2025-02-18 23:04:03Sara Gerald rarely saw her adopted brother so worked up, but she pushed behind the thought as she knew the situation called for it.
"Let's go confirm at the bank, we can't stay out here." Carl Gerald said firmly.
Even though Carl was determined to go, he wanted to go with Sara's permission.
"Ok, let's go then." Sara clung to Carl Gerald.
Vesta Bank was a well known bank, except it was quite far from the siblings' home. Carl and his sister were tattered from the recent ordeal.
As they walked along the street, judging glances were cast on them, some whispering and murmuring could be heard.
"Why do they look like that?"
"He's beaten up badly, isn't he?"
"He looks like he's kidnapping her."
"More like they escaped from kidnappers."
Carl Gerald and Sara Gerald paid no heed to the murmurs, each lost in their own thoughts.
Carl Gerald was thinking of how to get a place to stay if the card failed.
Sara was thinking of how not to be a burden to her already overbearing brother. Sara felt annoyed at herself that she had been helpless.
Seeing her brother fight earlier made her want to learn how to fight too.
"Don't listen to them." Carl told her.
"Huh? Oh..." Sara remembered that she was surrounded by judgmental people, some were even recording and snickering behind their phones.
"As long as I have you now, nothing matters." Sara Gerald smiled sadly.
Carl nodded his head, brushing past people on the busy street.
Soon they arrived at the Bank, its tall structure kissed the clouds, sleek tinted windows and an LED logo reading 'Vesta' lined its front.
"We're here." Carl Gerald told his sister.
As they entered the premises, all eyes turned at them. They were so tattered and injured that people began to think they were criminals.
The security were suspicious too but refrained from apprehending them immediately.
It'd just so happened before they'd stopped a young billionaire who'd looked injured and tattered, resulting in their captain being fired.
"We'll wait until they cause trouble before we arrest them." He told the others.
"Until then, watch them tightly." He ordered, his voice was laced with a mixture of authority and determination.
Carl Gerald had reached the queue at the front counter already, and a middle-aged lady stood with a ramrod straight posture.
"Stay here, I'll be back Ok?" He pointed Sara to a vacant seat near an air conditioner.
"Hm." Sara nodded understandingly. She sat quietly and watched the long queue shorten.
The lady, upon seeing Carl Gerald, frowned. "What do you want?" She asked rudely.
Carl Gerald looked at her badge, "Mrs. Ramona, I'd like to confirm the amount of money in the card."
He pulled out the black card and slid it forward.
Mrs. Ramona was shocked. 'Where did he steal the card from?'
"Are you sure it's yours?" She asked grudgingly. Carl Gerald nodded.
She grumbled before pulling out a card reader machine, "Enter your pin."
Even though he had amnesia from 5 years ago, he never forgot his birthday. It was the eleventh of August.
He entered the pin with his hand shaking, pressing the accept button, he saw the loading icon.
And it showed....error.
"W-what! Let me try again." Carl Gerald's heart sank at the message. He had no way of providing a place for his sister.
"No. You clearly stole this card!" Mrs. Ramona started to create a scene. Sara's attention was caught by the rising tension.
"I didn't steal it, someone gave it to me!" Carl tried to defend himself from the ever-growing attention.
"Tell that to the police. Security!! Security!!" Mrs. Ramona called the security immediately, anger and venom reeked all over her eyes and face.
Carl Gerald's face turned red from embarrassment. He shouldn't have trusted a stranger.
"Fine, I'm leaving!" Carl Gerald became frustrated at the lack of hospitality he received everywhere.
"Wait!"
Carl Gerald heard a lady's voice. She looked no less than 30, her formal wear made no effort to hide her voluptuous figure.
The lady glanced at the card. "Mrs. Ramona! How could you disrespect this man?! Why must you always be so negative to our customers?!"
She scolded the lady without caring about the presence of other customers and onlookers that looked at the scene.
"I'm sorry... but he stole a card and tried to claim ownership!" Mrs. Ramona tried to justify herself.
"How would he steal the card? He's the richest person in our bank. I had to come here as soon as I got the alert that he'd tried to log into his account."
Mrs. Ramona's hands began to shake, " G-G-G-G-General Carl!" She fell on her knees and groveled immediately. "Forgive me, I didn't know!"
"How will you know when you're so hot tempered?! Mrs. Ramona, you're suspended for 3 months and I'm cutting your salary for 6 months."
"Please have mercy!!" She begged.
"If you argue again you'll be fired, your punishment is effective immediately! Leave!" The lady pointed at the door.
Mrs. Ramona sulked as she got up from the floor. She grabbed a box of her stuff and trudged out sadly.
"General Carl, I'm sorry for the inconvenience." The lady bowed deeply. "Please follow me, I'll help you with your accounts."
With that, she trudged off, up a flight of stairs.
"Again with this General Carl..." Carl Gerald muttered to himself. "Oh, Sara." Carl called softly, trying not to garner too much attention than he already had.
Sara ran quickly to his side, the two of them climbed up after the lady.
They reached a small room, every item in the room looked expensive. "Please sit." She gestured towards them.
Her face was etched with remorse and regret.
“General Carl, we are so sorry for the embarrassment once again.”
She said as she gazed frighteningly into the eyes of Carl Gerald.
Carl Gerald held Sara tightly, sitting on a designer couch together with her. "Please help yourself to some tea."
She placed a tray with a golden set of teapots, teacups, coasters and spoons. She placed a dish of sugar cubes and a separate one of biscuits at the side too.
