1080 Caught Red-Handed
Huo Shaoheng felt even more amused. “Why should we have to prove that the person on the camera footage is Hong Kangquan? Hong Kangquan himself should be proving that he’s not the person that was captured on the camera footage.”
Gu Nianzhi was nothing but confused. “You’re able to operate that way as well?”
“Of course. The most important thing now is to capture Hong Kangquan first.” Huo Shaoheng was slightly disappointed. “If we’re unable to capture him, nothing we can say will make any difference.”
Gu Nianzhi snapped back to her senses and remembered that Hong Kangquan had done more things than just this, and she managed to find some peace. “Then do you guys have evidence already?”
“The entire country will be voting today.” Huo Shaoheng opened one of the programs on his laptop. “If my guess is correct, he will take today as his last chance to get out of the country.” He had instructed all the counters that were in charge of international flights to turn on the CCTV surveillance program that was linked to the Special Forces. All the photographs of every single person that would be leaving the country today would be sent to their central control room, and each person would only be allowed to leave upon their confirmation.
Although they had already logged Hong Kangquan’s picture, retinal scan, and fingerprints to all immigration officers, Huo Shaoheng was still worried. If Hong Kangquan had bribed anyone to let him slip past, then the level of difficulty of capturing him would greatly increase.
However, Gu Nianzhi was extremely confident in Huo Shaoheng. Since he had said that it would be today, then today it would be. Therefore, she couldn’t help but allow herself to focus on the relations.h.i.+p between Hong Kangquan and that online author. “Huo Shao, if the police and the neighbors think that this person on the CCTV footage was someone who was with the debt collector, but it was actually Hong Kangquan, what was he doing there?”
“He was there to kill, of course.” Huo Shaoheng had already looked through the information about Lu Dayong’s death that the police had made public, including the conclusion and clues about the case that the police had not released to the public. “I can tell you that this Lu Dayong was definitely murdered, and it was not a suicide.” Huo Shaoheng could say that with confidence because the way Lu Dayong was killed was something Huo Shaoheng had seen many times before. The police would never find clues, but the people who were in Huo Shaoheng’s line of work would know what happened the moment they looked at it. However, if Huo Shaoheng had done it personally, it would have been way cleaner than this.
Even so, he would never do that to a normal citizen like Lu Dayong. Those he would need to kill personally would definitely be someone of a certain status. Considering Bai Yusheng, who had died in the Caribbean sea, the previous director of the Asian branch of the American CIA, and Lieutenant Als from Germany’s Federal Intelligence Agency, which of them had a low status?
Gu Nianzhi was even more curious now. “Then why did he kill Lu Dayong? Lu Dayong’s only occupation was being an online author, ‘The Garden of Churchill,’ and this author was actually a street author who was writing modern romance novels. To me, his only crime was to accept money and ruin someone’s reputation. However, how is that linked to Hong Kangquan? It cannot be linked in any way, can it?”
Hong Kangquan was the director of the Secret Service. The Secret Service was also a department that was looking after confidential information. Did Lu Dayong have any connections to such organizations? Gu Nianzhi didn’t believe it could be so, no matter what, because she was the only one who had gone through every single detail of Lu Dayong’s computer’s hard disk. If there were any suspicions of Lu Dayong being a spy, there was no way that Gu Nianzhi would have missed it.
To be honest, Lu Dayong’s hard disk was full of pirated videos and doc.u.ments. They were all from Europe, America, j.a.pan, and Southeast Asia. They were all intended for those with “stronger tastes.” If such a person were a “spy,” then this incident would put every single other person who was suspected of being a spy in a precarious position.
Gu Nianzhi couldn’t understand it anymore. She took out a piece of paper and scribbled down every single detail and connection between Hong Kangquan and online author Lu Dayong, better known as “The Garden of Churchill,” and began linking them up. In this way, she discovered a new similar connection, and that was Cai Songyin.
On her chart, Cai Songyin was the only similarity between the two. Lu Dayong had followed Cai Songyin’s instructions to write a novel about Huo Shaoheng and Gu Nianzhi. Hong Kangquan had suggested to Cai Songyin that she request Huo Shaoheng to go to America personally to rescue her daughter, Tan Guiren. And, Gu Nianzhi realized with a slight pang of guilt, after she had managed to get the real information about why Huo Shaoheng had gone to America from Tan Guiren, she had sent a text anonymously to Cai Songyin, asking her to not sue Lu Dayong, and sent Cai Songyin the voice recording of Tan Guiren talking about the kidnapping in America. This had caused Cai Songyin to think that Lu Dayong had managed to get his hands on the dark history of her daughter, Tan Guiren. Therefore, she wanted him gone. That was why she had thought that Lu Dayong’s death was related to Cai Songyin.
However, that was merely her logical deduction. She didn’t have any solid evidence to back her deduction up. Now the clues had shown that it was Hong Kangquan’s work that had killed Lu Dayong. Could she therefore deduce that it was Cai Songyin who had wanted to kill this online author, but she had asked Hong Kangquan to do it for her? That logic seemed correct on the surface, but it would not make sense if Gu Nianzhi were to think deeper into it.
As the director of the Secret Service, why would Hong Kangquan listen to Cai Songyin and go and murder someone? Also, was Cai Songyin really the one who had wanted the life of this online author? If it was really Cai Songyin, then what reason did she have to convince Hong Kangquan to murder him personally? Or rather, what did Cai Songyin have over Hong Kangquan that she would be able to coerce him into killing for her?
The series of questions was repeating over and over again in Gu Nianzhi’s mind, but she couldn’t manage to clarify them. There were definitely details that she did not know about, but she didn’t know where to start looking.
