I am a Big Player
Chapter 551 - 545, Action begins! (First update)_1

Chapter 551: 545, Action begins! (First update)_1

Xia Yuting’s arrival was a slight surprise for the entire Holland trip, but Ren He didn’t have much of a reaction; she definitely couldn’t be CIA.

As long as no extremely suspicious individuals appeared beside him, he wouldn’t be affected.

Yet, despite a distinct sense of crisis before coming to Holland and even a reward warning from the Divine Punishment System, why had there been no movement after two days here?

He hadn’t even seen a hair of the CIA group, nor had he encountered a single suspicious informant!

Could it be that the other side didn’t know he had come to Holland? Or, perhaps when he returned to China they hadn’t continued to monitor him, or even, their target in coming to Holland might not have been him at all?

The Divine Punishment System had issued a warning, but fate was something completely beyond the comprehension of an ordinary person like Ren He.

Now all he could do was wait patiently.

He had been somewhat worried before coming, but now, if the CIA really didn’t show up, Ren He would actually be quite disappointed...

This was like an extreme sport that couldn’t go public, the thrill of life and death itself was what Ren He was after.

In the last few days, Chen Da had rented a small warehouse as the rehearsal space, and all the stage equipment had been delivered; they started building the entire set-up inside the warehouse.

During the day, they took the bus to the warehouse for final rehearsals and returned to the hotel at night to rest, everyone preparing for the competition four days later.

Ren He continued to muddle along in rehearsals, carrying his pistol and dagger every day when he went out, and since the sniper rifle was too conspicuous, he simply left it in the hotel.

Otherwise, lugging around a large cello case every day would certainly raise eyebrows among his peers.

To the uninformed, he might as well have come for a music competition...

...

At the port of Amsterdam, a ship docked, and Mark Pen disembarked first, leading a group of 12 who stealthily headed to the local secret CIA facility to collect their gear.

They were on official duty abroad, but firearms and the like could not pass security checks. The United States and Europe have always had a fluctuating relationship, but the European economy would definitely not like to see the United States treat Europe as a sort of colonial presence, allowing armed personnel to go wherever they wanted was out of the question.

Therefore, Mark Pen and his team also needed to keep a low profile; weapons for operations were always collected locally from the CIA station.

The annual budget of the CIA is a mystery, and it is a matter not disclosed to most departments within the U.S. government, so the CIA has a mystery about it even in the United States.

The CIA is an independently accounted department, which doesn’t need to collaborate with other departments, and nobody knows precisely how many safe houses they have around the world.

Probably only they themselves know.

And even someone at the level of Mark Pen does not have the authority to use the safe houses at will; he must apply to his superiors for the next operation as part of the process of leaving Italy, and then the CIA will prepare a temporary safe house for him in Holland.

Even he doesn’t know the fixed locations of the safe houses.

This is to prevent the operation team from being captured and subjected to interrogation and torture; if Mark Pen knew where all the safe houses in Europe were, then his capture could potentially threaten the entire CIA system in Europe.

The temporary safe house this time was among the clustered shipping containers nearby; Mark Pen quickly located the red container and entered the password sent by his superiors on the combination lock.

When the container opened, the walls inside were lined with firearms and 12 new identities awaited them.

"Confirm Allen’s location again," Mark Pen commanded calmly while trying out the firearms.

Less than five minutes later, the team member responsible for intelligence put down his notebook and looked up, "He’s hiding in a hotel named Park Building, suite 2014. The hotel has good security, we need to be discreet, or we might alarm the local Dutch police."

A burly black man beside him laughed, "European cops are no match at all."

"So you’re planning to spark a diplomatic dispute?" Mark Pen gave him a cold glance, and the black man fell silent immediately.

In this operation team, Mark Pen’s words were the only command, and he was the only authority.

You wouldn’t find insubordinate and unruly people in a CIA operation team, as every leader of the operation team is an elite within the field.

They are not like those powerful agents in movies—they are the prototypes behind those commercial films, having faced life and death countless times already.

"We move tonight, one person to prepare the appropriate location for interrogation, two to confirm his whereabouts, four on the ground floor—one to guard the elevator entrance, one the lobby exit, one the kitchen back door, one the fire escape—and the rest follow me. No heavy firearms necessary, they’re not suitable for use in the city center," Mark Pen quickly set the tone for the operation.

Beyond necessary pistols, their equipment was so ordinary it included simple stun guns for subduing the target without causing fatalities or major disturbances.

This wasn’t their home turf; in fact, the CIA’s work is harder than the FBI’s, as they usually operate away and have to consider the local government’s position.

This was also one of the reasons Ren He dared to come to Holland.

Initially, in the United States, it was the opponent’s home ground, and they could play the game any way they wanted, as they were the game itself.

But now it was different; everybody was on foreign soil—him alone against their twelve. Let’s see who could handle the game.

Once the two sides were exposed and the entire Dutch armed forces began a manhunt, it would be much easier for him alone to hide than for their twelve.

If he didn’t have surveillance skills, of course, Ren He wouldn’t have this confidence, but now it was a different story altogether.

At this moment, neither Ren He nor Mark Pen knew exactly what this game they were about to begin was like, nor how it would end; everything was left to fate.

"Begin the operation, don’t draw the attention of the Dutch officials, just like before," Mark Pen reminded his team before leading them out.

Previous capture missions had always gone smoothly; powerless hackers were like lambs in the face of them, so Mark Pen didn’t think this mission would be difficult either.

The only thing that needed attention was not to cause a diplomatic dispute; if they failed in their mission here, they had to be prepared to be abandoned by the United States.