Chapter 205 The Flood Washed Away the Dragon King Temple

Chapter 205 The Flood Washed Away the Dragon King Temple (4k)

The next morning.

Seattle's Chinatown, Jubaozhai Antique Shop.

Mr. Chen, who was in his sixties, was wearing a dark Tang suit vest and was comfortably leaning back in a mahogany rocking chair behind the counter, slowly twirling two pairs of lion's head walnuts that had developed a patina that was red and translucent.

The walnuts rubbed together in the palm of the hand made a crisp "crackling" sound.

The day before yesterday morning, at the mosque on 10th Street in the West End, Alex and Imam Hassan finalized the details of their collaboration on the lamb stall.

Just as Alex, Jamal, and Lyon, disguised as "RayFong" and wearing a mask, walked out of the mosque and were about to leave separately, Alex took advantage of Jamal getting into the car and very naturally made an excuse to go to the toilet. In a corner without surveillance cameras, he stuffed an ordinary brown paper envelope into the pocket of Lyon's windbreaker.

There is $50,000 inside.

That's the source of the $5,000 deposit Lyon gave to Big T at the barbershop last night, and the $500 advance he gave to veteran Ray.

This is the first initial funding promised by the Eastern channel.

In fact, regarding how to safely hand over this money to Lyon, the intelligence leaders on the other side of the ocean initially devised a complicated and sophisticated one-way money laundering plan.

Their original plan was to use several shell companies set up in the Cayman Islands and Panama, through as many as a dozen layers of cross-funding and fictitious trade, to ultimately launder the funds into completely clean cryptocurrencies that could not be tracked by the FBI or NSA, or bearer Swiss bank bonds, and then deliver them to Lyon through Alex.

However, before the plan was finalized, Shen Weiguo, who was in charge of compiling field intelligence at the embassy, ​​abruptly stopped it.

Shen Weiguo's reasoning was simple, blunt, and utterly irrefutable:

Lyon is an American patrolman, and there's no guarantee he'd understand the concept of a cold wallet.

If you actually give him the funds via USB drive or a bearer bond printed in French, he might very well make a complete blunder when using it.

Therefore, the final solution was to simplify the process and simply pay cash directly. This task fell to Uncle Chen's antique shop.

A $100 bill is extremely thin. A bundle of 100 brand-new bills, which is $10,000, is only about 1.1 centimeters thick.

Even stacked together, fifty or sixty thousand US dollars wouldn't be as thick as a single ordinary red brick.

With cash of this size, there's absolutely no need to carry a conspicuous aluminum alloy briefcase with combination locks like in Hollywood gangster movies when making a meeting.

It only needs to be stuffed into an ordinary brown kraft paper bag used for takeout, or a slightly larger sports waist bag, and it can naturally pass through the bustling crowds of Chinatown, completing the physical transfer without any visible difference.

"Click".

Uncle Chen closed a thick, old-fashioned leather-bound ledger.

As a veteran peripheral informant for an Eastern intelligence agency stationed in Seattle, Uncle Chen has been based here for decades. He knows all too well how to turn funds from across the ocean into clean circulating currency in the United States.

The antique industry is a natural breeding ground for money laundering.

The value of antiques is highly subjective. A broken porcelain bowl might be worth five dollars to some, while others could appraise it at fifty thousand US dollars.

Even the most astute IRS auditors would find it difficult to find major flaws in the pricing of antiques.

Uncle Chen's routine was to arrange for a few unfamiliar "tourists" or "bankrupt gamblers" to come to Jubaozhai with a few oddly shaped but worthless broken porcelain pieces or old wood carvings that they had picked up from the flea market.

On paper, Chen would register these broken porcelain pieces as "unique overseas repatriated items of great collectible value," then "acquire" them for tens of thousands of US dollars, issue formal invoices, and honestly pay the corresponding taxes in accordance with US regulations.

In this way, the remittances from certain art associations in the East were openly transferred to the hands of those posing as sellers, and the money was transformed from Eastern money into American money.

Subsequently, these remittances would be converted into banknotes, placed in inconspicuous paper bags, and passed on to the next group of people in the East through dead mail or covert offline contact.

Uncle Chen placed the walnuts, which had been playing with until they were slightly warm, on the counter, picked up the enamel mug next to him that was printed with the words "Serve the People," blew on the tea leaves floating on top, and slowly took a sip of the strong tea that had long since been brewed and was bitter.

