Collecting Debts Three

The piercing wail of police sirens circled overhead.

Beta, having changed into a new disguise and abandoned the gray Ford, was now sitting in an inconspicuous Volkswagen, staring intently at the Kangsaisi Building through the tinted windows.

Inside the building's server room, Eliot, the son of Scotland Yard's Chief Superintendent, stood before the opened security door with a livid expression. His hands were on his hips as forensic personnel collected evidence around him.

"Explain yourself, damn it," Eliot grabbed the network supervisor by the collar, his voice low but laced with viciousness. "All the hard drives containing transaction records, all that dirty data, it's all gone?"

The network supervisor's legs trembled uncontrollably, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Y-yes."

He swallowed. "Someone used a high-level access card, not only to open the server room's security door but also to unlock all the cabinets with electronic locks."

Eliot shoved the supervisor to the ground with a sudden force, sending him crashing into a piece of equipment. His sinister gaze swept over the police officers in the room before he turned to his subordinate. "Call a meeting!"

The subordinate leaned in. "Which departments need to be notified?"

"Everyone!" Eliot roared, the sound exploding within the server room and startling several officers who were collecting evidence.

After the subordinate hurried away, Eliot's personal bodyguard quickly stepped forward, handing him a mobile phone. "Sir, this is the surveillance footage from the time of the incident."

Eliot took the phone with a grim expression.

On the screen, four security guards were casually chatting, occasionally glancing at the surveillance monitors – their usual work routine. A little blonde girl appeared outside the lobby door. Although the surveillance audio captured the security guards' clear conversations, the child's faint voice was completely filtered out.

Then, a baffling scene unfolded: the four security guards gathered together and actually opened the main door. Immediately after, the first guard fell with a bullet between his eyebrows; a deep male voice shouted "Next"; the second guard reflexively caught a flying soda can, only for his head to explode in a spray of blood; the remaining two had just reached for their holsters before being taken down one after another. Finally, a fat man in a mask burst into view, roughly grabbed the little girl, and cut off the surveillance signal.

Eliot stared at the now black screen. "Which idiot hired these morons? Who gave them the authority to open the door without permission?"

Eliot asked, "Have the backgrounds of these two individuals been checked?"

The bodyguard immediately handed over freshly printed files. "The blonde girl is seven years old, and her clothing matches the description in a missing person report filed a week ago."

He flipped to the second page. "The fat man is a wanted criminal, suspected of multiple kidnappings and armed robberies. All information has been verified by Scotland Yard and is absolutely reliable."

Eliot clutched the two papers, his knuckles turning white. "So you're saying!"

His voice suddenly rose. "A kidnapped girl 'happened' to escape to our building for help, and these four idiots just opened the door obediently and got wiped out by her kidnapper?"

He slammed the documents onto the table. "Then who can explain where my hard drives went?!"

Eliot put his hands on his hips. "What about the surrounding surveillance? Did it capture any other suspicious individuals?"

The bodyguard brought up another video clip. "Cameras from the opposite office building captured the aftermath. The girl escaped from the kidnapper a second time."

He zoomed in on a blurry street corner in the footage. "I suspect a third party intervened at that time to hold off the kidnapper; otherwise, it's hard to explain how a child could escape twice. It's highly likely."

He glanced cautiously at his boss. "It was this mysterious person who made off with our hard drives."

Eliot rubbed his face forcefully and sank into a chair. "Arrange for the shareholders to meet at the Forest Club."

His voice was hoarse. "I'll personally explain this incident and mobilize all resources to track down the hard drives. That data must not be leaked, understand?"

Just then, a police officer emerged from the elevator, holding a document. "Mr. Eliot, the preliminary report from the medical examiner indicates a significant discrepancy between the time of death for the four deceased and the surveillance records."

Eliot looked up and said, "Explain clearly!"

"The Chief Superintendent believes there are only two possibilities," the officer's voice grew smaller. "Either the time of death was misjudged, or this surveillance footage was deliberately tampered with, and the entire sequence of events may have been reversed."

"So Father's meaning is..." Eliot pressed his knuckles against his temples. "This recording itself might be problematic?"

Seeing the officer nod, Eliot furiously kicked over a chair. "Fuck!"

The entire incident was like a tangled knot: a kidnapping case, a shooting, stolen hard drives, a potential traitor within, a contradiction between the security guards' time of death and the surveillance records, and seemingly forged surveillance footage. All the clues were chaotically intertwined, making it impossible to sort them out.

The limited police force was stretched thin.

The kidnapping task force followed the slightest clues to track the abducted girl; the shooting investigation team kept overlapping with the kidnapping team's work; and the officers handling scene investigation and stolen property retrieval were all crammed into this building, hindering each other.

The entire investigation system was like a stirred-up mud pit, all clues blurred together, with no usable leads to be found.

Eliot tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "To the Forest Club."

He adjusted his suit collar. "First, we'll appease those old foxes, then we'll deal with the mole."

The bodyguard immediately understood and escorted him via a private elevator directly to the underground parking garage. The black Maybach was already started, its engine emitting a low hum. The bodyguard opened the car door, his palm carefully placed above the door frame. Once Eliot was seated, the car silently slid out of its parking space, leaving the chaos of the Kangsaisi Building far behind.

Beta lowered his binoculars. He quickly started the engine, and the Volkswagen merged silently into the traffic, maintaining a precisely controlled tracking distance.

Eliot's vehicle was not a professional bulletproof model, but Beta's professional eye immediately noticed something amiss. The door frames were slightly thicker than standard, and the glass had an abnormal refractive index, clearly indicating the addition of a light armor system. This modification could withstand pistol rounds and rifle fire at long range, but at close range, it was as effective as paper against a rifle.

Beta's tailing continued until the outskirts of London. As the Maybach turned onto the private road leading to the Forest Club, he slowly applied the brakes.

This one-way road was like a straight arrow, with only the secluded club at its end. Continuing to follow would only expose him.

In the art of tracking, the most difficult part is always finding the first clue. Once a target's trajectory is locked, any competent tracker can follow it like a hound.

Now, Beta needed a more extensive intelligence network. In this city, any "ambitious individual" willing to bend the knee for the Continental Hotel's gold coins would eagerly provide him with all the information he needed.