Far away in London, M put down the phone after receiving the reply from the other end.
But...
Sitting in her seat, M pondered for a moment. Still feeling a bit uneasy, she pulled out another phone, drafted a directive instructing the recipient to rush to New York immediately, and then set the device down, her brows furrowed deep.
For some reason, she felt like she shouldn't have made that first call.
The next day.
Sunday.
Locke was in his study, examining the sparse data regarding the International Contract Agency sent over by Red.
As expected.
This ICA had a massive connection to MI6.
Just looking at the emblems of the International Contract Agency and MI6, it was practically a certainty. After all, not every organization was so obsessed with sporting a crown.
Ring, ring.
"Hello?"
"Locke, it's Kahn. Cindy and I are heading out to Long Island. You and Gwen should hurry up and get over here."
"Alright."
Today was the weekend. Last weekend, he had promised Cindy and Kahn that they would attend a party at their Long Island villa.
Locke naturally remembered this.
Checking the time.
After setting down the phone, Locke picked up his right hand and drew a circle around a name on the printed documents, Diana, last name unknown.
He had a very deep impression of Agent 47, but regarding his organization, Locke only knew of its existence at most, with very little else.
Looking at a photograph Red had sent along with the files, Locke smiled and uploaded it into a program he had written using his hacking skills during his spare time over the past few days.
He shut off the computer screen, stood up, and rigged a landmine right behind the study door before leaving to pick up Gwen for the party.
Trouble was trouble.
Life was life. Locke was still confident in his ability to separate trouble from his personal life.
Furthermore.
Given the combat capability he had exposed up to this point, it was already enough to keep him safe from most threats without raising anyone's suspicion.
Under George's witness, he had developed excellent marksmanship.
Even...
During the Poseidon incident, under the watchful eyes of Gwen and the others, he had fought off a shark, showcasing his close-quarters combat skills. As long as Locke didn't make his bullets curve, no matter how much he exposed himself, no one would ever connect him to the Peerless Assassin.
Ever since the textile mill incident, Locke had intentionally let the Peerless Assassin fade from his world, doing his utmost to cut ties cleanly. Besides, the Peerless Assassin had already exposed that he had a witch accomplice.
Locke didn't.
If George still suspected Locke was the Peerless Assassin, then as the Dark Sovereign, Locke felt George would start suspecting his own daughter, Gwen.
That was obviously impossible.
How could Gwen be a witch?
Locke felt that if Gwen absolutely had to gain supernatural powers, the Ghost-Spider would be a better choice.
The Ghost-Spider uniform looked quite nice.
Uniform temptation, after all.
But that also seemed impossible. Sitting in the car waiting for Gwen to come downstairs, Locke smiled as he watched the blonde, blue-eyed Gwen emerge from the apartment entrance. His Gwen could never be a spider.
"Good morning."
"Morning."
Locke shared a kiss with Gwen as she got into the car, then curiously eyed the items she had just placed in the trunk, "What did you bring?"
"Ingredients."
Gwen buckled her seatbelt, "The ingredients on Long Island are obscenely expensive. It's better to bring them from home. Cindy brought some too. We're doing a barbecue party this afternoon, what do you think?"
Locke started the car, clicked open the navigation, and drove toward their destination on Long Island, smiling.
"Anything works."
Gwen smiled, pulled out her phone, and called Cindy.
"Cindy, we've set off. Do we need to bring anything else?"
Cindy, who had just arrived at the Long Island villa, covered her forehead, "Bring some charcoal. I just checked and realized the charcoal here is entirely useless."
Gwen let out a laugh, "Alright, anything else?"
"That's all."
Cindy smiled, wedging the phone between her shoulder and ear as she and Kahn lifted the barbecue grill from the garage toward the backyard beach.
"Just need you to get here quickly. I need you. I used to think organizing a party was simple when I just attended them, but now that it's my turn, it's way too much trouble."
Gwen hummed in agreement, chatted for a bit, then put down the phone. She relayed the request to Locke and marked a location on the map.
"Go buy it at this place. We'll pass right by it. Whenever Dad and his colleagues went to Long Island for a barbecue party, they always bought it there."
Locke nodded.
John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Clad in a black suit, sporting a red tie, and a bald head, Agent 46 appeared in the public parking lot.
In the next second.
A man wearing a hat casually brushed past Agent 46. In just an instant, a document bag was exchanged.
