70: Chapter 70 Alien Confirmed, Agent Collapses

California, Los Angeles, the scene of Walsh's death.

Since Walsh was sniped, that abandoned logistics warehouse had remained under lockdown by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The yellow and black caution tape had two corners snapped by the wind, but three unmarked black Chevrolet Suburbans remained parked on the perimeter.

The interior of the warehouse was bathed in a ghastly white light from portable LED work lamps; bullet holes and scorch marks from the shootout that morning still remained on the floor.

On the side wall, the concrete cracks caused by Musk's men using infrasonic weapons stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

Philip Moran, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stood in the center of the warehouse.

He was fifty-four, thick-set, with shoulders as broad as a retired football veteran, and his iron-gray short hair was shaved almost to the scalp.

Unlike the lukewarm, steady demeanor of Director Michael Whitfield, Moran's face always carried a sense of suppressed urgency.

It wasn't anxiety, but the cold rage of a predator who knew who had plotted against him but hadn't yet found the opportunity to strike back.

The reason he had come to Los Angeles himself to watch this lead wasn't because he was idle, but because Whitfield had whispered a sentence in his ear.

That old fox had smilingly hinted to him on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building that there might be a major case in California, involving complex interests between a Nevada senator, one of the five major military-industrial giants, and the world's richest man.

Moran understood that he was being used as a probe, but even a probe had its value; if he could really uncover a shocking case at the defense industry level, he could take Whitfield's chair at the congressional hearing.

So he came, bringing the four subordinates he trusted the most.

Agent Lewis Parker stood beside him, holding an encrypted tablet; on the screen was the timestamp of the last data link from the perimeter of the Casablanca Manor.

He was thirty-seven, Black, thin, wearing silver-rimmed glasses, and had worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for twelve years, specializing in electronic surveillance and remote reconnaissance.

At this moment, he looked up at Moran, his voice very low.

"Deputy Director."

"The team we sent to Arizona, responsible for monitoring the perimeter of the Casablanca Manor... they have all lost contact."

"Just about six hours ago, the Hopkins Family's armed squad set out from the estate and wiped out every living soul within a hundred-mile radius."

"It wasn't targeted at us; they locked down the entire area and conducted a carpet sweep."

"Our agents were among them."

Moran's jaw muscles tightened.

He turned to look at Lewis, remained silent for a moment, and then said:

"Did the Hopkins Family realize we were collecting evidence? Do they think the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspects them of being involved in Walsh's death?"

Lewis shook his head and turned the tablet over, showing Moran the last data upload record that had cut off a few hours ago.

"It wasn't a targeted removal against the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"Traffic cameras at peripheral outposts, civilian security systems in nearby villages, and even the personal network terminals of several independent journalists were all wiped out."

"Without discrimination."

Moran frowned.

If it wasn't a targeted removal, then it was a policy of 'better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one escape'. And the reason for launching a mass extermination of this scale was definitely not just the Walsh lead itself; there was something else hidden in that estate.

Then, Lewis pulled another data packet labeled "Urgent Upload - Undecrypted" from the folder, lowering his voice several decibels.

"Before their communication channels were cut off, they transmitted back several encrypted videos."

"Before the agents died, they forced them into the uplink; they probably felt these things were more important than their own lives."

"After Agent Hawkins received those encrypted videos, he forwarded all the files to me. I haven't had time to watch them yet, but the file size is huge."

Moran looked at the label, glanced up at the other Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and technicians scattered around the workbenches in the warehouse, and then made a quick decision.

"Everyone stop what you're doing. To my car, now."

"Lewis, sync the video to the in-vehicle encrypted screen."

Half a mile away from the abandoned warehouse, in the rear cabin of a modified Federal Bureau of Investigation mobile command vehicle, Rivera and Owens pulled the curtains shut tight.

The in-vehicle encrypted screen lit up, and Lewis Parker pulled up the first video and began playing it.

The footage was shaky, in low-light night vision mode, and the shooting angle was clearly from a highly concealed observation point in the desert outside the Casablanca Manor, about a mile from the main building.

The agents still remembered Feldman, the agent who carried the night camera with his fingers; in the corner of the screen, his old-fashioned camera ring, which he had brought from the military academy, occasionally flashed as he breathed heavily to adjust the focus.

On the screen appeared the circular, saucer-like silhouette over the estate, then a beam of light dropped down, and two Grey Aliens walked down from the beam.

Later, sandstorms and the sounds of gunfire blurred everything, capturing only a brief and extremely dangerous flash of light and a loud noise in the center of the estate.

Then, within seconds, the sky was filled with lightning, and two bolts of lightning struck vertically from the clouds into the interior of the estate.

A moment later, two Men in Black each carried a gray bag and walked into the spaceship that had just landed on the edge of the desert.

It was right here that the footage captured a very brief but extremely clear image:

The two Men in Black placed the gray bags on the sand, and one of them bent over to pull the hatch door.

