raknovel Chapter 157 Desperate Counterattack
Chapter 157 Desperate Counterattack
Chapter 157 Desperate Counterattack
The major who pushed open the door didn't even have time to wipe the rain off his military cap; his face was covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.
When General Bill saw the look of disbelief on his face, he realized that the situation might not be as simple as he had anticipated.
These rigorously trained MI6 agents shouldn't be showing that kind of expression.
He straightened his back, his friendly smile fading: "What's the panic? The sky hasn't fallen yet, Nian."
The major's gaze swept over Qin Han and Fred, seemingly wary of the presence of these two "outsiders" in the private room.
"What are you looking at them for?" General Bill's voice grew louder. "If it weren't for these two gentlemen, we wouldn't have caught this man at all. There are no outsiders here, report directly!"
"Yes, sir!" The major snapped to attention, saluted, and then opened the file in his hand: "Based on cross-verification after multiple rounds of interrogation, the preliminary conclusion is that this hijacking was not ordered by higher command, but rather an act of madness committed by the assassin after his failed mission to assassinate Bruce Lee!"
Upon hearing the words "going alone," Qin Han's eyes narrowed slightly.
When a suicide squad member realizes that he has been abandoned by his superiors, or that he has failed in his mission and is facing retribution, he is very likely to develop a destructive desire to destroy everything in his path.
"What does he want to do?" General Bill glanced at Qin Han and continued to press for an answer.
The major swallowed hard and read the confession aloud, word by word: "The target confessed that he planned to seize control of the aircraft by taking the crew hostage—"
"Let the crew pilot that Boeing airliner, fully loaded with fuel and passengers, crash it directly into 1600 Pennsylvania Drive!"
"His target is—the White House! He wants President Richard Nixon to be executed along with him!"
"Clang—!" The ear-piercing sound of shattering glass echoed inside the private room.
Fred lost his grip on the wine glass, and it smashed on the floor, shattering into pieces.
The Warner Bros.' top producer seemed struck by lightning, stiffly leaning back in his chair, mouth agape, his gaze shifting back and forth between the intelligence officer and Qin Han.
Although Qin Han already knew this intelligence, he still managed to put on an expression of disbelief, shock, and horror.
"My God—" Fred finally found his voice, staring intently at Qin Han: "Qin! Did you hear that? That damned script in your head almost became a reality!"
"I never imagined reality would be a million times crazier than Hollywood movies! You just wanted to crash into a newly built building, and that madman—that madman—he actually wanted to fly a plane into the White House!"
"He actually wanted to send the President of the United States to heaven? Is everything that happened today really not a dream?"
Fred's breakdown wasn't feigned. As a businessman who dealt with film and box office revenue every day, the most exciting things he had ever experienced were negotiating with unions or dealing with celebrity scandals.
Today, I not only personally experienced a real hijacking, but that plane almost became a super bomb that destroyed the highest authority in the United States.
If Qin Han hadn't suddenly decided to seek some kind of "inspiration," and if those ten members of Han's Security Guard hadn't happened to be on the plane—
He, Fred Weintraub, is now a charred corpse on the White House lawn, along with that madman!
Qin Han patted Fred on the shoulder to comfort him, but his heart was also in turmoil.
In the independent film "The Assassination of Nixon" starring Sean Penn, the tire salesman named Samuel Backer did indeed storm Baltimore-Washington International Airport with a bomb and a pistol, board a Delta Air Lines plane, and attempt to force the pilot to take off and crash into the White House.
However, he was shot and killed on the ground by a combination of aviation police and special police, before the plane could even taxi off the runway.
But now? The assassin successfully smuggled the weapon onto the plane and launched his attack only when the plane had entered stable cruising!
What does this mean? It means that this terrorist attack was never under the control of the military, police, or FBI from beginning to end!
Without our prior intervention, that Boeing airliner would have truly become a burning meteor, smashing the White House dome!
Without me, Nixon might really be dead by now!
"Bang!"
A dull thud pulled Qin Han back to reality from his deep thoughts.
