America: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 349 Unfair Terms

几分钟前。

Several cars drove up from the dark, remote, and quiet country road, their bright headlights illuminating the rugged road, and stopped by the roadside in the small town, turning off their lights and engines.

Zhang Ailun got out of the car and looked at the pitch-black town. Only a few houses had lights on, and the rest seemed to be uninhabited.

He took out his phone, checked the signal location, and nodded. "This is it. Get your weapons and equipment ready. The enemy may have made preparations in advance."

A few minutes earlier, Blitz sent him a new message, informing him that the other party seemed to have noticed the methods he used to track signals and was very likely prepared in advance, so he should pay more attention.

The Texas thugs next to them got out of the car, took out their guns, and inspected them.

Zhang Ailun also put on a bulletproof vest and was fully armed. After everyone was ready, he immediately led his men to the ranch in the town.

Upon arriving at the ranch, Zhang Ailun and his men climbed over the fence and approached the villa with active signal feedback. Seeing the lights on in the room and hearing voices coming from inside, they became increasingly vigilant.

With his back against the obstacle, Zhang Ailun gave Paige a wink, and Paige immediately crept closer, hiding under the window and peering through the glass at the view inside.

He quickly showed a look of surprise, squatted down again, and approached the leader of the sect, whispering, "Boss Jin, there's a woman inside. She's quite young and pretty, and looks to be no more than 17 years old."

"A high school student?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"High school student!" Paige nodded.

Zhang Ailun fell into deep thought. "So, this really is their home address?"

But why does it seem like he has no sense of caution at all?

"What is that woman doing in there?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"Eating potato chips, fried chicken, and watching Korean dramas," Paige said with a strange expression.

Compared to each other, they seem a little too formal. The enemy has absolutely no sense of caution.

"Boss, what should we do? Should we just break in through the window? As long as we take the hostages, we won't have to worry about the ACR people not compromising and surrendering," Page suggested.

"Your suggestion is good, but please don't make such suggestions again. We are not terrorists and don't need to harm innocent people, especially since the other party is just an ordinary person." Zhang Ailun immediately rejected the suggestion upon hearing this.

The Grand Master is ruthless when dealing with terrorists like the Aragua Fire, but he will naturally choose to treat ordinary people who are powerless with impotence with leniency.

Even those who tried to rob the Grand Master were eventually sent to the island alive to do manual labor, weren't they? The Grand Master even paid them wages!

$200 a day, plus room and board, this welfare package even surpasses that of some developing countries.

He took out his phone, activated the Terminator 0 system, and started signal detection. He found only three or four active signal sources around the villa on the ranch, and only two on the ranch itself. This meant there were probably only two people in the villa at most!

Looking at the feedback on his phone, Boketu hesitated and said, "Boss, the other party is probably a hacker, right? As a hacker, they should have many ways to block their own cell phone signal, right? This information might not be accurate; there are very likely five or six other people lurking inside!"

"You're right, they have indeed noticed that we are monitoring their signals and have most likely made some preparations, but it's impossible to do anything comprehensive in such a short time. They're in the villa, and with so many people and firepower, they can't escape."

Zhang Ailun thought for a moment and immediately gave the order, "Then go knock on the door. The rest of you surround the back door and windows of the villa to prevent them from escaping. Pry open the window and enter through the back door. If the enemy is unarmed and poses no threat to our lives, only Tasers are allowed! Even if the enemy has a small-caliber pistol, only hit non-vital areas. We all have body armor and helmets, so we'll be fine after taking a bullet. But if the enemy takes a bullet, they'll most likely die instantly, and the trail will be cut off."

"Understood." Boketu immediately led his men to do it, and a group of them secretly surrounded the entire building.

Paige then led her people to the front door and knocked on it.

Voices could be heard coming from inside, and soon someone came to open the door. The young man opened the door without any suspicion, looked at Paige standing outside, and paused, "What are you doing here? FBI?"

Paige glanced at the young man, then pushed open the door without hesitation and pounced on him, knocking him to the ground!

"Oh shit!! What are you doing?!" The young man was shoved and fell to the ground, completely terrified. He screamed, "Robbers! Robbers! Call 911! Waaaaah..."

Before she could finish speaking, her mouth was covered, and no amount of struggling could change her mind.

