Chapter 121: Catching a Turtle in a Jar

The large screen flickered, and the smoke-filled ruins disappeared, replaced by ultra-high-definition real-time satellite footage from another angle.

Deep in the Alps, about ten miles from the destroyed fortress, a hidden winding mountain road came into view.

On screen, a convoy of five heavily modified black armored SUVs tore through the snow-covered road at full speed, using the blizzard as cover.

"This is..." Lieutenant General Howard's pupils shrank.

"The real rats who slipped out of the decoy fortress."

Leo leaned back in his chair and exhaled a slow breath of smoke.

Just as the convoy was about to enter a canyon tunnel—

The snow on both sides of the road suddenly exploded without warning.

Two man-portable anti-tank missiles streaked through the air with orange-red trails, hitting the lead and rear vehicles at impossibly precise angles.

Massive fireballs erupted into the sky. The two armored SUVs, each weighing several tons, were flipped over by the shockwaves, completely blocking the mountain road.

Then four black figures ghosted out of the snow-covered forest on both sides of the road, fast as lightning.

Shadow Team.

The generals and staff officers at the European Air Forces Command stared at the screen, watching what could only be described as a textbook one-sided slaughter.

With their vehicles disabled, more than twenty fully armed Nightfall elite assassins had barely poured out of the cars with their weapons raised before Shadow Team began cutting them down.

No shouting. No wasted movement.

In under two minutes, all twenty-plus assassins lay dead in pools of blood.

After confirming no survivors, the four Shadow Team members flashed a tactical hand signal toward the satellite overhead and vanished from the scene without a trace.

Aviano Air Base. Joint Operations Conference Room.

The screen froze on the burning wreckage along the mountain road.

Dead silence.

The senior Air Force commanders who normally looked down on everyone else now stared at Leo with something new in their eyes—deep, unmistakable fear.

Who could have imagined that the Reaper not only possessed overwhelming personal combat ability, but his tactical mind ran just as deep?

He had used the Air Force's strategic bombers to destroy the decoy, forcing Nightfall's core members to expose themselves at their most vulnerable moment—then let Shadow Team, already waiting along the escape route, finish the job.

"Everyone thinks I only know how to kill with my fists."

Leo looked at the bodies scattered across the screen, stubbed out his cigar, and said with a cold smirk, "I have the firepower to handle anything myself, but I don't enjoy getting my hands dirty every time. Why bother when you can use your head instead?"

Lieutenant General Howard looked at Leo with undisguised admiration. "Mr. Ashford, your tactical execution was flawless. We were too narrow-minded to see it."

"It was just a simple cleanup."

Leo turned his head, his voice dropping to something colder. "The rats outside have been dealt with. Do I really need to personally root out the mole inside this base?"

The moment those words landed, the air in the room turned to ice.

Lieutenant General Howard's face flushed deep red. This was a humiliation he could barely stomach.

The United States European Air Forces Command—infiltrated like a sieve.

"Sir, please—"

Howard ground out the words through clenched teeth. "This is a disgrace to the Third Air Force. Give me some time. I'll order an immediate base lockdown and cut all external communications. Within three days, I will find whoever sold out military secrets and give you a full accounting."

"Three days. I don't have that kind of patience."

Leo leaned back in his chair, a cold, ruthless smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "And General, you won't need to lock down the base. Because that piece of trash is standing right here in this room."

"What?!"

Howard went pale.

The dozen or so senior officers and staff erupted in shock, which quickly turned to outrage.

Everyone cleared to enter this joint operations room had passed rigorous Pentagon security vetting. Every one of them held field-grade rank or above.

"Mr. Ashford, you're insulting our loyalty!"

"That's right! We're soldiers who've bled for this country. How dare you make baseless accusations and call one of us a traitor!"

"Sir, regardless of your authority level, an accusation like this with no evidence is a profound insult to every member of the European Air Forces!"

Leo didn't even blink at the uproar.

"Olivia." His voice was flat.

"Yes, boss."

Olivia's expression didn't change as she hit a key.

The mountain footage on the screen vanished, replaced by a sharp surveillance screenshot and a set of forcibly decrypted data streams.

"Ten minutes ago—thirteen seconds after General Riddick ordered the B-2s to take off—a microwave-encrypted signal was transmitted from inside this room."

Olivia pointed at the data on screen, her voice cold and even. "The signal was received at a private estate in Geneva, Switzerland. The miniature transmitter that sent it..."

Her gaze locked onto a colonel in intelligence insignia standing at the conference table, wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

"...is inside Yuri's encrypted tactical watch."

The room erupted.

Every eye in the room snapped to the man named Yuri.

Yuri—Jewish-American, senior intelligence analyst at the European Air Forces Command, long trusted by Howard.

The moment Yuri saw the data on screen, his face went white as paper.

"You—you're lying! That evidence is fabricated!" He stepped back, shouting with more bluster than conviction.

"Whether it's fabricated or not, take off the watch and we'll find out."

Howard's face had gone iron-gray. He never imagined the traitor would be the man he trusted most.

Seeing that it was over, something wild and desperate flashed in Yuri's eyes.

He had been groomed from childhood by the Rothschild family and planted deep inside the American military as a sleeper agent. He knew exactly what waited for him in an interrogation room.

"Leo! Go to hell!"

Yuri screamed and ripped a ceramic handgun from his outer thigh holster in one explosive motion, jamming the barrel straight at Leo in the command chair.

"Protect the commander!" Howard and the other officers lurched for their weapons—too late.

Yuri's finger tightened on the trigger.

Leo didn't even stand up.

His right leg snapped upward like a black whip tearing through the air—moving at a speed that seemed to break what a human body should be capable of.

His boot connected with Yuri's gun hand with bone-crushing force.

Yuri's scream tore through the conference room.

Before he could even crumple from the pain—

Leo's hand closed around his throat.

He lifted Yuri clean off the ground like he weighed nothing.

"You pull a gun on me?"

Leo looked at him the way you look at a corpse. "You dogs raised by Jewish oligarchs are just pathetically stupid."

Yuri's eyes rolled back. His legs kicked uselessly in the air. His face went purple as he choked, unable to get out a single word.

The entire joint operations room went dead silent again.

The senior officers who had been furiously challenging Leo moments ago now stood pale-faced, staring.

From the moment Yuri drew his weapon to the moment he was caught—less than one second.

Leo's reaction speed and raw physical power shattered everything they thought they knew.

What made it worse was the realization that they had just been defending a traitor to his face.

"Mr. Ashford..."

Howard looked at Yuri dangling in the air, his face heavy with shame and self-reproach. He bowed deeply, and every officer in the room followed.

"We were blind fools. Every one of us. On behalf of the European Air Forces Command, I offer you our most sincere apology."

Howard's jaw was tight. "Please hand this traitor over to us. I guarantee we will break him with whatever it takes and get everything out of him."

"No need."

Leo dropped Yuri like a bag of garbage. He hit the floor hard and curled up, coughing blood.

Leo wiped his hand slowly and tossed the cloth onto Yuri's face. His voice carried the absolute calm of someone who had already decided everything.

"A dead dog used as a messenger won't give you anything worth hearing. Wrap him up and dump him in the Atlantic."

"As for whoever's pulling his strings..."

Leo pulled up the collar of his black coat and walked toward the door, his voice echoing through the hall behind him.

"I'll go to Vienna myself and crush their skulls."