Chapter 352: Uninvited Guest

Henry swept his gaze across the room quickly, then looked up and said:

"The Chicago Board of Trade, one of the world's largest commodity futures trading centers. Corn, wheat, soybeans, oats—all major staple foods have futures contracts there. The daily trading volume is measured in tens of billions of dollars. If he were to put on a show there—for instance, zeroing out the account of a hedge fund that is long on food futures and distributing that money to refugees in Famine-stricken regions—technically, he has already proven he can do it. With that performance at the Metropolitan Opera House, he proved he could transfer funds from one account to thousands of others. If he were to swap those thousands of accounts for millions, tens of millions of refugee accounts—"

He did not continue.

The conference room fell into silence.

Everyone filled in that picture in their minds: the price of food worldwide losing its anchor overnight, because everyone would know—the person who turned fifteen billion into one billion on stage could also rewrite every single transaction at the Chicago Board of Trade!

Liu Xuemin stood up, walked to the front of the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote a line of text beneath the Black Knight: Food—Distribution—Futures Exchange.

Then he drew an arrow pointing to that line and wrote a question mark above the arrow.

"We need more. The symbol of Famine is not just food. Chu Chen used the Arc de Triomphe on a hundred-euro banknote as imagery at the French Bank, and used the history of war behind artifacts at the British Museum as imagery. These images are not random; he chose them because they have powerful, self-explanatory visual impact. The arch of the Arc de Triomphe, looted artifacts, the immense wealth of CEOs—every image establishes a direct, intuitive path of association between the visual and the theme. What is the equivalent imagery for Famine?"

Shui Ge opened his notebook to a brand-new blank page.

He wrote one word in the center of the paper: Hunger. Then he drew four radiating lines around Hunger, writing a word at the end of each line: Food, Water, Land, Money.

"The four dimensions of Famine. Food shortages, water depletion, land annexation, capital monopoly. Chu Chen's performance at UnitedHealth has already touched upon the 'Money' dimension—a famine of medical expenses. For the fourth time, which one will he choose? Food? Water? Land?"

Chen Zijin took Lin Xu's computer and pulled up a data report on global food security.

His fingers slid across the touchpad, and the charts on the screen flipped by page after page.

He said:

"Global food production is enough to feed everyone. Yet, hundreds of millions of people are in a state of hunger every year. It is not that there isn't enough food, but that distribution is unequal. Food trade is controlled by four companies—ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus, collectively known as the ABCD Four Major Grain Merchants. They control over seventy percent of global food trade. If Chu Chen wants to attack the 'unequal distribution' link, should he go to the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva? Or to the Cargill headquarters in Minneapolis?"

Chen Zijin threw out two more questions that were difficult to answer.

The next second, just as everyone was discussing it, the glass door of the Command Center was pushed open once again!

This time, two people entered.

Walking in front was an elderly man wearing a dark green velvet suit jacket.

His hair was graying and neatly styled, and he leaned on an ebony cane.

His pace was not fast, but every step landed precisely, the tip of the cane tapping out a crisp, rhythmic sound on the floor.

Behind him followed a young assistant carrying a black canvas bag, which was bulging, making it impossible to tell what was inside.

The person who arrived was Pinkman.

His gaze swept over everyone in the conference room, then he said:

"Gentlemen, I know your case-handling procedures. Seal the scene, pull surveillance, analyze data, screen suspects, build a suspect profile, then narrow the scope and execute an arrest. You have run this procedure several times already, and every time you hit the same dead end."

His cane tapped on the floor, emitting a dry sound: "You are using a bear trap to catch a bird. It is not that the bear trap is ineffective; it is that you used the wrong tool from the very beginning..."

Just as Pinkman was speaking, two more agents rushed into the conference room in a flurry, charging at him and saying: "Sir, you cannot just come in here! Please leave!"

Pinkman looked at them with a flat expression and said nothing.

The two agents looked toward Henry.

Henry nodded at them, then waved his hand to dismiss them.

"Sir, who are you?"

"A magician, Pinkman, a good friend of Detective Wesley," Pinkman said nonchalantly.

Wesley shrugged and said nothing.

Immediately after, Pinkman continued: "Gentlemen, I have a new discovery. Regarding how he transferred that money. Believe me, you will definitely be interested."

Hearing him say this, the people in the conference room sat up straight simultaneously.

But Pinkman was in no hurry to continue.

He turned around, took the black canvas bag from his assistant, pulled the zipper, and took something out from inside.

It was a black box about twenty centimeters square.

It looked like a mobile phone without a screen, or perhaps a hard drive with its casing removed.

The surface of the box had several rows of fine cooling vents.

Through the vents, one could see the green circuit board inside and rows of neatly arranged capacitors and resistors.

A thin antenna less than five centimeters long extended from the top of the box, the tip of the antenna slightly curved, like an ear that was listening.

Pinkman placed the box on the conference table and pointed at it with the tip of his cane.

"This is an RFID Reader. Or rather, it is a specially modified RFID transceiver device capable of both reading and writing. You cannot buy this on the market; it requires self-soldering and self-programming. Its power is much higher than an ordinary reader, and the effective reading distance can reach fifteen to twenty meters—the effective distance of an ordinary reader is only a few centimeters to a few dozen centimeters."

He turned the box in a different direction, making the antenna face himself.

"I don't know how many of you understand RFID technology. Simply put, it is radio frequency identification. Bank cards, credit cards, access cards, subway cards—the vast majority of contactless cards use this technology. You bring a bank card close to a POS machine, no need to insert the card, no need to enter a password, and the machine can read the information in the card to complete the transaction. The principle is that the POS machine emits a radio frequency signal, and the chip in the card receives the signal, generates a current through electromagnetic induction, activates the chip, and transmits the stored information back. The process of information exchange is very fast, so fast that you don't even realize it."