The young man was terrified, his face flushed, and he was still struggling desperately. Paige pulled out a gun, pressed it against his forehead, and said in a low voice, "Don't move! Or I'll shoot!!"

The young man was instantly terrified.

His whole body stiffened, and he dared not move. He could only obediently lie on the ground to cooperate with him in tying him up, watching helplessly as three or four people filed in, kicking down doors upstairs and downstairs to check the situation.

"There's no threat in the kitchen!"

"There's no threat in the bathroom!"

"There's no threat in the bedroom!"

"The room is occupied!!"

The young man's girlfriend heard the commotion outside and, feeling puzzled, immediately went out. She ran into the search team right away and was taken aback.

She turned her head and saw her boyfriend being pinned to the ground, and instantly screamed in terror, "Who are you people?! Oh my god! What are you doing! Ah!!"

"Don't shout or scream!!" the Texas thug warned her sternly, pointing his gun at her.

But his warning with the gun went unanswered; the woman was still screaming and covering her head. In desperation, he pulled out his Taser, aimed it at her, and pulled the trigger.

With a snap, accompanied by a surge of electricity, the woman fell straight onto the carpet.

"I told you not to yell, why won't you listen?" the henchman cursed, then said to the person next to him, "Threat deactivated!"

"There is no threat on the second floor."

The group conducted a thorough search of the building and provided feedback. After confirming that there were only two people in the entire building, a man and a woman, Page was also somewhat surprised and immediately informed the leader.

Zhang Ailun waited outside the door, listening to the chaos and screams coming from inside the room. Only after everything calmed down did he enter the room.

Looking at the young man who was pressed to the ground and turned red, and then at the woman who was tied up, after confirming that there was no longer any threat, he waved his hand, and the henchman next to him immediately brought over a stool.

Zhang Ailun sat in a chair and said, "Call everyone in, then close the door."

The people next to him immediately did as he was told, calling everyone into the room and then closing the door tightly.

A group of men with guns stood in a circle, silently watching the young man. The atmosphere in the room was tense and oppressive.

Zhang Ailun looked at the young man and gestured for Paige to remove his gag.

"What are you going to do? Who are you people?" the young man asked, his voice choked with fear.

"I'm Juan Jin. So you're from the ACR organization?" Zhang Ailun asked without changing his expression. "Who is that woman to you? A relative? Or your lover? Are you the only two people here?"

"She's my girlfriend. I don't know what you're talking about. This is our home, and it's just the two of us living here."

When the young man heard the leader introduce himself, he was struck dumb, his mind went blank, and he was terrified.

He tried to keep his emotions in check and asked, "What exactly do you want? I don't know anything about Juankin or ACR. You've got the wrong person! Get out of my house right now, or you'll be breaking the law!"

Seeing that he was still putting up a stubborn resistance, Zhang Ailun didn't care. He gave Boketu a wink, signaling him to take his men to carefully search for relevant evidence.

Soon after, Boketu returned with a laptop and a mobile phone.

Using the young man's image and fingerprint to unlock the phone, Zhang Ailun opened the contacts. Looking at the nicknames and annotations, he gave the young man a meaningful look. "Who is this? Acr? Your friend?"

The young man was speechless, still somewhat numb, not knowing why he had been discovered. His mind was a jumbled mess, and he had lost the ability to think.

He now recalled the warning the jaguar had given him earlier; it turned out the jaguar had indeed discovered him. The young man suddenly felt annoyed and regretful.

He was furious at his carelessness and regretted joining such an organization. Now that he had been arrested offline, he was likely doomed!

They might be buried alive, drowned in a toilet, or even skinned alive, have their hearts and lungs ripped out. Their girlfriends might also be subjected to hardship before being killed.

The more the young man thought about it, the more frightened he became.

Zhang Ailun looked at the phone numbers in his contacts; he had been in contact with them just a few minutes ago.

After a moment's thought and comparing the timelines, he sighed, "Although you've realized you might be at risk of exposure, there simply isn't enough time to make arrangements. So, were you just packing up to take refuge somewhere else? Or did you completely disregard our cyber surveillance capabilities?"

Now that things had come to this, the young man knew he had nothing left to pretend about, so he decisively admitted his identity, replying numbly, "I am indeed a member of the ACR organization, their hacker. Jaguar warned me before, but at that time I was playing games and had no idea you would come so quickly, nor did I think you had actually found my location..."

