It was gone. How could it possibly be gone?
Inside Burns's office at the CIA, the deputy director, whose authority was second only to Director Spencer's, wore a grim expression.
He stared at the empty hiding place where he had kept the USB drive, countless thoughts racing through his mind.
The drive contained evidence of Spencer's crimes.
If the matter was exposed and Spencer tried to make him take the blame, or if Spencer attempted to threaten him with it, Burns could use the USB drive as leverage against him.
Having known Spencer for so long, the two of them could be considered longtime comrades. Naturally, Burns understood Spencer's character very well.
He was a man who would stop at nothing to climb higher. He would betray Burns without the slightest hesitation.
Had there been another choice, Burns would never have agreed to work under Spencer.
Yet such crucial evidence had somehow disappeared.
"Even Spencer can't enter my office without permission. I hid it here instead of at home."
"There's nowhere safer than the CIA. Even if Spencer suspected that I had kept evidence, he never would have imagined that I had hidden it right under his nose."
With a dark expression, Burns left his office and said to an employee outside, "Pull up the surveillance footage from the past few days."
Seeing the look on Burns's face, the employee hurriedly agreed.
Before long, the surveillance recordings from the past several days had been transferred to Burns's computer. He ignored all of his work that day and sat in front of the screen, reviewing the footage.
It did not take him long to discover something suspicious.
The intruder had made no attempt to hide and had simply walked straight into his office.
"Britney?!"
Shock and anger appeared on Burns's face as countless possibilities flashed through his mind.
As the CIA's deputy director, his first thought was that he had been set up. Perhaps Britney was working for someone else and had only pretended to be his lover to obtain classified information from him.
His first suspicion was not even that Britney worked for Spencer, but that she might be a Russian operative, one of the legendary "swallows."
However, Burns quickly dismissed that possibility. After obtaining what she wanted, Britney had not fled. She was still openly living in the United States.
What did that mean?
It meant she had nothing to fear, and Spencer was most likely protecting her.
With his thoughts in turmoil, Burns did not even remain at work. He immediately gathered his things and drove alone to Britney's home.
At a residence in Washington State, Britney heard the doorbell and opened the door in confusion.
When she saw Burns standing there with a dark expression, panic flashed across her face. She quickly glanced inside the house and whispered, "Burns, have you lost your mind? How dare you come to my house? My husband is still home!"
Britney's husband came out at that moment. He looked at Burns and Britney standing by the door and asked in confusion, "Darling, is this man here to see you?"
Burns immediately put on a friendly smile.
"Hello, Mr. James. I'm Burns, Britney's superior. I have something important to discuss with her. May I borrow her for a moment?"
James knew that his wife worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and might need to discuss classified matters with her superior, so he obediently left them alone.
"Damn it, Burns. What exactly do you want?"
Once only Britney and Burns remained in the living room, Britney cursed at him in a low, angry voice.
Burns's expression remained grim.
"Britney, who are you working for?"
"Working for whom? What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind, Burns? We can't have any more contact after this."
Seeing that she still refused to admit anything, Burns snorted coldly and took out the surveillance footage.
"What do you have to say now?"
When Britney saw the video, she was stunned. She looked up at Burns in disbelief.
"Burns, that isn't me. Didn't you approve my leave? I've been vacationing in Europe with my husband for the past few days. I wasn't even in the United States."
"What?!"
When Britney showed him her plane tickets and photographs from her European vacation with her husband, Burns's expression became even uglier.
Something like this was far too easy to verify. Britney could not possibly be lying to him.
In other words, someone had impersonated Britney and come to work in her place. That person had even impersonated Burns to approve Britney's leave, then stolen the USB drive from his office.
It was entirely possible that the person who had impersonated Britney was actually a man.
Thinking about how he had held and passionately kissed that person over the past few days, Burns felt a wave of nausea.
LGBT relationships might be common in the United States, but Burns himself was completely straight.
He hurriedly stood up and said, "Something urgent has come up, so I have to leave. I'll come back and apologize to you another time."
Britney could also tell that something was wrong. She said nothing further and escorted Burns out of the house.
After returning home, Burns's mind was in complete disarray. He could not make sense of the situation at all.
Who did the person impersonating Britney work for?
If it was Spencer, then Burns might still have a chance to survive. Spencer could lose trust in him and gradually strip him of his authority, but that would likely be the extent of it.
After all, the two of them were longtime colleagues who held high positions in the Central Intelligence Agency and had been trained by the same mentor. Neither could easily bring the other down, so Burns's life would not necessarily be in danger.
But if another organization was responsible, then he was in serious trouble.
Burns sat in his living room watching television until five in the afternoon, when he changed the channel.
The screen was showing live coverage of the presidential candidate's rally in Pennsylvania.
Today was also the day Burns and Spencer had arranged for the candidate to be killed.
Donald had to die.
Too many parties were involved this time, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, senior members of the Democratic Party, and others.
The assassin Burns had selected had undergone professional firearms training, but had no connection to the Central Intelligence Agency, the American military, the Democratic Party, or any other relevant organization. He also suffered from mental illness.
Moreover, the man was a registered Republican, making him the perfect assassin.
Even if he was not killed at the scene and was instead captured alive, no one would be able to obtain any useful information from him.
As long as Donald died, everything would be fine.
The senior members of the Democratic Party would inevitably suppress the matter in the end. None of them wanted to be caught in the fallout.
But if Donald survived, then all of them would be in serious trouble.
At around six in the evening, just as the rally reached its climax, a sharp gunshot suddenly rang out over the noise of the crowd.
The presidential candidate froze for a moment, then seemed to realize what had happened and quickly dropped to the ground.
The nearby Secret Service agents and private security personnel immediately rushed forward and shielded him.
Burns abruptly stood up.
Had it worked?
There had been a problem with the camera angle. He had not been able to see what happened clearly.
...
At the Pennsylvania rally, a man holding an AR-15 lay in a pool of blood within the view of Toru's sniper scope.
Acting Director Rowe shouted furiously over the radio, "Who was that? Who fired without my authorization?"
As the gunshot rang out, the entire rally descended into complete chaos.
"You owe me your life, Mr. Donald. I hope we can work well together. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to take that life back myself."
Toru chuckled softly.
At that moment, Toru was certain that he had the power to kill anyone.
In this world, the simplest way to eliminate an enemy was to remove them physically.
(To be continued.)