Chapter 202: Stifled

The deep and silent void of space.

In low Earth orbit, a few hundred kilometers above the ground.

A surveillance satellite belonging to America, Keyhole-7, was currently passing through its orbit over Southeast Asia.

At the Kennedy Space Center, the ground control department suddenly received an urgent mission, requiring them to conduct strict, continuous surveillance of a specific location.

Only seven minutes had passed since Joshua sent out the warning signal.

For America, whose operational systems were already bloated to the extreme, this level of efficiency was nothing short of miraculous.

After seeing the contents of the assistance request, Merlin, the head of the ground control department at Kennedy Space Center, knew he couldn’t drag his feet. He immediately had the technicians adjust the surveillance satellite’s observation angle.

After a dozen or so minutes of rushed adjustments, the Keyhole-7 surveillance satellite finally finished angling itself to firmly monitor the area surrounding the target in Sandakan City, Malaysia.

At the same time, the ground control department was also redirecting other passing surveillance satellites to ensure uninterrupted photography of the location’s exterior.

Elsewhere.

Tom Clark, the Deputy Governor of the Southeast Asian Black Ship, was also frantically mobilizing his forces.

He went through official channels for combating international crime, having the head of the American Embassy in Xing Island call Malaysia directly. He swiftly requested their cooperation in cordoning off the city block, citing the secret activity of a group of dangerous drug traffickers in the area.

At the same time, Tom personally took several dozen Black Ship sailors and seconded fifty Marines from the US Military Base on Xing Island.

From the US military airfield on Xing Island, they boarded a military transport plane and flew straight to the airport in Sandakan City.

By the time all of this was arranged, only about an hour had passed.

Clearly, Black Ship was pulling out all the stops this time, mobilizing every force they possibly could.

After Tom and his subordinates stormed into Sandakan City, they rushed straight to the office building without a moment’s rest.

However, when the fully-armed soldiers and the local Malaysian police squad rushed into the office building, all they found was a scene of disarray, filled with miscellaneous junk.

Tom looked at the captain of the Sandakan City police. "Captain Hawu, this may involve evidence related to international criminals. We need to handle this privately."

Captain Hawu, a wiry and short middle-aged man, replied with some ambiguity, "I don’t know about that. It’s against regulations, after all..."

Tom knew it was against regulations, of course, but he didn’t waste any more time arguing with Hawu.

A moment later, Hawu’s phone rang. After taking the call by the door, he came back inside and said with a stiff smile:

"Mr. Tom, please, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on things from the door."

"Thank you." Tom nodded, then turned and waved to his subordinates. "Move out."

Outside, Hawu took out a small cigar and lit it. He then sat in the back seat of his pickup truck and began to slowly puff out clouds of smoke.

Another police officer in a military-green uniform leaned against the car door, watching the busy Black Ship agents with a grin.

Hawu held the cigarette pack out the window. "Have one?"

"Struck it rich, Captain? Smoking Jinsha now?" The young officer chuckled as he took one. Jinsha was a brand made by the Southern Wind Group of Malaysia.

And this Nanfeng Group just happened to be one of Homo Sapiens Company’s secret subsidiaries.

*PUFF...*

"Who knows when these foreign masters will be finished?" Hawu said mockingly, exhaling another cloud of smoke.

"Who knows!" A strange glint of amusement flashed in the young officer’s eyes. Just half an hour earlier, he had been inside destroying all the electronic equipment. Now, he was curious to see what Black Ship could do.

Hawu glanced at the young officer and also smiled without a word.

...

Meanwhile, inside the office building.

Tom’s mood darkened with every floor he ascended.

It wasn’t just the computers, laptops, and phones. Even devices like printers, air conditioners, televisions, and projectors had been completely gutted. Any part containing the smallest electronic component had been stripped out and removed.

As for paper documents, it was even more hopeless.

The only paper materials on site were some newspapers, calendars, books, magazines, and trade data—absolutely nothing useful.

But Tom hadn’t given up hope. He had already ordered the forensics team to collect every footprint, fingerprint, hair, drop of blood, trace of urine, and flake of skin at the scene.

However, the forensics team leader, Charles, along with Chen Jixi and the others, had their brows deeply furrowed.

They hadn’t found any blood, fingerprints, hair, or anything of the sort. It was simply unimaginable.

"Could it be that no one ever lived here?" Chen Jixi asked hesitantly.

But team leader Charles shook his head. "Hamšík’s team had four members, and they hired three local employees. That’s at least seven people."

"But the scene is too clean," Chen Jixi griped. "Even our own labs have never been this sterile."

This was precisely why Charles was starting to question his own reality.

Forget bloodstains and fingerprints; they couldn’t even find a single flake of dandruff.

The only traces at the scene now were the hairs and skin flakes from the Black Ship agents and soldiers, and the footprints and fingerprints they’d left when they stormed in. There were no traces of anyone else.

For a forensics expert, a scene like this was the equivalent of a locked-room mystery.

Every trace had been erased.

’Could those guys have vanished into thin air?’

When Tom reached the top floor and saw the medical and electrical equipment, which had been "cleaned" just as thoroughly, his expression was as black as the bottom of a wok.

"Why is there an X-ray machine here?"

His assistant replied awkwardly, "Hamšík requested it three months ago. He said it was for aid to remote villages in Sabah, to support some rural Converts."

Tom immediately saw the problem. "Bullshit! He was definitely doing something here we didn’t know about. The Governor’s disappearance is probably directly related to him."

The assistant didn’t know how to respond.

As things stood, Governor Joshua’s prognosis was grim, and Hamšík and his men were suspected of treason.

The problem was, they hadn’t caught anyone. Even the local employees of this trading company had vanished without a trace.

With no specific target found, Tom, now acting as the de facto governor, found the situation exceptionally difficult.

He knew Hamšík and the others had likely defected, but to which faction? ’Surely Hamšík and his crew aren’t just acting on their own?’

Of course, he had one prime suspect in mind: the faction over in Luzon.

After all, Joshua had come to Sandakan City specifically to meet Matt Marcus, a remnant of the Marcus Clan.

But there was nothing Tom could do right now.

Because Black Ship Headquarters couldn’t be bothered with Southeast Asia’s problems at the moment. Even the potential assassination of a Governor wasn’t enough to make them shift their focus.

After all, the dirty bomb at Kings Bay Base had caused far too great a stir.

No matter how treacherous the undercurrents in the colonies became, they were irrelevant to the American homeland.

But its own backyard—Latin America and the North American mainland—was a line America would absolutely not tolerate being crossed.

America was currently mobilizing all its resources to investigate the origin of that dirty bomb. Matters in Southeast Asia would have to wait.

Tom sighed, feeling utterly stifled.

But what good was feeling stifled? The colonies could never be as important as the homeland. Things had to be prioritized.

For now, all he could do was gather as much evidence as possible, identify the mastermind, and wait for Headquarters to free up its hands. There would naturally be ways to deal with these rebellious colonies then.