1014 Simply of Too Great Importance
Hurriedly dressing and rushing to the doorway, Speaker Long caught sight of Yin Shixiong standing there in full-on military garb, like a serviceman on guard.
The sight made his heart feel heavy.
Yin Shixiong was already a colonel, was it really appropriate for someone of his rank to be standing guard for them?
Catching sight of Speaker Long, Yin Shixiong reached out to push the door of the study open. “Please enter, Speaker Long. Our senior official has been humbly awaiting your arrival.”
Speaker Long smiled good-naturedly and patted Yin Shixiong’s shoulders. “Humbly awaiting my arrival?” he asked. “Big Xiong, quit messing with me. Barely three minutes have passed between when I received the news of your arrival and when I actually arrived at the study. Don’t you think you are exaggerating a little?”
Yin Shixiong knew that Speaker Long had always been an easy-going person, so he chuckled a little and said, “You started counting from when you first received the news, but our wait started at 1 o’clock in the morning, from the moment we went to the Parliament building to request permission to see you.”
Speaker Long seemed somewhat baffled and stared down at his watch. “It’s two-thirty now. One o’clock? I was still awake at that time; how come nobody briefed me?”
Yin Shixiong was rolling his eyes internally, but he remained outwardly silent and made a gesture inviting Speaker Long to enter the study.
After Speaker Long entered the study, Yin Shixiong closed the door behind them and remained there, upright, standing guard.
Inside the study, Speaker Long watched the similarly positioned Huo Shaoheng and asked, confused, “What on earth is all this about? Big Xiong’s speaking bizarrely.”
Since the door of the study hadn’t been shut properly, Huo Shaoheng overheard their conversation, yet he refrained from explaining. Instead, he handed Speaker Long a calfskin envelope and said, “This is the request form that General Ji had me write before dawn. I had Big Xiong send it to your secretary in the early morning to request your signature in order for us to proceed with surveillance and the investigation. However, this was early yesterday morning. It is now before dawn the next day, and only now have we finally seen you. Now, without further ado, please provide your signature.”
Speaker Long frowned, accepting the calfskin envelope from Huo Shaoheng. He walked over to his desk and cut the envelope open with a pair of scissors. His expression changed drastically when he got a closer look at the contents of the documents inside.
“What?! Surveillance… for him?!” Speaker Long nearly spit out the name on the document, Hong Kangquan, yet restrained himself just in the nick of time.
“That’s right. Please provide your signature. After, I will initiate the preparations,” Huo Shaoheng said in a calm and even tone. Although he spoke calmly, the content of his words expressed a sense of urgency. “We have already wasted a day’s worth of time. We cannot afford to lose any more.”
Speaker Long’s frown intensified. “Why? Shaoheng, what gives you the right to request something of this nature from a cabinet member of ministerial rank? I demand more evidence.”
Unlike General Ji, Speaker Long was more concerned with whether or not Huo Shaoheng’s bureau had been exploiting their authority within domestic borders.
Within governmental bureaucracies, Speaker Long absolutely would not allow the possibility of monopolization or domination by any individual government agency.
The Senate was not only responsible for counterbalancing the powers and duties of the military and the cabinet, but also responsible for surveilling both branches to ensure that none of them stepped out of line.
However, Huo Shaoheng’s Special Operation Forces already had too much jurisdiction outside national borders. Therefore, he had to be vigilant to prevent such a sweeping authority from extending its reach to the domestic sphere.
Huo Shaoheng was aware of those concerns as well, and that was precisely the reason why he had also shied away from meddling in domestic affairs.
In terms of the surveillance endeavor, only after requesting permission from Speaker Long, General Ji, and various Cabinet members of ministerial ranking, and then obtaining consent from all of them in due process, did he finally commence the preparations.
Similarly, when it came to the surveillance of Hong Kangquan, without Speaker Long’s signature, Huo Shaoheng’s hands were tied in terms of what he could do. He could only order his subordinates to be on close watch instead of conducting official surveillance. Because of that, he would only be able to obtain limited amounts of information concerning Hong Kangquan’s whereabouts.
In actuality, Huo Shaoheng himself was curious as well. Where had Hong Kangquan gone after he had managed to elude the two servicemen that were sent to trail him?
Deep down inside, Huo Shaoheng believed that Hong Kangquan was after his life, although he was still unwilling to believe that Hong Kangquan was a traitor and guilty of treason.
The conflict between him and Hong Kangquan was a power struggle that involved class warfare and different socio-political ideologies. That was drastically different from one that concerned treason against one’s own nation and siding with foreign enemies.
Yet it didn’t matter whether he believed it or not. Proving precisely what Hong Kangquan had planned in his mind required concrete evidence.
The reason for conducting round-the-clock surveillance on him was to determine whether or not the tip they had received was true.
Hong Kangquan’s position as the Director of Secret Services was simply of too great importance to leave any room for doubt.
Previously, the Secret Services had a Deputy Minister named Bai Yusheng, who had overseen operations in the North American sphere, commit treason. Consequently, a sleeper agent that had been planted within the CIA for years lost his life, and all the Secret Service’s undercover agents in North America were wiped out.