Gu Nianzhi scribbled her thoughts down onto a piece of paper as she pondered it and showed them to Huo Shaoheng. “Look here, Huo Shao. Do you think it happened this way?”
Huo Shaoheng was slightly taken aback. He had not added Cai Songyin into the equation yet. Once he did, the entire logic would be perfect, as Huo Shaoheng knew more than Gu Nianzhi. He immediately replied, “There should be other deals between these two people that we still don’t know about. Or rather, put it this way: Cai Songyin knows more about Hong Kangquan than we do.”
Gu Nianzhi sat back in her seat and shrugged. “Can we say then that our Mrs. Prime Minister knows about someone who is suspected of being a traitor but didn’t report him? Hoho… That would be interesting.”
“Did you have any misconceptions about their morals?” Huo Shaoheng thought it was normal for those people to behave like that. “They’re all merely a bunch of people who are even willing to sell their souls to the devil as long as they’re able to get elected.”
Among all those candidates, no matter how Huo Shaoheng compared them, he still felt that Bai Jiancheng was more trustworthy. Although Huo Shaoheng did not agree with the directions of his policies, which Bai Jiancheng had finalized, Bai Jiancheng knew his limits when he did things. He abided by his values and did not stoop low just to win the election. Bai Jiancheng was someone who could handle losses.
Huo Shaoheng had gone to vote just now as well. He had voted for Bai Jiancheng. Gu Nianzhi had not voted yet, because she had fallen asleep. Now that she remembered Cai Songyin, she felt that it would be better if she had gone to cast her vote.
Although it sounded like there were more supporters for Bai Jiancheng compared to Tan Dongbang, who would be able to guarantee that the rumors would be accurate? If all those rumors were so accurate and useful, then the current president of the United States of America should be a female and not that wealthy businessman addicted to posting nonsense on Twitter on a daily basis. Gu Nianzhi stood up. “I will go and cast my vote, then.”
Huo Shaoheng nodded and allowed her to go as she wished. Shortly after Gu Nianzhi had left the central control room, the alarm that Huo Shaoheng had gotten the people from the Special Forces to set up at the airport immigration counters began beeping.
“What’s going on?” Huo Shaoheng raised his head and looked at the security camera. The person in charge of that particular immigration security camera zoomed in on the data and said agitatedly, “Hong Kangquan has appeared! He’s at the C City international airport! He’s disguised himself as a middle-aged woman and is just about to cross immigration!”
He had given himself away at the retinal scan. Hong Kangquan had already damaged all his fingerprints. Therefore, the fingerprint sensor would not be able to track who he was. He would not be able to change his retinas though, unless he dug his own eyes out.
Huo Shaoheng instantly commanded, “Arrest him immediately and keep him in the lockup! I’ll head to C City right away.” He wanted to bring Hong Kangquan back to Di Capital personally and not give him any more opportunities to escape.
Huo Shaoheng was in too much of a rush to wait for Gu Nianzhi to return from voting. He brought a couple of subordinates who had gone on missions with him before and headed directly towards C City’s international airport. He even used his private jet. It was fast, and they could take off anytime. They didn’t have to wait for any other pa.s.sengers.
When Gu Nianzhi had returned from casting her vote, she realized that Huo Shaoheng had already left. She asked the people who were on duty in the central control room where Huo Shaoheng was. The moment they told her that it was an urgent mission, Gu Nianzhi stopped asking. This was their daily routine. She had already gotten used to it.
Gu Nianzhi intended to stay there before Huo Shaoheng came back. What if he needed help?
All the supercomputers in the central control room were being used for the election. Although they had been busy working on this for the past month, there were still glitches here and there. For example, something happened to a voting machine all of a sudden. The citizen had voted for A, but the machine read it as though the citizen had voted for B. There were also places that were openly cheating, and all of this was captured on CCTV.
The Special Forces and the police force had truly shown the citizens their importance this time around. Even the Secret Service had sent people to help out. It seemed like they wanted to make up for what they had done.
With such a big country and countless voting locations, it was a gift that Gu Nianzhi had decided to stay and help out the people on duty with the operations there. She had helped a decent amount and solved the issues in an orderly manner when they surfaced.
Yin s.h.i.+xiong, who was nearly going crazy due to the workload at the Senate, almost wanted to give Gu Nianzhi a call, just to thank her for helping out.
…
Currently at C City’s international airport, Hong Kangquan, who had disguised himself as a middle-aged woman, was taken to a dark, little room by the staff at the airport. The airport police were keeping watch over him and waited for people from the Special Forces in C City to come over and take him away.
Hong Kangquan already had his makeup removed. However, he was still wearing the flowery dress that looked like it had belonged to a real middle-aged woman. Hong Kangquan was not tall and was slightly plump. Therefore, his body shape from the back did look like a woman’s. However, when you looked at him from the front, it was as creepy as it could get.
The airport police who were watching him snickered and laughed, and some even whipped out their phones to snap pictures of him. Hong Kangquan’s face turned red, pale, red, and pale again. He was so embarra.s.sed that he almost wanted to look for a hole in the ground and bury himself inside it.
However, even if he was truly angry, he did not give up on the thought of being able to escape. He sat in the dark, little room for a while with a solemn expression before saying, “I wish to make a phone call to my lawyer.”
The police officers looked at each other. “You want to talk to a lawyer?”
“Of course. I am a citizen of the Hua Xia Empire. No matter what I’ve done, I have the right to call a lawyer!” Hong Kangquan said loudly. “If you don’t believe me, I can use your phones.”