stjorthotic Chapter 144 "Cuckoo"
Chapter 144 "Cuckoo"
Chapter 144 "Cuckoo"
Upon hearing Evan's words, Zeryl's body stiffened, his pupils contracted, as if recalling the excruciating feeling he had just endured during interrogation. He quickly retorted:
"I haven't hidden anything. I've already told you about all the missions I've received since arriving in Backlund. You can check if you don't believe me!"
Evan, seeing Zeryl's desperate attempts to explain, wasn't angry. Without turning his head, he grabbed a document from the table behind him and tossed it to him, saying:
"This is what I found out when I sent people to investigate your identity in Dusty County. Take a good look at it!"
1
Zereil picked up the documents that had been thrown at him and began to look through them. The more he read, the more he trembled and the more frightened he became.
Seeing that Zeryl was hesitant to speak, Evan sneered and said:
"After I discovered your spy identity, I initially thought you were a Dixieshire native who had been recruited by a foreign intelligence agency, because your eating habits, lifestyle, and accent made it impossible for anyone to identify you as a foreigner."
So, my initial plan was to send people to your hometown to investigate whether you have any relatives and to see if there was any possibility of turning you against your side.
Although the Fusak Empire went to great lengths to conceal your identity and implemented the strictest secrecy measures, more than a decade has passed, and some of the original secrecy measures have become flawed. My people found clues and discovered a gap in your resume, thus proving that you are definitely not a Ruen.
This raises several questions. The Fusak Empire went to great lengths to carefully disguise you as a Rune, arrange your identity, and fabricate your experiences, which must mean they had high hopes for you and wanted you to shoulder an important mission.
For example, you could be asked to infiltrate MI9, the government, or the royal palace as an ordinary person, because the screening process for extraordinary individuals is much more rigorous than that for ordinary people.
However, after reviewing your background, I found that you have always kept your distance from MI9 and the Royal Palace. Furthermore, based on your confession, your intelligence work has mostly been far from the core area of Backlund, which can be seen from the fact that when you were a detective, you only took on minor tasks such as finding cats and dogs, catching adulterers, and protecting others.
The Fussac Empire has spent so much time and effort creating the perfect identity for you, so why not let you do the most valuable work?
And how did you train? How did you manage to disguise yourself so convincingly as a Rune? I wonder if Mr. Zeryl could satisfy my curiosity?
Zeryl remained silent, and Evan was not in a hurry. He even looked up at a spider in the corner of the roof, watching it spin its web to hunt.
Zeril may have received professional training, but that was more than a decade ago. His long-term mundane life had worn down his will, and the trivial matters in his life had eroded his passion. Otherwise, he wouldn't have confessed so quickly. His superior's betrayal was the final blow that broke down his mental defenses.
The highest-ranking official in charge of foreign intelligence in the Fusak Empire had been turned, so what could a lowly henchman like him possibly hold on to? This is why Evan made sure he knew he had been betrayed before asking him any questions.
Evan believed that he would eventually let go of his inner turmoil, explain everything clearly, and then negotiate with him.
As expected, after less than ten minutes of internal struggle, Zeryl spoke:
"I can tell you everything, but I need 20,000 gold pounds and complete identification. I need to change my appearance and go to Lenburg."
Evan wasn't surprised by his request, and simply smiled:
"How would I know how much your intelligence is worth? Twenty thousand pounds? That would make you one of the wealthiest people in Rune. My intelligence is definitely worth that much money. I can even tell you for free how I was trained so you can assess the value of the intelligence I know."
Zeril has lost all sense of decency and has now completely become a person who only cares about himself and is greedy for money.
"Tell me about it?"
Evan still acted nonchalantly, but he was on high alert.
Zeryl took a deep breath and then said:
"Between the Eternal Night Plain and the Antal Mountains within the Fusak Empire, the Fusak Empire built several replicas of the capitals of various countries, one-to-one. The shops, cafes, and costumes of the people inside, as well as the waiters, police officers, and merchants, all speak the languages of their respective countries and cannot use their native languages."
All selected agents had to learn and live there, adapting to the languages and dietary habits of various countries. To make their disguises more convincing, instructors would even use rituals to make them forget their mother tongues.
Although Zeril only said a few words, it had already shocked Hugh Deercha, who had been standing silently by. She had not expected that the Fursac Empire would spend so much money to train undercover agents.
Evan's expression was calm, but his heart was also turbulent. In his previous life, he was just a recent college graduate who had heard many dubious rumors during the information explosion era. Among them was the story of the Red Empire secretly replicating enemy cities during the Cold War, just to make its agents more adaptable to infiltrating countries.
