CHAPTER 321: CHAPTER 11: DEFECTION

When Ernst walked out of Zhou Qingfeng’s office, he was filled with joy.

As a retired big soldier of the US Army, without education, background, or connections, he didn’t have great ambitions and was quite content with the job of guarding security at the ’Ministry of Health’.

He thought his life would be simple and straightforward, but the pandemic outbreak offered him a completely different choice.

Internally, he was very grateful for Minister ’Oliver Harden’ for recognizing his potential, and he was willing to do some dirty work as a way of repayment.

Especially at the moment of strangling a four-star general, Ernst felt immensely satisfied—the once unapproachable superior could only die pitifully in his hands, it was an exhilarating feeling.

When ’Harden’ ordered another recruitment of armed ’volunteers’, Ernst energetically left the office, thinking about how to complete this task...

But at that moment, his phone rang, it was an unknown number.

Upon answering, before he could say ’Hello’, a rather arrogant voice came through, "Is this John Ernst?"

"It’s me, who are you?" Ernst replied.

"I’m Susie Wells, Chief of Staff of the White House." The voice on the phone said, "You’re a member of the Republican MAGA, right?"

Ernst froze immediately, as if his heartbeat paused. After a long time, he stammered, "Yes, I am a MAGA member. What...do you want?"

"There’s a task that needs you to complete." The Chief of Staff let out a snicker, "How about we meet at the White House?"

Hearing the meeting location was the ’White House’, Ernst instinctively complied. He had no resistance in front of superiors, puppet-like, he replied, "Alright."

The Chief of Staff was very satisfied with Ernst’s attitude, not forgetting to emphasize, "This is a top-secret mission, it can’t be disclosed to anyone else. Not even your superior can be informed."

"Not even Mr. Harden?"

"Correct."

Ernst broke out into a cold sweat instantly, understanding what was required of him. He again faced an unknown fork in the road of life.

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At the same time, in a small town called ’Macon’ in Georgia, Wayne Herbert, in charge of the ’X project’, was completely unruffled by being wanted, leisurely as if he were on vacation.

The ’X project’ research institute was neither deeply underground nor hidden in cave mountains. After all, this isn’t a movie, and the highly-paid researchers don’t want to live a hard life.

It was openly built within the town, brandishing the sign ’High-end Private Hospital’, covering tens of acres, bordered by fences with barbed wire, remaining very low-profile daily, not receiving ordinary people for appointments.

The town had a river, Wayne Herbert, with a scoop net and a fishing rod, was fishing by the river—not a fish caught, but his phone rang, showing a caller ID of ’White House Chief of Staff’.

"Hello, Mr. Wells, good afternoon." Herbert cheerfully answered the call.

"Not good, not good at all." The Chief’s cold voice came through, "The situation in Washington D.C. is getting worse, and the Vice President still isn’t stepping down gracefully."

"What whimsical ideas does that countryman have now?" Herbert asked with a smile.

"He’s going everywhere looking for people to arrest you. Not only has he mobilized the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, but also ’Harden’ from the Ministry of Efficiency is in action." The Chief of Staff said.

"Harden?" Herbert asked with confusion, seemingly trying to remember who that name referred to?

The Chief of Staff explained, "A brainless fool who only knows how to act recklessly, already causing a lot of trouble. But the information in that guy’s hands isn’t of much value.

You’ve actually wasted too much time and funds, when will the research of the X project finally show results? I can’t wait indefinitely."

This talk sounds comforting, but is really a threat.

No one from outside knows that the person truly sheltering Wayne Herbert and concealing the ’X project’ is precisely the Chief of Staff who superficially seems most actively chasing him.

After much thought, Herbert replied solemnly, "We already have some phased results, if you have time, you can come for a visit."

"Be specific, what kind of results?" The Chief of Staff impatiently asked, "If it’s still the kind of result with an efficiency of less than one in ten thousand, then it’s meaningless."

"No, this time we’ve increased the efficiency to ten percent, and it’s highly controllable, with prospects for large-scale application." Herbert replied.

"One-tenth efficiency?" The Chief’s excitement was palpable, "If that’s true, I can come to see it, let’s set the time for the weekend."

"What about that Harden you mentioned?"

"Don’t worry, even if he can find you, I can take care of him from behind. But if you fail to deliver results again, someone will take care of you."

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Two days later, hidden in the ’Macon’ town where Herbert was. A small drone flew over at an altitude of three to four hundred meters.

The onboard high-definition camera focused tightly on the ground, capturing the face of every resident in the town, transmitting images to a truck several kilometers away.

Inside the truck compartment, ’Gray Shark’ transmitted the received images to the Ministry of Efficiency’s database for facial comparison, identifying the identities of each town resident one by one.

’Macon’ was one of the bases of the ’Undead’ in Zhou Qingfeng’s memory, compared to other investigations searching like needles in a haystack, it’s he who first noticed this place.

Next to ’Gray Shark’, a towering Kongges was staring with suspicion at this wheelchair-bound thin ’colleague’, filled with questions.

After the pandemic outbreak, Kongges’ family had been arranged to go to the Bahamas.

Zhou Qingfeng rented an old cruise ship over ten thousand tons, refitted it and named it ’Holy Light’, docking it off the coast of the Bahamas.