The details of the Aragua fire were also fully disclosed.

But the young man was terrified at the thought of the cruelty he was about to face. He suddenly broke down, crying and sobbing, "I was wrong, Mr. Jin, please don't kill me!"

"You're putting me in a difficult position. I haven't provoked you, yet you keep coming to bother me. Do you think I have a good temper? What's the password to your laptop?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"DFG425," the young man answered honestly.

Zhang Ailun unlocked the laptop smoothly, and as soon as he opened it, he saw intimate and private photos of a man and a woman. He couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.

He gave the young man a strange look and said, "Using this as background wallpaper, you really are something else."

But your size is too small.

Your girlfriend has a nice figure.

Indeed, this is the color of youth.

The leader was speechless. He searched the laptop but didn't find many useful clues. However, there were many programming software programs and many files were encrypted, indicating that it was a professional laptop used for work.

Zhang Ailun exclaimed, "You're still a high school student?"

Because he saw several more learning apps.

"We'll be college students soon," the young man honestly replied. "My girlfriend and I both applied to the same university to study computer networking, and we were both admitted despite not meeting the usual requirements because of our excellent grades. We also have the money to pay our tuition; we don't need to take out a bank loan."

"Did you buy this ranch house in the suburbs for yourselves?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"This has been passed down in my family," the young man replied.

"What a talent!" Zhang Ailun exclaimed in amazement. Are all high school students this amazing these days?

Then he asked, "How many people are in your ACR? Where are your outposts located? What activities have you been up to lately? Is Jaguar your friend or your boss?"

"I don't know either, because I've only been a member of Acr for a little over a year and have only participated in a few activities. The most I ever received was $8 in dividends."

The young man honestly replied, "The ACR organization has network members all over the world. My code name in the organization is Pineapple. Jaguar is the person who brought me into this business; he's my friend. Our organization doesn't have a real leader; all decisions are made through online meetings using virtual identities. Therefore, I don't know their real identities or how many people there are. But whenever the organization pieces together enough intelligence through long-term monitoring, and after a meeting and vote, we invite people from other organizations to cooperate offline and then carry out a theft plan against the target."

"Like what you did with Jehovah Island?" Zhang Ailun asked. "Then you must have already taken over many private islands and private properties, right?"

"That's right," the young man said dejectedly, "but I didn't expect it to cause trouble. We've always carried out our plans overseas, rarely targeting domestic entities, and certainly not banks or jewelry stores; that would only lead to trouble."

"Good decision. Who suggested that you instigate the Aragua Fire?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"It was an internal proposal that was voted on and approved, because we wanted to connect with their people to do something big," the young man replied.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"I can't say," the young man said fearfully, "unless you promise not to hurt me or my girlfriend."

"Okay, I promise I won't hurt you." Zhang Ailun smiled. "Can you tell me now?"

The young man was speechless with emotion. "It was just a verbal agreement; it's not reliable at all. I'm still being held captive by you..."

"Actually, I could easily beat you up, use the torture methods you often see in movies, torment and humiliate you, and you would definitely talk then," Zhang Ailun said. "You have absolutely no right to bargain with me, do you?"

"You're right. But if you really did that, I would rather die than tell! I still have that much backbone! You didn't intend to let me live if you attacked me. I'll die whether I tell you or not, so why should I say anything?" the young man replied, his scalp tingling.

Zhang Ailun nodded. "That makes sense."

He turned to Paige and said, "Let's take him to the bathroom and beat him up to vent our anger. He'll definitely talk."

"Understood!" Page immediately pulled the person up from the ground.

Seeing the young man's incredulous expression, Zhang Ailun chuckled and said, "Young man, let's make a bet. I bet you'll tell. If I win, there's no punishment for you, because you've already revealed everything and all the secrets. If I lose, then I'll beat you up a few more times! Until you tell all the secrets. What do you think?"

The young man was on the verge of tears, crying out, "What kind of unfair contract is this?"

"So, are you going to tell me or not?" Zhang Ailun asked.

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!!" The young man immediately backed down.

I also felt that Mr. Kim wasn't as cruel as I had imagined; he was actually quite easy to talk to.

At least they didn't shove a gun down his ass right away, nor did they smear pepper spray on his penis and testicles, nor did they have anyone rape him!

That would be terrible.