In his previous life, Evan only considered this news as a wild idea, but he never expected that after transmigrating to this mysterious world, there would actually be a formal intelligence agency capable of doing this.
Although Evan's heart was churning with turmoil, he showed no sign of it on his face and said in a pretentious manner:
I have heard about that, so it seems you weren't lying.
"How about this, 20,000 gold pounds is too high, it's very difficult to get approved. I'll personally give you 5,000 gold pounds as a deposit first, and I'll give you the rest after I get the approval, how about that?"
Zeryl looked at Evan, trying to see if he was lying, but he couldn't tell anything. All he could see was Evan's sincerity. Considering that 20,000 gold pounds was indeed a lot of money, he reluctantly nodded in agreement.
After seeing Zeryl nod, Evan didn't waste any more words. He took out a check from his pocket, filled in the amount, handed it to Hugh Deercha, and told her to go to the nearest bank to withdraw the money.
Fortunately, the nearest Backlund Bank branch wasn't far away, and after Hugh Deercha produced his MI9 credentials, special arrangements were made, and he quickly received the cash.
Seeing Evan's quick agreement, and with the smell of freshly printed banknotes right in front of him, Zeril wanted to be decisive as well. He closed the small box containing the banknotes, placed it at his feet, and said directly:
"My codename is 'Chameleon,' and I used to be directly under Lieutenant General Kalinin, the current commander of the Fussac Empire's Imperial Guard."
Implement Project "Cuckoo".
"Wait? You mean 'in the past'?"
Evan quickly grasped the key words and asked directly.
"Yes, once!" Zeril said with a wry smile. "I was selected by Lieutenant General Kalinin, who was then a colonel, to participate in secret training seventeen years ago."
He believed that intelligence work should not be limited to collecting and transmitting intelligence, but should play a greater role. Therefore, he proposed "Operation Cuckoo," which involved training outstanding agents to infiltrate various countries, disguise themselves as their citizens, and lie in wait without carrying out any missions.
Lieutenant General Kalinin, commander of the Imperial Guard of the Fusak Empire, is currently the number one enemy of the intelligence front of the Kingdom of Rune. He once cracked down on more than a dozen infiltrative groups of the Kingdom of Rune in Saint Milon City. He is ranked first on the kill list of Military Intelligence Bureau 9, with a bounty of 500,000 gold pounds.
Although his bounty was high, he is still alive and well, and judging from the bounty alone, Evan knew that this Lieutenant General Kalinin was at least a demigod.
"Lying dormant, not activated until the war begins, then producing miraculous results? What exactly is this 'Azalea Plan' trying to achieve?"
Evan had a bad feeling about the name "Cuckoo".
"At that time, Lieutenant General Kalinin carefully selected fifty pairs of outstanding agents, fifty men and fifty women, and asked us to cultivate feelings for each other."
At first, we didn't know what it meant. It wasn't until we finished the training that he talked to us one-on-one.
After studying the so-called electoral system, he concluded that the so-called "blood boiling" system was itself a form of money politics.
Money can propel someone into an important political position.
Therefore, he required us agents to infiltrate various countries without carrying out missions. Our sole purpose was to utilize the resources he provided to build extensive networks, pave the way with money, actively seek upward social mobility, and simultaneously nurture our children, generation after generation, to ultimately overthrow the entire nation.
When Zeryl finished explaining the "Cuckoo" plan, both Evan and Hugh Deercha gaped, stunned by the grand scheme, yet simultaneously finding it utterly absurd.
"How is this possible?" Hugh Deercha exclaimed in shock.
"How is that impossible? Do you know why you can't tell that I'm a Fusak? It's because Kalinin used an extraordinary item to directly exchange our 'identities' with some Runes."
Furthermore, he made other cover-ups. In his words, unless it's a god, no one can tell that we've already switched places. If you don't believe me, you can use your MI9's magical items to test it."
Seeing that Hugh Deercha didn't believe what he said, Zeril directly revealed more information, not afraid at all that Evan and the others would verify it.
"If what you say is true, you should already be part of the upper class in Dixie County, actively transitioning into a politician, and have a virtuous and like-minded wife. How did you end up like this?"
Having watched many movies and heard many dubious rumors in his previous life, Evan's ability to accept information was higher than Hugh Deercha's. He quickly calmed down and began to look for loopholes in Zeryl's words, fill in the gaps in his personal history, judge whether there were any inaccuracies in what he said, and even secretly used the "Golden Gaze" to begin to psychologically mislead him.
"Everything was supposed to go as you said. I would have a beautiful wife, enough money to climb up the social ladder in Rune, and become very powerful. But an accident changed everything."
Upon hearing Evan's question, Zeryl's mood immediately plummeted.