Agent 46 extracted a car key from the document bag.
Beep, beep!
Not far away, a nearly brand-new silver Audi R8 flashed its headlights twice.
Getting into the car.
Closing the door.
Agent 46 opened the glove compartment on the passenger side, pulling out another envelope. A silver pistol, a photograph, and a disposable phone dropped out from within.
The silver pistol was a genuine Silverballer.
The photograph? It was Locke's.
Looking at the photo in his hand, Agent 46 used his leather-gloved right hand to press a button on the disposable phone, finding the only stored number in the call history to dial out.
Very quickly.
The call connected.
"Agent 46, your mission is to assassinate the target in this photograph, Locke Broughton. On the surface, he is a tenth-grade student at Midtown High School in New York City, but he is actually an operative recruited by the CIA. Furthermore, he already knows about our organization's existence. As an unauthorized person with this knowledge, you need to assassinate him to ensure our organization's anonymity."
"The real-time location data of his vehicle has been sent to your dashboard screen."
"Good luck, Agent 46."
"This message will self-destruct in ten seconds."
Agent 46 unhurriedly took the phone away from his ear, opened the window, and tossed the device out. With a muffled pop, smoke poured out from the four corners of the phone, clearly marking the destruction mentioned on the call.
Vroom!
The car started up. Along with the ignition of the center console, a green marker appeared. The green marker was traveling at a speed of under fifty miles per hour, moving from Queens toward Long Island.
Agent 46 expressionless attached a silencer to the Silverballer. With a sharp click, he confirmed it was chambered without error, then directly accelerated the remaining silver Audi R8, rapidly heading toward Long Island as well.
Long Island, though called New York's Long Island, was actually quite far from Manhattan if divided by urban rings.
Queens was already considered a place with some distance from New York City, and Long Island was even further east of Queens.
Strictly speaking, Long Island was just like New Jersey. In the minds of New Yorkers, New Jersey was the countryside where people grew grass, while the native residents of Long Island were mocked as potato farmers.
But mockery aside, this didn't hinder the development of Long Island's real estate in the slightest.
Starting from the year 2000, several wealthy individuals favored buying oceanfront villas in Long Island, especially in the Hamptons—their destination today—for vacationing and the like.
"Pepper also has a villa in Southampton."
Gwen, who had spent the last few days dedicated to studying Long Island's real estate trends, shared her knowledge with Locke, adding.
"Pepper also mentioned that Long Island's real estate still has room to appreciate. Buying now, whether for investment or personal use, is quite suitable."
Locke smiled, "Then let's buy. Didn't you say the day before yesterday that you caught your eye on two properties?"
Gwen nodded, "How about I contact the real estate agent to see if they're free today, so we can take a look?"
Locke said, "Sure, since those two locations aren't far apart anyway. After buying the charcoal, if we have time, we can just head right over."
It wasn't a matrimonial home, and the price was under five hundred thousand. Counting the property taxes and everything else, it was relatively cheap.
Saying this, Locke slowly steered the car off the main road and gently pulled up in front of a shop right by the roadside.
The shop was very small.
After getting out of the car, Locke paused his steps.
Stepping down from the passenger seat, Gwen looked at Locke, who had suddenly frozen up right after speaking, and asked curiously.
"Aren't you coming in?"
Locke snapped back, looking at Gwen, "I'll wait for you here."
The direction from which his six senses had just warned him came from the direction of New York City, not the small grocery store behind them.
And...
The warning was very faint.
Faint to the point that if Locke's six senses weren't incredibly sharp, he probably would have ignored it entirely.
There were many levels to the system's warnings.
The lowest was like the one just now, so faint it could practically be disregarded, while the highest was a frantic ringing of his six senses. The last time on the Poseidon, it had been the highest-level warning.
But back then, Locke never would have guessed that the danger would turn out to be the ocean itself.
What about this time?
An earthquake?
Locke stroked his chin, watching Gwen walk into the convenience store. He bent down, returned inside the car, opened the glove box, and retrieved the Glock pistol George had handed him because he was worried Locke didn't have a weapon to protect Gwen.
With two sharp clicks.
Locke disengaged the Glock's safety to prevent an accidental discharge, then like a cowboy, tucked the Glock into his lower back. He narrowed his eyes, staring down the road they had just come from.
Over there, an identical silver Audi R8, sharing the exact same configuration as Locke's, was tearing through like a bolt of lightning.