25: Chapter 25 Gray Wolf

Ten minutes later, Marcus appeared in the first-floor office. His left arm was still wrapped in bandages, but there was no sign of any inconvenience in his movements—the healing factor's recovery speed was even faster than Chen Feng had estimated.

"Sit."

Marcus sat down opposite him and waited.

Chen Feng pushed the business card over. "Lane Black, former CIA Operations Directorate, now the Corporate Security Director of Maida Group. He's the one who paid for those people from the Iron Fist Gang."

Marcus picked up the card, looked at it for two seconds, and set it down.

"Someone with a CIA background won't just try once."

"Right." Chen Feng leaned back in his chair. "The first time, he used street thugs to test the waters; the cost was low, and it wouldn't hurt if they failed. But now that he knows we have you and Dahei, the next people he sends won't be idiots holding baseball bats."

Marcus was silent for a moment. "If it were me planning it, there would be a second wave within seventy-two hours. A professional team, four to six people, with military backgrounds, and they would conduct reconnaissance beforehand."

Chen Feng glanced at him. "You and this Blake are in the same line of work."

"Not exactly the same line of work." Marcus's tone was flat. "He's CIA, I'm Marine Corps. But the circle is small, and the methods for employing people are pretty much the same."

"Then do you think we can hold them off?"

Marcus didn't answer immediately. He looked out the window, then at Dahei, who was lying in the corner.

"If we hold them off by force, it's a toss-up." He said, "If the opposition is former special forces level, a four-to-six-man unit, coming in with full tactical gear, Dahei and I can hold them off, but I can't guarantee the laboratory won't be damaged."

"Then we won't hold them off by force." Chen Feng stood up and walked to the window. "Marcus, what do you think of this Ricardo?"

"Cowardly. But not stupid."

"Cowards have their uses." Chen Feng turned around. "He came to apologize today, ostensibly because he's afraid of me, but in reality, he's afraid that the person paying him behind the scenes will treat him as a discardable pawn. The Iron Fist Gang took the job and failed to get it done; Blake won't trust them anymore, but he won't let them go either—pawns that know too much are either kept in use or disposed of."

Marcus understood. "You want to turn Ricardo into one of our people."

"He doesn't need to become one of our people, just make him feel that following me is safer than following Blake." Chen Feng picked up his phone and pulled up the contact information Ricardo had left. "What does a pawn that's about to be abandoned need the most?"

"A new chessboard."

"Marcus, you're getting better at talking."

Chen Feng dialed the number.

It rang three times, and Ricardo answered.

"Chen... Boss Chen?" There was obvious nervousness in his voice.

"Ricardo, have you had dinner yet?"

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the line. "Not... not yet."

"That's perfect. I'll treat you to a meal and we can chat about something." Chen Feng's tone was as casual as if he were asking a friend to play ball. "Do you know that Mexican restaurant in the South District? Old Juan's place."

"I know it."

"Eight o'clock, just the two of us. Don't bring anyone."

"...Okay."

Chen Feng hung up the phone and said to Marcus, "You take Dahei and keep watch outside the restaurant, don't let anyone see you."

"Understood." Marcus stood up, walked to the door, and paused. "Boss, what if Ricardo doesn't take the bait?"

"He will." Chen Feng put his phone into his pocket. "A drowning person won't refuse any hand that reaches out to them, even if that hand has a chain attached to it."

Marcus nodded and went out with Dahei.

Chen Feng was the only one left in the office again.

He sat back in his chair and opened his computer. On the screen was the summary of Maida Group's public information for the last three months that Tony had just sent over. They had acquired two small biotechnology companies, had three ongoing lawsuits with the FDA, and had frequent high-level personnel changes—two Chief Scientific Officers had been replaced within three months.

Chen Feng's gaze stopped on the last piece of information.

Three weeks ago, Maida Group submitted a new drug clinical trial application to the SEC, with the drug code MK-7, and the indication field read "Post-Traumatic Tissue Regeneration."

