Chapter 518
Old Knife Knows You
The briefing room was filled with the mixed smells of coffee and the heat from electronic devices.
The intelligence officer pulled up a high-resolution satellite image of the fjord and pointed to two-thirds of the way down the winding waterway.
“Here, below the ice cliff,” he said, “thermal imaging shows an abnormal heat source, which is continuous and stable, not intermittent geothermal activity.”
Hailong-4 leaned closer to the screen: "Scale?"
“It’s roughly the size of a standard basketball court,” the intelligence officer zoomed in on the image. “But the depth is unknown. The ice is too thick; only the outline can be seen through the radar.”
"The entrance is underwater?" Jiang Nian asked.
“Definitely.” The intelligence officer switched the camera. “Look at the water flow analysis of this fjord. The main direction is southeast, but there’s a small clockwise whirlpool here, fifty meters in diameter. This indicates there’s an underwater inlet that’s pumping in seawater.”
"The base's ventilation system." Hailong No. 4 understood.
Qin Lao's voice came through the communicator: "I analyzed the sonar data simultaneously. Eighty meters below the vortex, there is a regular metallic echo, about thirty meters long, which matches the characteristics of a medium-sized submarine berth."
"Can you confirm the guard force?" Bai Yongxu asked.
“It’s difficult.” The intelligence officer shook his head. “Both sides of the fjord are vertical ice cliffs, making it impossible to set up ground observation points. The drone flew over once but was forced back by electromagnetic interference. All we know is that the vessel that went in three hours ago was an improved Seawolf-class submarine with a full-load displacement of 9,000 tons, which can theoretically carry 40 to 50 combat personnel.”
Yang Zhan stood in the corner of the briefing room and suddenly spoke: "Not only that."
Everyone looked at him.
“Since Dawn dares to challenge the organization, it must have some trump cards.” The old instructor walked to the screen and pointed to the heat source. “A base of this size requires at least a resident maintenance team of twenty people. Add the submarine crew, and then the defense forces…”
He paused for a moment: "The total number will not be less than one hundred."
The room was silent for a few seconds.
"Six against one hundred." Hailong No. 4 smiled wryly. "The odds of winning aren't great."
“It’s not about annihilating them all,” Jiang Nian said. “The more people a base has, the more management loopholes it has.”
“That makes sense,” Old Qin replied. “A large base means a detailed division of labor and frequent personnel turnover. If you disguise yourselves as shift workers or supply personnel, you have a chance to infiltrate.”
"What about our identities?" asked a young member of the team, codenamed "Bayonet," who was skilled in demolition.
Jiang Nian pulled out the black access card from his pocket: "This is Manager Wang's card. It has the highest level of access to the platform. Since the people from Dawn have taken over the module, they are likely also collecting the platform's legacy data. This card is their pass."
"Would they believe that?"
You'll only know if you try.
Bai Yongxu's voice came through: "The action plan is approved. But remember, once exposed, don't linger. If you can't get the module, destroy it. Under no circumstances should Dawn be allowed to obtain the complete anchor point algorithm."
"clear."
……
Two hours later, at the entrance to the fjord.
Jiang Nian hovered ten meters underwater, looking ahead through his mask.
The fjord resembles a fissure cleaved by a giant axe, with towering ice cliffs on both sides, their peaks hidden in low-hanging clouds. Here, the current becomes turbulent, pushing them deeper into the water.
"Maintain formation," Hailong-4 said in the communications channel. "Bayonet and Hound in front, Jiang and I in the middle, Grey Goose and Rock at the rear. Sonar on full blast, watch out for underwater obstacles."
The six-person team advanced in a wedge shape.
Jiang Nian gripped the resonant blade, the hilt sheathed in the magnetic sheath at his side. He could feel a faint pulsation emanating from the hilt, like the heartbeat of a living thing.
"We're still 800 meters from the whirlpool," Qin Lao instructed in real time. "The water flow is increasing; be careful to maintain your posture."
The further in you go, the lower the visibility becomes.
Ice fragments kept breaking off the ice cliffs and sinking into the water, like a silent snowfall. Strange deep-sea creatures flashed by in the beam of the searchlight; some looked like pouches covered in tentacles, others like translucent lanterns.
"The temperature is dropping," Bayonet reported. "It's minus eight degrees Celsius. This is not right; it should be warmer deeper in the fjord."
“They are discharging cooling water,” Jiang Nian said. “The energy systems of large bases generate waste heat, and discharging it directly into the sea would cause the ice to melt and expose the location. So they need to cool it down before discharging it.”
"Smart," Old Qin praised. "Then follow the cold water flow, and we'll definitely find the entrance."
