Hong Kong variety show: The mastermind behind the scenes is emerging.

Seeing that the Jiahe Security personnel had been waiting for a long time, Thiago's face turned ashen in an instant, and his hand involuntarily reached for the pistol at his waist.

However, before his hand even touched the leather case, the towering giant opposite him had already realized his intention.

Tian Yangyong sneered, holding the assault rifle in one hand and clicking the safety off with the other, the muzzle pointing steadily at Thiago's chest: "I advise you to behave yourself. If you move your hand again, I can't guarantee you'll have a few more holes in your body."

Thiago froze on the spot.

Harrison, standing beside him, was equally ashen-faced. Facing them were over twenty fully armed Jiahe tactical personnel, each armed with an automatic rifle or tactical submachine gun, while their group of eight was trapped in the cramped elevator. Forget about fighting back; they didn't even have a chance to escape.

Harrison was decisive; seeing no way out, he raised his gun above his head and said calmly, "I surrender."

Tian Yangyong's gaze shifted to him, then swept over Thiago.

Thiago gritted his teeth, a vein throbbing on his forehead. He'd worked in intelligence for so many years, imagined countless possible outcomes, but he never imagined he'd be cornered in an elevator and disarmed.

Perhaps this is the capriciousness of fate.

"The team we sent to the monitoring room... you must have already shut them down," Thiago suddenly said, his tone unusually certain despite it being a question.

"Of course, petty thieves like you should be caught in one fell swoop!"

Hearing such a contemptuous remark, Thiago gritted his teeth. But in the end, he slowly released his grip on the gun and raised his hand.

"That's right," Tianyang Yong waved to his men, "Take them away!"

The group of foreign agents were instantly disarmed, tied up, and escorted out of the elevator.

At the dark end of the corridor, the mole, Liu Mingsheng, had already been trampled to the ground like a dead dog by two security guards. His face was ashen, and he trembled violently. When he saw Thiago and the others being led out bound hand and foot, his lips trembled, and he couldn't utter a single sound.

"Take them with us." Tian Yangyong glanced at the traitor with disgust and snorted coldly.

……

Let's go back ten minutes.

The underground parking lot, at the entrance to the monitoring room.

Team A's captain, along with six others, followed a sleazy-looking security guard towards the monitoring room.

The security guard, a tall, thin man in his forties, walked with a swaying gait and a fawning smile on his face. He lowered his voice and said obsequiously, "Sirs, please rest assured, everything is arranged. I've sent the two people who were originally on duty in the monitoring room away under some pretext. You can go in and take over the system directly."

The captain of Team A nodded without saying anything more.

The group quickly arrived at the door of the monitoring room. The thin security guard pushed open the door and stepped aside, saying, "Please, please, please come in."

The captain of Team A stepped inside.

Then, he froze.

In a blind spot of the monitoring room, ten fully armed men in black stood silently watching them.

"It's a trap!" Team A's captain reacted swiftly, roaring as he drew his gun and tried to retreat. However, the metal door behind him had already slammed shut before he could react.

At the same time, the men in black around them pounced on them like tigers descending a mountain. Before the members of Team A could even draw their guns, they were pinned to the ground and disarmed.

"Damn it!" Team A's captain, pinned to the ground with his face pressed against the cold tiles, struggled and cursed, "You fucking bastards—!"

"Tsk tsk tsk." That smug, skinny security guard had wandered in again sometime earlier, stood in front of him, bent down, and looked at him innocently. "Sir, who are you cursing?"

"I'm cursing you, you son of a bitch!" Team A's captain cursed, "You dared to sabotage us!"

The skinny security guard wasn't annoyed; he just grinned and mimicked the man's tone: "I'm cursing you, you son of a bitch! You dared to scheme against us!"

Team A's captain was stunned, then became even angrier: "You dare to mimic my speech?"

"You dare to mimic my voice?" the skinny security guard repeated, even mimicking the clenched teeth in his tone.

The captain of Team A's eyes widened.

He had seen agents skilled in voice acting and ventriloquism, but he had never seen anyone imitate him so perfectly. It was as if his voice had been copied exactly, down to the guttural sounds and the ending notes.

"You—" he began.

"You—" the thin security guard said at the same time, his voice overlapping with his.

Team A's captain would curse, and the skinny security guard would reply; if he changed his tone, the skinny security guard would change it too.

The more he learned, the more convincing he became; the more he spoke, the more authentic it sounded. In the end, it was as if there were two identical versions of him arguing with each other in the monitoring room.

Team A's captain belatedly realized what was happening and shut up, but the skinny security guard didn't care. He turned around and nodded to Tian Yangzhi in the corner.

Seeing this, Tian Yangzhi stepped forward and waved his hand expressionlessly: "Take them all away."

Several men in black stepped forward, grabbed the four members of Team A, gagged them, and quickly led them out of the monitoring room.

Just then, the A team captain's communicator rang—it was a call from Harrison.

"Team A, how's it going?"

The security guard walked over, picked up Team A's captain's communicator, cleared his throat, and the moment he pressed the call button, his voice instantly transformed into Team A's captain's unique and slightly hoarse voice: "No problem, the monitoring room has been successfully taken over, you can go up now."

