493: Chapter 493 Seven Minutes of Ironclad Evidence Smash the White House in the Face

"If your hand dares to touch the keyboard, I will break it."

The cryptographer pulled his hand back.

Two remaining U.S. special forces soldiers were hiding behind a bunker in a recessed rock wall on the upper level of the command deck.

One of them was carrying a stinger missile launcher, attempting to aim it toward the entrance.

Lin Xiao-7 did not give him the chance to fire—she cut in from the side, smashed the stinger's sight with a rifle butt, and backhanded a knee into the solar plexus of the person holding the tube; the man collapsed as if his bones had been removed.

The other person, in a panic, pulled out a fragmentation grenade and pulled the safety pin.

Night Owl turned around, and by the time he saw this, his finger had already tapped the electromagnetic suppression command on his tactical tablet.

Half a second later, the electronic fuse inside the grenade was fried by the interference signal. There was no explosion.

The American soldier who had pulled the pin froze for a second—then Lin Xiao-7's rifle butt smashed into his forehead, his nasal bone shattered, and blood splattered onto the rock wall.

As his body fell backward, his fingers still maintained the posture of holding the grenade, and the safety pin rolled three times on the ground before coming to a stop.

Seven minutes.

From the explosion to the cleanup, seven minutes.

Inside the command post, there were eleven U.S. special forces soldiers; seven were killed, and four were subdued.

Captured items included three encrypted computers, two satellite communication terminals, seven encrypted radios, twelve boxes of paper operational documents, forty-six unused fragmentation grenades, and five stinger missile launchers with accompanying missiles.

Night Owl released the wrist of the "Widowmaker."

His arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, but he still did not scream—he simply stared at Night Owl's goggles and said in English, with almost no accent: "This will start a war."

"It already has," Night Owl replied. "You started it."

The technical team removed the encrypted computer from the tactical command console. The hard drive inside was still running, and the indicator light was flashing.

The last intercepted communication record on the screen stopped three minutes after the "Widowmaker" sent "Ammo 5%. No exfil." —that was the only message Barrett replied with.

The message was extremely short: [Burn everything. No witnesses.]

"Destroy everything. Leave no survivors." When Li Lanzhi read this message at the Naypyidaw Command Center, her fingers paused on the tablet for three seconds.

She looked up at Zhang Cheng, who was staring at the real-time footage transmitted back by the Vega system.

"They treat front-line commanders as pawns," she said.

"Pawns should be discarded once they are used up." Zhang Cheng picked up his enamel teacup and took a sip. "That is the style of Council of Elders—it has always been this way. Send him an encrypted channel and tell him that the signed documents have all been intercepted. He will understand how much he is worth."

When Li Lanzhi entered the command, her fingers made a faint clicking sound on the touchscreen.

The encrypted message was forwarded via Vega and appeared on the screen of the newly captured encrypted computer in the command room 0.3 seconds later.

The "Widowmaker" was pressed into a chair by Lin Xiao-4, his left wrist fractured, his right forearm bone cracked, and his jaw dislocated.

He stared at the message sent by Zhang Cheng on the screen, his eyes bloodshot.

It was not anger—it was extreme exhaustion.

Black was dead, and the command had been thrown to him.

Barrett's order to him was "No retreat," and the order to his subordinates was "Burn everything."

Zhang Cheng's message consisted of only one line: [Barrett's signed documents have all been intercepted. Your value has been cleared to zero.]

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze landed on the data port on the side of the encrypted computer—a satellite communication terminal was plugged in there, its front display screen still lit, showing the delivery time of Barrett's "No witnesses" message: three minutes ago.

Night Owl took the hard drive from the technical team and plugged it into a portable decryption terminal.

The files were unpacked layer by layer: all of Barrett's encrypted communication records, the supplementary clauses of the employment contract between Blackwater and the CIA, copies of the white phosphorus munition usage authorization, the shipping manifest for dum-dum bullets, and the full version of the operational order codenamed "Operation Firestorm"—including all technical parameters for blowing up the southwest slope of Mount Kinabalu to create a landslide, the detonation schedule, and the draft media press release to frame Myanmar.

"Who wrote the press release?" Night Owl flipped to the end of the document.

The technical Death Soldier opened a document labeled "Press_Release_Draft_FINAL."

The content of the document was a formatted press release, with the lead reading: "The Myanmar military used heavy artillery to trigger a landslide on Mount Kinabalu, causing a large-scale humanitarian disaster. The international community should immediately impose comprehensive sanctions on the Myanmar military junta."

The signature line was left blank—that was the space reserved for the White House press secretary to fill in their name.

"Professional enough." Night Owl pulled out the hard drive and handed it to the communications officer. "Send it to Naypyidaw. All of it."

When Zhang Cheng received the data package, the Kadazan village at the foot of Mount Kinabalu was broadcasting the live feed of Anwar signing the "Sarawak-Sabah Special Autonomy Act" in Kuching.

He flipped the operational order to the last page and saw Barrett's handwritten signature—the horizontal stroke of the letter 't' at the end of the signature curved slightly upward, exactly matching the handwriting on the documents seized from the CIA Sarawak station.

"This is the third document with his signature," Zhang Cheng said. "The one in Kuching was signed by Black, the one in Lahad Datu was signed by Shafiq, and this one—Barrett signed it himself."

"Should we release it directly?" Li Lanzhi asked.

"No." Zhang Cheng pulled up a template labeled "Myanmar Times Extra" on his tablet. "Send the first round first—the white phosphorus munition authorization, the shipping manifest for dum-dum bullets, and that message."

"Wait until the White House press conference begins—" He circled Barrett's signature on the "Operation Firestorm" document, "then push this."

Li Lanzhi checked the time. Over at the White House press briefing room, the President had just walked behind the podium.

4:40 AM. The White House press briefing room.

The U.S. President stood behind the podium, beads of sweat seeping from his forehead.

He had just reached the Q&A session regarding the UN Security Council's veto of the U.S. veto power, and the reporters in the audience had already pressed him for seven consecutive rounds on the issue of the U.S. military using banned weapons in Borneo.

He had used four versions of "We are investigating" and three versions of "I have no information to confirm that."

"I do not have sufficient information—" Before the fifth version was finished, a uniform sound of notifications rang out from the audience.

Over a hundred mobile phones popped up notifications simultaneously, their frequency so synchronized it was as if someone had pressed a single switch.

The CNN chief correspondent looked down at her phone, the live broadcast camera aimed directly at her face—the entire American audience watched her lips move as she read the document title, and then her eyes widened.

The screen displayed the scanned version of the encrypted files pushed by Shuguang Cloud: the white phosphorus munition usage authorization with Barrett's handwritten signature, the date of which perfectly matched the date the Kadazan villagers of Mount Kinabalu were burned; internal emails from Blackwater confirming receipt of a $27 million transfer from the CIA for "East Malaysia jungle special operations personnel recruitment"; and a screenshot of the message the "Widowmaker" sent to Barrett six days ago—"Supplies exhausted. Requesting extraction. Sixteen wounded with no medicine."