Chapter Fifteen: A Deadly Bargaining Chip (1)
The sudden terrorist attack changed all their plans.
It seemed that things were always this way when playing a game with the CIA.
Cheng Muyang put an arm around her shoulders, smiled, and said softly, “Go pack your things. Let me make a call.”
Nan Bei looked at him.
He smiled. “Don’t worry.”
“If you don’t go against the CIA this time, it won’t have much of an impact on you in the future either. Is it really worth taking such a huge risk?” She kept her words as brief as possible. “I mean, taking the Middle Eastern nuclear scientist out of here.”
“The impact will be huge,” Cheng Muyang told her quietly. “If I become an enemy of the CIA, they’ll use countless agents, one after another, to try to take one person’s life. A single operation of theirs can go on for decades. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to evade them.”
He was right.
The enormous war budget and the endless stream of agents they trained were not something one person, or even one family, could contend with.
“So I need an opportunity to appear under a different identity and become a public figure.” Cheng Muyang’s hand slid to the side of her face, his fingertips gently brushing her skin. “Do charity work, make investments, put most of those investments in the United States, become their largest foreign individual investor, become a friend of their taxpayers.”
As she listened, Nan Bei undid the buttons of his shirt, took it off, and handed him a clean one.
“You have to understand that all of the CIA’s funding has to come out of taxpayers’ pockets.” Cheng Muyang put on the shirt and buttoned it one by one from top to bottom. “I’m not blowing up their buildings, and I’m giving them money. In ten years, the CIA will probably have to come protect me.”
She picked out a tie and put it on him. “So all that’s missing is a bargaining chip for peace talks.”
He gave a quiet “Mm,” then slowly lowered his head to kiss her.
She slowly returned the kiss. “You really are devious. First, you treated the CIA as an enemy, completely cutting them out of the Cheng family and Moscow and destroying all the effort they had put in over the years. Now you want to make them compromise and admit defeat, and have them treat you as a friend?”
“I won’t be anyone’s friend forever, and I’ll never have a permanent enemy either,” Cheng Muyang answered her softly. “That’s the way to survive.”
Treacherous and cunning, ruthless and devoid of mercy.
She remembered Bodongha’s assessment of him:
He never started any wars himself, yet he could easily make those Eastern European politicians and criminal forces turn on one another, then sit back and reap the benefits. In Moscow, he had even obtained the “law of silence.” Anything related to the Cheng family, whether smuggling or deaths and injuries, would never appear in any official record, nor would there be any pursuit or arrest.
Nan Bei did not know how he had managed it in Moscow in the past.
But now, Cheng Muyang was simply using the same old trick in the United States.
Because of this unexpected incident, Cheng Muyang quickly reached an agreement with Saudi Aramco on how to respond. Soon, when Nan Bei boarded the vehicle headed for the capital, Riyadh, the person in charge told them that since the main purpose of the trip was to introduce the soon-to-be-established King Abdullah University of Science and Technology to the scholars, the organizers had temporarily decided to hold a reception in Riyadh before everyone left. Some of the scholars would be invited to introduce their own research projects.
The person in charge handed out an exquisitely printed list. She saw that all four people Cheng Muyang had singled out were on it.
“I imagine everyone is curious as to why there are women on the list this time.” The person in charge looked at everyone with a smile in her voice. “That’s because our future King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will break with tradition for the first time and allow men and women to study together. So for this round of scholarly presentations, we have also invited the four female scholars on this bus to open a precedent for Saudi Arabia.”
What a convenient excuse.
Nan Bei remembered Cheng Muyang’s phone call, which had lasted less than ten minutes before she left the room.
He had not only a terrifyingly brilliant mind, but also a team capable of putting his plans into action with astonishing speed.
Ever since she left the room, she had been wearing a concealed receiver.
Because she was a woman, she had the opportunity to go together with the female scientists here, while in the end, only Cheng Muyang and Kyle would actually enter the venue. The three of them needed a good opportunity to take the female scientist away.
And the first thing they had to do was find her.
When the vehicle left Al-Ahsa, it was surrounded by a large contingent of government forces providing protection. Many of the female scholars had never witnessed such a scene before. Some were already unable to contain their nerves, their eyes tense as they whispered among themselves. She looked at the four people. Some were calm, others flustered, but this kind of outward composure was completely useless as a basis for judgment.
There was still silence in the receiver.
The vehicle traveled through the night. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat, wanting to rest for a while, when suddenly, she heard a sound.
“Section Two of the Moscow bureau invited nuclear scientists. They’ll listen to these four people’s presentations at the Moscow headquarters,” Oman’s voice said. “Hopefully, they can find some clues among them.”
After a brief silence, Cheng Muyang’s voice said, “Understood.”
Then silence fell again.
But soon, Cheng Muyang’s voice came through the receiver, somewhat low. “Beibei, get some sleep. You didn’t sleep very well last night.”
This was a public channel. Remembering that, she could not help feeling a little embarrassed.
Someone, whoever it was, let out a very timely laugh.
“Turn off all the voices before the presentations,” Cheng Muyang added flatly.