Sara looked delighted at the sight of food. "Uhm, Carl..." She nudged her brother.
Carl Gerald nodded, Sara immediately attacked the food ferociously. Carl smiled at how childish his sister was.
"General Carl, it seems you still haven't given up the habit of coming straight after missions." The lady laughed, trying hard to ease the tension building up in her body.
She knew General Carl was a man of war and a man that no man dared to mess around with, even world presidents crumble at the sound of his name.
Carl Gerald sighed, "I really don't know what you're talking about, someone just gave me the card stating it was mine."
The lady's expression turned solemn, "It seems like the reports are true..."
'What reports?' Wondered Carl.
"It seems I'm due for a reintroduction," The lady dipped her head, "My name is Juliet Marcus, Miss Juliet Marcus.”
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Chapter 783: The living rooms:
The shift from supportive coordination to implicit threat transformed General Carl Gerald's assessment of the situation from possible genuine oversight to probable Directive manipulation exploiting Reynolds's channels and Reynolds's credibility to manufacture pressure for evidence disclosure."Judge Katherine Reynolds, I'm going to end this call and I'm going to conduct independent verification of the congressional request before responding further," General Carl Gerald said firmly, no longer maintaining diplomatic deference to Reynolds's judicial authority. "If this is genuine congressional intervention, verification will confirm that quickly and I'll cooperate fully once I'm confident I'm not being manipulated.”“If this is Directive operation, then maintaining security is more important than avoiding contempt charges that I'll eventually be exonerated from once the truth emerges."He ended the call despite Reynolds beginning to voice additional protest, his command instincts overr
Chapter 782: The disturbing news:
"That suggests they're trying to create legal cover for evidence seizure and for witness intimidation, which means they're concerned about exposure that would follow from operating entirely outside legal frameworks.”“They want to be able to claim they were conducting proper federal investigation if their operations get scrutinized after evidence distribution occurs."Debra Zachs raised critical question about how team should respond to Connor's surrender demand and one-hour deadline."Sir, do we respond to Connor's message or do we ignore it entirely?" Debra asked. "Responding might provide opportunity to gather intelligence about Directive plans, but it also might validate their narrative that we're engaged in negotiation about legitimate investigation rather than defending against criminal suppression operation."General Carl Gerald considered the tactical calculation before deciding that responding served no purpose that justified engaging with Connor's manufactured authority."W
Chapter 781: Finding the new Agents:
"Their approach is professional but not entirely consistent with standard security tactical doctrine that I'm familiar with," Luke assessed after watching for approximately thirty seconds. "They're using proper safety protocols and proper team coordination, but their breach methodology shows some variations from what I'd expect if this was routine security warrant service.”“Could be different regional office using different procedures, or could be indication these aren't actually security despite their equipment and apparent legitimacy."The ambiguous assessment reflected exactly the kind of uncertainty that The Directive would deliberately create if they were attempting to manufacture confusion about the operation's true nature.Before General Carl Gerald could formulate response to the ongoing situation at Chen's site, Debra Zachs interrupted with urgent report about new development."Sir, I'm receiving notification from another dispersed team member reporting a similar situation,
Chapter 780: Agent Kara:
Phineas immediately began technical verification procedures, attempting to contact Chen through alternative communication channels and attempting to access surveillance systems at the remote backup site that would allow visual confirmation of what was actually occurring."Sir, I'm unable to establish voice contact with Agent Kara through normal channels," Phineas reported after approximately ninety seconds of attempts. "Her phone appears to be off or in dead zone with no cellular service.”“That's suspicious because the backup site location was selected specifically for reliable communications infrastructure.”“Either there's been equipment failure or someone is jamming communications to prevent verification."Debra Zachs was monitoring law enforcement radio traffic for any indication of legitimate FBI operations in the area where Chen's backup site was located."I'm detecting no FBI radio traffic about operations at that location," Debra reported. "If this was genuine federal opera
Chapter 779: The attacks on the Evidence boards:
"Third scenario...and this is what concerns me most based on the anonymous contact's warning...is some kind of sophisticated manipulation that we don't immediately recognize as Directive operation but which achieves their objectives through deception rather than through force," General Carl Gerald said.His voice carrying the uncertainty that came from trying to anticipate enemy actions that were specifically designed to be unexpected and difficult to identify until too late to effectively counter.Captain Luke Harrison's special operations background apparently provided insight into this third scenario that General Carl Gerald was describing."You're suggesting they might attempt something like creating fake emergency that forces us to evacuate this facility or to relocate evidence to supposedly more secure location that they actually control," Luke suggested, his tactical thinking identifying deception possibilities. "Or they might attempt to compromise one of our team members thro
Chapter 778: A friend in cloak.
“Yes…we really can trust him.”“He has actually saved my life a lot of times but we still need to be extremely careful…thanks for pointing that out, Phineas.” General Carl Gerald immediately addressed the question from Phineas.The temporary operations center that Captain Luke Harrison had established in the small commercial office building carried the atmosphere of a military forward operating base in the final hours before a decisive engagement…The kind of focused intensity that came from professionals who understood they were approaching a culminating point where all previous efforts would either achieve their intended purpose or would be rendered meaningless through failure at the critical moment when success was most within reach yet also most vulnerable to disruption.The main room had been converted into a tactical coordination space with multiple workstations displaying various data streams that the investigation team needed to monitor during the final countdown toward automa
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