When Ernst walked out of Zhou Qingfeng’s office, he was filled with joy.
As a retired big soldier of the US Army, without education, background, or connections, he didn’t have great ambitions and was quite content with the job of guarding security at the ’Ministry of Health’.
He thought his life would be simple and straightforward, but the pandemic outbreak offered him a completely different choice.
Internally, he was very grateful for Minister ’Oliver Harden’ for recognizing his potential, and he was willing to do so dirty work as a way of repaynt.
Especially at the mont of strangling a four-star general, Ernst felt imnsely satisfied—the once unapproachable superior could only die pitifully in his hands, it was an exhilarating feeling.
When ’Harden’ ordered another recruitnt of ard ’volunteers’, Ernst energetically left the office, thinking about how to complete this task...
But at that mont, his phone rang, it was an unknown number.
Upon answering, before he could say ’Hello’, a rather arrogant voice ca through, "Is this John Ernst?"
"It’s , who are you?" Ernst replied.
"I’m Susie Wells, Chief of Staff of the White House." The voice on the phone said, "You’re a mber of the Republican MAGA, right?"
Ernst froze imdiately, as if his heartbeat paused. After a long ti, he stamred, "Yes, I am a MAGA mber. What...do you want?"
"There’s a task that needs you to complete." The Chief of Staff let out a snicker, "How about we et at the White House?"
Hearing the eting location was the ’White House’, Ernst instinctively complied. He had no resistance in front of superiors, puppet-like, he replied, "Alright."
The Chief of Staff was very satisfied with Ernst’s attitude, not forgetting to emphasize, "This is a top-secret mission, it can’t be disclosed to anyone else. Not even your superior can be inford."
"Not even Mr. Harden?"
"Correct."
Ernst broke out into a cold sweat instantly, understanding what was required of him. He again faced an unknown fork in the road of life.
-----------------
At the sa ti, in a small town called ’Macon’ in Georgia, Wayne Herbert, in charge of the ’X project’, was completely unruffled by being wanted, leisurely as if he were on vacation.
The ’X project’ research institute was neither deeply underground nor hidden in cave mountains. After all, this isn’t a movie, and the highly-paid researchers don’t want to live a hard life.
It was openly built within the town, brandishing the sign ’High-end Private Hospital’, covering tens of acres, bordered by fences with barbed wire, remaining very low-profile daily, not receiving ordinary people for appointnts.
The town had a river, Wayne Herbert, with a scoop net and a fishing rod, was fishing by the river—not a fish caught, but his phone rang, showing a caller ID of ’White House Chief of Staff’.
"Hello, Mr. Wells, good afternoon." Herbert cheerfully answered the call.
"Not good, not good at all." The Chief’s cold voice ca through, "The situation in Washington D.C. is getting worse, and the Vice President still isn’t stepping down gracefully."
"What whimsical ideas does that countryman have now?" Herbert asked with a smile.
"He’s going everywhere looking for people to arrest you. Not only has he mobilized the Departnt of Holand Security and the FBI, but also ’Harden’ from the Ministry of Efficiency is in action." The Chief of Staff said.
"Harden?" Herbert asked with confusion, seemingly trying to rember who that na referred to?
The Chief of Staff explained, "A brainless fool who only knows how to act recklessly, already causing a lot of trouble. But the information in that guy’s hands isn’t of much value.
You’ve actually wasted too much ti and funds, when will the research of the X project finally show results? I can’t wait indefinitely."
This talk sounds comforting, but is really a threat.
No one from outside knows that the person truly sheltering Wayne Herbert and concealing the ’X project’ is precisely the Chief of Staff who superficially seems most actively chasing him.
After much thought, Herbert replied solemnly, "We already have so phased results, if you have ti, you can co for a visit."
"Be specific, what kind of results?" The Chief of Staff impatiently asked, "If it’s still the kind of result with an efficiency of less than one in ten thousand, then it’s aningless."
"No, this ti we’ve increased the efficiency to ten percent, and it’s highly controllable, with prospects for large-scale application." Herbert replied.
"One-tenth efficiency?" The Chief’s excitent was palpable, "If that’s true, I can co to see it, let’s set the ti for the weekend."
"What about that Harden you ntioned?"
"Don’t worry, even if he can find you, I can take care of him from behind. But if you fail to deliver results again, soone will take care of you."
-----------------
Two days later, hidden in the ’Macon’ town where Herbert was. A small drone flew over at an altitude of three to four hundred ters.
The onboard high-definition cara focused tightly on the ground, capturing the face of every resident in the town, transmitting images to a truck several kiloters away.
Inside the truck compartnt, ’Gray Shark’ transmitted the received images to the Ministry of Efficiency’s database for facial comparison, identifying the identities of each town resident one by one.
’Macon’ was one of the bases of the ’Undead’ in Zhou Qingfeng’s mory, compared to other investigations searching like needles in a haystack, it’s he who first noticed this place.
Next to ’Gray Shark’, a towering Kongges was staring with suspicion at this wheelchair-bound thin ’colleague’, filled with questions.
After the pandemic outbreak, Kongges’ family had been arranged to go to the Bahamas.
Zhou Qingfeng rented an old cruise ship over ten thousand tons, refitted it and nad it ’Holy Light’, docking it off the coast of the Bahamas.
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