13: Chapter 13: A Water and Electricity Shortage, and a Shocking Anomaly

No one spoke.

This was a question that required no answer.

Hawthorne joined the Warren Family legal team in his second year after graduating from law school, and in his forty-year career, he had handled so many gray-area matters that he couldn't even count them himself.

Sloan's financial maneuvers might seem flawless to outsiders, but under the magnifying glass of the Federal Government's tax authorities, they were just as riddled with loopholes.

Every scandal Margaret suppressed for the Warren Family was enough to land her in federal prison for several years if just one were brought to light.

As for Raymond, he had been with Edward the longest and knew the most about him.

The relationship between the four of them and the Warren Family had long ceased to be one of mere employment.

They were retainers.

The kind of retainers that had been passed down through political families in the Lighthouse Country for centuries—no contracts, no oaths, just a handshake.

"Shared glory and shared ruin" was not just a slogan; it was a rule of survival.

Raymond received a certain message from their silence, then he cast his gaze back toward Edward.

His eye bags were already dark, but there was something in those eyes that shone brighter than his exhaustion.

"However, Boss,"

Raymond leaned forward, a movement that caused the canvas folding chair to let out a sharp creak.

"Based on all the current evidence, the backer behind this 'Federal Urban Pipeline Maintenance Department'... is very likely not the military."

"Right. Although the military also has similar weapons research, that cannot explain the other things this department possesses."

"For instance, the power to erase the existence of an entire organization from one of the Federal Government's most core databases without leaving a trace."

"For instance, the ability to 'cleanly' dispose of those who have seen things they shouldn't have, turning their names into cold, impersonal serial numbers in missing persons files."

"The military cannot do these things."

"Or rather..." Sloan took over the conversation, a sharp gleam flashing in his habitually narrowed eyes.

"The military is just a tool in the hands of a higher power."

Edward Warren leaned back in his chair.

He looked at the four aides before him—those he had hand-picked, promoted, and whose absolute loyalty he had verified over ten years—and suddenly gave a slight smile.

It was faint, fleeting, like a spark occasionally sputtering from the firewood in a winter fireplace.

"Well, that's strange," he said, his voice low and steady. "In the Lighthouse Country, what could possibly be a stronger backer than the military?"

This question was like a stone thrown into a stagnant pool, the ripples spreading across everyone's faces.

Raymond, Hawthorne, Sloan, and Margaret exchanged glances once more.

This time, the content in their eyes was even more complex than before.

It was Sloan who spoke first.

He reached out, pulled a document from his stack of materials, and placed it on the coffee table.

"Last night, after Raymond sent the video to our four-person encrypted group, the three of us each went to investigate in different directions," Sloan said,

"By daybreak, we pieced our findings together and discovered that the scope of this whole affair was much larger than we had imagined."

Margaret opened her laptop, and the screen lit up.

Hawthorne took out an old notebook, carefully wrapped in a leather cover, and flipped to the page marked with over a dozen colorful sticky tabs.

Sloan picked up the coffee pot on the table; it was empty.

He put the pot down and crossed his hands on his knees.

"Our reasoning logic is not complicated,"

Sloan said, his tone regaining the precision and calmness he used when doing fund roadshows on Wall Street,

"If there really is such an organization secretly capturing and researching Aliens, it must need to consume resources."

"The two most critical ones: water and electricity."

"No matter how deep a bunker you dig under the desert, as long as you are conducting research inside, you must use water and electricity. And the larger the scale of the research, the greater the consumption."

"Since this organization can appear in Nevada, it means its base is likely also in Nevada."

"And Nevada is a desert, where water resources are extremely scarce, though electricity resources are relatively abundant due to the existence of the Hoover Dam."

"Therefore, water and electricity—especially the intersection point of hydroelectric power—is the best path to track this organization."

"We followed this water and electricity line to investigate."

He paused for a moment.

"It would have been fine if we hadn't checked."

"But once we checked..."

Sloan's Adam's apple bobbed up and down,

"We uncovered a shocking inside story that broke all four of us into a cold sweat."

Edward did not speak, only signaling with his gaze for him to continue.

Margaret took over the conversation: "The power and water supply for Las Vegas and the entire southern Nevada region all rely on the Hoover Dam."

"Construction of this dam began in 1931 and was completed in March 1936. To this day, it remains the largest water conservancy project in the western Lighthouse Country."

"Sloan retrieved the dam's historical operational data through his network of connections at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission."

"And on Hawthorne's side, he filled in the policy background from the Federal Government's historical planning documents."

"After I integrated the information from both sides..."

She spread a hand-drawn timeline chart on the coffee table.

On that chart were three parallel lines:

one representing the power output of the Hoover Dam, one representing water supply data, and one representing the actual consumption of Las Vegas and the surrounding areas.

"Between 1936 and 1946, the data for the dam's operations were all normal."

"The output and consumption data matched."

"But starting from 1947..."

Margaret's finger tapped heavily on a certain point on the timeline,

"...which is the year of the Roswell Incident. For the more than fifty years that followed, there has been a stable, abnormal gap at the Hoover Dam."

"What kind of anomaly?" Edward leaned forward slightly.

"The gap in water resources is between twenty and thirty percent," Margaret's voice was clear and forceful,

"The gap in electricity resources is even larger, between thirty and forty percent."

"These water and electricity resources have a fixed consumption amount every year, every month, and every quarter, but this consumption has no corresponding recipient in any public ledger."

"All paths to investigate deeper hit a wall at critical junctures."

"Either important documents were 'lost,' or one department would say the data was in the hands of another department, and that department would say this was within the scope of national secrets and could not be disclosed."

"Or they would tell you directly that this data does not fall within the scope you are authorized to view."

Margaret turned the laptop screen toward Edward,

On it was a scanned copy of a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,

The report document title was stamped with a red seal: "Limited Distribution."

"This red seal," she pointed to the stamp,

"according to federal law, for federal documents stamped with 'Limited Distribution,' unauthorized private viewing or dissemination can be punished by up to ten years in prison and a fine of fifty thousand dollars."

"Sloan utilized a deep connection he had within the Energy Regulatory Commission just to get a scanned copy of this report."

"After that contact sent him the email, he called him, and the first sentence he said was—"

Sloan took over: "'I don't know why you are investigating this, but this is the last time I will help you with such things. Next time you ask me such a question, I will hang up.'"

"Then he deleted my contact information from all his communication records."

Edward looked toward his four aides:

"So according to the data you found, this organization researching Aliens has been continuously and secretly consuming twenty to thirty percent of the Hoover Dam's water and thirty to forty percent of its electricity since 1947."

He pondered slightly, his gaze sweeping slowly across the four faces,

"In other words, as long as we keep investigating up the line of water and electricity resources, we can bring the truth to light?"

"Find where these resources ultimately flow, and we will know where that organization's base is."

Then, the response he anticipated did not appear.

Hawthorne did not speak.

He lowered his head, slowly wiping the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses with a piece of velvet cloth; the lenses had actually already been wiped by him three times.

Sloan did not chime in either, only sighed softly, crossed his arms over his chest again, and stared blankly at a spot on the coffee table.

Margaret didn't speak either,

She closed her thick laptop, opened it again, then closed it again, her fingers unconsciously rubbing against the casing.

In the quiet air, only the residual charcoal in the fireplace occasionally made a faint crackling sound.

Edward Warren's gaze rested on each of the three aides' faces one by one.

His eyes were not the kind of aggressive interrogation, but a deeper, more patient scrutiny,

Like an old chess player observing the opponents across the chessboard, wondering why they had all suddenly stopped playing their pieces.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

His tone remained steady.

The three of them still did not answer.