latelenovela Chapter 913 The Swordholder
Chapter 913 The Swordholder
As the name on the last page of the contract fell, the oppressive yet exciting atmosphere in the safe house seemed to settle down in an instant.
Fang Yu stepped forward, collected the thick stack of documents on the table, picked up the pen again, and neatly signed his name in the signature area for Party B.
Then, he solemnly handed a copy stamped with a red seal to Castro.
"This is just a formality; after all, we are materialists."
Fang Yu capped the pen, put it in his pocket, and his smile was more relaxed than before.
"But in the face of imperialism, it is a declaration written on steel."
"Welcome, everyone, to the 'Swordholder' club."
"The swordsman..."
Castro repeated the word in a low voice, his hand gently stroking the somewhat rough cover of the contract, his eyes becoming exceptionally deep.
"It's a good name. But before, we were the ones with swords pointed at us, but from today onwards..."
"This sword hilt is finally in our own hands."
"Not just swords."
Fang Yu turned around, walked to the safe next to him, and entered several passwords with his back to everyone.
With a soft whirring sound as the mechanism turned, he took out three black briefcases from inside.
The box wasn't big, only about the size of a typical business briefcase.
The surface is covered with a layer of matte, frosted, unidentified synthetic material. There is no logo on the handle, only an inconspicuous code.
He placed the boxes on the table in front of the three people one by one.
"Inside here is a quantum encryption terminal based on our 'Tiantong' satellite communication network."
"Open it; no complicated password is needed. It is already bound to your respective bioelectrical signals."
"It will automatically activate as soon as your hand touches the recognition area."
Che Guevara stepped forward with some curiosity and opened his own first.
The box didn't contain any dazzling electronic components; instead, two things were quietly embedded in the black shock-absorbing foam.
A black tablet communicator with a simple, almost plain design.
There was also... a very ordinary-looking silver metal lighter.
"The communicator can directly connect to the highest command headquarters in the capital. Whether it's voice or data transmission, even if the Americans blow up all the base stations in the Americas, as long as there's still sky above you, it will still work."
As Fang Yu spoke, he pointed to the inconspicuous lighter.
"As for this... it's a backup beacon."
"If the communicator is damaged or lost in the most extreme environment... just light this lighter, and its specially designed pulse frequency will be captured by 'Xingtian' in the sky within one second."
"Its signal has only one meaning—'Fire at me'."
There was a moment of silence in the safe house.
Guevara reached out and picked up the heavy lighter.
The cool touch sent a jolt through his fingertips, causing his long-dormant warrior instincts to throb slightly.
He was never afraid of sacrifice, but he never imagined that one day even sacrifice could become so...destructively romantic.
"Of course, I hope you never have to use this feature."
Fang Yu shrugged, his tone returning to its usual casual, everyday manner.
"Just consider it a gift. I've been craving Cuban cigars for a long time, and I'll have to borrow yours next time I have the chance."
"must."
Castro laughed too, and solemnly picked up his briefcase, his eyes looking as if he were discussing the future of a nation.
"There will be an opportunity. On the day Havana is liberated, I will light up the best Cohiba for you on the balcony of the Presidential Palace."
……
The farewell was simple; there were no flowers or red carpet.
As Fang Yu said, the core of the "Spark" plan is to be low-key and pragmatic.
The three guests from South America boarded their return flight that evening.
However, the transport plane that came empty was filled to the brim with heavy containers labeled "agricultural machinery parts" and "civilian communication equipment" when it returned.
Accompanying them was a thick blueprint they treasured: the establishment of an independent heavy industry system in South America, as well as dozens of young technicians drawn from various engineering colleges in China.
These young people looked frail and carried drawing boards and measuring instruments, but Castro knew that these talents were the most precious "seeds" that the Dragon Kingdom had given to this continent that had been colonized for hundreds of years.
The moment the cabin door closed.
Fang Yu, standing on the tarmac, wrapped his coat tighter around himself.
The early autumn nights in the capital were already a bit chilly, with the wind swirling fallen leaves around them.
He watched as the enormous steel Kunpeng rose vertically in the glow of its dark blue anti-gravity engine, then, like a shooting star streaking across the night sky, flew towards the western hemisphere, which was still shrouded in darkness.
"Dean."
The assistant behind him stepped forward and asked softly.
"The first batch of 'Broken Army' armor prototypes and twenty 'Mysterious Whales' have been loaded onto ships and shipped."
"But... this is such a big deal, will the US side... react?"
Fang Yu took out the pen he had used on the contract from his pocket and casually twirled it a couple of times in his hand.
He looked up and gazed westward.
There, across countless mountains and rivers, lies the early morning when the United States is still fast asleep.
"Reaction? Of course there will be."
"However, by the time those arrogant cowboys finally realized what was happening..."
Fang Yu smiled and turned to walk towards the car parked in the shadows.
"It's probably time for them to get beaten to a pulp."
……
More than ten days later.
On the other side of the world, in Washington, D.C., on the banks of the Potomac River.
Deep within the heart of the world-famous Pentagon, in a senior operations meeting room of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a musty smell—a mixture of caffeine, secondhand smoke, and anxiety—was filling the air.
Although it was late at night, the lights here were still glaringly white, and the air conditioning system was humming, but it couldn't dispel the low pressure that seemed to seep out from the cracks in the walls.
Ever since Europe lost face to "that great Eastern power," the people here have been in a bad mood.
"...recent disturbing intelligence regarding South America, particularly the Caribbean."
Standing in front of the projection screen was a senior CIA analyst dressed in a dark gray suit.
He awkwardly adjusted his tie, trying to avoid making eye contact with the gloomy-faced four-star general at the end of the long table.
On the screen were several blurry black-and-white satellite photos, as well as some charts analyzing intercepted radio signals.
"According to our 'cleaners' in Havana, the anti-government armed groups in the mountains seem to have become much more active recently."
The analyst pointed to the Maestra Mountains, marked in red on the map, which now appears as an impenetrable black hole to the CIA.
“We lost contact with the three informant groups in that area.”
"At the same time... in the past two weeks, some inexplicable and strange heat source signals and extremely short electromagnetic pulse bands have appeared in this area."
"Is this the end?"
An admiral sitting at the head of the long table impatiently interrupted him.
He tapped the table with his thick fingers, as if striking some kind of death knell.
“I’m not here to listen to your weather forecasts that sound like ‘my neighbor’s cat meowed twice in the middle of the night.’”
"Get to the point, can those peasants with machetes and rusty rifles really threaten our safety at Guantanamo?"
"This one……"
The analyst wiped the sweat from his brow.
"From the perspective of military equipment alone, of course it is impossible."
"Those guerrillas are still using old-fashioned firearms from World War II or even World War I, and they lack medical supplies."
"But these unusual electromagnetic signals make us suspect whether there might be infiltration from outside... well, from certain countries..."
"Ha! Infiltration?"
A lieutenant general next to him, chewing gum, let out a disdainful sneer.
"Come on. That Eastern country is busy digesting the benefits they've snatched from the Soviet Union on the other side of that damned Cold War Iron Curtain. They don't have time to care about this mosquito bite in our backyard."
He took a cigarette out of the pack, but didn't light it; he just fiddled with it between his fingers.
"Besides, it's separated by the entire Pacific Ocean! And it's just a bunch of peasants. Do you think everyone is Moses, capable of parting the Red Sea to cross it?"
"The cost of shipping them a gun is enough for us to build a Cadillac in Detroit!"
A sparse burst of laughter, tinged with typical American superiority, echoed in the meeting room.
Despite being thoroughly outmatched by China's advanced technology in Europe and their homeland, they subconsciously believe that the world is hierarchical.
They might be wary or even fearful of opponents of the size of China or Russia.
But on the American continent, on this land they had regarded as their private territory for a century, that arrogance of "I am God's chosen people" was already ingrained in their very bones.
Here, those South Americans are only fit to greet their warships at the dock with fruit baskets, not to point guns at them.
What are our Navy SEALs doing?
The admiral regained control of the conversation.
"Wasn't a special operation plan called 'Swamp Cleanup' already been formulated?"
"Yes, sir."
Another officer in charge of special operations stood up.
"Although the president is currently focused on the mess of the domestic elections and does not want to make too much of a fuss."
"But we also feel that it is necessary to give those restless little insects some insecticide."
He drew a red line on the map.
“‘Sword of Poseidon’ 2nd Division, plus a commando company of Cuban exiles trained by our CIA Special Operations in Florida, called ‘Freedom Hunters’. A total of three hundred men.”
"They were well-equipped, with the latest night vision goggles and silenced weapons that we hadn't even dared to use in the jungles of Vietnam. They also had the support of two armed speedboats and helicopters."
The officer's tone carried the confidence characteristic of a professional soldier, even a hint of nonchalance.
"The plan is simple: land on this remote coast and then cut straight into the mountains like a scalpel."
"Find those bearded men who are the leaders, and send them to meet their forefathers with a single bullet. The rest of the crowd is leaderless and just a rabble."
"Three hundred?"
The lieutenant general curled his lip, seemingly thinking that the number was too big and an overreaction.
"Do you really need such a big operation to deal with a bunch of monkeys that only hide in trees? I'm afraid you'll go in and not find anyone to kill, and end up just bored and only able to hunt birds."
"It's mainly to establish authority, General."
The officer explained with a smile.
"Let those fools who want to emulate those Eastern communists see what happens when they anger the true masters of this continent."
"Then it's settled."
The admiral closed the folder in front of him, which hadn't even been turned more than a few pages, and also closed the book of fate for that squad destined for destruction.
"We'll make our move in three days. Don't make too much noise. I don't want to see any weird headlines in the New York Times, like 'Our army has mistreated another banana tree' or something like that."
"Understood, sir."
"This was a silent... autumn hunt."
The meeting room lights were half off.
In the dim light, the men who controlled what was known as the world's most powerful war machine wore an air of nonchalance, as if they were dealing with a mouse in their house.
They don't know.
In those mountains and seas they thought they had completely under their control.
This is hardly a game of hunting mice.
Clearly, a steel Tyrannosaurus Rex, armed to the teeth with cutting-edge technology and starving for a long time, was quietly opening its pair of eerie blue thermal imaging eyes.
Quietly waiting for the "afternoon tea" to be delivered to your door...