CHAPTER 557: CHAPTER 455: THE CAPTURED SPY

"Do you see it? Oleg! Did you see it?" Not far from the Mobile Base, a young Lucia guy was yelling excitedly in the snow, pointing at the Mobile Base ahead: "They fired the cannon! Did you see it? Oleg! They fired it!"

"Shut up, kid, I saw it! If you shout any louder, the Flame Country people will hear us!" The one called Oleg was a typical robust Lucia man. He quickly pushed the small guy down, gesturing for him to keep quiet while he himself stayed alert, scanning the surroundings and keeping low to avoid detection.

Despite Oleg’s extreme caution, the young guy he had pinned down was still struggling and trying to shout.

This made Oleg press his hand even harder over the guy’s mouth, feeling a particular frustration with such amateurs. If the weather weren’t so inappropriate now, he’d have considered trying the trick they played back in spy school, where they’d stuff a sock in each other’s mouths.

Oleg was a spy, and a highly skilled veteran at that.

Although he was just in his thirties, he had been undercover in a European country for over a decade before the disaster, gathering crucial intelligence for Lucia without being detected.

As an elite spy under the KGB’s European division, Oleg only needed to hang on for a few more years to fake his death honorably, return home, and enjoy a leisurely retirement, provided he wasn’t exposed and disappeared.

In their line of work, exposure meant death. Even if one managed to escape, it would leave an ugly blemish on their record. Those who caused significant damage might even be disposed of.

Oleg understood this perfectly, which is why he always treaded carefully, avoiding mistakes and caring less about achieving merits. Because of this approach, he managed to stay undercover smoothly for over ten years, advancing from a greenhorn to a seasoned veteran with a full beard.

However, just as Oleg was hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel and retire with a pretty wife to lead a peaceful life, the meteor came.

Of course, the KGB couldn’t just leave their elite spies abroad to die, so they brought them back before the disaster.

For spies like Oleg, this was an unprecedented situation.

All the KGB spies stationed across Europe were withdrawn by various means before the disaster. The then KGB headquarters was filled with elites. Oleg even encountered several classmates from his spy school days, whom he hadn’t been in contact with since graduation and had assumed were already dead.

However, the joyous days didn’t last long. Following the various disasters triggered by the meteor impact, Lucia’s situation became extremely dire.

If the rest of the world weren’t possibly even worse off, Oleg might have regretted returning to endure such hardship, though he didn’t regret returning to Lucia.

Fortunately, the hard days didn’t last long. The KGB and Lucia’s government couldn’t just leave a large group of elite spies idle.

They were reassigned, but this time against their own internal threats instead of foreign adversaries.

Oleg was tasked with infiltrating a wealthy merchant’s shelter, becoming one of his subordinates to gather intelligence and information about these wealthy merchants and oligarchs, ensuring they weren’t up to any conspiracies, and relaying the information to the KGB promptly.

Originally, Oleg’s mission was going smoothly, without any crises or difficulties, and he gradually gained the merchant’s trust.

But then unexpectedly, a plague hit Lucia, paralyzing the entire Capital. Oleg had already acquired intelligence that the oligarchs were planning to instigate a rebellion secretly. However, the person responsible for relaying the information got infected and died shortly after, preventing Oleg’s intelligence from getting out.

This filled Oleg with regret. If he had taken a risk back then and gotten the intelligence out, perhaps the subsequent massive loss could have been avoided?

Oleg couldn’t make assumptions, but the incident had already happened. What followed—where the businessman joined the rebel army and got crushed by the authorities for resisting—had little to do with Oleg.

He had been assigned a new task: infiltrate the rebel army and gather intelligence about them.

This is why Oleg was here. Within the rebel army, he had demonstrated his intelligence-gathering capabilities and was quickly given a significant role in intelligence collection.

The intelligence about Flame Country possibly testing new weapons was collected by his subordinates, and it was Oleg who informed the authorities of this information.

He was originally just there today to observe Flame Country’s testing, but he didn’t expect his subordinate to be so unreliable, shouting and nearly causing Oleg to draw his gun on him.

Fortunately, after restraining the overly energetic young man, Oleg and his subordinate once again hid themselves. Despite the extreme cold in the snow, and nearly freezing in the half-hour’s watch, Oleg buried himself as deep as he could in the snow to avoid detection.

But just as Oleg thought they were safely hidden, a strong wind suddenly whipped up.

It was the strong wind mentioned in the previous intelligence! Oleg realized almost instantly. As a seasoned intelligence officer, he knew that though the cannon fired from the Mobile Base sounded powerful, its caliber was not enough to cause such a degree of wind pressure.

Oleg lowered his head and felt the strong wind sweeping above his head, making a judgment.

It seemed the Flame Country was indeed testing something extraordinary! The instincts of an old intelligence officer made Oleg realize this.

He memorized this intelligence, intending to report back to both the rebel army and the authorities.

This wasn’t about playing both sides, selling the same piece of intelligence twice, but rather a necessary means to maintain his current cover.

Don’t be fooled by his rugged appearance—he wasn’t a reckless brute. True brutes would have been weeded out back in spy school. Wildness was just a façade.

As Oleg pondered this, he suddenly heard a different sound amid the wind.

It was a helicopter! Oleg was instantly alert, almost instinctively jumping up from the snow to look toward the source of the sound. An unidentifiable helicopter was flying toward him, and a bright spotlight had already focused on them.

"Run!" Oleg shouted, grabbing the young man on the ground and turning to flee.

But humans couldn’t outrun helicopters. With barely any effort, the Flame Country soldiers descending from the skies captured Oleg and his subordinate.