Bella's group waited in the underground bunker—some playing cards, some sleeping, some gaming, some writing. Their leisure activities were quite abundant. Everyone had settled into a "we're not fighting anymore, just waiting for rescue" mentality.
The people outside weren't so relaxed.
Veteran Secret Service agent Walker had regrouped with the attackers. The whole gang tried everything, but still had no way to breach the bunker's massive reinforced door.
Explosives, welding torches, jackhammers—they'd tried every conventional method, but hadn't left even a scratch on the door.
"FUCK! This is your plan? This is the plan you carefully crafted after twenty years protecting the President? You idiot! You old dog!" The curly-haired leader of the attackers unleashed a torrent of abuse at the veteran agent.
He'd gambled his life and his brothers' lives on this big score. Now what? The first step had succeeded, but the second step had failed spectacularly.
Not only had they failed to capture the President, but he'd taken refuge in the underground bunker. Now the entire plan was ruined. All he could do was curse.
The veteran agent was equally frustrated. Was this his fault?
"I told you to control all those hostages! Did you do that? Did that family of four fall from the sky? All four have excellent marksmanship, plus my colleagues—how many enemies did you expect me to handle? This is your incompetence!"
He bellowed back.
The curly-haired man wasn't backing down. "Bullshit! I lost two brothers, two more injured! Wasn't that your intelligence failure?"
The veteran agent sneered. "With tourists from all over the world, was I supposed to run background checks on every single one? I'm the White House Security Chief, not the Director of the CIA! Don't argue with me—you're just incompetent!"
The old man jabbed a finger at the curly-haired man's chest, radiating authority.
He was alone and injured, but faced with the veteran agent's domineering attitude, the curly-haired man ultimately chose to endure it. He had no choice—with the operation failed, he and his brothers needed the veteran agent's connections more than ever to survive.
The old man turned around. "Taylor, how much longer to cut off their signal?"
The young man named Taylor was drenched in sweat, his fingers flying over the keyboard. He was trying to use the White House network to hack into and control the bunker's network, but successive presidents had taken their lives very seriously. Network and computer experts had made the bunker's network as impregnable as a fortress.
Given three to five years, he might crack it, but time was the one thing they didn't have.
The hacker was cunning. He didn't dare tell them the truth, fearing they'd kill him. So he kept stalling. "Almost there, almost! Just need to crack this encryption... Huh, interesting algorithm!"
His somewhat manic demeanor actually fooled the veteran agent and curly-haired man into thinking he was close to success. They waited for him to control the internal systems and open the door so they could go in and capture the President.
But one wait brought "just a little more time," another brought "this protocol is very interesting," and still the door remained stubbornly closed.
The veteran agent walked around to face the hacker and looked him over. Ha! The guy was drenched head to toe like he'd been pulled from water.
Seeing this, he realized he'd been played.
"Don't kill me! I'm still useful! I..." The hacker's pleas were cut short by gunfire. The veteran agent shot him in the head.
The old man was dizzy with rage, his wound still oozing blood. He quickly fumbled in his pocket for a pill bottle, grabbed a handful without looking, and shoved them in his mouth.
He stood there thinking for over a minute, racking his brain, but couldn't come up with a way to break the stalemate...
Those people were holed up in their turtle shell and wouldn't come out. What could he do? Hold a gun to the hostages and force the President out? Don't be ridiculous. This was a President who'd survived countless political machinations and power struggles to reach the top—not some superhero. He wouldn't come out even if they were slaughtering people outside.
The old man had no choice but to seek help from the mastermind behind it all.
When he made the call, the mastermind was equally confused. How had such a good plan turned into this?
He quickly held secret consultations with several allies, major figures with tremendous influence in the country. Finally, they made their decision—if soft methods won't work, use hard ones!
They called the Vice President, who was still sheltering on Air Force One.
"The military-industrial complex would like you to lead America."
The Vice President was a fairly tall, elderly white man with age spots on his face. Hearing the proposal, his eyebrows twitched involuntarily.
He lowered his voice. "President Sawyer is still in office."
"He doesn't have to be. He's obstructing many people's business. My associates and I don't like him."
The Vice President's face remained expressionless. "We must uphold the Constitution, no matter who they are or what position they hold."
The voice on the other end chuckled softly. "Of course, we're all law-abiding citizens. We will strictly uphold the Constitution."
The call ended.
One minute later, an F-117 ignored base orders, loaded with missiles, and took off from Andrews Air Force Base. Its target was the White House.
"Intercept it! Shoot it down!" The Pentagon immediately spotted the fighter's intention and scrambled jets to intercept, but under the mastermind's manipulation, the interceptor pilots didn't receive their orders for a full forty seconds. When they finally took off, they discovered they had no weapons—another delay of several dozen seconds.
By the time the interceptor reached the runway, the mysterious F-117 was less than a minute from the White House.
"Mr. President! Prepare yourself, the aircraft is armed with missiles!" The Pentagon urgently warned President Sawyer, who was still playing cards in the underground bunker.
Holy crap! What now? The U.S. Constitution didn't say what to do in this situation! President Sawyer looked panicked, no longer quite so confident in the bunker's safety.
"Don't worry!"
"It'll be fine!"
Duke and Charlie both tried to calm everyone. Actually, only three people were truly panicked—little Emily, the young tour guide, and President Sawyer. Anyone with basic military knowledge understood that an underground bunker that had been under construction since the 1950s wouldn't be breached so easily. Forget missiles—it could withstand a nuclear blast.
And that's pretty much how it went. The F-117 bombarded the White House mercilessly. Those in the underground bunker barely felt any vibration. Only the young tour guide looked ashen—judging by the sounds, with such intense explosions, the surface structures had virtually no chance of survival. In other words, the White House was destroyed... and his job was probably gone too...
Bella didn't have strong feelings about the White House being bombed, though she regretted the loss of the artwork. She couldn't quite understand the thinking behind this—what kind of massive interest could drive people to order fighter jets to bomb their own country's administrative headquarters, their national symbol?