He looked up, his gaze passing through the glass window of the antique shop, watching the hurried pedestrians with umbrellas on the streets of Chinatown.

In accordance with the organization's strict principles of single-line communication and information isolation, Chen Bo's mission ends here.

He was only responsible for money laundering and lending money out. He absolutely could not ask, nor had the right to know, who the money ultimately ended up in, let alone whether it was used to bribe politicians, recruit assassins, or for some kind of transnational intelligence transfer.

In espionage networks, this absolute information isolation is crucial to ensuring the entire system is not completely dismantled.

If a node is taken down by the FBI or CIA, the losses can be kept to a minimum because the identities of the parties are unknown to each other, and the entire core intelligence network can still operate safely.

But precisely because of this absolute information isolation, Chen Bo's attention has recently been uncontrollably drawn to the American policeman named Leon Vance.

Uncle Chen put down his teacup and pulled out a copy of the Seattle Times from the drawer.

The front page of the newspaper prominently featured the brutal gunfight that had taken place at the Pink Swan Club a few days earlier, along with a candid photo of Leon Vance, the ACU squad leader of the West Precinct.

Uncle Chen stared at the American policeman in the photo, whose eyes exuded a strong sense of intimidation, and his brows furrowed slightly.

Recently, this white police officer named Lyon has been causing quite a stir in the West Side.

From ruthlessly killing mercenaries in the industrial zone to massacring a strip club a few days ago, this guy's methods are even more vicious than the most ruthless gangsters in the area.

Driven by the professional instincts and defensive instincts of a seasoned spy, Uncle Chen had already secretly begun using several informants in Chinatown to gather information on the American policeman's daily activities and background.

He worried that this fearless and professional counterterrorism hero would become a huge threat to the Eastern intelligence network's operations in Seattle.

In particular, when Uncle Chen was eating at a Cantonese restaurant, he personally witnessed the fat man named Alex sitting with this American policeman, and the atmosphere seemed quite harmonious.

At that moment, Chen Bo secretly wondered if Alex, the international student, had run into trouble and was being watched by the American police.

Was this policeman named Lyon's contact with Alex a sting operation, or was he trying to extort money from Chinese shops in Chinatown?

Throughout the history of espionage, there are countless examples of blunders caused by strict information segregation.

Agents from different departments, or spies whose lines of communication have been severed, often mistake their own people for dangerous enemies due to a lack of transparency in intelligence.

At best, they would be wary of each other and conduct covert investigations; at worst, during an operation, things would turn sour, and they would draw their guns and shoot each other to the death.

Chen Bo's current attention to and wariness of Lyon is precisely the inevitable result of this intelligence isolation.

If Leon knew that a veteran spy from his hometown stationed in Seattle was investigating him as a high-priority corrupt cop, he'd probably be laughing out loud in his bed.

Uncle Chen put down his teacup, shook his head, and temporarily suppressed these baseless speculations.

"The winds in Seattle are becoming increasingly unpredictable —"

Uncle Chen muttered something in his barely audible hometown dialect.

He picked up the newspaper and casually tossed it under the counter.

Then, he picked up a slightly yellowed cotton cloth, slowly stood up, and began to wipe the dust off the glass counter.

He reverted to being that ordinary old Chinese man in Chinatown, tending to a pile of dilapidated antiques and caring only about the patina on walnuts and the quality of Pu'er tea.

Two days later, at 10 a.m.

West District, the alley behind an abandoned laundromat.

The air here was still stifling, and the louvers of the exhaust fan were covered with years of black grease. A few greenbottle flies hovered above the puddles in the corner.

Lyon stepped into the dead end, his footsteps treading on the broken bricks.

He was still wearing that black baseball cap pulled low and a black medical mask, his hands in the pockets of his gray waterproof jacket, perfectly maintaining the disguise of "RayFong," the underground agent.

Lei was already waiting deep in the alley.

Lyon paused, a hint of surprise in his gray eyes.

The man leaning against the red brick wall was completely different from the bankrupt homeless man who had reeked of sourness and looked like a puddle of mud just two days ago.

Ray's beard was clean-shaven, and his jawline was as sharp as if it had been carved with a knife, revealing the rugged features typical of a black man in his thirties or forties.