Post-traumatic tissue regeneration.

The function overlaps almost completely with the healing factor.

Chen Feng leaned back slowly and tapped his fingers lightly on the desk twice.

They didn't just want to steal the formula. They were working on something similar themselves but couldn't get it to work, which is why they were in such a rush to seize it.

That makes sense.

Spending two hundred thousand to hire street thugs to trash the place wasn't because they looked down on him, but because time was tight. Maida's MK-7 project was stuck, and they needed Chen Feng's data to break through the bottleneck.

Chen Feng closed the computer and took a sip of the cold coffee on the desk.

"Tony."

A head poked out from next door. "Yes!"

"Help me order a bouquet of flowers."

"Huh? Who is it for?"

"For myself." Chen Feng said. "Write on the card: Congratulations to Maple Leaf Bio, you are about to welcome your first true opponent."

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again, and silently retreated.

Three thousand miles away, New York, on the forty-seventh floor of the Maida Group headquarters building.

Lane Black sat in his office, and an encrypted email was displayed on the laptop screen in front of him.

The sender was an informant he had planted in Los Angeles—a small-time character working a clerical job at the South District Police Department, who received fifteen hundred dollars a month from him to provide updates on security dynamics within the jurisdiction.

The content of the email was very short:

"The Iron Fist Gang operation failed. An eight-man team was repelled by two people, one suspected to be a veteran, and one canine of abnormal size. Six people were seriously injured, five of whom have not appeared at any hospital to date. The police only received one casualty. The target company opened for business as usual the next day, with no signs of any damage."

Blake read it twice, deleted the email, and emptied the trash bin.

Five people didn't go to the hospital.

This detail made him frown.

It's not unusual for wounded people not to go to hospitals after gang fights, but for five people to disappear at the same time, with no records even at underground clinics, that wasn't normal. Either the Iron Fist Gang dealt with it themselves—but given their medical conditions, it's impossible for them to handle five seriously injured people at once; or, these five people are still in that building.

A pharmaceutical company holding five seriously injured gang members—what for?

Blake didn't continue to think about it. He didn't need answers; he needed results.

He picked up an unregistered prepaid phone and dialed a number.

It rang twice, and the other side answered.

"Jason."

"Blake." The voice on the other end was dry and raspy, like sandpaper rubbing against sheet metal. "Got a job?"

"Los Angeles, a small pharmaceutical company. The target is the hard drive data and drug samples in the underground laboratory."

"Budget?"

"One hundred and fifty thousand, with an additional one hundred and fifty thousand upon success."

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the line. "Security situation?"

"At least one former military personnel, combat capability is not low. Additionally, there is a large canine that has undergone some kind of modification; the specific situation is unknown, but it suppressed six armed personnel in close-quarters combat. The building has underground facilities, depth and layout unknown."

"Modified dog?" For the first time, there was a fluctuation in Jason's tone. "What does that mean?"

"It means don't treat it like an ordinary dog." Blake said. "Lethal force authorized, for both the person and the dog."

"Understood. I'll be there within seventy-two hours. I'm bringing three people: electronic reconnaissance, lock-picking, and close combat, one of each. I need the building blueprints and the distribution of surrounding surveillance in advance."

"I'll send it to your email within forty-eight hours."

"One more thing." Jason's voice paused. "What if that former military personnel is someone I know?"

"Then act like you don't know."

Blake hung up the phone, took out the phone's SIM card, broke it in half, and threw it into the shredder.

He had no intention of telling Victor Hamon about the Iron Fist Gang's failure. Hamon was a businessman, and businessmen only look at results. It wouldn't be too late to report it after the Gray Wolf team brought the things back.

Blake stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

From the height of the forty-seventh floor, the night view of Manhattan was like a black cloth embedded with crushed diamonds spread out beneath his feet.

A small pharmaceutical factory in the South District, a twenty-four-year-old Chinese-American boss, a veteran, and a dog.

Not worth him making a personal appearance.

Gray Wolf is enough.