Sure enough, after advancing another two hundred meters, the water temperature plummeted to minus twelve degrees Celsius. The direction of the water flow also changed, from parallel to the fjord to slanting downwards, as if being sucked away by something.
"We've arrived." The Hailong No. 4 stopped.
Ahead, at the bottom of the ice cliff, a huge black hole opened up.
With a diameter exceeding twenty meters and smooth alloy edges, it is clearly a man-made object. A faint blue light emanates from the opening, casting an eerie glow underwater. The water here forms a distinct whirlpool with strong suction.
“Air intake,” Jiang Nian judged. “The base’s ventilation system. There should also be an exhaust vent nearby, but that one gets hotter and is easier to spot.”
"How do we get in?" asked the hound, the team's scouting expert. "If you just swim in, the current will sweep you up to the filter and grind you into mincemeat."
Jiang Nianyou approached the edge of the cave entrance.
The alloy walls were covered with maintenance protrusions and pipes that stretched into the darkness.
“Climb in,” he said. “Follow the edge, avoiding the main water flow. This kind of large air intake must have a maintenance passage for the cleaning robots.”
He found a pipe about the size of a bowl and felt his way forward along its wall. Sure enough, about five meters inside the opening, there was a sealed door about half a meter square, with a manual turntable on it.
“It’s rusted.” Jiang Nian tested the wheel. “It’s frozen.”
Bayonet swam over and took out a small spray can from his backpack: "Low-temperature defrosting agent, specifically for dealing with this."
The spray hit the rotating wheel, and the frosted surface melted rapidly. Jiang Nian exerted force, and the wheel creaked and groaned as it slowly began to turn.
The door opened.
Inside was a narrow, vertical passageway extending upwards. A faint, warm breeze blew down from above, carrying the smells of engine oil and ozone.
"I'll go first." Jiang Nian crawled inside.
There was a makeshift ladder in the passageway, but it was badly rusted. He simply used absorbent gloves and climbed up using both his hands and feet.
After climbing about thirty meters, light appeared overhead.
He stopped below the exit and listened intently.
There were regular mechanical sounds and faint human voices, but they were far away.
Jiang Nian poked her head out.
This is a huge filtration chamber, over ten meters high. In the center is a cylindrical filter, three stories high, slowly rotating. There are maintenance platforms and walkways around it, but it's empty at the moment.
He climbed up and crouched in the shadows.
Soon, the other five people also came up.
"Safe." Hailong No. 4 scanned its surroundings. "No surveillance cameras?"
“There should be one,” Jiang Nian pointed to the corner of the ceiling, “but the red indicator light isn’t on, so this area is probably only inspected periodically.”
“Let’s go through the maintenance access,” Jiang Nian said. “The airflow in the ventilation ducts is too strong, and there might be sensors there.”
The door wasn't locked.
Pushing open the door revealed an even narrower passage, lined with a dense network of pipes and cables on both sides. The temperature was noticeably higher, at least fifteen degrees Celsius.
“We’re heading towards the core of the base.” Old Qin analyzed the footage transmitted by Jiang Nian’s helmet camera. “Judging from the specifications of these pipelines, they are the main energy distribution lines. Following them will definitely get us to the central control area.”
The team moved forward quickly.
Occasionally, footsteps or voices could be heard in the distance through the passage, but they were all very faint. This area was clearly not frequented, as a thin layer of dust had accumulated on the ground. After walking for about ten minutes, a fork in the road appeared ahead.
"Left or right?" Hailong No. 4 asked.
Jiang Nian squatted down and carefully examined the ground.
The dust in the left passage was evenly distributed, while there was a cleaner mark in the middle of the right passage, as if people walked there frequently.
“The right side,” he said. “The frequently used path, leading to important areas.”
Just as I turned into the right-hand passage, I suddenly heard footsteps ahead!
And it wasn't just one person.
"Take cover!" Hailong No. 4 growled.
The six people quickly slipped into the gap in the pipe next to them and held their breath.
A few seconds later, three people in gray overalls walked over, chatting as they went.
"Damn it, another all-night shift," a young voice complained. "The control room says the main server's cooling system is on alarm again."
“It’s the same old problem.” The other voice was more composed. “This base was built too hastily, and all the equipment is second-hand. I heard they bought a decommissioned nuclear submarine reactor from the Russians and modified it.”
"No wonder there are problems every day. By the way, I heard that the person we brought back today, did he vomit anything?"
"No. Team Leader Dao interrogated him personally, all afternoon, and he didn't get a single thing out of him. He's just an ordinary technician, what could he possibly know?"
"But Manager Wang said he was the core engineer of the anchor platform and had the algorithm key."
