510: Chapter 510 The pull ring just started moving and the copper wire broke.

"Has the antenna been locked on?"

Night Owl's voice was lowered to barely a whisper, his throat mic pressed against his vocal cords. He switched his night vision goggles to thermal imaging mode—lights were on in the east wing of the third floor of the Merida estate's main building, showing eleven heat source signals.

In the encrypted channel, the sound of Anvil's keyboard tapping was as dense as falling rain.

Naypyidaw Command Center. The screen in front of Anvil had switched from the Nakara bomb disposal interface to the Vega global signal monitoring terminal. His coffee cup had been replaced—there were no tea dregs at the bottom of the cup; he had already returned from Mozambique.

"Four channels," Anvil stared at the bouncing spectrum analysis chart on the screen. "The first—London Metal Exchange, an additional one thousand seven hundred lots for short-selling orders. The second—New York hedge fund, currency peg betting agreement on the US dollar against Asian digital currencies, with the settlement time set for two hours after the London market opens. The third—remnants in the direction of Mozambique, encrypted short report, only one sentence: 'Razor is shattered.' The fourth—"

He paused for a moment.

"The fourth is an audio channel. Decoding is in progress."

Night Owl adjusted his squatting posture. He was squatting in the canopy layer of the tropical rainforest surrounding the estate, the optical camouflage coating changing its surface color in real time according to the surrounding leaf textures. When the human eye looked at that area, the brain would automatically categorize it as "just another leaf."

In the first-floor lobby of the estate's main building, two people were walking back and forth at a fast pace, their weapons swaying under their armpits. In the second-floor study, three people sat upright and motionless, the long strip of heat source in front of them being a desk. On the east side of the third floor—the two heat signals with the highest temperature were facing each other, their arm movements wide.

They were arguing.

"After 'Razor is shattered' was sent out, how did Merida react?" Night Owl asked.

Anvil transmitted the decoded segment of the fourth audio channel over.

Two voices burst out from the speaker—one hoarse and deep, the other high-pitched and urgent:

"——The channel mines were all dismantled? What about Kremer?"

"Kremer's submarine has lost contact for more than six hours. The last telegram was 'ballast tanks emptied.' He surfaced."

Pause.

Glassware smashed against the wall. The shattering sound was piercing.

"Surfacing means surrender. He knows the timetable for the second phase."

"He only knows 'Razor.' He doesn't know the financial layout—"

"He knows the coordinates of the route deviation!" The hoarse voice suddenly spiked. "From the coordinates, one can deduce the location of the Nakara channel entrance. From the channel, one can deduce the loading time of the cobalt concentrate. From the loading time, one can deduce—"

It cut off.

When he spoke again, the tone dropped to nothing but guttural sounds.

"The rare earth anchoring statement was issued before the London market opened. They didn't do it on the spur of the moment. It's a trap."

The high-pitched voice began to tremble: "The news Meridian Capital just sent—the additional short orders they placed were wiped out within three minutes after the rare earth statement came out. Two thousand lots. Not retail investors. It's sovereign fund-level capital. Someone is driving the market in reverse. Right now—the very second we are speaking—their traders are still adding short positions, but the price has been nailed down at 2.7 percent above the opening price. It won't budge at all."

Silence.

Footsteps paced back and forth four times on the wooden floor.

"Call the car. Destroy the hard drives. Evacuate in fifteen minutes."

Night Owl pressed his throat mic.

"Do it."

Twelve black figures dropped simultaneously from the canopy layer.

Divided into three groups. The first group of four sneaked into the garage area from the northern drainage ditch of the estate. The second group of four approached the main building from the maintenance tunnel beneath the southern swimming pool. The third group of four—led personally by Night Owl—came from the main entrance.

The iron gate swayed gently in the night wind at 3 a.m. Two people were sitting in the guardroom. One was looking at his phone, and the other was sleeping leaning against the back of his chair. The blue light of the phone illuminated the face of the one looking at it—high cheekbones, deep eye sockets, with a Latin letter tattoo tattooed on the web of his left hand: Furia. Spanish.

