Try Begging - Chapter 135.1
“Yes, look for a conductor or station attendant who has seen a pregnant woman with brown hair, turquoise eyes, and wearing a light brown coat…”
Outside, private soldiers mobilized by the Central Command were scouring the train station and the city late into the night, all to find just one woman.
Most of the personnel urgently deployed for this operation had no clue about the woman’s identity. They only knew she was a person of interest recently captured, with critical knowledge about the rebels.
The moment the door burst open, the noise that had filled the ears ceased abruptly. Everyone stopped their tasks and stood up to salute, but this respectful act only seemed to offend the captain further.
“So, having the luxury to stand up means you’ve found the runaway Bella, I suppose.”
As faces turned ashen, the captain turned coldly and headed towards the conference room. Amid the resuming chatter of voices asking about the woman’s whereabouts, the captain ordered Campbell.
“Get Lieutenant McGill.”
“Yes, sir.”
Campbell signaled to a private waiting on standby and then flicked his finger towards a familiar face seated at a desk. The private, who had been in charge of trailing the woman from Halewood to Winsford, immediately stood up and rushed over.
“What about Nancy Wilkins?”
He mentioned the rebel’s real name, which he had heard from conversations. When asked if there was any update on Wilkins’ whereabouts, the private’s face darkened.
“No new information has been obtained so far.”
Only about how Grace Riddle noticed the surveillance at the Winsford base and informed her colleague, then managed to escape from Wilkins’s tail and disappeared.
“And what about the Crawford area?”
“With the holiday season approaching, it would take some time to verify.”
“How long?”
“Expected by early next year…”
The private whispered the report, glancing towards the conference room. Beyond the conference room door, a blackboard detailed the pursuit status. The captain standing in front of it radiated a murderous aura.
He was returning from interrogating a porter who had lied to the surveillance team.
The porter claimed he only helped because he thought the woman was caught up with some trafficking ring. But the captain wasn’t interested in the porter’s motives for helping. It was suspected by anyone who knew Grace Riddle that she had employed her cunning tactics.
What he wanted to know was her whereabouts, yet the porter also said she didn’t know her current location. Campbell finished debriefing the private and took out a cigarette.
The situation was as if a mouse had snipped the wire on a hanging bomb and escaped.
“D*mn it…”
It had been an operation months in the making painstakingly by the Domestic Intelligence Department.
So, it was unthinkable that they hadn’t anticipated such unexpected developments. Over those months, the plan had been flexibly designed to adapt to various contingencies, and they were now following the contingency plan for if the woman disappeared while on the move.
However, this couldn’t be considered ‘going according to plan’. The farther the woman got, the further away the final objective became.
Campbell, while spinning the wheel of his lighter, chuckled without realizing it.
How could a pregnant woman avoid five soldiers? Especially when she had only shown signs of being subdued after meeting with her comrade in Winsford, making it hard to imagine her running off like a startled colt.
Campbell immediately stopped smiling and glanced towards the conference room. He was thankful that his superior hadn’t seen him laughing. The captain was pressing his temples with his fingers and his eyes shut tight.
He had thought the captain was as twisted as his necktie knot that morning, but it turned out to be far worse as the day went by.
Campbell understood what was at stake with this operation.
The future of the Winston family.
For the captain, who was already out of favor with the king for not participating in the downfall of the Sinclair family, this operation was a critical chance to turn the tide completely.
Obviously, the captain had more to his purpose.
The insistence on sending the woman to the rebel’s hideout, even though they already had clues to its location, indicated as much. As he moved to the window to light his cigarette, the office door opened, and a middle-aged nursing officer entered in civilian clothes.
‘She looks like a corpse.’
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