Soon, everyone temporarily went silent.
Three hours later, everyone arrived in Riyadh.
The itinerary that followed was extremely tight.
It was also the first opportunity for the female and male scholars to walk together and exchange ideas. After the organizers showed everyone a simulation of the Saudi University of Science and Technology, they told those present with unmistakable pride, “If you come here, you’ll find that the salaries are incomparable to those offered by other countries. In addition to the salaries, we also offer an extra fifty percent overseas living allowance, which is equivalent to four times the salary of someone at the same level at an American university. And we only accept graduate and doctoral students, all of whom will receive full scholarships.”
Most of the scholars were visibly moved. Someone asked about research funding.
“There’s no need to apply for research funding. We have enough resources to let you conduct whatever research you want.”
Very seductive words.
Cheng Muyang listened with a smile throughout. He was not a scholar, but a distinguished guest. Yet Zhousheng Chen, who happened to be standing right beside him, acted as though he did not know Cheng Muyang at all, quietly conversing with an elderly professor beside him, nodding from time to time, then shaking his head.
Nan Bei knew that once they entered this place, Ning Hao and the others would lock onto those four women.
If that scientist wanted to leave the royal terminal, she would first have to listen to the entire program.
She had the complete list of speakers in her hands. Among the men, Zhousheng Chen was also on it.
His energy materials topic was: Halogen-Free Flame-Retardant Silane-Crosslinked POE Composite Materials.
Talk about high-level.
As for the four women, their respective fields were computer science, earth sciences, environmental science, and marine science. On the surface, none of them seemed to have much connection to nuclear engineering. Nan Bei did not know what the scientists listening in from Moscow could use to find a flaw among these four people. She could only follow the arrangements, take a seat in the audience, and look toward the stage, whose decorations were distinctly Middle Eastern in style.
The presentations proceeded smoothly.
The receiver remained silent throughout.
It was not until the first woman took the stage that she began to hear several different voices speaking in Russian. Some spoke slowly, others extremely quickly. She could not understand them, but judging from their tones, they were all very serious, even tense.
When the applause filled the room, Oman told Nan Bei in Chinese:
This person is not.
She relaxed, but the next second, she looked at the other three with even greater tension.
They were all sitting in the same row, and all of them appeared to be listening attentively.
There were far more male speakers. After two more people, it was finally time for the next woman. Still not her.
Finally, when the third woman took the stage, a fierce argument erupted in the receiver, unlike the exchanges they had heard before. The woman onstage had a beauty mark at the corner of her eye. Her voice was very low, and throughout her presentation, her gaze remained steady. As Nan Bei listened to the incomprehensible language, she carefully observed the woman.
Only after she stepped down from the stage did Oman finally let out a long breath.
“It might be her.”
It was “might,” not certainty. In other words, they still had to wait for the last person.
By the time Oman spoke, the third woman had already stepped down from the stage.
When the final person took the stage and had been speaking for ten minutes, the receiver unexpectedly fell silent for a moment. Then came some quiet exchanges, which made Nan Bei deeply uneasy. She waited for Oman’s final assessment.
Suddenly, Cheng Muyang’s voice said, “Tell me, what’s the probability?”
His voice was exceptionally clear and gentlemanly, yet somehow equally chilling.
The scientists in Moscow fell silent for a brief moment before launching into another heated argument.
But their voices were subdued. It was obvious that they were afraid of him.
Nan Bei’s gaze briefly left the stage and swept across the room. Cheng Muyang was not here.
He should have been somewhere with a wide view, watching and assessing the people onstage.
The argument continued without stopping. The woman with the black eyes onstage had already finished her topic. In a very pure London accent, she thanked everyone. Just as she was about to sit down, someone suddenly said, “Sorry.”
Everyone was somewhat surprised, because there was no question-and-answer session today.
Zhousheng Chen rose politely and said in English, “I’m very interested in the topic you discussed. May I ask you a few questions?”
It was an extremely polite academic exchange, and no one would refuse.
Naturally, neither would the woman onstage.
Her field was environmental engineering, while Zhousheng Chen’s was energy materials. On the surface, there did not seem to be much overlap.
And the questions they exchanged sounded perfectly normal as well, with nothing related to anything resembling a critical reactor.
Everyone listened attentively.
The receiver, too, remained surprisingly quiet.
When Zhou Shengchen sat down, Nan Bei looked at him.
She clearly saw Zhousheng Chen give her a firm nod.
She was somewhat surprised.
At that moment, she had her doubts, but her intuition told her that Zhousheng Chen had helped them. This woman had to be the person Cheng Muyang had gone to such great lengths to find.
When the black-eyed woman stepped down from the stage, she went directly through the corridor leading out of the lounge area. It looked as though she was simply going to the restroom. Nan Bei instinctively stood up and followed her.
She only had time to make a very subtle gesture to Bodongha, who was sitting in the last row of the venue, signaling for him to follow her.
This time, she chose to trust Zhousheng Chen.
“Beibei?” Cheng Muyang’s voice came through the receiver, sounding very surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment