Chapter 742 - 682: Shifting the Blame and Poisonous Schemes

Kelly walked briskly into Pence's office.

Facing her direct superior, she held back her temper, but the anger radiating from her face made her stance abundantly clear.

"SIR! Why did you secretly deploy a squad to Siria without informing me?!"

With that, she threw a report onto her boss's desk.

Pence set aside the file in his hands, picked up the report, and began flipping through it.

His expression gradually darkened.

"This was just a fallback measure. Such tactics have been pretty common in past operations. Is there a problem?"

"The problem is that you didn't inform me. If I had known you deployed a covert squad there, I would've ordered Rod and his team not to protect Baghdadi. Song Heping must have deduced that we had a communication breakdown, so he ambushed Rod's squad at the border while they were trying to ambush his men. Now both of the Watcher squads we sent to Illiguo are entirely wiped out—total casualties!"

Pence tossed the report back onto the desk, removed his glasses, deliberately blew onto the lenses, then picked up a cloth and began to gently polish them.

"Kelly, this man is your creation—never forget that. From the moment he appeared, he should've been eliminated completely instead of being allowed to meddle in Mexico's affairs. Now he's allied with those drug lords, formed a defensive coalition, and left us out in the cold, treating us as enemies."

He finished cleaning the gold-rimmed glasses and placed them back onto the bridge of his nose, eyes fixed intently on Kelly's face.

"Do you know how much he's offering on the dark web for intel about the Elder Council? Fifty million US dollars. That's more than our bounty on Laden. This guy's insane. While he doesn't scare us, he's definitely giving us a lot of headaches."

Kelly suppressed her displeasure at her boss's finger-pointing but coldly retorted, "I had a good working relationship with him initially. It wasn't me who dragged him into the Little Curtis matter—it was the military. The Elder Council wanted him dead on their own. Not me! Had we continued working with him, he would still be executing operations for us."

Pence smirked with a cold glint in his eye. "Kelly, don't act like you didn't want him eliminated. Even without the Little Curtis affair, you'd still have wanted him dead. Wouldn't you?"

Kelly fell silent.

Indeed, she had already tried using the Los Zetas Organization to take out Song Heping.

But the plan failed, and she ultimately didn't get her way.

Looking at Pence's expression, Kelly realized the veteran bureaucrat was clearly trying to wash his hands of the matter. Song Heping's situation seemed to have spiraled out of control.

No one knew what sort of mess might arise before he was successfully eliminated.

Pence was covering his bases.

A master bureaucrat had this uncanny ability—they always made sure others bore the blame, especially their subordinates.

"SIR, I didn't involve the Elder Council in this mission—it was your direct order," Kelly retorted.

Pence looked at Kelly and suddenly recalled a joke.

Child A pointed at Child B and said, "You have poop on your butt!"

Child B glanced at Child A and pointed back, saying, "You do too!"

"Alright, Kelly."

Pence spread his arms and said, "There's no need for us to accuse one another here. This is infighting. We're on the same side. I'm your superior, understood?"

He stared at Kelly, scrutinizing her reaction.

If Kelly continued to refuse to cooperate, he might have to consider removing her altogether to avoid further obstruction.

In the end, Kelly seemed to back down.

"Fine. Our mutual enemy now is Song Heping. It's time to figure out a way to eliminate him."

Pence stood up, paced a small circle around his desk, then stopped and said, "Currently, Song Heping has no foothold left in Illiguo, nor in Afghan, where he's lost all his contracts. Where do you think he is now?"

"Persia."

Kelly replied, "This guy somehow managed to latch onto the Persians. Our intelligence shows that after the operation that evening, he quickly retreated into Persian territory. I suspect…"

Her voice tightened.

"I suspect he's now in league with Avanti as well."

"Hmm, that makes sense."

Pence returned to his chair and sat down.

"Given his ties to Avanti, his close relationship with the drug lords, his control over Colombian supply chains, and his military ventures, like establishing a Special Soldier School, I'd say he's pretty much a terrorist—a drug lord, isn't he?"

He couldn't help but laugh.

Laughing, his hands gesturing open and closed as if signaling to Kelly.

Kelly furrowed her brows and quickly understood Pence's implication.

"You mean to list him as a terrorist and then publicly demand NATO and the United Nations sanction him globally?"

Pence replied, "No matter how capable he is, he's ultimately just a defense company boss. Once he's added to that list and publicly exposed, what kind of future do you think awaits him? No normal country would dare harbor him. He'll become a stray dog, a public pariah. Wherever he reaches out, intelligence agencies will be watching, hunted by Interpol and counterterrorism units globally. After all, the entire world is fighting terrorism these days, isn't it?"

Kelly now fully grasped the plan—she had suggested it before herself.

Only back then, it had been seen as the last card to play.

She had assumed it would be easy to crush Song Heping.

Unexpectedly, the man was incredibly resilient—not only surviving but annihilating two Watcher squads and an assault team from the Satan Organization.

Such combat prowess was unquestionably off the charts.

A pity he was an enemy.

Kelly even regretted ever wanting to kill Song Heping in the first place.

If she had used him to her advantage earlier, perhaps things would've turned out better.

Even the British contract had been her decision.

Assigning him to Afghanistan's chaotic war zones and sending him to the most heavily contested southern front originally aimed to leverage the Ata Organization to finish him off.

But then Little Curtis interfered, derailing the entire plan. Not only had the mission failed, but the move had effectively turned Song Heping against them, making life difficult for all involved.

"Fine. I agree with this plan. Add him to the terrorist list and the South American drug lord list, submit it to the Mexican government and Interpol, then escalate it to the United Nations. Let's get our allies at the UN working on this quickly to get him classified internationally as part of terrorist networks."

"Good, excellent. I believe that once we do this, he'll die in some corner of a foreign country, slowly rot, and even his homeland won't dare to take him back. He'll lose the ability to return to his own nation. As for his company…"

Pence revealed a sinister grin.

"Didn't Barrett gather intelligence on him before he died? Not only will we brand Song as both a terrorist and a drug lord but also freeze all his funds via the US Dollar settlement system. Use our financial network across allied nations to seize every penny he's earned. You know, his arrogance stems from the enormous wealth he controls—strip him of it, and he'll be like a crab without claws, powerless, waiting for death."

"Alright, I'll prepare the documents now. First, I'll start with tracing his funds, then file requests to add him to the relevant lists and circulate the notice."

"Go ahead! Do it!"

Pence finally broke into a satisfied grin.

"I trust you'll handle this task well."

As Kelly left, the smile on Pence's face gradually faded.

The phone rang.

He picked it up, listened to the voice on the other end, and his expression turned grim.

After hanging up, he picked up a pen to continue signing documents.

But his hand trembled twice, making his letters awkward and crooked.

"Damn those China People!"

He suddenly exploded, furiously hurling his pen across the room.

"Let's see if you can survive the next three months!"