Chapter 1351: Using the Countryside to Surround the City

It was very common for small fry to divulge big secrets.

That was because it was still left to the small fry to get things done, and there was no way they could enjoy the protection which bigshots did.

If certain nobodies were a little less vigilant and ignored the safety rules, it was possible for them to do any sort of thing privately, like sending top-secret files to a group chat.

This wasn’t an exaggeration; NYPD officers had already done something like this during the explosions.

The FBI had even discovered during a major internal investigation that many employees had lost hundreds of guns and dozens of laptops, the latter containing confidential information.

According to the rules, these laptops weren’t allowed to be taken out of the FBI office, but the agents had brought them home precisely so that they could work overtime. Then… they had been stolen.

If it wasn’t for this investigation, the FBI wouldn’t have known that so many things had been lost.

The Titanium phone, F2F, and the “little green man” phone OS which Luke had been working on all aligned along this path: Gathering leads and intelligence from the bottom, and keeping a handle on the most basic element in any matter — people.

This was inspired by a certain great person’s battle strategy of “using the countryside to surround the city.”

As long as there were enough channels for gathering information which covered 90% of society’s population, could the remaining 10% live apart from the 90%?

As Alfred screened the phones and social media accounts of the cleanup crew, Luke smiled.

Sure enough, something wasn’t right with these people.

Putting everything else aside, more than ten of them were from a private insurance company. When their jobs, ages, and incomes were put together, something was clearly strange.

They couldn’t lie about their income, because they had to pay taxes.

It wasn’t like they could say that they didn’t answer to the IRS because they were contracted by the FBI or CIA.

These people from the insurance company definitely weren’t core members. They were probably responsible for daily fieldwork.

Under the banner of an insurance company, they could outright go to various accident sites and pose as staff investigating the scene and assessing the damages while they cleaned up.

These company staff had clearly been working in the country for a few years, and were much less vigilant. The photos of the company’s Christmas party which they uploaded online were exactly the same.

The photos were also posted several seconds apart.

There were a lot of similar situations like these.

Even a lazy, regular person would just forward the photos. In any case, it wasn’t a big deal to admit being too lazy to take photos.

As for the technical staff who handled logistics for these manual laborers, they were probably used to doing things by the book. They just worked in bulk and helped their co-workers send photos to fool their friends.

This was the power of habit.

The FBI had full law enforcement power in the country, and didn’t need a shell company like this.

The CIA didn’t have law enforcement power in the country, but might be able to go around the law with this sort of company.

But the appearance of the baldie Sitwell suggested that SHIELD was still the biggest suspect.

It had law enforcement power over the world, but was feared by local forces; in principle, it was similar to the United Nations peacekeeping force.

Everyone needed a special agency that could legitimately intervene in “international matters,” but they also didn’t like other countries using this agency to enter their own country.

But in terms of exchange of benefits, not participating in SHIELD was equivalent to being excluded, and the losses would be greater.

So, it was an ongoing task to try and acquire more power from SHIELD but also reduce its interference in one’s own country.

These were all obvious things. Just look at SHIELD’s direct superiors — the five members of the World Security Council just happened to be from five of the most powerful nations.

It was for this reason that SHIELD had a lot of authority in the United States, but wasn’t completely unobstructed.

The US government would do its best to give domestic power to the part of SHIELD which it controlled, but core secrets couldn’t be given to these Americans who were “dedicated to the world.”

This was similar to the setup in NYPD.

In name, NYPD’s leaders were the commissioner, the first assistant commissioner, and three assistant commissioners. They controlled the appointment of the Chief of Department, funding, and key promotions.

In practice, it was Chief Nelson who was in charge of NYPD’s daily operations and combat force.

The five commissioners were equivalent to the five council members, and Chief Nelson and Nick Fury had a similar scope of work.

The various special branches and police departments were also the same; it was just that one was in New York and the other covered the world.

Just as NYPD had the disobedient 15th Precinct, there were members and branches of SHIELD who followed orders but secretly opposed the organization.

They balanced and compromised with each other.

That was also why Luke had initially wanted to look for Phil to make some inquiries, but then dropped the idea.

Sitwell definitely wasn’t on Phil’s side. So what if he was found out?

Nick Fury was well aware of his position. He was the director of SHIELD, but SHIELD wasn’t his, just like how NYPD didn’t belong to Chief Nelson.

The World Security Council wouldn’t allow SHIELD to become Nick Fury’s private property. He was just a “professional manager.”

Luke investigated the insurance company, and more information popped up.

He had the intelligence, but most of the time, the problem was finding the right target.

It was hard to track down an experienced and vigilant veteran agent like Phil; it was easier to investigate a bunch of low-level amateurs who just hung around the insurance company.

But whether it was Phil or the baldie Sitwell, it was inevitable that they would have to find manual laborers like these to complete the handover, shut down the information, and move the evidence.

If Phil and his direct subordinates came down, it would take a few days or even weeks to handle the case.

SHIELD was efficient, but it was impossible for the police or other departments to be as efficient. These things hence could only be left to the amateurs to haggle and slowly work out.

While these odd jobs might be mundane, there would always be something important.

For example, the blood Wade left at the scene, as well as the bullets that he dug out and threw away, had to be sent off.

This certainly wasn’t something that could be left in the hands of amateurs. The next day, they were all packed up and sent off by helicopter.

The helicopter was the insurance company’s daily means of transport, and hadn’t been specially modified.

It wasn’t very confidential, and the GPS was on, so Luke easily found its landing point: a small private airport on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Then, the evidence was loaded onto a cargo plane and sent straight to its destination.

The plane was under a delivery company, but there was no trace of it at the airport it was supposed to land at.

Luke checked the delivery company’s schedule and confirmed the plane’s flight record. He found a record of the plane’s fuel use. After calculating the fuel consumption, he obtained an average of 500 kilometers.

He told Alfred to do a search at this distance and focus on the northeastern direction in which the plane had taken off.

Alfred searched for satellite photos. Finally, it found an airport in the wastelands of Nevada, and discovered that the cargo plane had landed there.

It was an airport in the wilderness with no obvious buildings around it. This was either an underground base or cavern, and felt like a place SHIELD would use to store things.