brain.

Director Li Jianguo stood straight, his face grim.

"A foreign-related case, military-grade dangerous goods, a one-million-dollar deposit." Director Li Jianguo turned to stare at Lu Chen. "Factory Director Lu, what you've dug up at this North City site isn't dirt—it's a powder keg."

Lu Chen leaned against the nearby load-bearing pillar, a cigarette between his fingers.

"If they had lit this powder keg, you'd be spending every day this month writing apology letters at the Provincial Department," Lu Chen said.

Director Li Jianguo gritted his teeth.

"Leave these people to me." Director Li Jianguo said coldly. "This foreign exchange is an injection of overseas black money; the case is significant enough to be elevated to a ministerial-level investigation."

Director Li Jianguo reached into his overcoat pocket, pulled out his walkie-talkie, and switched it to the highest command frequency.

"Command Center, this is Li Jianguo."

"Director, please instruct." The walkie-talkie crackled with static.

"Order all highway exits, national road toll stations, and airport access points in the city to set up checkpoints immediately. Strictly inspect all vehicles; allow no one in, only out." Director Li Jianguo pressed the talk button, his voice echoing in the excavation pit. "Search the entire city for a solid black Mercedes van with no license plate. Suspect: foreign male, wears gold-rimmed glasses, possibly armed with private security."

"If the target is spotted, you are authorized to use live ammunition to force a stop."

"Received."

Director Li Jianguo released the talk button and shoved the walkie-talkie back into his pocket.

He looked at the US dollars at the bottom of the pit.

"Old Li." Lu Chen called out to him.

Director Li Jianguo looked up.

"One of the thugs told the truth just now." Lu Chen crushed the cigarette butt on the ground. "The foreign man told him that if they burned this foundation tonight, there would be another three million US dollars."

Director Li Jianguo's brows knitted together.

"Three million, plus this one million." Lu Chen shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "They spent four million US dollars to buy the lives of these losers, just to destroy this thirty-thousand-square-meter pit."

Lu Chen pointed at the blueprints on the ground.

That was the anti-seismic structural diagram the foreign man had thrown to Baldy Zhao.

"Old Li, only Wei Jianguo and Zhao Tiezhu have seen these blueprints." Lu Chen stared at Director Li Jianguo. "Moreover, they have the load-bearing line data that was temporarily changed tonight."

Following Lu Chen's finger, Director Li Jianguo clearly saw the sub-page of survey data on the blueprint.

Red ballpoint pen markings indicated the magnetic field pipeline orientation that had just been adjusted tonight.

Director Li Jianguo's throat went dry.

It was impossible for the blueprints to have leaked from the construction site; the workers were all rushing the job, and Da Biao's men were watching outside. If the blueprints were obtained tonight, the data could only have been intercepted through the system's internal approval channels.

"There's a mole in the Municipal Public Security Bureau's archives department," Director Li Jianguo said, biting out each word.

Lu Chen didn't speak; he pulled the red kraft paper file folder from his left pocket.

This was the top-secret intelligence Director Li Jianguo had given him while in plainclothes tonight: the file on the yttrium star stone Huaxia region distribution network.

Lu Chen walked up to Director Li Jianguo.

"The contents of this folder, plus the one million US dollars on the ground." Lu Chen slapped the file folder against Director Li Jianguo's overcoat pocket. "Is that enough for you to take down all those big shots at the Municipal Bureau who are on the foreigners' payroll?"

Director Li Jianguo looked down at the file folder.

"They didn't manage to light their fire tonight." Lu Chen took a half-step back. "I'm leaving it to you to light this fire."

Director Li Jianguo gripped the red kraft paper folder, his fingers tightening.

"Load the people onto the buses. Leave two SWAT teams to secure the evidence at the scene." Director Li Jianguo didn't waste any more words. He turned and issued orders to the SWAT captain. "Take all fifty of these people back to headquarters and interrogate them separately."

The SWAT captain stepped forward, kicked Baldy Zhao up, and shoved him toward the dirt slope.

Director Li Jianguo looked at Lu Chen.

"I will have the name of that mole within half an hour." Director Li Jianguo tucked the file folder into the inside of his overcoat.

Lu Chen brushed the mud off himself.

"Before dawn, I want this construction site and a twenty-kilometer radius around it," Lu Chen looked up at the night sky, "cleared so that not even a single foreign bug can fly in."

Director Li Jianguo strode up the muddy slope.

The bus engines started, and the tires ground over the mud.

Lu Chen turned around and looked at the load-bearing platform at the bottom of the pit where Song Changming had just climbed down.

One million US dollars lay quietly in the yellow muddy water.

Lu Chen pulled up the system interface in his mind.

"Absolute Defense Mechanism activated. Fully locking onto physical intrusion sources in the North City Industrial Park infrastructure zone."

A pale blue light flashed in the depths of Lu Chen's eyes.

"Tonight, it's time to turn the tables on this chess game."