The Truth?

London, MI6.

Mei Wa's team had finally made a breakthrough in their investigation.

Following the trail of the antique Mauser rifle, they tracked down a private collector. Guided by a profiling expert, the collector described the buyer's appearance in detail, and they put together an accurate suspect profile.

Mei Wa stood before the intelligence wall with her arms crossed, her gaze moving over the mass of case files. The entire wall was divided into sections, each case accompanied by a profile of its suspect.

In the assassination of the American businessman, surveillance cameras had caught an old man with graying hair; in the antique firearms deal, the buyer had disguised himself as an Irish gentleman, then appeared as a Swedish military historian; and in the theft at Eliot's financial firm, the cameras had captured the face of a wanted criminal.

Every image was different: hair color, eye color, height, build, even voice. β was like a man of a thousand faces, wearing a flawless mask whenever he appeared in public.

Mei Wa's gaze moved back and forth among the portraits covering the wall, her brows gradually knitting into a tight frown.

Those utterly different faces silently mocked MI6's intelligence network.

She sat in her swivel chair and buried her face in her arms. The coffee on her desk had long gone cold, and droplets of condensation slid down the cup and fell onto the mountain of files.

This was the most difficult kind of intelligence work. Everything they knew about β was useless. Every "true appearance" drawn up by the profiling team based on behavioral patterns and psychological analysis had ultimately proved to be no more than "one possibility."

That ghostlike killer appeared each time with a flawless new identity. Even the tiniest muscle memory and microexpression were perfectly convincing.

Mei Wa lifted her head, her eyes bloodshot.

Under the fluorescent lights, the portraits on the wall glowed white. Their false faces seemed to speak in unison: You'll never catch me.

Mei Wa tapped the desk lightly with her slender fingers and posed a question. "Why do you think Eliot dared to stiff him?"

Her deputy set down his coffee cup. The porcelain clinked crisply against the glass tabletop. "Maybe the Chief Superintendent's son thought that, to him, a mere killer was just a nobody?"

He shrugged. "After all, his father controls the entire London police force, so he figured the killer wouldn't dare do anything to him?"

Mei Wa slowly shook her head. Moisture from the outside of her coffee cup clung to her fingertip as she drew a trail of water across the desk. "That's a stretch."

She stood and walked to the window. Rain streamed down the glass, tracing winding paths. "Would a Chief Superintendent's son be stupid enough to gamble his life on a reason like that?"

The reflected rain cast mottled shadows across her face. "Unless... he was certain that killer would never come after him for the money."

Doyle's gaze scraped across the computer screen, the blue glow of the bank records flickering in his pupils.

He snatched up his phone, his fingers pressing the buttons so hard they nearly broke, and dialed a number.

"Tell me." His voice ground out between clenched teeth. "When did you transfer the remaining payment to Eliot's account?"

The cold glow of the computer screen fell across his livid face. "Did you make it absolutely clear to Eliot that the killer hadn't been paid in full? Did you promise him you'd take care of that killer?"

A suffocating silence came from the other end. The second hand on the office wall clock ticked through an entire circuit. Then the call abruptly ended, leaving only the sharp, rapid tone echoing through the empty office.

Doyle stared at the dark phone screen as the truth writhed in his stomach like a venomous snake.

With a dull thud, he smashed the phone against the hardwood desk. A crack split the surface, jolting his pen and folders into the air.

He looked back at the screen. The original bank data he'd obtained through his privileges now seemed to mock his stupidity. Every line of the transaction records proved that someone had carefully engineered this misunderstanding.

Doyle's fingers trembled as he hit redial. The call was answered almost instantly.

He tried to suppress the fury churning in his chest. "What the fuck are you trying to do?! Why drag my son into this?! Is this a declaration of war against me?!"

A long silence came from the other end, so long that Doyle thought the person had hung up.

Then a voice slowly spoke. "Doyle, you were the one who brought that woman reporter to your bed. You were the one who couldn't keep your mouth shut and leaked secrets you shouldn't have revealed. You were the one who made us leak the list and cost us an immeasurable amount of profit."

"Doyle, do you really think some woman reporter could have the clout to get her own show on television and expose us? You're even stupider than I thought. She was nothing more than the vanguard of our archenemy."

"You can't even imagine how much core influence we surrendered to patch the hole your leak left behind. The right to nominate candidates for three key positions, controlling stakes in five overseas assets, and the handover of the entire Eastern European intelligence network—all of it should have been ours!"

"And what are you? A useless bastard who can't keep it in his pants! When we executed that woman reporter and started cutting our losses across the board, whose head did you think we'd put this debt on? Our own?"

"Your son is only the beginning. We'll keep stripping you of everything until every bone in your body has paid for what we lost!"

Doyle's voice exploded through the office. "Go fuck yourselves!"

The veins at his temples bulged. "You bloodsuckers, leeching off the lifeblood of this country!"

Spittle sprayed across the files on his desk. "I was serving my country while you were still down in the gutter counting dirty money!"

"So you want a war?" Doyle yanked his tie loose. "Then bring it on!"

He shouted into the receiver, enunciating every word. "Let's see which of us gets hanged from a flagpole in Parliament Square first!"

He hurled the phone against the wall. It shattered with a deafening crash. Doyle panted amid the scattering plastic fragments.

Outside, the clouds swallowed London's night sky. Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance, and the rain grew heavier, drumming against the glass like a relentless war beat.

Doyle's thoughts churned like the sea in a storm.

His son wasn't particularly clever, but he wasn't stupid either. Over a small outstanding payment, those people had carefully turned him into the killer's prey.

How ironic. They'd sweet-talked Eliot, claiming they would take care of the killer, while deliberately concealing that the remaining payment still had to be made. And just like that, a carefully woven lie and a deliberately manufactured "misunderstanding" had made his son's life a sacrifice in this conspiracy.

And it had all started with that damned woman reporter.

Doyle remembered that night, the whisky, the woman's soft body and sweet smile. It had all been a carefully laid trap, and he'd walked right into it like a fool.

Now the consequences had come. They hadn't fallen on him, but on his only child.

Doyle let out a beastlike growl and swept the files off his desk with one stroke.

A lot of readers have been asking why Eliot stiffed the killer. Well, that explains it. But is that really all there is to it? Impossible. There are plenty of ways to play the political game.