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

In early February, along the Black Sea coast, the wind blows down from the direction of the Caucasus Mountains, carrying snow and gravel that patter against the bare rocks.

The sky above the ridgeline was leaden gray, with low-hanging clouds pressing down on the mountaintops like a thick iron curtain, completely blocking the sunlight from the other side.

However, few people know that deep within this seemingly barren mountain range lies one of the Soviet Union's most secretive chemical weapons production bases.

The Sevastopol Factory, the Soviet military's highest-level secret factory, was built in the 1960s. To evade Western satellite reconnaissance and NATO air strikes, Soviet engineers hollowed out half a mountain to build this "city inside the mountain."

From the outside, it looks like an abandoned air-raid shelter, with only a rusty iron gate and a few ventilation pipes. But inside are underground tunnels, workshops, and laboratories stretching for kilometers, where the Soviet Union's most mysterious nerve gas, "Nova 6," is produced day and night.

"Nova VI" was first secretly developed in 1944 by Friedrich Steiner, a brilliant scientist from Nazi Germany. However, fate was unpredictable, and before this deadly poison gas could be mass-produced, the Third Reich collapsed.

After World War II, Soviet officers Lev Kravchenko and Nikita Dragovich accidentally captured Steiner, who was trying to smuggle himself into the Soviet Union, and the complete set of blueprints for Nova VI was thus transported to the Soviet Union.

Based on this, Soviet military experts made secondary improvements, giving it higher lethality and speed of spread. The gas produced by Nova VI is slightly yellow. Once inhaled, victims will experience violent coughing, bleeding from the corners of their eyes and face, blackening and ulceration of the skin (necrosis), muscle spasms, and rapid suffocation and death within seconds to tens of seconds.

Because of its extreme lethality and inhumanity, the Soviet Union kept it strictly secret, storing it only as a covert measure within its Sevastopol factory.

Three years ago, MI6 learned of the existence of Nova 6 during an operation. They were shocked and coveted it. So they spent three years confirming the factory's coordinates and sent their most elite agents, 006 and 007, to the Black Sea. Their objectives were twofold: to find the complete set of blueprints and to destroy the entire factory.

……

At nine o'clock in the morning, on the ridgeline at an altitude of 1,200 meters, a black figure was silently descending along the rock face.

James Bond, MI6's top agent, M's ace, codename 007.

At this moment, he was wearing a close-fitting black combat uniform. He gripped the rope tightly with both hands, and his feet were firmly planted on the protruding rock. His movements were clean and efficient. In the blink of an eye, he silently slid down to the iron structure on the roof of the factory.

Then, Bond raised his left hand and gently pressed the oddly shaped watch on his wrist.

That's Dr. Q's latest laser cutter. It looks just like an ordinary watch, but it has a built-in miniature solid-state laser emitter that can penetrate a 10-millimeter-thick steel plate in three seconds.

"laugh--"

Accompanied by a piercing metallic crackling sound, two minutes later, a circular hole about half a meter in diameter appeared beneath his feet.

Bond put away the laser, unfastened the steel cable from his waist, and deftly slipped into the hole, landing in a narrow maintenance passage.

The passage was dark, with only occasional vents letting in light. After landing, Bond did not rush to move, but instead lay flat on the ground like a hunting dog, holding his breath and making sure there was nothing unusual around him before slowly crawling forward.

Just as he turned the second corner, a figure emerged from the shadows to the side.

The man was wearing almost the same tactical uniform as Bond, but was slightly more muscular. He had short, dark hair, an old scar on his chin, and was holding a Walther P99.

Alec Tverian, MI6 agent 006, is an old friend Bond met at Eton College and has been his partner for many years.

"You're too slow, kid," Tverian teased, putting away his gun. "I've been so bored here I'm about to take a seven-minute nap."

"I ran into a vulture on the road that tried to cut me off," Bond said, putting away his gun and shrugging. "Maybe it smelled the capitalist scent on me."

The two looked at each other and saw that familiar, long-lost smile in each other's eyes.

"Alright, stop joking," Tverian lowered his voice, "I've been preparing for this job for two whole months, I can't afford to mess it up at the last minute."

"Relax, as long as everything goes smoothly, we'll be able to lie on the Mediterranean beach this afternoon and admire the legs of beautiful women," Bond joked, taking the lead and walking ahead.

Tverian chuckled and muttered something under his breath behind him before turning into the depths of the passage. The two of them, one in front of the other, silently approached their designated location through the intricate structure of the factory.

……

As the highest-ranking building in the Soviet military-industrial complex, the Sevastopol factory is ridiculously large in scale.

Its main production area has four floors, each heavily guarded, with various infrared detectors and sensors everywhere, and squads of heavily armed Soviet soldiers patrolling key locations.

But this was no challenge for the battle-hardened 006 and 007. Teverlyan had already infiltrated the factory and obtained the layout map. They took turns providing cover, using the gaps in the rotating cameras to quickly traverse the corridors. Occasionally, at points where avoidance was impossible, Bond would use a thin electromagnetic jammer to temporarily block the signal, restoring it once the two had passed.

