Chapter 1 Jennifer's Arrival

"Jennifer, what are you doing here?"

Zoey said in an unfriendly tone.

Jennifer ignored Zoey. She looked at the fat man sitting on the bed, dazed and silent, and thought that he should be alright.

Jennifer said to Zoey, "That day, after I separated from you, the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, so I conducted my own secret investigation."

She deliberately lowered her voice and said to Zoey, "After some investigation, I discovered some clues. The first piece of information I want to tell you is that Dick Beale, the black officer who sold us the submarine, is missing... I went back to the Roosevelt Road Naval Base and asked several people who worked there, but they were all evasive and didn't know where Dick had gone. But I also learned through certain channels that General Porter suddenly came to the naval base on the day we made the submarine deal with Dick. After General Porter arrived, Dick disappeared, and then General Porter blamed Dick for the theft of the submarine and launched a special military operation to find the stolen submarine.

The final result of the operation was that the stolen submarine resisted the military's interception with force, and the submarine was then sunk by the military, and Dick died on the submarine.

Later, I delved deeper and found that the administrator who helped us lift the submarine into the sea at the pier disappeared on the same day as Dick...

So I suspect that General Porter knew about our operation in advance, and someone among the six of us betrayed us."

Jennifer found evidence that someone had betrayed them, but this information alone was not enough to clear her of suspicion.

Jennifer said sternly to Zoey and the fat man, "If you think I'm the one who betrayed you, then do whatever you want, but if you believe me, then please come with me."

Zoey translated Jennifer's words to the fat man to hear his opinion. Although the fat man was clueless about Han Yu's kidnapping and in a bad mood, his impression of Jennifer had not worsened.

The last time he forced Jennifer away was not the fat man's intention in the first place; he had simply done nothing. This time, the initiative was in his hands, and he didn't want to do anything aimless again.

The fat man made an ok gesture, and then he and Zoey followed Jennifer out of the private hospital.

Jennifer insisted that they ride in her car. Zoey couldn't persuade Jennifer, and after she and the fat man got into Jennifer's car, Jennifer told them the truth: "I suspect that you have been under surveillance for a long time, and the person watching you is none other than Richard Curtis."

Zoey felt a chill down her spine and was vaguely uneasy. She asked doubtfully, "Richard?"

Jennifer threw a file to Zoey and said, "The second thing I want to tell you is about Richard."

Jennifer started the car, and it sped away from the private hospital.

After Zoey returned from the Himalayas, she began to deal with the Z organization. At that time, she had no power to rely on in the United States. The people in her family had intricate relationships with the Z organization, and she didn't want to wade through that muddy water again, so she chose to fight alone.

After all, one person's strength is limited, and Zoey fell into a passive position not long after fighting against the Z organization. The main reason was that people at the highest level of the organization held different opinions on Daniel's death in the Mountains of Madness. Many people outwardly agreed with Zoey, but secretly made small moves.

Zoey wanted to get out of the Z organization as much as possible, but she couldn't fight against so many people, and she ran into obstacles everywhere in actual operation. Just when she encountered difficulties, her university classmate and former friend Richard appeared at the right time.

Richard not only had connections but also acted decisively, helping Zoey solve many problems. Of course, Zoey didn't completely trust him at first. She secretly conducted a background check on Richard. According to the investigation results, Richard had a clean background, no criminal record, and no connection with the Z organization. Finally, Zoey was relieved to have subsequent business cooperation with Richard.

"So, you're saying Richard is a problem?"

The unexpected information made Zoey a little flustered.

"You'll know when you open the file and take a look. With your intelligence, you should be able to see the problem soon," Jennifer said without looking away.

Zoey took out the documents in the file and carefully flipped through them page by page. The content on the first few pages was almost the same as the background check she had done on Richard earlier.

The content on the next few pages was something Zoey had never seen before. These pages had nothing to do with Richard himself, but rather Richard's mother's medical records. Medical records were not easy to obtain, and Zoey wondered how Jennifer had the time to retrieve Richard's mother's medical records.

But when Zoey began to browse the medical records, she realized what was going on.

Richard's mother, Lauren Curtis, was diagnosed with kidney failure five years ago and had been relying on hemodialysis to survive ever since. But a year ago, Lauren's condition suddenly deteriorated, and she urgently needed a kidney transplant, but kidney sources were difficult to find. Lauren's ranking in the medical system for waiting for a kidney transplant was fourth. There were three other people ahead of her waiting for a transplant. If she waited for the transplant according to her ranking, Lauren would not be able to hold on until then.

However, two months after Zoey returned to the United States from the Himalayas, which was around the time she and Richard began to contact each other, Lauren's transplant ranking actually moved up, and not the kind of steady climb, but a leap to first place. Not long after, Lauren successfully received a transplant.

There are two ways to improve the transplant ranking: one is that the people ahead of you have successfully received transplants, and then it's your turn; the other is that the people ahead of you die or voluntarily give up, and no longer need to receive a transplant.

Although it is not known what the situation was with the three people ahead of Lauren, judging from this medical record, it was extremely abnormal for the three people waiting for organ transplants to uniformly "give up" receiving transplants in a very short period of time.

It was chilling to think about, which meant that someone had arranged all of this for Lauren. And this person's methods were extremely clever, or extremely cruel.

Jennifer then added, "Richard leaked our every move to General Porter."

When Zoey was in action, she guarded against Jennifer in every possible way, watching her every move, but in the end, she didn't expect to be betrayed by her own confidant.

Zoey recalled Richard's characteristics—he could speak Chinese, understood a little Chinese culture, and was very familiar with her work and career. This was completely the best candidate to infiltrate the team.

Being able to know so much about Zoey's actions and past meant that the person behind Richard knew Zoey's past like the back of their hand. Zoey had not been in the United States for long before someone arranged for Richard to be by her side, and they had also accurately predicted what would happen later.

Perhaps everything that had happened since the young master's return was also planned by the person behind Richard.