Virginia, Langley City.
CIA Director of Secret Operations, Kelly, was watching TV in her office.
The TV was showing the president of Venezuela delivering a passionate speech to his people, vehently accusing Aricans of conducting espionage within the country.
Kelly had white hair, although she was only fifty years old.
Her white hair was genetic, her family had genes for premature graying, so Kelly had started to go gray in her twenties, and by forty, her hair was completely white.
In Langley, she had a nickna—the White-Haired Witch.
Not only was her hair white, but her heart was even colder.
The full na of her departnt was "National Secret Operations Departnt," responsible for secret intelligence gathering and operations. Previously known as "Operations Departnt," it had just recently absorbed the Ministry of Defense's Human Intelligence Bureau at the beginning of this year, becoming the highest authority in the CIA for human intelligence gathering and secret operations.
A woman heading the operations departnt needed to have lightning thods and ruthless toughness to climb to such a position.
Soon, the screen displayed photos of three agents' bodies.
Although the images were sowhat blurred, Kelly could almost determine that these agents were peripheral operatives from her own intelligence gathering departnt after seeing the equipnt carried by the agents released by the Venezuelan side.
These peripheral operatives did not have a high security clearance; they were local people developed by formal employees of the intelligence gathering departnt in each target country.
These locals had diverse identities; so were local elites, while others were ordinary people who worked for money.
They were sent to collect intelligence near sensitive targets and then sent it back to Langley through their upper contacts.
Kelly did not believe the Venezuelan claims of killing.
According to their account, these three were killed by the military after resisting arrest.
But these peripheral operatives usually only received basic training in intelligence-gathering techniques, such as how to take photographs, how to disguise themselves as tourists to casually gather so information from locals near the targets, and even to use hand-drawn maps to mark the detailed terrain nearby.
They were not high-level agents, nor were they action agents, and they normally did not carry weapons; carrying weapons would only reveal their identities as agents.
Sotis, not carrying weapons could help avoid arrest by just claiming to be tourists if intercepted.
Therefore, without weapons, how could they have resisted?
By fists?
Kelly had seen a report sent by the Intelligence Collection Departnt, indicating that the reconnaissance target was a Special Soldier School located in southern Venezuela.
There were fragntary ssages indicating that this school was related to the recent failure of the "Viper" operation in Colombia.
The "Viper" operation was a joint mission between the White House and the Colombian governnt under the banner of anti-drug efforts, but it targeted the ELN ard group.
However, subsequent leaks of the operation caused an uproar dostically, and the Senate even held a hearing, leading to the suspension of the operation.
The most surprising aspect was that the ELN ard group crumbled like a collapsed mountain after the Colombian governnt army and US Military Technical Team withdrew, with their tens of thousands of troops being almost 70% neutralized or incorporated just a week later.
To date, the ELN has incorporated nearly twenty thousand troops from the AUC army, killed or wounded over two thousand, and occupied most of the territory originally held by the AUC, with no signs of stopping.
According to the Analysis Departnt, the AUC would cease to exist in a month.
From a military perspective, this was an inconceivable victory, but for Aricans, it was undoubtedly a disastrous defeat, even a humiliation.
People from the White House demanded that the CIA imdiately investigate what exactly had happened.
Kelly was the supervisor responsible for this investigation.
After reviewing all the briefings, she discovered that the reason for the AUC's devastating defeat was the intense bombing they endured soon after the governnt army withdrew.
A total of four thermo-baric bombs killed over a thousand AUC soldiers, completely annihilating the entire AUC command structure.
Reports from Colombia indicated that the explosion was trendously powerful, comparable to a miniaturized nuclear bomb.
However, Kelly was certain they were not nuclear weapons but high-yield thermo-baric bombs.
Regarding which model of aircraft delivered them, the investigation revealed that on the day of the bombing, neither the Colombian Air Force nor the ground radar detected anything suspicious.
It was completely unknown who launched these high-yield thermo-baric bombs, and what model of aircraft had entered Colombian territory to drop the bombs.
After a video conference with the Colombian side, other than suspicions from so that perhaps aircraft from Venezuela had crossed the border to bomb the AUC, there was no solid evidence.
What a waste of efforts!
Just when Kelly was at her wit's end, an intelligence officer stationed in Colombia sent in a report: that evening in a village in San Jose, soone heard the sound of an aircraft flying at low altitude.
Kelly imdiately pulled up the map to examine it closely and noticed that San Jose was located on the border between Colombia and Venezuela in the southern part.
She then recalled sothing and ordered soone to fetch so intelligence briefings sent in the past six months from the Venezuelan side, looking for information about a new special forces school built in the south.
This information was ntioned during a eting with the South Arican division, where it was noted that a private defense company had built a new special forces school in Venezuela, similar in nature to one established there by Black Water, and it was said that this private defense company called "Musician" had an unusually close relationship with the Venezuelan Army, acquiring a large tract of land in the southern region at an extrely low lease rate.
At the ti, Kelly did not pay much attention to this information.
After all, it wasn't particularly remarkable since Black Water itself had a school in Venezuela.
Private defense companies, after all, are businesses; they exist to make money, nothing disgraceful about that.
Now, she was reminded of this piece of information.
There was also intelligence that said ELN militants had sent so of their key personnel to this military school known as "Falcon" for intensive training.
All these fragnts of information ca together, and Kelly suddenly found this newly established special forces school highly suspicious.
It seed all evidence vaguely pointed in that direction.
Could it be that this military school had sothing to do with how the ELN managed a miraculous counterattack, even taking over the AUC's territory?
Considering the school was established by a defense company, and one of the company's services included rcenary activities,
could it be that the company had provided military guidance to the ELN, even participating in the operation that led to its success?
Then, the wave of public opinion stirred up dostically by editor-in-chief Farrell, could it also be related to this company?
She imdiately had soone pull up the company's file, and the first page listed Song Heping's resu.
The identity as a person from China made Kelly slightly tense.
On further reading, she found that he even had a service history with the PLA, which only deepened her suspicions.
After going through Song Heping's brief introduction, Kelly discovered his extrely complex identity, not only having unclear and unspecified connections with the US military but also previous confrontations with the CIA at the Illigo Station.
All these doubts led Kelly to deploy this team.
What perplexed Kelly the most was how a military school and a private company could possibly have the capability to air-strike targets within Colombian territory?
If true, that would be terrifying!
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