They passed through the first-floor living area smoothly, but when they entered the second floor through the airtight door, an unexpected incident occurred—a three-person patrol team had arrived ahead of them.

The two men darted into the shadows of the corner, holding their breath. The instant the squad passed in front of them, Bond swiftly reached out from the shadows, covering the mouth of the last member with his hand, and precisely pressed down on his neck with his other hand.

The soldier didn't even utter a sound before his body went limp, and Bond silently dragged him into the shadows. At the same time, Tverian swiftly dealt with the other two, his movements equally clean and efficient, without making a sound.

They dragged the three men into the nearest equipment room and hid them behind a set of pipes; the whole process took less than forty seconds.

The two then continued deeper, passing through three layers of sealed gates and two maintenance corridors, finally entering the core area of ​​the factory—the Nova VI nerve agent production workshop.

The workshop was larger than I had imagined, with a high dome and huge stainless steel chemical reactors all around, their surfaces covered with pipes and valves that stretched from the ground to the ceiling support structure.

A faint odor permeated the air, like a mixture of metal and some kind of irritating chemical, which was diluted to a barely tolerable level by the continuous operation of the ventilation system.

Since the Soviet Union had already ordered a halt to production of Nova VI, the entire workshop was deserted, with only the air conditioning system humming.

"Proceed according to plan. I'll go install the explosives, and you go to the control panel to copy the data," Bond said in a low voice.

Tverian nodded, and the two parted ways, each moving along their predetermined routes.

Bond crouched behind a support on the side of reactor number one, secured a palm-sized piece of plastic explosive to the pipe connection, turned the timer to the six-minute setting, and then pressed the start button.

"drop--"

The timer emitted a barely perceptible chime, and the red numbers on the LCD screen began to count down rapidly.

Bond then precisely installed each explosive charge onto the reactor and critical piping connections.

Just as the last explosive was about to be set—

"Waaah—! Waaah—! Waaah—!"

The piercing alarm sounded without warning, and red warning lights flashed simultaneously on all four walls of the workshop, turning the surfaces of the stainless steel reactors into a flickering dark red.

The next second, the explosion-proof airtight door at the end of the workshop slid open to both sides, and a squad of heavily armed Soviet soldiers rushed in, quickly deploying into tactical formation at the workshop entrance.

"Damn it!" Bond cursed under his breath, quickly lowering himself and hiding in the shadows at the bottom of the reactor, his fingers already gripping the pistol at his waist.

But then, Bond's pupils contracted sharply—because Trevor was being brought in by soldiers.

Leading the group was a Slavic man in a dark gray officer's uniform. He was stocky, with broad shoulders and features as hard and unyielding as a piece of granite that hadn't been fully polished.

Colonel Orumov, a senior agent of the Soviet State Security Committee, was also the head of this chemical plant.

"Get out here!" Orumov walked up to Tveryan, grabbed his hair and forced him to look up, then shouted in Russian, "I can smell the filthy, rotten stench of imperialism emanating from you—now, lay down your weapons and surrender! Otherwise, I'll blow your accomplices' heads off right now!"

The workshop was completely silent.

With a gun pressed against his temple, Tverian showed no fear. He immediately yelled at the top of his lungs, "007! Don't worry about me! Keep up the plan! Don't let me die in vain. Ugh!—"

Before he could finish his impassioned speech, a soldier slammed his rifle butt into his stomach, causing Tverian to curl up like a shrimp and gag uncontrollably.

Orumov glanced at him, then repeated in English, "You worthless lackey, come out!"

Bond crouched in the shadow of the reactor, glanced at the countdown timer on his reactor, and an idea instantly popped into his head.

He quietly crept up to the bomb and turned the countdown to three minutes.

Then he stood up, raised his hands, and slowly emerged from the shadows: "I'm here."

In an instant, more than a dozen AKs turned towards him. Orumov looked at him, a smile playing on his lips: "James Bond, I've heard so much about you."

"Likewise," Bond said casually. "Colonel Orumov, I've heard a lot about you."

Orumov's eyebrows twitched, and he was just about to deliver another sarcastic remark in a victorious manner when suddenly—

Tverian suddenly broke free from the soldier holding him, slammed the back of his head into the nose of the man behind him, and took advantage of the moment when the man was in pain and loosened his grip to flip over and leap up. With a swing of his arm, he actually managed to snatch the AK rifle from a soldier's hand!

"Bang!"

Without hesitation, Tverian fired a shot in Orumov's direction, but in his haste, he couldn't aim properly, and the bullet struck the pipe wall beside Orumov. Orumov was startled and immediately drew his pistol—

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out.

Trevorian's body jolted violently; a bloody hole appeared in his chest. He glanced down, then looked up again in Bond's direction, his lips moving but no sound escaping.

The next moment, he fell heavily backward, his back slamming against the iron frame of the reactor. He then slid down and collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

"No!—" Bond's voice squeezed out of his throat, but was mostly swallowed up by the alarm.

