The Ultimate Past Volume 0 Chapter 14

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For the next few days, both teams were working crazily; Harvey and Matthew's team was busy closing the case while Anton was busy tracking down the Asian gang and simultaneously examining the clues of the Boston explosion that targeted him.

Both sides made progress very quickly, and the results were almost astonis.h.i.+ng. Hidden among the Asians that entered the US days prior to the incident were doc.u.mented Korean mercenaries who departed just after the incident occurred.

As for the 'Dragon Seal' gang, they were indeed very close to the Collins twenty years ago. However, the gang was almost exterminated in a turf battle fifteen years ago. At that time, Anton was already over twenty and a recent police academy graduate, yet he remembered nothing about this incident. He had never even heard of 'Dragon Seal'. The information in his hands inevitably confused him – "undercover for 8 years" – when did Rene become a cop? He shook his head while walking to the office. There is no denying that he inadvertently felt attracted to this man, perhaps because of the EAGLE.

In the office, Rene was sitting at the edge of the table wearing a light grey suit with his back towards the door. Recently, Rene had been spending several afternoon hours in the office every few days, reading cases and solving all relevant problems. Every time, he sat at this seat next to the door at the side of the administrative office, facing the water dispenser.

"Harvey, who closed these two cases?" Rene was reading the cases that Harvey placed in front of him.

"Reynold." Harvey's expression was interesting and suggestive.

Rene put the cases aside and mused. After a while, he finally spoke. "Close them then. Backup all the data, and don’t seal the files in the archives. Leave some permissions open."

Before he finished, both Harvey and Matthew looked at him in surprise. Rene sighed, "That’s the only thing we can do now. Only you guys need to know this." They nodded. The trust between them deepened.

Rene pushed his case folders to the side and looked around, "Where is everyone else?"

"Anton's men are having a discussion session. Our men are in the interrogation room – Hey, why are you back?"

Anton was shocked to see Harvey and Matthew smiling at Rene when he walked in. He looked around in confusion, "I am here to pick up a delivery. They told me it just arrived."

"Owen put it on your desk."

"Owen?" Oh, the administrative person who started this morning, Anton remembered. A likable young man.

"Anton, do you mind me observing your discussion?" Rene asked.

The discussion meetings were usually chaotic. All kinds of opinions, theories, suspicions and even fantasies were thrown around. Sometimes there won’t be a single piece of constructive opinion for a long time. Even for those "elites", that’s not an exception.

"Now we know that Lynch was already dead two days before the case. The autopsy report says it was around midnight two days ago, which means the "Lynch" the neighbors saw afterwards was indeed not him. We also looked into the mercenaries and got almost all the information about the people they met with after entering the States. One of them is an Asian American named Jeong Hwan Yong. He’s also Korean." Anton briefed the basics to Rene on the way.

"Jeong Hwan Yong?" Rene paused at the name.

"Yes? Do you know this name as well?"

Rene hesitated, then shook his head, "Nope." However, however, a strange feeling stirred in his heart, an ominous one. Rene smiled it off. Let it be!

"We compared an unclear figure from a CCTV capture, and this "fake Lynch" is about 3 inches taller than the real one. Lynch is 5 ft 11, so this 'fake' is about 6 ft 2, which is similar to Jeong Hwan Yong's height. We are investigating everyone that had interaction with Lynch, and about Jeong Hwan Yong himself – who and where he is. That’s our focus at the moment."

"I don’t know the situation well," Rene slowed down the pace smiling, "the Collins probably had some grunge with that gang whose men got murdered. If both of them get hit, who will benefit from it?"

"The Collins. And Michael, who just got arrested by Harvey." Anton answered.

Rene nodded, "So all three sides are probably looking for this Jeong?"

Anton's face became serious. "Yes. But what made you think that there’s something wrong with Lynch?"

Rene smiled, "Hmm, I just think that many Asians look similar. If they are not very familiar with each other, even neighbors might not be able to tell them apart." Under Anton's confused look, Rene added after some hesitation, "I used to have a Chinese girlfriend. She often switches clothes with her sister in order to fool around. I even learned some Chinese from her." They walked into the meeting room, smiling.

Words about Rene having served in the EAGLE had been spread out by the loud-mouthed Roger. Because of that, the meeting had a much more relaxed atmosphere.

