165 Terrifying Truth!
"What are your conditions?"
Li Changjiang did not speak immediately. Instead, he cast his gaze around the room.
He made no effort to conceal his wariness.
The atmosphere suddenly grew tense.
In particular, the white man named Sean stared viciously at the damn Chinese man standing before them.
Polika, however, responded without hesitation this time, his voice decisive.
"All of you, get out! You too, Sean!"
Sean did not protest. In front of Polika, he was indeed, as Li Changjiang had put it, nothing more than a hired muscle!
Nothing more!
"You lot, get outside as well!"
Although the Old Russian, Angel, and the others harbored some hesitation, they ultimately obeyed Li Changjiang's command.
They all sensed that the situation was no longer as straightforward as they had initially believed; it was spiraling into something far more complex.
Williams’s expression seemed somewhat peculiar, but the Old Russian paid it no mind, assuming the man was merely worried for Li's safety.
"Let's go, Will! The boss will be fine."
Within minutes after Sean, the Old Russian, and the rest exited, the atmosphere surrounding the villa turned grim and oppressive.
Inside the weapons armorage.
Polika looked at Li Changjiang with deep amusement, a mocking trace lingering on his lips. This expression instantly stirred a profound sense of unease in the pit of Li Changjiang's stomach.
"Now, state your terms! What do you want?"
"Tell me! What are you really trying to pull? If this were merely a routine security contract, I hardly think you'd need the Hunter Mercenary Group, would you, Anthony?"
Polika's eyes narrowed into thin slits.
Though subtle, the flash of astonishment in his gaze did not escape Li Changjiang's notice.
This bastard was definitely hiding something!
Then.
A heavy silence stretched between the two men until Polika finally broke the stillness.
"You're a clever man, Duke! No wonder you managed to slip out of the hands of Halide and Khamis. I have to admit, I underestimated you!"
Indeed!
Hearing those words, Li Changjiang finally understood the source of his lingering foreboding.
What the hell! The Russians had actually investigated his movements and were intimately familiar with what had transpired within Libyan borders.
Terrifying!
Yet, could things really be this simple?
"If I'm not mistaken, I should probably be calling you Li rather than Duke, shouldn't I? It's quite simple: I want the intelligence you extracted from the Libyans!"
Boom!
A deafening roar echoed inside Li Changjiang's mind, and he immediately fixed a piercing, deadly glare on Polika!
Damn it!
How did this bastard find out about that?
Panic began to creep in!
His heart rate spiked. Though his face remained composed, his thoughts were in violent turmoil. Matters were proving far more complicated than anticipated.
Polika!
The Russians!
A chain of events rapidly linked together in his mind as he stared unblinkingly at the man across from him.
"Did you know about this all along?"
"That's right. You Chinese are certainly smart, but if things hadn't blown up so abruptly this time, we wouldn't have had to expose ourselves..."
Polika's words paradoxically helped Li Changjiang regain his composure, though it was immediately followed by an even more terrifying deduction. Since Polika had known all along, then...
"Was that mission to Paris something you arranged deliberately?"
"Yes."
"And the British assassins?"
"I was the one who leaked your whereabouts to them in advance. Who could blame me when the British made such an offer? I simply couldn't turn it down. What a pity the British were much slower than I anticipated, wouldn't you agree?"
Damn it all!
With a sudden, explosive lunge, Li Changjiang hurled himself forward.
His right hand clenched into a fist! With a heavy thud, he slammed it straight into Polika’s face, and the two men instantly tumbled into a vicious brawl.
Fack!
What an absolute, utter bastard!
A cursed piece of trash!
He was the one who had gotten Tim and Bob killed.
Bam!
Polika caught him squarely on the chin with a brutal punch. A searing wave of pain instantly drained the strength from Li Changjiang's limbs, sending him reeling backward. By the time he scrambled back to his feet, Polika already had a gun leveled right at his chest.
"Damn you! What do you think you're playing at? You're the one who killed Bob and Tim!"
"No, no, no! You see, it wasn't me who killed them; it was the British. Surely you realize that even if I hadn't tipped them off, the British would have found you eventually. Or did you think my men managed to track you down so easily by sheer coincidence? Hell!"
"Tell me! What else do you know?"
Glaring daggers at Polika!
Li Changjiang forcibly suppressed the raging fury within him. In truth, he knew that even if this bastard hadn't leaked their positions, the British intelligence apparatus would have hunted them down sooner or later.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Spit it out!"
"Will! Williams! He's an American mole!"
Fack!
Hearing this, Li Changjiang muttered a silent curse under his breath.
The stakes had just grown infinitely higher! His earlier hypothesis had been correct after all.
What the hell!
Polika looked somewhat surprised when Li Changjiang failed to show any sign of shock.
In reality, Polika had no idea that Li Changjiang had long suspected a mole within their ranks, though he certainly hadn't expected it to be Williams.
During their initial operation in Benghazi, Li Changjiang had already deduced that someone must have fed information to the Americans, which was why Abler had been ambushed. However, the sudden betrayal of the Caesar Mercenary Group had temporarily derailed that line of thinking, leading him to believe the leak originated from within Caesar's own ranks.
As it turned out, Li Changjiang had guessed correctly on both counts!
Both the Caesar and Lion-Hawk mercenary groups harbored American informants, but their handlers did not belong to the same faction—they served opposing, competing factions.
"It seems you had already figured it out. I must say, you really are sharp! But you probably didn't realize that Williams isn't an operative for the U.S. Army or Marine Corps; he's a piece planted in Libya by our old rivals."
"Then why didn't you eliminate him?"
Li Changjiang’s voice chilled.
"Hahaha? Eliminate him? Why would I do that? His target isn't us; it's the Americans themselves. Don't you Chinese have a saying that the enemy of your enemy is your friend?"
Turbulent thoughts crashed through his mind.
Li Changjiang was genuinely shocked this time.
According to Polika, Williams was not working for the U.S. Africa Command, but rather served as a pawn for an entirely different faction of Americans. Most importantly, this faction appeared to be engaged in a proxy turf war against the U.S. Africa Command!
Fragments of concepts flashed rapidly through his consciousness.
A power struggle!
Conflicting interests!
It seemed the Americans were far from as united as they appeared on the surface.
As his emotions gradually subsided, Li Changjiang sorted through the chaos in his head and quickly deduced Polika's ultimate objective.
The sole purpose of exploiting the Hunter Mercenary Group was to secure that pocket watch. To acquire it, the only option was to travel to Egypt and locate the American holding it. Since Li Changjiang was the only person with this intelligence, Polika had utilized the Old Russian to track him down.
Yet, operating in Egypt, the resources of a mere arms dealer were completely insufficient to handle the American presence there; thus, he required muscle—a vast amount of muscle.
Crucially, when seeking muscle, using the Americans themselves was undoubtedly the optimal strategy, leaving Polika to fish in troubled waters.
Even so, the deaths of Tim and Bob...
Li Changjiang fell into a grim silence!
He could only conclude that it had truly been a tragic accident.
Polika was a quintessential arms merchant; the British must have traded the intelligence they acquired in Misrata in exchange for their current locations, otherwise this man could never have known such details.
Regardless, the deaths of Tim and Bob were inextricably linked to this wretched bastard.
"I can execute this mission for you, but you must agree to one additional condition! I want ten million U.S. dollars!"
This time, the price Li Changjiang was demanding served as blood money for Bob and Tim!
"Ten million? Greed doesn't suit you well!"
"Then go hunt down the intel yourself!"
"Deal! I'll give you ten million! You take my men to Egypt and retrieve what I want." (To be continued.)