42: Chapter 42 Ambush Fails, Bounty Turns into Explosives

Zhang Yi stared at this line of text, his brows slowly knitting together.

Diana Hopkins... That unfamiliar name that had appeared in the system prompt records a few days ago, the one that had piqued his curiosity for quite a while.

At the time, he wanted to pull up her image, but the system told him that this woman was not on the script's information dissemination chain and could not be viewed.

But now, the system suddenly told him that she had entered the dissemination chain.

When did she enter it?

How did she enter it?

Between this woman and this script, what exactly did she do to make the system determine that she had established a causal link with the script?

A thought suddenly emerged from the depths of Zhang Yi's consciousness, like a cold needle tip piercing the surface of water.

The person who planned this sniper attack, took out Walsh, and attempted to kill both Edward and Musk at the same time... could it be this Diana Hopkins?

He did not hesitate for too long.

His finger tapped "Yes" in the void.

The image on the system interface switched instantly.

...

Arizona, Scottsdale, 6:12 AM.

The morning light on the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert was one time zone behind Los Angeles.

Over in Los Angeles, they had already welcomed a vast expanse of low-angle golden-white twilight, while here, it was still a grey-blue tone carrying the lingering chill of the end of the night.

Ranges of long, strip-like mountains revealed layers of dark green and withered yellow in the low-angle light.

To the northeast of Scottsdale, there was a private estate covering nearly eighty acres, called "Casablanca Manor."

This name had been used on this land for nearly a hundred years, passed down from the era of the old Spanish colonial-style mansion to the present.

Although the main building had been completely renovated twenty years ago into a modernist structure of glass and sandstone.

The manor's main building was a low, rectangular longhouse with a facade covered in local honey-colored sandstone.

The building's lines were extremely minimalist; no pillars, no reliefs, no unnecessary decorations.

But the precision of every cut of sandstone and the light-transmitting angle of every glass curtain wall silently proclaimed the builder's wealth.

The manor's perimeter consisted of two security lines; the outer layer was an array of passive infrared sensors scattered in the desert scrub, and the inner layer was an armed security team working twenty-four-hour shifts, all equipped with military-grade night vision and communication equipment.

And at this moment, in the central courtyard of this building, Diana Hopkins was standing in front of a landscape window made of a single piece of seamless glass, watching the desert landscape slowly rendered by the morning light outside.

She was forty-three years old, tall, with sharp and cold facial features, high cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and a prominent nose bridge.

It was a sharpness honed by generations of power and wealth, one that did not need to please anyone.

Her hair was dark brown, cut very short, just reaching her chin, with the ends slightly curled inward, as if restrained by some kind of introverted power.

She was the only person in the courtyard.

Until, on the sandstone floor behind her, came the slight sound of leather shoes stepping on it.

She did not turn back.

"How did the matter go?"

Her voice was not loud, the tone cold, carrying a kind of calm without any unnecessary emotional embellishment.

This was the kind of calm that only those who truly controlled the situation possessed; even if you reported how many people had died or how many had escaped, she sounded as if she were listening to a quarterly financial report.

The man behind her was named Harlan Croft, fifty-two years old, a hereditary servant of the Hopkins Family.

He was a true "retainer."

This status had almost disappeared in modern Lighthouse Country society, but it still existed in this private desert estate.

His grandfather was the personal bodyguard of Diana's great-grandfather, his father was the private secretary and messenger for Diana's father, and he himself had been standing behind Diana since he was eighteen.

He was wearing a dark grey casual jacket, standing straight, with his hands naturally hanging at his sides.

"Miss," Harlan's voice was very steady, "Walsh was shot in the head and died on the spot."

"The dozen or so intelligence agents escorting him had already been taken down by Musk's people using infrasound weapons beforehand; they had not all regained consciousness when the shootout occurred, so they did not form effective resistance."

"However... Musk and Edward escaped."

"The opposing tactical team reacted too quickly, and our sniper team couldn't shoot out the tires before the armored SUV broke through the blockade."

"They went east and should currently be at Musk's closed testing base in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles."

"The tracking signal was blocked by Musk's security system after entering private airspace, so we cannot locate the precise coordinates for the time being."

Diana did not speak.

She was still standing in front of the glass window, holding a thin porcelain coffee cup in her right hand, the steam rising from the rim slowly unfolding in the morning light.

Her left hand rested on the crook of her right arm, and her index finger tapped three times very lightly and slowly on her elbow joint.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then, the corners of her mouth moved very, very slightly.

Her expression barely changed; the only change occurred in her eyes.

There was no anger there, only a very faint, almost indifferent displeasure.

It was just like an old chess player of several decades, who, while reviewing the game, discovers that the opponent made a move on the forty-second turn that she hadn't calculated.