When the meeting was almost over, Roger suddenly waved his arms gleefully from his seat. "Rene, I have a question!"

"What?" Rene turned around. To his surprise, the men below were looking at him expectedly.

"Do you know Harrison?"

Rene stopped, then looked Roger up and down. His eyes suddenly brightened, "Are you Harry's younger brother, little Roy?"

Roger laughed.

"Hi, h.e.l.lo!" Rene laughed too, reaching his hand across the table. Roger stood up and leaned forward across the chairs to shake hands with him.

"Hi!" Roger's face was a bit red. He turned around to smile at everyone else, "Harrison joined pretty late, so I didn’t expect you to know him! But why did you leave?"

Rene hesitated, "Maybe I felt that I had stayed for too long." He smiled bitterly and waved his hands, about to leave.

"Anton, the info from Boston has arrived." A round-faced young man walked in at that moment and handed Anton several pieces of paper. That was Owen, a blonde, comely young man. He curiously looked at Rene while giving Anton the data.

The information was about the warehouse that got blown up in Boston.

The warehouse was rented by an employee of a nearby hospital. There was nothing suspicious; he didn’t have any criminal record, and the warehouse was insured.

The owner of the warehouse works in an investment corp, who was also clean. He didn’t even know that the warehouse was gone. Neither of them visited the warehouse recently, nor did they know who had been there recently. The neighbors had no idea either. The clues for the warehouse was cut off here.

This was expected. Anton put away the envelope and looked up.

"Wait! Hey, do you know 'Tiger'?" Roger stopped Rene again from the front seat.

Rene was surprised and stopped, "Why?"

Hearing the nickname, Anton's eye turned towards Rene as well. He also knew the name 'Tiger.' It’s said that 'Tiger' was a tough and talented fighter who was especially good at strategic deployment. He was known as a workaholic in EAGLE. In the most famous and toughest battles for EAGLE, it was him who made the breakthrough with his men attacking head-on. That was what made EAGLE's success nationwide news and how they became the primary anti-terrorism attacking force in the east coast.

In fact, Anton always had a secret wish in heart, that one day he could cooperate with Tiger, instead of other people's wish of only meeting him. If… …if only that theory course didn't exist, he would have made it into EAGLE a long time ago.

The fact was that EAGLE had very strict requirements. Over 5 years of service was needed for the application alone. Then one needed to go through a series of stupidly written exams and practical tests for subjects like law, police affairs, firearms, driving, combating… After that was two years in training camp, at the end of which were a simulated preliminary test and a final field test – speaking of which, it's such a shame that he couldn't pa.s.s one of those theory courses by any means – d.a.m.n it, why did they test special forces on international politics and economics?! He got so p.i.s.sed every time he thought of that.

"Do you know him? 'Tiger'?" Roger asked again excitedly.

Rene turned his head around, "What about him?"

"He’s one of those famous figures at the peak of EAGLE! Have you ever worked with him?"

Rene hesitated, and nodded, "Kind of."

"You don't like him?" Roger saw Rene's expression and felt disheartened. He sat back to the chair, "he’s my brother's friend."

Rene nodded, "Your brother has a lot of friends."

"Of course!" Roger curled up his lips, "I heard that 'Tiger' has a bad temper, is it true?" He asked again in hope.

Rene smiled bitterly, and replied in a low voice, "Just wait and you will know if he has bad temper… Are you guys leaving? It’s gonna rain." He raised his voice.

Everyone got up and started to leave.

Rene and Roger, who was waiting for Anton, walked into the elevator together. Roger couldn't hold himself back and asked again, "Then, how long did you stay in the EAGLE? You must know many of them, right?"

"I stayed there for five years. If you count the training, then seven." Rene said. He looked at Anton before continuing with an exceptionally plain tone, "I left three years ago. I spent two years in administration after that, then I moved to the financial crimes last year."

With the ding of the elevator, Anton and Roger arrived at their floor. They walked out, and Anton couldn't help but turn around to say goodbye. He finally admitted that he started to take a liking for Rene. It seemed that this guy in front him was no longer so cold and unfriendly.

However, Anton could never have imagined that within three days, his feelings liking would be completed and irreversibly overturned.

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