"Furia."

Night Owl raised his hand. His index finger and thumb formed an arc.

Two tranquilizer darts shattered the glass simultaneously. The person looking at the phone was hit in the forehead, sliding down the chair along with the phone. The sleeping person was hit in the back of the neck by the second dart, twitched once, and continued sleeping—only shifting from leaning against the chair back to slumping flat over the desk.

The iron gate was pushed open silently.

Only a strip of wall lamp light was left in the main building's lobby. Two armed guards walked back and forth, stepping on handmade wool carpets. One of them was complaining: "The encrypted channel has frozen three times tonight. Did the monkeys knock the antenna crooked again?"

Night Owl raised his silenced submachine gun in the darkness of the foyer.

Two tranquilizer darts left the chamber in the same second. The first hit the back of the complainer's neck, and he tumbled from the edge of the light strip into the shadows. The second hit the raised arm of the other person—before the gun could be raised to his chest, he crashed onto the carpet along with it.

The second-floor study.

The long table was covered with documents, hard drives, several stacks of cash, and three passports of different nationalities. The person with the high-pitched voice was typing furiously with flying fingers, uploading the hard drive data to an encrypted cloud server. The one with the hoarse and deep voice stood by the window, the screen of the satellite phone in his hand lit up—showing that the call was disconnected.

"The call won't go through," the hoarse voice said. "The encrypted line to the Diego Goya base is cut."

"What about the highway heading north?" the keyboard typist asked.

"Half an hour ago, there were still villagers on the highway."

"Villagers on the highway at 3 a.m.?"

The two looked at each other.

They turned simultaneously toward the southeast corner of the room.

Sitting in the corner was a man in a dark gray suit. He hadn't said a single word all night. Lined up neatly on the table in front of him were—five encrypted data disks, three credit cards, and a ceramic pistol without a manufacturing serial number. His fingers gently stroked the slide of the pistol, his fingernails neatly trimmed.

"Those on the highway are not villagers," he said.

His tone was flat, like reading a financial report.

An extremely faint sound of breaking wind came from outside the window—single shots from a silenced submachine gun. Three sounds. Then the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground.

The hand of the person by the window holding the satellite phone stiffened slightly. He placed the phone on the windowsill and turned to grab the ceramic pistol.

The door was breached by explosives.

The instant the hinges blew open, three flashbangs detonated simultaneously in three corners of the study. White paper fluttered all over the room. The man in the gray suit closed his eyes the moment the first flashbang left its chamber—but his fingers were hit by fragments, and the ceramic pistol slipped out of his hand and slid under the table. The other two fell to the ground covering their eyes.

Night Owl stepped across the doorframe, treading on the scattered documents.

Without even looking at the two on the ground, he walked straight to the five encrypted data disks in the corner.

"All under control."

The financial faction member in the gray suit had his hands pinned behind his back by Lin Xiao Special Forces operatives. The stainless steel handcuffs made a crisp click as they locked. He raised his head, using the red light of the emergency lamp to see the emblem on Night Owl's epaulet clearly.

"You are from Myanmar," he said. It wasn't a question.

"You are the money manager for Merida," Night Owl said.

The corner of the financial man's mouth twitched. His face was pressed against the scattered documents, the paper absorbing the hot air he exhaled.

The hoarse voice—the remaining hardline faction of Council of Elders, former Argentine Navy intelligence officer Carlos Amador—after the ceramic pistol slipped from his hand, reached his left hand into his pants pocket.

Inside the pocket was a modified safety pin. It was connected to the fuel depot in the estate's basement.

He pulled the pin.

Night Owl saw the action of pulling the pin even faster than a human brain could react. He stepped on Amador's wrist with one foot, pulling out the dagger at his waist with the other hand to sever the copper wire connecting the pin and the detonator. The sound of the copper wire snapping was as faint as a broken instrument string.