"Five people, five sniper positions, from the water tower to the high-voltage pylon to the balcony of the abandoned warehouse."

"The suppression angle of the crossfire already covered over ninety-five percent of the retreat routes."

"In that situation, to still let two out of three people escape..."

She placed the coffee cup on the windowsill and turned around.

Her movements were very slow, and the hem of her silk morning robe made almost no sound as she turned.

She lifted her eyes slightly toward Harlan; there was no anger in those dark brown eyes, only a very faint, almost condescending scrutiny.

"Tell me, was the tactical level on Musk's side beyond our estimation? Or are the five people on our side not worth the price they received?"

Harlan lowered his head slightly, not defending himself, nor making excuses for the sniper team.

He had followed Diana for twenty years and knew when to speak and when not to.

"There was a significant deviation between the target's tactical response and our prediction."

"The counter-response speed of that tactical team after suffering the first shot was about four and a half minutes faster than the fire response curve we had previously assessed; this gap was not in the sniper team's contingency plan."

He paused for a moment and added:

"It was mainly a problem with the equipment."

"Some kind of infrasound pulse that Musk is using can temporarily incapacitate surrounding personnel, which caused some interference with the sniper position rotation rhythm."

Diana lowered her gaze, holding it for about two breaths, then raised her eyes to look at Harlan again.

A very slight curve appeared at the corners of her lips.

"After all, there is no absolute certainty of victory in this world, and reality always produces all kinds of accidents."

"The sniper team's mistake... five carefully selected veterans, with favorable terrain and complete fire coverage, failing to clear two non-military personnel from the warehouse area..."

She paused, her voice carrying a barely perceptible hint of regret, like seeing a high-priced piece of art at an auction that one expected to win, but was outbid at the last moment,

"...is not unforgivable."

"So the promised reward, ten million US dollars each, will not be a penny less."

"The Hopkins Family never withholds payment."

Harlan looked up at her slightly, waiting for the second half of the sentence.

"By the way, add a small gift for them to show consideration for their hard work."

Diana turned back to face outside the glass window.

When she said the second half of the sentence, her voice was so soft it was almost as if she were talking to herself.

"Stuff the dynamite into those money cases."

"Use four packs of C4 in each case, and let them go to God to collect their respective rewards."

Harlan's expression did not change at all; he simply bowed slightly.

"Understood."

"I will arrange it, Miss."

The rhythmic and restrained sound of leather shoes stepping on the sandstone floor echoed, moving from near to far, and was finally silently cut off by that heavy oak door.

Diana remained alone in the central courtyard under the brightening morning light.

Outside the window, the Sonoran Desert began to shimmer with layers of golden yellow and orange-red after the sun rose.

The shadow of a saguaro cactus, like some kind of silent signpost, lay slanted on the gravel-covered slope.

Diana did not leave the window; she just picked up the coffee and set it down again.

She was a woman accustomed to solitude, especially accustomed to being alone in the gap after pressing the start button on a matter.

But the things in her mind were never empty.

The Hopkins Family's information channels were simply not on the same level as the Warren Family's.

When Edward Warren and his staff team first found the abnormal hydropower data for the Hoover Dam in the fishing cabin at Gold Lake, the Hopkins Family already knew about it.

Not through surveillance, wiretapping, or infiltration; the Hopkins Family didn't need to do that.

The matter of the Hoover Dam's hydropower abnormality itself had always had a silent alarm trigger on a very deep monitoring level of the federal energy system.

Any external inquirer who touched that alarm line without authorization would have the relevant information automatically pushed to the Hopkins Family's intelligence terminal.

This was a mechanism set up since the generation of Diana's father.

As for why this mechanism was set up, she once did not understand.

She just executed it.

At first, she thought it was just the family dealing with some old engineering corruption issues.

The dam construction in the 1930s and 1940s involved a large amount of grey financial transfers and cover-ups of deaths and injuries.

Why else would a local political old-timer like Edward be investigating these matters, other than to find an excuse to purge internal opponents in Nevada?

Later, Edward went to find Walsh.

That meal on Chestnut Street could not have gone without a whisper in Washington's power club circles.

Later still, Walsh started investigating Gore, digging up graves, and then drilling a one-thousand-meter pit beneath the Westfield Center...

Every step was under Diana's gaze.

She began to feel that things were not that simple.

A Nevada senator and a number three figure from the Department of Homeland Security could not possibly invest this level of resources for an eighty-year-old dam project corruption case.

She still didn't know what exactly was dug out of that pit.

But that fence, layered with encryption and tightly locking away secrets, was something her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had guarded with a near-pathological attitude for three generations.