Time passed by second by second, and when the second hand and minute hand overlapped at twelve o'clock, the atmosphere in the safe house suddenly became solemn.
Mrs. Blanc was playing with a handful made of gold in her hand. Both the texture and the craftsmanship were very exquisite. She stared at the dial with an expressionless face, as if she was waiting for something.
Time passed minute by minute. I don’t know how long it was. Nothing happened. As expected, the phone might not ring. Mrs. Blanc gave a ridiculous laugh and was about to shake her head and continue with the official business at hand.
hour.
The door to the safe house was suddenly pulled open without warning.
Mrs. Blanc was horrified, struck hard with her right hand, and firmly grasped the handle of the knife she just knew she had, while her other hand shrank under the table.
A well-dressed white man who could be described as above-average in terms of facial features, body and temperament walked in slowly.
His movements and expressions were very casual, and you could tell he was very relaxed, as if he was back at home.
The sense of defenselessness radiating from the inside out made Mrs. Blanc more and more vigilant.
"Who are you?"
"I think we can completely skip this nonsense! Questions like who are you, how did you get here? Where are the people outside? Why didn't I hear anything? What is your purpose, etc.
It makes absolutely no sense to me.
I think you also know that no one will tell you these things!"
The white man spread his hands and displayed two bright silver modified pistols.
Mrs. Blanc remained calm: "Oh? Then you think I should just die in confusion?"
"Don't worry! You won't die!"
The white man walked to the sofa area and sat down casually: "There are a lot of people in the Chicago Continental Hotel. Together, there are almost more than 300 people. The harvest is not bad, so one more for you is not more, and one for you is less.
One is not enough, so I might as well leave you to deliver the message for me!
By the way, a friendly reminder, you’d better not pull the trigger of the loaded Thunderton shotgun you taped under the table, otherwise you will be exempted from this final preferential treatment!”
Mrs. Blanc's hand hidden under the table froze, as if she had touched a boiling hot water kettle, and she suddenly retracted her hand from the handle of the gun.
But the next moment, she held it more firmly.
The white man smiled, as if he had seen through Mrs. Blanc's little trick, but he didn't mean to point it out.
"You have half an hour to call the managers of the Continental Hotels in Los Angeles and Houston and remind them that in half an hour, someone will come to take their lives.
If you want to save your life, recruit enough people within half an hour!"
After saying this, the white man stood up, nodded politely, turned around and left!
"stop!"
Taking this opportunity, Mrs. Blanc suddenly tore off the Remington, raised it with an extremely standard movement, pointed at the white man and shouted: "Tell me clearly, who are you?"
The white man said nothing, turned his head and gave her a "are you kidding me" expression, and finally shook his head in disappointment, turned around and continued to leave.
Mrs. Blanc's eyes flashed coldly, and she pulled the trigger fiercely.
Bang!
The gunshot roared and the shotgun bullets flew out. If this shot was accurate, any strong person would be turned into a sieve on the spot.
Unfortunately, when the gunshot rang out, the white man had already disappeared.
One shot actually missed.
Mrs. Blanc could hardly believe her eyes. She was stunned for a moment, then ran over quickly, pointed the muzzle of the gun upward, and put it as close to her body as possible. She stood upright and pressed against the wall next to the door.
She listened hard, trying to hear some clues, but it was empty outside, as if there was no one.
But, how is this possible?
"By the way! I forgot to tell you, if you are interested, you can say hello to Winston in New York first. I think you have some problems, and he can solve them!
In addition, although I am a generous person, I will never allow myself to be offended again and again, so you'd better remind the two hotel managers in Los Angeles and Houston not to make the same mistake.
, otherwise you won’t be able to stay as a messenger!”
The voice drifted into the safe house leisurely, and the people coming were erratic, as if someone was talking to the ear.
This startled Mrs. Blanc. She jumped out reflexively, raised the muzzle of the gun, and quickly scanned the surrounding environment.
But the result was that there was no one there.
And this is precisely the most abnormal place...
