Chapter 759: Chapter 761: Meeting, Chatting - Interrogation ✓
At eleven o’clock noon, a well-known hospital in New York, deep within the sixth floor, a high-end ward.
"Illinois Nuclear Energy Company..."
Hearing this name, a flicker of an imperceptible strange hue passed through the depths of Luo An’s eyes, which Vireness did not notice, and she continued with a grim face:
"This energy company owns ten nuclear power plants, and its subsidiaries engage in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution, and sale of electricity to residential, commercial, industrial, and wholesale customers.
Besides the nuclear power plants, the company has invested in dozens of nuclear laboratories of various sizes across different states.
Some laboratories are small-scale and do not have the capability to extract and refine Polonium-210, only six large-scale nuclear laboratories can perform operations involving Polonium-210.
These six large-scale nuclear laboratories have severe issues with the handling of fuel!"
Luo An suppressed his thoughts and asked:
"Does the boss suspect that people in these nuclear laboratories are the ones producing the leaked Polonium-210?"
"It’s very likely."
Vireness nodded seriously and said gravely:
"Additionally, Polonium-210 is not something that can be produced whenever one wishes; its production process is quite complex and requires many raw materials.
Besides the people in these laboratories, I suspect that the top executives of Illinois Nuclear Energy Company are also involved!"
"Understood."
Luo An nodded without refuting Vireness’s inference
Even deeper, he thought about those profit-driven top executives of the Illinois Nuclear Energy Company; it might just be one of them who arranged for the personnel in the laboratories to produce and quietly sell Polonium-210.
"Be very careful when investigating this case..."
Vireness briefly mentioned some clues she knew, repeated her concerns a few times, and reminded Luo An to be extremely cautious. After Luo An smiled and promised, he stood up and left the ward.
In the corridor, Luo An leaned on a cane, moving slowly while carefully contemplating the clues Vireness had mentioned.
After pondering for a while, he took out his phone and called Chenier, asking her and Winslow to go to the location previously mentioned by Vireness and retrieve that notebook.
"No problem!"
Chenier on the other end of the phone decisively agreed, quickly took action with Winslow, and then Luo An called Reesi, saying:
"Reesi, change your identity and go to the prison where Blue-eyed Roy is, try to bring back that prison guard named Danny discreetly, I have some things I want to talk to him about."
"Easy!"
Reesi on the other end of the call chuckled and slapped her chest, promising to definitely get the job done, then hung up.
Luo An then called Michelle and ordered:
"Michelle, investigate the situation of the nuclear laboratories invested in by the Illinois Nuclear Energy Company.
It’s okay if some information can’t be found, just make sure to check the working hours, personnel composition, family information of the personnel, and their financial information of those laboratories."
"Alright."
Michelle took the order and hung up, then Luo An took the elevator downstairs to the first floor, walked into the parking lot, where Mona had been waiting for a long time.
The two opened the car doors and sat in, Mona buckled her seatbelt and asked:
"What’s the next step?"
"Go to a deserted warehouse in Southern New York, I’ll guide you."
Luo An rubbed his temples, his eyes slightly squinted, and smiled:
"It’s time to meet with the agents temporarily assigned for this mission by Vireness and have a discussion."
————
Given that the mission is confidential, there are only five agents temporarily reassigned by Vireness, comprising three men and two women, each from different departments of the FBI.
After Vireness was poisoned and hospitalized, an agent named Bob, who had the highest rank apart from Vireness, immediately took control of the scene and commanded that no one should leave the sight of others.
Vireness suspected that the poison was administered by one of the agents in the investigation team, and Bob came to the same conclusion.
To prove his innocence and to gain the trust and respect of others, Bob didn’t take advantage of any privileges, putting himself under the surveillance of others just like everyone on the team.
Later, Mr. Clement handed the case over to Luo An, who immediately contacted Bob.
"Good afternoon, everyone."
At 1:30 PM, in an abandoned warehouse in Southern New York, Luo An and Mona met with the five agents.
The five agents, three men and two women, all maintained a certain distance from each other when standing, evidently, the poisoning incident had greatly diminished their trust in each other.
"Hello, Group Leader Greenwood, I have heard your name for a long time and am finally meeting you today."
After greeting them, a white man around forty years old with a beard immediately approached Luo An with a smile and extended his hand:
"I’m Bob."
"Hello, thank you for your hard work during this period."
Under Mona’s frowning gaze, Luo An smiled and shook hands with Bob, then shook hands with the other four agents before saying:
"Everyone, I plan to talk with each of you separately to get a basic understanding of the situation."
Though referring to it as a chat, it was essentially an interrogation, and the agents present understood the subtext in Luo An’s words, yet they did not object or refuse.
Everyone had heard of Luo An’s "extremely proficient micro-expression analysis skills"; if Luo An didn’t find anything suspicious, it’s very likely that the person had no issues.
"Good."
Seeing no objections from them, Luo An nodded in satisfaction, turned to Bob, and smiled:
"Let’s have a talk first."
"OK."
Bob nodded as well, and together with Luo An, they walked towards a small room in the distance, previously used temporarily for storing machinery, now turned into an improvised interrogation room.
Mona stayed behind to watch over the remaining agents; the agents glanced at each other and then cautiously observed everyone else.
In the small room, Luo An placed his cane aside and casually pulled up a chair to sit, while Bob pulled up a chair opposite him. Without any small talk, Luo An directly asked:
"Bob, briefly describe the process of Vireness being poisoned."
"Sorry, I’m not clear about the exact moment she was poisoned. I can only explain what I saw and what I personally experienced."
Agent Bob, clearly an old fox, cautiously avoided the traps Luo An had deliberately or inadvertently set in his words, and then started meticulously describing everything he knew.
In his account, Vireness had gathered the five agents together to formally introduce the case, allowed the agents to introduce each other, and then officially started the investigation.
The direction of Vireness’ investigation was clear: first, to check information at the prison where ’Blue-eyed Roy’ died, then to focus on the Illinois Nuclear Energy Company.
Besides the nuclear laboratory under Illinois Nuclear Energy Company, there were suspicions about three other nuclear laboratories under different companies.
Following an ’easy first, difficult later’ principle, Vireness decided to investigate these three nuclear laboratories first.
Nothing unusual was found in the first nuclear laboratory, but when reaching the second one, a director explaining the process of polonium-210 offered to conduct a free check for them, and then it was discovered that Vireness had been poisoned.
After Bob finished narrating, Luo An’s expression remained unchanged, and he asked further:
"What are your speculations about the medium used by the murderer to poison Vireness?"