In the few seconds he was bending over, the gap in the bag's opening, pulled down by the heavy object inside, happened to face the distant night camera, revealing the shape of the thing inside.

A large, grayish-white skull, one pitch-black and cold oval eye, and half a shoulder.

Lewis's finger froze on the playback button.

He had worked in the Federal Bureau of Investigation counter-intelligence unit for nine years and felt he had seen most of the things in this world that shouldn't be seen.

But in his mind, all his counter-intelligence training and risk assessment protocols were completely blocked by that half of a Grey Alien head in the bag.

He looked up at Moran and found that his Deputy Director's face had lost its last trace of color at almost the same moment as his own.

"They didn't just capture the Aliens... they beat the Aliens into that state."

"Put them in bags, fly away in the spaceship, like carrying two bags of trash."

Lewis heard his own voice become extremely low and hoarse, as if speaking a little too loudly would be heard by something invisible overhead.

No one in the carriage replied.

Then the screen image continued to advance mechanically, capturing a bolt of lightning striking vertically from the clouds into the interior of the estate,

This was the footage of Zhang Long's arrival and departure; because the depth was within the inner perimeter of the estate's main building, the peripheral recording equipment could not capture the specific situation.

Moran and the others could only see the lightning strike in, and after a while, another bolt of lightning rose from the interior of the estate back into the clouds and disappeared.

Then the image froze, and the timestamp cut off.

All peripheral agents subsequently lost contact.

"No, no, no... impossible..."

Hawkins stared at the afterimage on the screen and spoke, his voice sounding as if it were squeezed from the bottom of his throat, dry and sharp, his lips trembling,

"Did you see the gloves those two were wearing? One blue, one black."

"They can use lightning to destroy a spaceship; that is not human technology."

"They aren't fighting the Aliens; they are suppressing the Aliens."

"They are a level higher than the Aliens!"

"The Deep... Deep State! It's people from the Deep State!" Rivera said with a terrified expression.

"An informant mentioned it before, saying that Edward's son Link saw Men in Black with his own eyes in Las Vegas, taking away an Alien in a garage. At the time, we thought the kid was on drugs, but now... now it all matches up."

Rivera wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and found his hand was also covered in cold sweat.

Owens gripped the handle of the gun at his waist, unconsciously tightening his hold.

"In the entire Lighthouse Country... besides the Deep State, who has the guts to do this? Who has the power to do this?"

"And they fly the spaceship so skillfully, which means it's not their first time doing this!"

Then, as if triggering an invisible fuse, the people in the carriage simultaneously remembered a lead they had previously dismissed as a joke and thrown into a corner of the archives.

Lewis flipped back a few pages and pushed it forward, his knuckles tapping on the informant report about Link Warren on the screen:

In the underground garage of the Las Vegas City Hall, a Grey Alien was knocked down by two Men in Black claiming to be from the Federal Urban Pipeline Maintenance Department, then bagged and taken away.

At the time, everyone thought that such an informant was probably hallucinating from drugs, and no one investigated further.

Now, looking at the video, those two Men in Black placing the same style of gray bags on the sand to pull the hatch door, it all matches up!

Every step from beginning to end matches up!

There was dead silence in the carriage.

Lewis silently flipped the encrypted screen face down on his knees, Rivera pressed down on his hand that was shaking so hard he could barely hold his gun, and Owens leaned against the wall of the vehicle, his lips pressed tight.

Hawkins had buried his face in his palms.

Moran stared motionless at the monitor that had already gone black; what welled up from the bottom of his heart was not shock, but a deeper, colder fear.

He thought he was investigating the engineering corruption case at the Hoover Dam.

He thought these forces were killing each other over some military procurement kickbacks and financial black holes from decades ago.

Only now did he realize: he had been chasing not a military-industrial scandal, but Aliens!

In this near-frozen silence, the first person to break down was Hawkins.

He suddenly drew the service pistol at his waist, the standard Glock 19M,

The muzzle shook violently in the confined carriage, sometimes aimed at his own temple, sometimes pointed at Moran and Lewis, the sights wavering wildly,

The hand holding the gun was shaking as if he had just been fished out of ice water.

He was breathing rapidly, his pupils dilated, and the muscles in his face were completely out of control.

Lewis raised his hands, palms forward, his voice lowered to a near-whisper but extremely urgent:

"Hawkins... put the gun down, we need to stay calm now..."

Hawkins ignored him. The muzzle was still shaking, but his voice had shattered into pieces:

"I can't stay calm!! Don't you understand?"

"You all know! Every one of us knows!!"

His throat kept bobbing up and down, his eyes were bloodshot, and his voice was shattered like broken glass,

"I was the first to handle these videos! I was the first to handle them! The Deep State will definitely come to kill me!!"

"They will kill me using the same method they used to kill Walsh!! Don't you understand?"

"I've worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation for so many years, handled all the records of 'accidental deaths', you know what will happen next!!"

"We all know!!"