Orumov holstered his gun, glanced with disgust at the lifeless Tverian lying on the ground, then looked at the grief-stricken Bond: "Surrender now, and I may spare your life."

"You're dreaming!" Bond cursed, then turned around abruptly and lunged at the row of huge chemical storage tanks behind him—those tanks contained the undiluted Nova VI stock solution!

He opened his arms wide and hugged the storage jar tightly to his chest.

The surrounding soldiers were terrified at the sight and raised their guns to fire, but Orumov immediately stopped them with a wave of his hand and a stern shout: "Idiots, don't shoot! If you break the canister, we'll all die!"

Upon hearing this, the soldiers immediately became hesitant to act rashly.

In that moment of hesitation, Bond's eyes hardened, and he decisively reached out and turned the auxiliary valve on the canister. The next second, an almost invisible gas surged out of the valve and quickly spread through the air.

The surrounding soldiers were instantly terrified, instinctively retreating in panic. Orumov's expression changed as well; he swiftly pulled a gas mask from his waist, put it on, and roared at the soldiers behind him, "Put on your masks! Everyone put on your masks!"

Bond, who had already put on a gas mask, took advantage of the chaos inside the workshop and rushed into the nearest escape route.

"Chase him! Don't let him get away!" Orumov roared angrily from behind.

Footsteps sounded behind him, but Bond didn't turn around. He ran wildly down the passage, sprinting towards the ground exit, his military boots pounding sharply on the metal steps, a mournful cry like a death countdown.

……

Meanwhile, inside the production workshop, after Orumov led all the soldiers out in pursuit, the workshop fell silent again, with only the alarm lights flashing alternately on the walls and the bloodstain on the ground slowly darkening.

Just then, the body next to the pool of blood suddenly moved.

The next second, Tverian, who should have felt "completely chilled," slowly sat up. He glanced at the bloodstains on his chest with some disgust and pulled out a blood pack that was already broken.

Then, Tverian stretched his aching shoulders, a smug smile playing on his lips: "I hope you manage to escape unscathed, Bond. After all, I still need you to deliver my death message~"

However, before he could be smug for long, a faint voice suddenly came from behind him.

"Mr. Tverian, I advise you not to be too happy yet—because as far as I know, Mr. Bond just made some minor adjustments to those bombs, and now they are only one minute away from detonating completely."

"Who?!"

Tverian's face stiffened, and he instantly flipped over and jumped up, simultaneously drawing the Walther P99 from his waist with his right hand, pointing the muzzle in the direction from which the sound came.

A figure slowly emerged from the shadows.

The man had blond hair, wore a dark gray overcoat, and had a pale, sickly complexion. He slowly walked to the edge of the red light of the siren and stopped, a calm smile playing on his lips.

"Mr. Tverian," the man began, his voice unusually calm, "please put down your gun. I am not your enemy."

Upon hearing this, Tverian's gun barrel did not lower in the slightest; instead, his eyes grew even colder and more wary.

"I know you want revenge on Japan," the man continued, "but coincidentally... I hate it just as much. So, I think we can cooperate."

Tverian narrowed his eyes and asked coldly, "Who are you? MI6 or KGB?"

"Now is not the time to sit down for afternoon tea and discuss identities," the man smiled, but did not answer directly. "Mr. Tverian, Bond's bomb has only fifty-five seconds left. And... if you choose to shoot me now, you will definitely not be able to leave here."

As he spoke, the mysterious man suddenly reached out and pulled open the front of his coat.

The man was strapped with a row of plastic explosives, with white wires extending from his chest to his waist, like a terrifying suit of armor.

"Madman!" Tverian's pupils contracted sharply, and he cursed under his breath, but then decisively holstered his gun and turned to rush towards a secret escape route in the workshop: "We'll talk outside!"

"No problem." The mysterious man deftly pulled up his coat and followed him outside.

The two ran wildly along the passage, and finally, with ten seconds left before the explosion, they successfully rushed out of the ventilation shaft.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Before the two could even catch their breath, a muffled tremor suddenly came from the ground behind them. The next second, a loud bang exploded from the depths of the mountain. The top of the Sevastopol factory collapsed inward instantly, as if it had been suddenly swallowed by a giant maw from an ancient abyss.

Teverian squatted on the gravel slope outside the ventilation shaft, watching the landslide area that had instantly turned into a huge "basin", and slowly exhaled.

In the distance, the silhouette of a small plane swept past the edge of the firelight before plunging into the clouds and disappearing into the northern sky. Tverian recognized it; it was Bond piloting the plane.

Tverian looked in the direction the plane had disappeared, his lips twitching slightly. Then he turned to look at the person who had run out with him.

"Now," Tverian stood up, brushed the gravel off his knees, and pointed his gun back at the other man, "tell me who you really are."

The charming man straightened his coat again, stood at the boundary between firelight and shadow, and wore a smile on his face.

"My name is Thiago," he said, "but now I've given myself a new name—Silva."