A hissing sound followed, then Harrison's steady voice: "Okay."

After the communication ended, the security guard put down the communicator, his smile still that same smug grin.

Tian Yangzhi glanced at him and, unusually, praised him, saying, "Good skill."

"That's right," the security guard rubbed his hands together, "a family heirloom, our livelihood."

……

Meanwhile, Happy Valley.

The residential area was quiet in the dead of night, with only a gentle breeze rustling through the treetops. In a bedroom on the third floor of a luxury apartment building, Stephens, the Hong Kong intelligence chief of MI6, was fast asleep, his wife in his arms.

Just then, the curtains moved silently, and two dark figures slid in from the balcony, their movements as light as cats.

One of them leaned forward and pressed a handkerchief soaked in highly concentrated ether tightly against Stephens's mouth and nose. Stephens's legs twitched violently twice, and then his whole body went limp, unable to utter a single groan.

Another dark figure skillfully hoisted the limp Stephens onto their shoulder, turned, and climbed over the balcony. The whole process took less than three minutes, and his wife, sleeping beside him, didn't even show any sign of turning over.

Similar scenes played out in many corners of Hong Kong Island that night.

In Tsim Sha Tsui, an H station intelligence agent who had just come out of a bar was chopped in the neck before he could even call a taxi. He was then shoved into a parked van with the engine off.

In a hotel suite in Central, an intelligence analyst is embracing his lover. After a while, the lover goes to take a shower. When she comes out, the person on the bed is gone, leaving only a half-finished glass of red wine.

In a tenement building in Causeway Bay, an agent from the special operations team, who had just finished his night shift, was subdued by masked men who had been waiting for him as soon as he opened his door. He didn't even have time to sound the alarm.

Overnight, the entire middle and senior management of Station H were wiped out by the winery.

……

At 2 a.m., three armored escort vehicles were driving steadily through the night on the highway from Central to the New Territories.

Each vehicle had six people inside its sealed compartment—four intelligence agents with their hands tied behind their backs, and two heavily armed security personnel from Jiahe Security who were responsible for escorting the vehicles.

Tian Yangyong personally sat in the first car, monitoring Harrison and Thiago.

The carriage was eerily quiet. Harrison hung his head, but his eyes were darting around rapidly.

Tianyang Yong was leaning against the carriage wall, resting with his eyes closed, while another security guard focused most of his attention on the tall black agent opposite him.

Seeing this, Harrison turned his head and winked at Thiago.

Thiago's pupils twitched slightly, then he lowered his eyes imperceptibly, taking the initiative to monitor the situation for Harrison.

Harrison pretended to be uncomfortable and adjusted his posture, slowly bringing his hands, which were tied behind his back, closer to his heels, and finally pulled a wire out of the lining.

This is considered a life-saving trick of the veteran agent. From the first day he joined the team, he got into the habit of hiding this inconspicuous thing in the sole of his shoe. Over the years, this wire has saved his life countless times.

Harrison skillfully bent the wire into an arc with his fingertips, using his body as cover, and slowly inserted it into the lock of the handcuffs. The wire turned gently in the lock, and with a soft "click," the handcuffs on his right hand opened.

He held his breath and waited a moment until he was sure that Tian Yangyong and the other man did not seem to notice before reaching out again and unlocking Thiago's handcuffs in the same way.

The two men exchanged a glance, and just as Harrison was about to untie his companion's clothes, a roar exploded in the carriage:

"What are you doing?!"

Harrison's hand suddenly froze. Tian Yangyong had opened his eyes at some point and was staring intently at him.

"Run!" Harrison yelled, shoving Thiago aside. "Open the back door!"

At the same time, Tian Yangyong pounced like a raging bear, grabbing Harrison's collar with a large, iron-like hand while slamming his fist down with the other.

Harrison dodged to the side, then retaliated with an elbow, and the two began to wrestle in the carriage.

Because the space was too small, neither of them could move freely and could only resort to close-quarters combat.

Several bound prisoners nearby wanted to help, but another Jiahe security guard pulled out a gun and pointed it at them, so they dared not make any rash moves.

However, the security guard was also hesitant to fire, seeing the two men wrestling together, for fear that a stray bullet might accidentally injure Tian Yangyong.

Taking advantage of a lull in their struggle, Thiago rolled over and pounced at the back of the carriage, pulling down the emergency handle with all his might.

The back door swung open with a bang, letting in a gust of night wind. Thiago turned and shouted, "Harrison! Let's go!"

Just then, Harrison took a heavy kick to the chest from Tian Yangyong, and was thrown backward. Using the force, he retreated to the back door, flipped over, and jumped down, disappearing into the night along the highway with Thiago.

Inside the carriage, Tian Yangyong stood at the open door, watching the two figures quickly disappear into the darkness, a slightly exaggerated look of "anger" and "annoyance" appearing on his face.

He slammed his fist on the metal side of the car, then sat back down in his seat, looking "indignant": "Drive back to the safe house first, then have people mobilized to search for the two of them."

"yes!"

The car continued driving, and Tian Yangyong took out his phone from his pocket and quietly sent a pre-edited text message:

"Thiago has successfully escaped."