Chapter 1852 - Mantis and Oriole

With the technology Cobra had, it really wouldn’t be hard for it to make a fortune.

It would take at most an hour or two for their stealth planes to take several tons of drugs from Central and South America to the United States.

Given the current price of drugs in the United States, it wouldn’t be hard to make tens of billions of dollars a year.

In the last few years, however, MARS Industries had taken tens of billions of euros in funding from NATO under the guise of development; there was no need to dabble in drugs.

After each nation was sent the extortion notice, the people in the North Pole base practically stopped moving to avoid being discovered.

McCullen had long gone into hiding. He even met a few NATO bigshots in private, and pretended not to know anything.

Although NATO had heard from the G.I. Joe special force team that something might be wrong with McCullen, they didn’t really believe it.

McCullen wasn’t an ordinary person. After decades, he had accumulated extraordinary connections in NATO.

It would be very hard to touch him without solid evidence.

There were even rumors that the United States was detaining anyone who was the least bit suspicious – if that was the case, all the NATO higher-ups would probably be arrested several times over.

In such a high-pressure situation, only the two highest-ranking members, White Shadow and the Baroness, would take people out every now and then.

A lot of arrangements had to be made for Cobra’s negotiations with other countries, and these two were the ‘supervisors.’

Luke waited quite a while before this master and disciple duo finally went out.

Natasha, who was training, was rushed to put on her armor, and Luke swiftly packed up all their personal effects.

Five minutes later, they emerged from the ice house and chased after the Cobra fighter plane.

After they flew 100 kilometers in their armor, they were met by the invisible Quinjet, which opened the back door to welcome them inside. It then turned around and gave chase.

There were many advantages to flying in armor, but one of the biggest shortcomings was that their range of movement in it was limited.

When they wanted to fly at high speeds, their bodies had to be straight the entire time in order for the thrusters on the back and on their hands to be effective.

A fighter plane was slightly slower, but people could move around freely on it. At the very least, their hands were free to handle more information, which made it more suitable for long-distance travel.

On the Quinjet, Luke began to look up the intelligence. “This should be White Shadow’s target this time: French scientist Valerie Binoche, white, female, 45 years old and an expert in electromagnetism. She also participated in developing the nanomites’ resistance to electromagnetic impacts. A few days ago, she just proposed a few targeted solutions that might be able to counter the nanomites.”

Natasha had a derisive look on her face. “Is Cobra crazy? It would take years to turn a plan like that into reality. Even in an emergency situation, it would already be pretty good if there were results after a few months. Even then, they might not be able to put it into practice.”

Luke, however, shook his head. “This Miss Binoche is a pacifist, so not long after she joined the nanomites project, she started privately researching countermeasures. It’s possible that the only thing she needs to produce the technology is time.”

Natasha’s eyes lit up. “Then, this technology should be pretty good, right?”

Luke blinked. “Oh, dear Natasha, are you thinking of credit points again? This isn’t good. As the beautiful and charming Black Widow, how can you be as vulgar as a businessman?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. As if I would believe you, you d*mn middle man!

Then, Luke coughed and said, “I won’t get involved. Whatever you can get is yours.”

Natasha wasn’t surprised, but she couldn’t help but curse inwardly. It’s not like you d*mn fat cats are short of credit points. You just need to wait, and I’ll bring the good stuff back for you, right?

Unfortunately, just because she could see through him didn’t mean that she would say no.

The female agent, who had already enjoyed the benefits of the Chi Refining Technique, knew that not only did she have to do it, she had to do it beautifully.

After all, the bigshot had too many good things!

…

In the Binoche Private Research Institute on the outskirts of Paris, Dr. Valerie Binoche was still working in the lab.

She had put forward several proposals for countering the nanomites, and they were still being reviewed.

Seven or eight countries were arguing, and more than a hundred specialists who had been involved in developing the nanomites had put forward a lot of proposals.

But as long as no one was able to pull out a practical product, all these proposals were just empty promises.

This was the problem with the bureaucratic system.

Even at a time like this, not everyone wanted to take care of the nanomite warheads right away.

First of all, many people didn’t know the exact power of the nanomites, but they wanted to use this dangerous thing to gain the upper hand.

Secondly, even if the nanomite warheads exploded, not everyone would lose out in equal measure, and many people and countries might even be able to profit from it.

These people wouldn’t step out in the open, but would secretly make life difficult for their rivals.

Thus, Valerie’s proposals were just a drop in the ocean.

She could only return to her lab and work overtime. That way, she might be able to come up with a finished product without having to wait for those in charge to stop arguing.

What she didn’t know was that at that moment, Cobra’s stealth plane had already landed on the roof of the research institute, and White Shadow and the Baroness had snuck down soundlessly from the rooftop with a team of soldiers in metal masks.

Their plan wasn’t to kill Valerie, but to abduct her.

Her research could prove to be the bane of the nanomites, or it could boost their defenses.

Also, there was a backup of her research data at the NATO weapons intelligence center.

If she kicked up a huge fuss, NATO would pay more attention to her proposals, which wouldn’t do Cobra any good.

White Shadow’s ‘mantis’ group entered, with the ‘oriole’ hot on its heels1.

Two invisible figures got out of the invisible Quinjet and silently stuck to Cobra.

Less than half a minute later, the surveillance feed on Cobra’s fighter plane turned into a video on loop. The plane door opened, and two transparent figures slipped inside. The door closed.

The co-pilot who had been left to guard the plane didn’t notice anything.

Ten minutes later, White Shadow’s group boarded the fighter plane with a middle-aged woman, and the plane immediately took off.

On the fighter plane, the Baroness sat next to White Shadow. They talked in low voices about their capture of Dr. Binoche, and then fell silent.

It was more than 4,000 kilometers from France to the North Pole base. It would take the stealth plane almost two hours to cover the distance.

Neither of them was a chatterbox, and they naturally wouldn’t talk all the time. After a while, they closed their eyes to rest.

White Shadow, however, felt that something wasn’t right. He looked around the plane, but only saw a few of the masked soldiers sitting blankly.

He took a deep breath. Maybe it was because the situation had been too tense recently, so he was a little on edge.

Thinking that, he closed his eyes again to rest.

On his back, a small metal ant clung to his armor. It stuck a tiny sucker into a blood vessel under the skin.