Although his cheap, dark blue work jacket was clearly secondhand and looked a bit worn, it must have been ironed at a discount store or cheap laundromat, as there were no wrinkles even on the cuffs.

At this moment, Ray was not idly staring at a shriveled Coca-Cola can on the ground two meters away, unlike the other homeless people.

He frowned, as if he had gone through a fierce internal struggle, but in the end he dragged his slightly lame left leg over and threw the can into the trash can next to him.

After finishing this task, Lei took out a slightly yellowed tissue from his pocket and began repeatedly wiping the screen of the second-hand prepaid phone he had just bought, as if the small piece of glass was contaminated with some deadly anthrax bacteria.

Looking at Ray's serious demeanor, Leon couldn't help but purse his lips behind his mask.

I gave him 500 yuan so he could take a shower at a cheap hotel and buy a broken cell phone that could make calls, not so he could sign up for a British butler etiquette training course.

Before this guy went bankrupt and became homeless, was he a middle-class Virgo with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Upon hearing footsteps, Lei immediately stopped wiping his phone.

He quickly stuffed the tissues and phone into his pocket, then abruptly straightened up against the wall, instinctively bringing his legs together in a standard U.S. military attention stance.

"Sir—no, boss."

Lei's voice was a little tense. He took a deep breath, his broad chest rising and falling slightly, clearly feeling nervous on his first day of work.

"I cleaned myself up as you requested."

Before Leon could speak, Ray reached into the inside pocket of his work jacket and pulled out a crumpled receipt, along with a handful of loose bills and coins.

"This is the expense breakdown of the five hundred US dollars you gave me the day before yesterday."

Lei began his report in a serious, even somewhat rigid, tone.

"The two-night stay and shower at the motel cost $100, the work jacket and the T-shirt underneath cost $45, the used cell phone cost $60, and the razor and personal hygiene products —"

He paused, then handed over the wad of change in his hand.

"After deducting the cost of food for the past two days, there's forty-two dollars and thirty-five cents left. That's all."

Lyon stared speechlessly at the few twenty-five-cent coins gleaming in Ray's rough palm.

Did this veteran's brain get damaged by a roadside bomb in Iraq?

In Seattle, a city rife with drug dealers and gangsters, how could someone possibly give you change down to the cent when you casually toss over a resettlement fee?

"Put it away."

Leon waved his hand, interrupting Ray's rambling.

"Keep the rest of the money for yourself. Go buy some ibuprofen or other painkillers. Don't let your leg affect your work."

Lei paused for a moment, then silently stuffed the change back into his pocket.

Then, Leon took out an unwrapped SIM card and a note with a string of numbers written on it from the pocket of his jacket and handed them over.

"Remember this number; it's the only way you can contact me from now on."

"Throw away the SIM card you're currently using in your phone and replace it with this one. Never register any communication tools using your own identity."

Yesterday, Lyon took some time to pick up the bodies of several homeless people and found a few SIM cards on them.

In this city where homeless people and gangsters outnumber stray dogs, getting a communication device with an unverifiable identity is easier than buying a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store.

Lei took the SIM card and note, and glanced down at them.

He looked up again, his gaze sweeping over Lyon's face, which was completely hidden by a mask and baseball cap, and his unremarkable gray windbreaker.

Lei is not stupid.

This method of communication, which completely cuts off personal identity, and the oppressive feeling emanating from the man in front of him, which could kill at any moment, made him very certain that the other party was definitely not a legitimate philanthropist.

This kind of behavior suggests either a CIA agent or a high-ranking cleaner from some massive underground syndicate.

But so what?

Lei chuckled to himself inwardly.

When he dragged his crippled left leg through the streets, fighting with stray dogs for a moldy hamburger, the well-dressed politicians and respectable police officers did nothing but chase him away.

The masked man in front of him, whose identity was suspicious, not only gave him five hundred US dollars, but also a job with room and board and a daily wage of one hundred US dollars. Although he hadn't really started working at the job yet, he didn't think the other party would lie to him, and he didn't think he was worth lying to.

Even if this job eventually required him to commit murder and arson, he would accept it.

"Understood, boss."

Lei carefully tucked the SIM card into his inner pocket, his voice steady and without any hesitation.

"Come with me."

Without another word, Lyon turned and walked toward the alley entrance.

Ray, dragging his slightly limping left leg, followed with determined steps. Their figures quickly disappeared at the end of the somewhat gloomy streets of the West End that morning.

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