426: Chapter 426 Putting Handcuffs on Myself

"What about the US military?" He turned to Huang Yonghong. "You told me the 'Reagan' was already in combat readiness!"

Huang Yonghong gripped another secure phone that had no signal, his knuckles turning white.

"Mr. President—the 'Reagan' is still four hundred and twenty nautical miles southeast of Singapore. Their carrier-based aircraft don't have enough combat radius—even if they force a takeoff, by the time they reach Singapore's airspace, they will only have enough fuel to loiter for four minutes. Plus, they have to pass through our air defense identification zone, which has already been suppressed. No radar guidance, no IFF—"

"Then let them pass!" Lawrence Wong slammed his fist on the table. The teacup jumped, rolled to the edge, and shattered on the floor tiles. "This is an invasion! They promised—Sullivan promised me personally—that the US military would intervene within six hours if Singapore came under attack!"

K. Shanmugam lifted his eyelids. "Mr. President, Sullivan was removed from his post three months ago."

Lawrence Wong froze. The only sound left in the conference room was the tail end of the seventeenth broadcast from the military radio, and a dull metallic tremor coming from the underground ventilation ducts—it didn't sound like equipment running, but rather like some heavy object landing on the ground overhead.

The door was pried open.

It wasn't an explosion—it was a ceramic composite pry bar applying force with millimeter precision to the hinge pins. The entire blast-proof door was silently dismantled within four seconds, like peeling open a can lid.

Four "Shadow Blade" members walked in. The team leader pushed his HUD goggles onto his forehead, his gaze sweeping over the four people at the table, finally landing on Lawrence Wong. His thermal imaging showed that Lawrence Wong's body temperature was 0.8 degrees higher than a normal person's—vasodilation caused by a surge of adrenaline, a typical physiological reaction to panic.

"Lawrence Wong." The team leader used English, his accent devoid of any regional characteristics. "You are under an arrest warrant issued by the Yangon International Court for endangering regional peace, inciting military confrontation, and manipulating false information. You have the right to remain silent—"

"I do not recognize your court." Lawrence Wong stood up, his knee hitting the edge of the table, but he suppressed the pain and pointed his finger at the team leader. "This is aggression. The United Nations will not recognize it. The US military will not sit idly by. Do you think you control Singapore just because you control the airport? Singapore has a population of five million and twelve thousand active-duty soldiers—"

The team leader stepped aside, revealing Colonel Lin behind him.

Lawrence Wong's voice cut off.

Colonel Lin's uniform still bore the Singapore Army badge, but his muzzle was pointed at the ground—not at "Shadow Blade," but at Lawrence Wong. He stood behind the young man in the gray combat uniform for a full five seconds before speaking: "Mr. President, the Woodlands garrison reports to you. The checkpoint has been handed over. No casualties."

Lawrence Wong's pupils contracted until they were almost invisible. His lips moved twice, but no sound came out. Behind him, K. Shanmugam stood up abruptly, but was pressed down by Vivian Balakrishnan—the Foreign Minister's hand was stronger than his, his fingers digging into his epaulets; it wasn't comfort, it was suppression.

Colonel Lin pulled a portable projector from his tactical vest, placed it on the conference table, and turned it on.

A photo of Wong Ah Fook appeared on the wall.

Wong Ah Fook was wearing the uniform of a Japanese Kempeitai interpreter, standing under the Rising Sun flag in front of the Syonan-to Kempeitai headquarters. His right hand held a military saber, and his left hand held a Japanese flag—the corner of the flag was blown open by the wind, revealing the seven characters "Long Live His Majesty the Emperor" engraved on the flagpole. Superimposed below the photo were the archive number, preservation date, and handwritten text in the position column—"Translation employee, affiliated with the Japanese Kempeitai Tokkō."

Lawrence Wong slumped back into his chair. He had sat in this chair for two years and four months, and had never felt it so cold. He knew this photo—his family had spent three generations erasing it from all public archives and had spent a fortune in legal fees to ensure no media dared to mention it. Now it was projected on that wall, in 8K resolution, with no blur, no cuts.

"You—" His voice was hoarse. "Where did you—"

The team leader didn't answer him. The projector switched to the second image: the detention order for "Operation Spectrum" signed by Lee Kuan Yew in the early hours of May 21, 1987. Every word in the signature column was clearly legible. The third image: a petition written by Duncan McLaren to the Queen— "They were hung upside down from the ceiling of the interrogation room for eighteen hours, and the dripping blood was mistaken by those next door for a leaking pipe." The fourth image: a screenshot of Lawrence Wong at the Bloomberg Forum yesterday, his finger extended in mid-air, his mouth frozen on the word "warlord."

The team leader drew a suppressed pistol.

The muzzle wasn't pointed at Lawrence Wong—it was pointed at the projector. He pulled the trigger, not to turn off the image, but to shatter the projector's power adapter. The moment the image went out, all the emergency lights in the room turned on simultaneously—they were battery-powered, ghastly white LED lights that drained every drop of color from everyone's faces.

Night Owl walked in from the shadows outside the door.

He wasn't wearing optical camouflage. He was wearing that signature black tactical suit, a suppressed pistol tucked at his waist, and a ceramic dagger in his hand. Lawrence Wong had never met this man—but he recognized the face. On the list of "Top Ten High-Risk Global Figures" circulated internally by the Singapore Intelligence Agency, this face was ranked third. Codename "Night Owl." Director of the National Security Agency of the Federation of Myanmar. Zhang Cheng's sharpest blade.

Night Owl walked up to Lawrence Wong and placed the ceramic dagger on the table. The blade of the dagger had a bone-white matte texture, with no fingerprints and no serial number—it was a weapon made in a single pass using 3D printing, impossible to trace.

"When your grandfather was an interpreter for the Japanese army—" Night Owl began, his voice low, like a dagger being drawn from a leather sheath, "every time he translated an interrogation record, a prisoner of war was dragged out and shot. In March 1944, he was serving rice to Colonel Sato in the Kempeitai canteen—that same afternoon, twelve captured British pilots were beheaded behind Changi Prison. He didn't pull the trigger. But he translated every pilot's name, rank, and squadron—word for word, from English into Japanese."

Night Owl drew his suppressed pistol and pressed the muzzle against Lawrence Wong's forehead.

"Did he ever think about this shot?"

Lawrence Wong's knees began to tremble uncontrollably. He opened his mouth, and what spilled out wasn't an excuse, but a string of incoherent pleas: "I can—I can sign—I can issue a statement—retract my speech at the Bloomberg Forum—recognize the legitimacy of the Kra Canal—I can—"

"You can shut up." Night Owl put away his gun and threw a pair of carbon fiber handcuffs onto the table. "Put them on yourself. Or I'll help you—with that dagger."

Lawrence Wong looked at the ceramic dagger on the table, his own distorted face reflected on the blade. His fingers curled and relaxed, relaxed and curled tight, and finally, he tremblingly picked up the handcuffs and locked them onto his wrists. The sensation of the carbon fiber biting into his skin felt like steel wire soaked in ice water—this was the distance his grandfather had stood when he watched the prisoners of war being fitted with nooses.