General Bill slammed his hand on the table. The battle-hardened four-star general's breathing became heavy, and his tiger-like eyes burned with endless rage.
"What if he succeeds—" General Bill's voice was terribly hoarse: "A hijacked commercial airliner, under the watchful eyes of the whole world, turns the White House into an inferno—"
He closed his eyes; just imagining the scene made him feel extremely physically uncomfortable.
"Richard Nixon will die, and hundreds of innocent civilians will die."
"The glory and dignity of the United States of America over the past two centuries will be utterly destroyed in this explosion! This will be the most humiliating and indelible stain on American history!"
The Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the CIA—all agencies responsible for national security—will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame and become a laughing stock for the whole world.
"You—you saved the whole of America." General Bill turned his head sharply and looked at Qin Han.
Just as I was thinking about how to express my gratitude, I heard hurried footsteps outside the door.
Another intelligence officer stood panting at the door, also clutching a document in his hand.
He stepped into the private room, and just as he was about to speak, he noticed Qin Han and Fred sitting on the sofa.
"General—" the intelligence officer stammered, "This is breaking news we just received. The situation—is extremely sensitive. Should we clear the area?"
General Bill was in a state of extreme emotional turmoil. He waved his hand and said, "I'll say it one last time: there are no outsiders in this room."
"Mr. Qin just saved us from a devastating disaster. Tell me! What exactly happened now?"
The intelligence officer immediately straightened up: "General, just half an hour ago, the editorial offices of several major media outlets across the United States, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, simultaneously received an anonymous package."
"Inside the package was a copy of an audio tape and a detailed transcript."
Upon hearing the words "tape," Qin Han's nerves jolted, and an ominous premonition welled up in his heart.
The intelligence officer continued his report: "The contents of the tape—are a conversation that took place in the Oval Office of the White House."
"The two sides in the dialogue were President Richard Nixon and his White House Chief of Staff."
The air in the private room seemed to have been sucked out in that instant.
The intelligence officer's voice began to slur uncontrollably: "In the recording, His Excellency the President gave a clear order—he instructed the Chief of Staff to immediately contact the CIA Director, using the pretext of 'national security' threats, to forcefully intervene and pressure the FBI, demanding that they immediately cease their investigation into the 'Watergate phone call'—"
"In the recording, the president's exact words were: 'Tell them to stop investigating. For the good of the country, cover this up.'"
.
General Bill wiped the sweat from his forehead and slumped heavily onto the leather sofa.
"Damn it, why did this kind of evidence appear!" he muttered to himself, his face ashen.
Prior to this, although the Watergate scandal had caused a great uproar, all the accusations remained at the level of "fringe figures in Nixon's team wiretapping political opponents."
Nixon himself has consistently maintained that he was completely unaware of the situation and has been using various tactics to wage a tug-of-war in Congress.
As long as there is no direct evidence that the president was involved in the cover-up, he has a chance to weather this storm.
But now, this recording not only proves that Nixon was already aware of the crime, but also that he personally used the state apparatus to obstruct justice and cover up the facts of the crime!
This is an undeniable felony! It is a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution!
Another wave of turmoil surged within Qin Han's heart:
He certainly knew about this fatal recording, which in later history became known as the "Smoking Gun" tape.
But—this time is clearly wrong!
In my memory, this tape recording that determined Nixon's fate was not officially released until early August 1974, after a long legal battle and the intervention of the Supreme Court.
The release of this tape directly led to Nixon's resignation on August 8, 1974, making him the first and only president in U.S. history to resign due to responsibility.
But now it's May 1973! More than a year earlier than expected!
My own impact on history is once again clearly laid out before me.
It was because of that military sniper rifle seized from the sniper that Nixon had no choice but to completely abandon protecting the "Japanese gang" and sever all ties with them during the congressional hearing.
Those conservative bigwigs facing a purge, in order to protect themselves and to retaliate against Nixon's betrayal, prematurely detonated this political nuclear bomb that was originally supposed to explode a year later!
