Chapter 201: Unexpected Situation

「June 3rd, ’21.」

「Malaysia.」

「Borneo, Sandakan City.」

The city is separated from the Luzon Islands by the Sulu Sea. It is a relatively large coastal city in Malaysia’s state of Sabah, located on the island of Borneo.

Joshua disembarked from the plane, accompanied by a few subordinates and disguised as a team of business inspectors from a multinational corporation.

Meanwhile, Hamšík, a deputy captain for Black Ship in Malaysia and also the head of the local palm oil trade brokerage for ADM Company, appeared discreetly at the airport exit.

The two parties quickly and discreetly converged outside the airport.

After leaving the airport.

Once they were in an SUV.

Joshua glanced out the window, then asked in a low voice, "Is it secure?"

"No problem. It’s been swept," Hamšík replied, his expression perfectly calm.

"What are his demands?"

"He wants 300 million in funds."

"And what makes him think I’ll agree?" Joshua’s face was a mask of mockery and contempt.

Hamšík shook his head. "I don’t know. That’s why he wants to talk to you in person. He must have an ace up his sleeve."

"What’s that Chinese saying again? Ah, right. ’A stray dog.’ What kind of ace could a stray dog like him possibly have? He’d better give me a satisfactory answer, or else..." A dangerous light glinted in Joshua’s eyes.

Hamšík remained expressionless. "I only agreed to make the introduction out of respect for our many years of cooperation."

Joshua was noncommittal. He naturally suspected that Hamšík had likely taken a bribe to arrange this meeting.

Such things were difficult to avoid, even in an organization as tightly controlled as Black Ship.

The work for Black Ship was filled with danger, pressure, and temptation; nearly every member was in a constant state of high mental stress.

So, Joshua didn’t plan on saying anything about his subordinates building their own little nest eggs on the side. As long as they didn’t betray Black Ship and America, Black Ship Headquarters would turn a blind eye, even if they were selling ’flour’.

The SUV weaved through the streets of Sandakan City for over twenty minutes before finally stopping in front of a small office building.

They went up to the seventh floor.

Inside a small conference room.

Joshua saw a middle-aged man sitting across from him. He put on a formulaic smile. "Mr. Matt Marcus, I presume? I hear you’re in need of some special assistance."

"That’s right, Mr. Joshua," Matt replied, seemingly unfazed.

Joshua pulled out a chair and sat down, steepling his fingers under his chin. "I presume you’ve already figured out how you’re going to persuade me, Mr. Marcus. The floor is yours."

Matt glanced at the other Black Ship agents in the room.

Hamšík immediately seemed to understand what he wanted. He looked to Joshua, asking with his eyes if he should clear the room.

Joshua gave a dismissive wave.

Hamšík and the others promptly exited the small conference room.

With only the two of them left, the conference room felt spacious. A strange chill even seemed to hang in the air, carried by the cold blast of the air conditioner.

"Mr. Joshua, I’m going to tell you a secret..."

Hearing this, Joshua’s expression remained unchanged, but his mind snapped to attention. He was very curious what gave this man the confidence to believe he could get 300 million in aid from him.

"And that secret is..."

Hmm... Joshua’s vision started to blur. His expression changed in an instant as he quickly drew his pistol. But just as he raised the gun, his fingers went completely stiff, followed by his arm and the rest of his body.

"You... Hamšík..."

Matt Marcus smiled as he watched the powerless Joshua slump onto the table. "The secret is that you, Mr. Joshua, are now my captive. Surprised? I bet you didn’t see that coming."

But Joshua was already too weak to answer.

Meanwhile, outside the small conference room, the assistants and bodyguards Hamšík had led to a temporary lounge had also collapsed onto the tables.

Hamšík and Matt stripped Joshua and his three men naked and took them to a secret modification room on the eighth floor.

Inside the surgical modification room.

Matt turned on the X-ray machine. Suddenly, his brow furrowed, and he zoomed in on the image of Joshua’s heart.

A miniature device, similar to a pacemaker, was lodged in Joshua’s heart.

’Isn’t that... the special suicide device and emergency contact system from the Knights? Damn it... This location might be compromised...’ Matt instantly realized.

He swiftly raised a scalpel, sliced open Joshua’s chest, and extracted the miniature device from his heart.

"Completely dissolve this thing."

An assistant nodded and took the tiny cardiac device to be disposed of.

Joshua was already on the brink of death. When Matt had violently removed the miniature device, a special toxin had been released into Joshua’s veins.

But Matt didn’t panic. With swift, practiced movements, he decapitated Joshua in less than twenty seconds and placed the head into a special cryogenic life-support container.

Just then, the assistant returned. "It’s been completely dissolved."

Tearing off his surgical scrubs, Matt gave his orders. "Take your team. Destroy all organic matter in this building and dismantle all electronic components from the equipment."

"Understood."

"Once you’re finished, evacuate on your own."

"Yes, sir."

The assistant skillfully pried open the casing of the X-ray machine and clipped out all the chips and circuit boards.

He did the same with the computer monitor, the PC tower, the air conditioner, and the lighting system, removing all their circuit boards and chips.

This brutal disassembly was incredibly fast. In less than twenty minutes, Matt’s assistant had finished sanitizing the electronics. He then poured several vials of a solution over Joshua’s headless corpse.

In an instant, vast quantities of bacteria and fungi, activated by special pheromones and hormones, began to indiscriminately attack all surrounding organic matter.

The assistant and his subordinates changed into janitor uniforms, their facial features rapidly altering. They donned masks and casually walked out of the office building.

Twenty minutes earlier, the moment Matt had discovered the device in Joshua’s body, he had begun multitasking. While dealing with the immediate problem decisively, he had simultaneously used pheromonal communication to warn Hamšík that something had gone wrong.

By now, both of them had already evacuated the office building with their subordinates.

After constantly changing identities and altering their facial features, Matt and Hamšík took a land route to secretly travel to the region of Southern Borneo, which was under Javanese control.

In the moment he was drugged, Joshua had used his last ounce of strength to hold his breath for over ten seconds. This forced his heart to trigger a compensatory accelerated heartbeat moments later.

It was the most direct way to activate the miniature device.

The moment the device was activated, it broadcast a special code to all electronic devices within a radius of several hundred meters.

To ensure this outpost remained hidden from Black Ship, the Foreign Affairs Department had not completely overhauled the site, meaning at least some of its electronic communication devices were still active.

Although the conference room itself was shielded against electromagnetic signals, Matt and his men had been outside the shielded area when they were moving Joshua.

As a result, the signal escaped.

Less than a minute later.

Inside the network monitoring center at the Southeast Asian Black Ship headquarters on Xing Island, a red alert instantly popped up on the screen of a customized computer.

[EMERGENCY ALERT: Member ID SX083642 (Codename: Joshua) in distress. Last known signal location: Southeast Asia—Malaysia—Sabah—Sandakan City—36 Seventh Avenue...]

The head of the network center’s expression changed. "Isn’t that the outpost Hamšík is in charge of?"

"Quickly! Use the secondary communication key..."