As a hotel manager, it can be said that he controls most of the power that is directly under the ground. Even if he works in a safe house every day, there are permanent security teams stationed on the floor below and outside this floor.
The number has always been between seven and fourteen, fully armed, but now, there is no one!
Mrs. Blanc suddenly had a bad premonition, and the speculation derived from this premonition made her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
"Impossible! Impossible, impossible, impossible! No one can silently get rid of the people in this Continental Hotel, no one! No one!"
Mrs. Blanc's eyes were split and bloodshot, and she staggered anxiously into the elevator and went all the way down to the first floor.
Ding dong!
The elevator door opened and the lobby was empty.
Mrs. Blanc tightly grasped the shotgun in her hand, and while she was wary of unknown enemies who might be hiding in the periphery, she quickly walked to the bar and pressed the emergency alarm button.
Immediately, the entire Continental Hotel was cut off and plunged into darkness. Three seconds later, the emergency power supply was turned on and the escape lights turned on.
The emergency lights embedded in the ceiling and the emergency exit lights embedded in the floor glowed faintly.
Mrs. Blanc took a step back, hiding her body in the shadows, raising the muzzle of her gun slightly, like a poisonous tongue hidden in the darkness, staring coldly at the door.
One minute!
Two minutes!
five minutes!
ten minutes!
Until nearly a quarter of an hour passed, the entire building was still as quiet as a ghost. The elevator supplied by the emergency power supply was obviously usable, but no one even pressed it.
Mrs. Blanc's heart sank. She put down the shotgun little by little, took a few deep breaths, suppressed the turmoil in her heart and thoughts, and slowly picked up the phone.
He was using so much force that his phone rattled loudly, as if he would be forced into two parts of the process at any moment.
But at this time, Mrs. Blanc was no longer in the mood to pay attention to these details.
The phone rang a few times and was quickly answered.
Before Winston's voice could be heard, Mrs. Blanc couldn't help but yelled in a low voice: "Winston! What on earth have you done!"
"……he came?"
Winston was silent for a moment, his voice calm, as if he had anticipated the call.
But in Mrs. Blanc's ears, there was obvious sarcasm and gloating.
If Winston's old face appeared in front of her, she felt that she would definitely shoot him to pieces without hesitation!
"Here he comes! Who is he? You won't be afraid if you look at him..."
"Bronc! Bronc! Bronc!"
Winston repeated Mrs. Blanc's surname in an operatic aria, "You are also an old man in the industry. Can you stop saying such childish words? Things are happening right in front of you. Don't you still believe it?"
Mrs. Blanc clenched her teeth, but was speechless.
Winston was obviously not in a hurry and was waiting calmly.
After a while, Mrs. Blanc's breathing gradually calmed down.
She seemed to have adjusted her emotions, and after a moment of silence, she said: "He asked me to inform William and Siegel that he would visit in half an hour!"
"How long were you delayed?" Winston hit the nail on the head.
Not because of wisdom, but because of personal experience.
At that time, Gao Ning was only given one hour, and when he informed, there were only forty-five minutes left.
"About twenty minutes!" When Mrs. Blanc said this, her expression was very calm and she was not embarrassed at all.
Winston was slightly speechless, "So why haven't you called yet? Do you just want to leave them three minutes?"
"You beat me too!"
"Are you afraid that they don't believe it? Or that they just believe it and don't take it seriously? Just like you?"
"There is absolutely no need for you to say that last sentence!"
Mrs. Blanc hung up the phone harshly.
On the other side, Winston listened to the blind tone on the phone, shrugged, and dialed the number directly.
…
At the Continental Hotel in Los Angeles, Manager William has completely entered the stage of old age. His hair has completely fallen out, leaving only an old wrinkled scalp. At this time, he is playing games with two female colleagues in the manager's exclusive lounge.
The sound of frolicking continued through the well-soundproof wooden door and returned to the office area.
On the desk, the phone rang over and over again, on the carpet, and the cell phone in the trouser pocket kept beating, but no one cared at all.