The butterfly's wings eventually unleashed a hurricane powerful enough to overthrow the regime of a superpower.
Now is not the time to stand idly by. Both sides have laid out their chips. Now, it's up to us to see how this game is played!
"We are so lucky, General! God bless America, and even more so Richard Nixon."
"Oh? Qin, do you have any good suggestions?" General Bill placed two documents side by side on the table and asked him.
Qin Han patted the interrogation record, his eyes filled with determination as he encouraged Bill: "Without this great gift," when this recording appeared on the front page of tomorrow's major newspapers, our President would likely have been impeached and ousted from the White House by Congress before tomorrow night even arrived!"
General Bill immediately understood Qin Han's line of thinking: Yes, the essence of voting politics has never been a black-and-white truth, but rather a clash of public sentiment.
The tapes proved that Nixon was a manipulative, obstructive liar.
But what if the media published another news story on the same day?
"The hundreds of passengers on the flight witnessed the crisis firsthand," Qin Han said with an unwavering conviction. "They all firmly believed that it was agents of the Presidential Secret Service who saved their lives at the last second."
Fred was still in a daze, unable to keep up with the two clever men's leaps of thought: "What do you mean? Shouldn't we immediately distance ourselves from this lousy government?"
"Disclaim responsibility?" Qin Han glanced at Fred. "Fred, all the major Hollywood studios call themselves dream-selling businessmen. Think about it, what kind of dramas does the public most like to see?"
"What if we release this interrogation result along with the audio recording tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow morning, the entire nation will know that a group of vicious terrorists attempted to hijack a passenger plane and crash it into the White House."
"And our President, in that critical moment, through the valiant Secret Service," turned the tide, thwarted the terrorist plot, and saved hundreds of innocent civilians."
"He himself narrowly escaped death in this heinous terrorist attack!"
Qin Han turned his head and looked intently at Fred: "A heroic president who just led the special agents to thwart a terrorist attack and walked on the edge of life and death."
"At this moment, those political enemies hiding in the shadows suddenly released a tape that had been edited from who-knows-where, attempting to attack this hero who had defended the country with a political scandal—"
"Whom do you think the American people, caught in a state of panic and anger, would be willing to believe?"
Fred's eyes lit up, and he turned to look at General Bill with excitement.
"Taking things out of context." At this moment, the general had regained his composure and uttered the four words slowly and deliberately.
"That's right, it's taken out of context." Qin Han paced back and forth in the room, continuing, "The White House press secretary could easily stand up and denounce this tape as maliciously edited by politicians who intend to subvert the country. This is a deliberate smear campaign against counterterrorism heroes! It's blatant political persecution!"
By forcibly linking the Watergate investigation with the terrorist plot, Nixon could openly wave the banner of counterterrorism and label all those who attacked him as sympathizers of terrorists!
In the face of a national security crisis that threatens the very survival of the nation, what is a little political cover-up?
Public sentiment can be easily shifted and manipulated.
Fred stared wide-eyed, as if listening to a foreign language, as if he were hearing Qin Han's distorted and utterly absurd reasoning.
He finally understood why this young man had been able to manipulate Hollywood's giants in just a few months.
"General Bill, if we succeed in this counterattack," Qin Han walked back to the table and looked at General Bill, "the President will not only not step down, but will also owe you a debt of gratitude that he can never repay."
General Bill picked up the half-finished glass of red wine on the table and drank it all in one gulp.
If Nixon doesn't want to be sent to jail tomorrow, he'll have to accept this script!
Not only must they accept it, but they must also mobilize all state machinery to fully cooperate with the military and take this "heroic rescue" drama to its extreme.
In exchange, those stubborn old "Japanese cliques," even if they cannot be completely eliminated, will at least not dare to show their faces again for a long time.
They both saw the ruthlessness in each other's eyes at the same time.
"It seems we've inadvertently saved that poor president," General Bill said softly.
"Yes, the President will be very, very grateful to us." Qin Han also laughed.
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