"That's just bragging. If he were really a core engineer, would the organization have sent him to this godforsaken place like Greenland?"
The three of them gradually walked away from each other.
Jiang Nian and Hailong No. 4 exchanged a glance.
"Manager Wang has been arrested," Jiang Nian said in a low voice.
"And they mentioned the algorithm key." Hailong-4 frowned. "Wasn't the module stolen? What would they need the key for?"
"The module might be encrypted," Qin Lao's voice came through. "The organization is accustomed to multi-layered encryption. The physical module is one layer, the biometric key is another, and the dynamic password is yet another. None of them can be missing."
"So Dawn captured Manager Wang to force him to reveal the key." Jiang Nian understood. "Then we have to get there before they find out."
"We can't just wander around," Hailong No. 4 said. "We need to grab someone and ask for directions."
The opportunity came soon.
At a corner, they encountered a lone technician hurrying along with his toolbox.
Bayonet covered his mouth from behind and dragged him into the adjacent equipment room. The hound quickly closed the door, while Grey Goose and Rock stood guard outside.
The technician was a bald man in his forties with thick glasses. He trembled with fear as he was pinned against the wall.
"Don't kill me! I don't know anything!" he said in a low voice.
"Where is the control room?" Jiang Nian asked.
"What control room?"
"Central control room. Don't play dumb."
The technician swallowed hard: "It's on the third floor of Zone B, but you need level two access to get in."
"Where is Supervisor Wang being held?"
"I don't know anything about Manager Wang..."
Jiang Nian drew the resonant blade, and the blade glowed with a faint blue light.
The technician's eyes widened: "Wait! I said it's in the interrogation room in Zone D, on the second basement level! But the security there is very tight, with six people on duty in shifts!"
"Where's the module? The storage module?"
"Module? Oh, you mean that black box we brought back from the platform? It's in the database center, on the first floor of Area A, under the personal supervision of the Blade Team."
Jiang Nian glanced at Hailong No. 4.
"Splitting up?" Hailong No. 4 asked.
"Okay. You take three men to rescue Manager Wang, and Bayonet and I will go get the module. We'll meet up here after we've succeeded."
"What if we get exposed?"
"Then each of us should break out and evacuate according to the backup plan."
Hailong No. 4 nodded and said to the technician, "Take off your clothes."
Five minutes later, Jiang Nian and Bayonet, dressed in gray overalls and carrying toolboxes, walked out of the equipment room. The technician, tied up in a corner with a cloth gagged, stared at them in terror.
"Bear with it for a while." Bayonet patted his face. "Someone will find you in two hours."
……
Area A is the core area of the base.
The corridors are more spacious, the lighting is brighter, and the walls are clean white alloy. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, at every corner.
"Keep your head down," Jiang Nian whispered. "Don't make eye contact with the cameras."
The two followed the signs toward the database center. They encountered several groups of people along the way—technicians, security guards—but no one gave them a second glance. The base was vast, and with so many people, unfamiliar faces were not unusual.
“It’s just ahead.” Bayonet looked at the map on the wall. “There’s a security checkpoint at the entrance.”
Sure enough, at the end of the passage was a heavy alloy door, guarded by two men in black combat uniforms with guns at their waists. There were security cameras above the door, one on each side.
"What do we do?" Bayonet asked. "Force our way in?"
"Wait a minute," Jiang Nian observed.
Just then, the door opened, and a researcher in a white lab coat walked out, holding a tablet computer. The guard glanced at him and let him through.
“Researchers have high authority.” Jiang Nian understood. “We need to get two sets of white lab coats.”
As they were talking, a door opened, and two researchers walked out, laughing and talking, heading in another direction.
"Keep up," Jiang Nian said.
The two followed the researcher for several dozen meters before turning into a secluded passage. Suddenly, the bayonet accelerated, grabbing one man's neck from behind, while Jiang Nian simultaneously subdued the other.
Neat.
Two minutes later, Jiang Nian and Ci Dao changed into white lab coats, wore masks and glasses, and took researchers' access cards as they walked back to the database center.
Inside was a huge circular hall with a cylindrical server array in the center, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Dozens of consoles surrounded it, each with a researcher seated in front of it.
But Jiang Nian immediately spotted the isolation area at the other end of the hall.
There was a separate space enclosed by transparent bulletproof glass, containing only a table. On the table sat a black metal box, which was the storage module.
Two people were standing at the entrance of the glass room.
One was Old Dao, his left side bandaged, his face grim. The other was a young woman with short hair, wearing a fitted combat uniform, with two peculiar curved knives at her waist.
"This is troublesome," Bayonet said in a low voice. "Old Knife knows you." (End of Chapter)