The agents outside were soon escorted out of the hotel by security. Red Star led his bodyguards in searching all the public areas on the floor, then drove off several guests from other floors who had supposedly "gotten lost."
Just as Mystique had complained, there were more agents in the Hilton right now than American soldiers around the Gulf.
At last, when the entire floor had quieted down, Red Star pushed open the door to report in. Xiang Qian had just hung up on a "concerned" call from the White House.
The situation on Alcatraz Island had gradually become clear. Nearly everyone who needed to know about Jimmy's disappearance had found out—except Worthington II. As it happened, the old white man had been rescued by his son when radical Mutants were hunting him down.
A number of researchers on the island had been killed or injured. Many hadn't managed to escape into the basement in time and had been murdered by the Mutants.
The schemer who had sabotaged his own operation accepted the government's condolences as a victim and reiterated his willingness to cooperate. At the same time, Xiang Qian made sure to cry foul, demanding that the United States government capture Magneto as soon as possible and recover Jimmy, the key to the Mutant Gene Serum.
After hanging up on the White House chief of staff, Xiang Qian immediately ordered his legal department to sue Worthington II. Without Jimmy, production of the Mutant Gene Serum had ground to a halt. Everyone understood that Worthington Industries was about to suffer a catastrophic blow.
As long as they could prove that Worthington Industries' massive losses were closely linked to Worthington II's own actions, he would have to compensate the investors. At a time like this, plenty of people were waiting to kick the company while it was down.
Research and production of the serum would ultimately have to continue to solve the Mutant problem. But first, Worthington Industries, its original developer, had to be completely taken out.
Until then, Jimmy could enjoy a few more days of peace and quiet as an ordinary person.
After taking care of all his business, Xiang Qian pulled out the slips of paper he'd left untouched for two days and eagerly called to Red Star, "Lao Hong, help me choose. Which number should I call first?"
"What numbers?" Lao Hong asked, baffled.
"The Hilton Sisters' phone numbers." Xiang Qian held up a slip in each hand. "This one's the older sister's, and this one's the younger sister's. Come on, pick one. Which one should I call first?"
"What are you planning to do?"
"Make gossip headlines and shift people's attention," Xiang Qian said with a mischievous grin. "With all these agents keeping their eyes on us, it's impossible to guard against everything. I might as well create a huge story and put myself in the spotlight. That'll actually be safer. It'll also throw other people off the scent."
After explaining, he hurried him along. "Come on, help me pick. Which one do I call first?"
Red Star caught on, then pressed him. "You said you wanted to pick one number. Does that mean you're going to call the second one too?"
"Of course! What's the point of asking just one of them out?" Xiang Qian replied as if it were obvious. "I'm a Playboy everyone knows about. If I date one heiress, so what? That's not a big story. There's not enough of a hook. But if two sisters are with the same man... hmm?"
Red Star stared at Xiang Qian as though he were looking at a devil.
"No wonder everyone at the bureau calls you a jerk!"
How had a perfectly good conversation suddenly turned into an insult?
Xiang Qian pursed his lips in displeasure. "I think those baseless rumors are rooted entirely in some people's jealousy. And jealousy must be rooted in the jealous person's own incompetence."
Red Star rolled his eyes and turned to leave.
"You really are a jerk!"
Xiang Qian shrugged indifferently, crumpled both slips of paper into balls, and started drawing lots.
Over the next three days, the news media on the United States' West Coast went wild.
The Alcatraz Island incident caused a global sensation. In less than twenty-four hours, every major media outlet in the world had converged on San Francisco, and reports about the incident poured out in waves. Plenty of tabloids and gossip magazines, usually known for their rumors and scandals, joined in too, but they had nowhere near the influence of the established media.
The established media got the meat, while the tabloids couldn't even get a taste of the broth—but their savior soon arrived.
The day after the Alcatraz Island incident broke, someone offered tabloids scandalous photos, claiming they'd captured the younger daughter of a famous hotel dynasty sneaking into the Hilton to meet her lover. The heiress had stayed in her lover's room for more than ten hours, only leaving in the middle of the night.
Many tabloid editors who heard the news scoffed. With the Alcatraz Island incident still making headlines, who would care about a little scandal?
Then came even juicier news.
Less than three hours after the second daughter left the hotel, while it was still dark, someone else photographed the family's eldest daughter entering the hotel—and the very same presidential suite. The photos were crystal clear. The evidence was conclusive.
That finally caught the tabloid editors' interest.
When they looked into the man staying in the presidential suite, they discovered he was James Zion, a shareholder and technical partner in Worthington Industries, which had just suffered heavy losses in the Alcatraz Island uprising.
The tabloid editors were over the moon.
The Mutant uprising on Alcatraz Island was serious social and political news, the domain of the established media. Since they couldn't get a taste of the broth from Alcatraz, the gossip tabloids might as well feast on scandal instead!
So, on the desk of a certain dark-skinned man who was keeping a close eye on Xiang Qian, the daily reports on their surveillance target suddenly changed in style. Their lines were now filled with the entertainment-page tone of the tabloids.
"Motherfucker, what the hell is this?" Nick Fury clutched a stack of reports, his veins bulging with rage.
The reports included several gossip publications, one of which was a Chinese-language supermarket tabloid distributed only in San Francisco's Chinatown. Its front-page headline was sensational: "Heiress Sisters Fight Over Playboy, Who's Happy to Have Them Both."
"Don't tell me your daily job is to collect gossip rags! Motherfucker, are you cutting your mission reports out of tabloids?" Nick Fury chewed out the team leader until he was spitting.
"Sorry, boss! Aside from meeting with the two sisters, the target hasn't done anything else. His security team and entourage haven't made any unusual moves either. The only major thing he did was sue Worthington II in a San Francisco court yesterday."
"If I wanted to know what's already public, I'd walk out the door and buy a newspaper from a street stand for fifty cents. I wouldn't sit behind my desk waiting for your report." Nick Fury glared at his subordinate with his one good eye.
"Your job is to dig out all the shady, unspeakable things hidden beneath those public reports! I want you to uncover something of real value."
The dark-skinned director slapped the report against his subordinate's face. "I don't want to know how many women that Playboy has dated. I don't want to know when those women went into his room or how long they stayed. And I definitely don't want to know whether he wore a condom when he was fooling around with them! I want something of real value!"
"Sorry, boss." The subordinate, innocent but thoroughly chewed out, broke into a cold sweat and reported timidly, "All we know is that James Zion might be going to Los Angeles in the next two days. That's the only information we can confirm."