A few minutes later, a wisp of darkness enveloped the entire Continental Hotel. It appeared very suddenly and disappeared very quickly, staying for only a tenth of a second.
However, such a change is fatal.
The door to the safe house was opened from the outside. The white man walked slowly. After seeing the situation in the room, he was slightly startled and looked towards the lounge.
"Sure enough, it is impossible for every manager to be as dedicated as Winston and Blanc!"
The white man waved his hand, turned around and left.
On the big bed in the lounge, Manager William was playing Arhat. Someone noticed a feeling of weightlessness. However, before he could react, the three of them fell into the dark space door together.
The person disappeared and the space door slowly closed, as if he had never appeared before.
Only the messy traces on the big bed and the strange smell in the room were left, proving what happened here.
…
At the Continental Hotel in Houston, Manager Ziegel, who was in his early forties, skinny but 1.9 meters tall, was answering the phone at the crematorium on the third basement floor.
In front of him, more than twenty strong men in work clothes were busy in front of the boiler. From time to time, they would push corpses from the freezer not far away and throw them directly into the boiler like dumping garbage.
The workers waiting nearby quickly closed the door of the incineration chamber and pressed the feeding button. The flames instantly rose. The sharply rising temperature burned the human body into coke and then into a pile of bones in a short period of time.
.
The automatic programs on both sides of the boiler detect that the weight has reached the predetermined area, the oxygen supply pipe is automatically closed, the flame and temperature drop rapidly, and the side door is opened by workers. They use professional tools to sweep the ashes aside, wait for them to cool, and then load them next to them.
in gasoline barrels and sent to the fertilizer factory.
These ashes will be mixed with the ashes of cattle, sheep, and pigs, and after adding different doses of potassium, sodium, calcium and other elements, they will be transformed into high-end bone meal fertilizers supplied internally.
This process is Siegel's favorite. Whenever he feels agitated or encounters any problem, he will come here and ask his men to burn the accumulated corpses.
When the flames transformed these corpses into useful things, Siegel also felt as if he had been sublimated.
Not only the brain, but even the fatigue of the body disappears with the burning of the flames.
But today, he could no longer care about the flames in the incinerator.
"What did you say?"
"William is missing! Along with a total of 272 people inside the Continental Hotel in Los Angeles, they disappeared together!"
"Winston! This is not a funny joke!"
Ziegel's voice was low, like a bulldog growling.
"There's no need to pretend to be stupid, Siegel! You are a cautious person and good at weaving intelligence networks. In all my experiences in North America, you are the only one who has the best information!
Although what happened between me and Blanc just happened within an hour or two, if it were you, you should have found out the exact news, right?
In other words, you have even been to William’s place?”
"..."
"Haha!" Winston chuckled: "Sure enough!"
"Tell me! Why is it that while you are fine, William disappears? Who is the enemy? How did they do this? Even the clean-up force that Gao Tai Table has trained since childhood cannot destroy so many people silently.
people!"
Siegel's eyes were gloomy. He seriously suspected that this was a premeditated organization, and that spies might even be planted in all Continental Hotel branches.
If this were not the case, it would be impossible to do things so cleanly!
"You're asking the wrong person! But I have a suggestion. If you don't want to die, you'd better leave the Continental Hotel as soon as possible instead of resigning yourself to fate!"
"Who is he?"
"That's all! In addition, if you survive, remember to tell me the adult's next target. I am also very interested in it!"
Winston had no intention of answering the question. After finishing his words, he hung up the phone directly.
When he looked up, the figure of Mrs. Blanc was displayed on the monitor on the wall.
Mrs. Blanc, who was calm and calm before, with the temperament of a church mother, was now clearly a bit panicked and confused.
Even though Winston acted very calmly, deep down in his heart, he was still disturbed by what Gao Ning's demon puppet had done.
After confirming the news from Houston, he lost interest in talking for a while.
Mrs. Blanc didn't know what to say.
After the two were silent for a few minutes, Winston suddenly looked up: "I think it's time to call the arbitrator!"
