494: Chapter 494 Firestorm Documents Smash the President

The president snatched the assistant's tablet.

The assistant wanted to reach out and turn off the screen, but his fingers touched the edge of the tablet and pulled back—he knew this action would be captured by Lens.

When the president saw the title of the first line of the document, his left hand pressed against the edge of the podium, his knuckles turning white.

He opened his mouth, but the sound he made was drowned out by the shouts of the reporters.

A CNN reporter stood up, holding up a mobile phone, looking not at the president, but directly at the camera: "The White House press corps has uploaded the document to the news network.

The document the president just received shows that the U.S. military's field commander confirmed six days ago that supplies were exhausted and sixteen wounded soldiers had no medical treatment available.

But they were still ordered, ugh—forbidden to retreat."

An Al Jazeera reporter stood on a chair and shouted out the second question.

"Mr. President, how will Council of Elders handle the Barrett case?"

The president paused for a second.

The hair on top of his head was illuminated almost transparently by the spotlight.

Then he said: "We will conduct a comprehensive investigation into this—"

Boos and laughter erupted in the venue.

The third round of questioning—this time from a Fox News reporter.

When he stood up, he didn't take out a mobile phone, but instead pulled a printed document directly from the inner pocket of his suit.

When an old Reuters reporter next to him saw the red header "Operation Firestorm" on the paper, he gasped and poked the back of the colleague in the front row with his pen.

"Mr. President—this is the third batch of documents just released by Myanmar, containing an operational directive named 'Operation Firestorm', which allegedly authorized the creation of an artificial landslide on Mount Kinabalu and blamed Myanmar.

This document bears the autograph of Barrett, an American banker and chairman of Council of Elders."

The president's mouth opened and then closed.

His gaze drifted between the press gallery and the ceiling, like someone being grabbed by the collar and pressed to the bottom of the water, unable to float up no matter how much he kicked.

He turned sideways and whispered to his assistant.

The assistant shook his head.

He asked another question, the amplitude of his lips moving extremely small.

The assistant shook his head again.

"We are—currently—" The president turned back to the microphone, his voice hoarse, "We are investigating the truth of this accusation.

I temporarily cannot—"

"The documents are real!" a reporter in the back row shouted, "We have verified Barrett's signature on documents issued in the past in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya, and the handwriting is completely identical!"

The president took off the microphone.

Not took off, but ripped it down.

The interface of the microphone cord was ripped askew, and he placed it on the podium.

"The press conference is over."

He turned and walked toward the side door.

The reporters' follow-up questions converged behind him—"Mr. President!" "Mr. President, will you launch an investigation into Council of Elders!" "Will Barrett be arrested" — slammed against the oak doors of the press briefing room, bounced back, and overlapped into a noisy current of air.

Thirty-seven meters underground in Manhattan, the secret room of Council of Elders.

Barrett looked at the screen showing the president leaving the press room, took off his metal-framed glasses, and wiped the lenses with his cuff.

"How long did they hold out?"

"Twelve minutes." Haskins's tablet was lit up with CNN's live broadcast, "The president interrupted the press conference twice within twelve minutes.

The encrypted call from the U.S. Attorney's Office has already reached my office—they are demanding that Council of Elders cooperate with the investigation, providing all funding approval records for the CIA Sarawak station, the original Blackwater contracts, and the decision-making chain information for 'Operation Firestorm'."

"Investigate me?" Barrett put his glasses back on, the frames pressing two dark red marks on the bridge of his nose.

He stared at the breaking news banner scrolling on CNN on the tablet screen, the content updating faster than typing.

The latest one: "The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced that it has obtained a preliminary chain of evidence regarding Barrett and war crimes in Borneo."

Abramovich stood up from his seat.

"My hedge fund has received a termination notice from JPMorgan Chase.

They—'in view of current regulatory risks', have suspended all transactions with us."

The light of the encrypted communication terminal in the corner of the secret room lit up—flashing alternately red and green.

That was the dedicated channel of MI6.

Haskins walked over to answer it, and there were only two consecutive short busy tones in the receiver.

The line disconnected after two busy tones.

"Five Eyes has been cut." Haskins hung up the receiver, "MI6 and the Australia Signals Directorate disconnected the links at the same time.

They are afraid of getting burned themselves."

Barrett stood up and walked to the map in the corner of the secret room that had been torn and pieced back together.

The tape trembled rustlingly in the air conditioning wind.

He raised his hand and drew a circle on the wreckage.

"Haskins.

Arrange the retreat.

Everyone who can evacuate—you, Abramovich, Greenberg, and the custodian of the Swiss accounts.

Evacuate to a place where extradition is impossible.

Those who cannot be evacuated—burn them."

"What about you?" Abramovich asked.

Barrett's spectacle lenses reflected the "Operation Firestorm" order on the screen under the dim light.

He stared at his signature—the signature where the horizontal stroke of the letter t slightly turned upward.

"I've paid thirty-four years of legal fees," he said, "make them work."

A brief silence fell in the secret room.

Haskins swiped on the tablet screen, and bank transfer instructions popped up one after another.

Abramovich took off his rimless glasses and wiped the lenses with a Lens cloth.

"Do you think they will work?" Abramovich's voice carried no emotion, "Chelsea Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years.

Julian Assange—"

"I am not them." Barrett interrupted him, pulled out a drawer, took out a metal combination lockbox, placed it on the desktop, and popped open the latch.

Inside were seven passports from different countries, three USB flash drives, a key, and a pistol.

Six in the morning.

The southern slope of Mount Kinabalu.

The first batch of remaining militants walked out of the jungle to surrender.

The leader had temporary insoles woven from vines wrapped around the soles of his feet, his boots were rotten through, and his military uniform was moldy.

Most of them were empty-handed—their weapons were thrown into the peat swamps of the jungle, the barrels were clogged and rusted, and the magazines were empty.

The leader was a commander of the Philippines "Moro National Liberation Front".

He walked up to the coalition checkpoint, tore off his armband, and placed it on the sandbag bunker.

"My name is Abdullah Saleh.

Commander of the Sabah detachment of the Moro National Liberation Front.

I have withdrawn from the Borneo guerrilla groups."

Behind him were more than two hundred militants.

There were Philippines separatists, remnants of UMNO Youth, and Blackwater mercenaries.

The skinniest former mercenary leaned on his companion's shoulder, his dehydrated lips cracked open.

Within three days, the coalition's mountain-searching troops cleared out four hundred and seventy prisoners in the jungles, swamps, and abandoned mine tunnels.

Among them, Western mercenaries accounted for less than one-tenth, and the rest were armed militia locals from East Malaysia—the youngest of them was fourteen years old, and the oldest was seventy-one years old.

When handing over his shotgun, a seventy-one-year-old man said a sentence in Malay to the coalition soldiers: "They gave me two hundred ringgit.

Told me to shoot.

I didn't shoot."