Now, suspicion had been cast on the Director of the Secret Service. If he was indeed the rat, then the Huaxia Empire had to change its stratagem at the All Blue Star completely.
The amount of loss, whether it be human lives or monetary resources, would otherwise simply be immeasurable.
“Speaker Long, we have received a report. Since we are not permitted to reveal the specifics at the moment, we plan on conducting around-the-clock surveillance in order to prove his innocence,” Huo Shaoheng said ambivalently. His words did not betray his personal suspicions.
With his newfound understanding, Speaker Long’s face paled. He looked down at the papers and quickly signed his name, stamped the forms, pressed his fingerprints into the ink, and handed them back to Huo Shaoheng. “If circumstances are this grave, why didn’t you contact me at first notice?! From old Ji providing his signature to me doing the same, twenty-two hours have already passed!” he said in a frosty tone.
During that critical period, time meant lives!
This concerned the lives of all of the Secret Service members in their nation!
Huo Shaoheng accepted the calfskin envelope, thoroughly checking the contents to make sure that all three of the signed documents were there. He then took one of the papers out and placed it in front of Speaker Long, saying softly, “You can keep this one just in case.”
He then continued calmly, “After General Ji had provided his signature, I immediately asked Big Xiong to deliver this envelope to your secretary. I recall this happening yesterday at about six o’clock in the morning. Big Xiong personally delivered it to Special Assistant Yang.
Speaker Long paused, seeming skeptical. “So, you’re saying that you handed it over to Special Assistant Yang yesterday at about six o’clock in the morning? How come he never brought it up?”
“That I really don’t know.” Huo Shaoheng shook his head as he spoke. “I waited an entire day for you to sign it, yet it wasn’t until two-thirty this morning that I finally received your signature. I could hardly keep my patience, and due to the urgent nature of the matter, I decided to visit the secretary’s office personally in order to receive your signature in a timely manner. You must know, the person in question is actually my superior at the Corps, so I don’t want to warrant any unnecessary suspicion without us having all of the facts.”
Speaker Long recalled how earlier at the door, Yin Shixiong had stated that they had been humbly awaiting his arrival. It seemed like they really had been waiting.
Speaker Long’s pale and puffy face gradually began to flush from boiling rage.
With a hardened expression, he picked up the phone and dialed the Senate’s secretarial office.
Huo Shaoheng also connected his Bluetooth headphones, leaving orders for his subordinates to commence operations as soon as permission was obtained.
In order to conduct full surveillance on Hong Kangquan, they needed to make sure they had him covered from all angles.
Along with immediately assuming control of his office and his home, as well as the wi-fi and phones in all of his residences, they also needed to install surveillance devices in all the areas that he was known to frequent.
Of course, most importantly, they need to be able to extract the data from his microchip tracker remotely from the central control room.
Huo Shaoheng wasn’t particularly worried about the fact that those two Secret Service members had lost track of Hong Kangquan while hot on his trail, because he had a secret card up his sleeve.
Every Secret Service member had a microchip tracker that was controlled by the Special Operations Forces embedded inside their body. Unless the member resigned or died, that microchip tracker could not be removed.
Removing the tracker on one’s own would indicate treason.
Yet, the data from the microchip tracker couldn’t be easily deciphered by the Special Operations Forces alone, either.
In other words, the microchip tracker’s data was encrypted and stored on the Special Operations Forces’ highly advanced supercomputer. In order to decrypt the data, one had to first obtain permission.
As long as he had permission from Speaker Long and General Ji, Huo Shaoheng could freely read the data from Hong Kangquan’s microchip tracker. The data would allow him to track Hong Kangquan’s every move, and would naturally allow him to see where Hong Kangquan went after eluding the two servicemen.
At the outset of Bai Yusheng’s defection, even though Huo Shaoheng had used Bai Yusheng’s microchip to track him, his endeavors, nevertheless, proved to be futile, and Bai Yusheng escaped unscathed.
Thinking about what had happened, Huo Shaoheng’s eyes narrowed as an ominous feeling fell over him.
Had they accidentally tipped off Hong Kangquan already when the two servicemen lost track of him while hot on his trail?
What if Hong Kangquan had already removed the microchip tracker from his body, just as Bai Yusheng had done before?
However, on second thought, if he really had removed it, then they wouldn’t need other evidence anymore. The removal in itself would be an admission of guilt.
Just that alone would be enough to convict Hong Kangquan of treason.
With another thought rising to mind, Huo Shaoheng issued a command to his subordinates. “Contact all major customs ports in the nation. From here on out, all people leaving domestic borders will be subject to iris scans and fingerprint analysis. Immediately send the target’s iris and fingerprint to all customs ports. Anyone who matches will be barred from leaving.”
He sincerely hoped that he was overthinking it all, yet if Hong Kangquan were indeed just like Bai Yusheng had been, and he had realized that they were surveilling him, then his next move would undoubtedly be to escape the Huaxia Empire.