Chapter 1153 - The Third Person

Xu Ke pressed Li Shun for more details about the mysterious woman.

"I really didn't see her clearly," Li Shun insisted. "She was always covered up—wore a veil or kept to the shadows. But I know she was short, no taller than my shoulder. And her skin was dark—darker than most Chinese women."

"Southeast Asian?" Xu Ke suggested.

"Maybe. I thought she might be from Luzon or one of those islands down south. She didn't speak much, but when she did, her Chinese had a strange accent."

This matched the profile of "the Dart" that the External Intelligence Bureau had provided. They were getting closer to the truth.

"Where did she stay? How can we find her?"

Li Shun shook his head helplessly. "I don't know. I was specifically told not to track her movements. Lin Shimao made it very clear—she was not to be interfered with. Whatever she was doing was separate from my work."

"But she was on the same ship as Senkyu Sho. She must have been his backup—or his handler."

"Maybe. I... I think so. Senkyu was good with a blade, but he wasn't the sharpest. Someone had to be watching him, making sure he didn't make mistakes. And if he did..."

"They would eliminate him," Xu Ke finished.

Li Shun nodded miserably. "That's how these things work. No loose ends."

Xu Ke leaned back in his chair, processing. They had a clearer picture now: Zheng Zhilong—through his subordinate Lin Shimao—had orchestrated the assassination. Senkyu Sho was the trigger man, but there was a backup assassin—this mysterious woman—tasked with ensuring he either succeeded or was silenced.

The sophistication of the operation was both impressive and troubling. This wasn't a simple revenge killing or political provocation. This was a carefully planned conspiracy designed to frame the Senate and damage relations with the Dutch.

"Who is Lin Shimao's superior?" Xu Ke asked. "Does he report directly to Zheng Zhilong?"

"I don't know for certain. But Lin Shimao always talked about 'the Third Young Master.' I assumed he meant Zheng Zhifeng—Zheng Zhilong's third brother. He handles a lot of the... dirtier work for the family."

Zheng Zhifeng. That name would go in the report.

After several more hours of interrogation, Li Shun had given up everything he knew—which wasn't much more. He was a small fish, useful for establishing local networks but kept deliberately ignorant of the larger operation.

Xu Ke had him placed in a secure cell. He would prove valuable as a witness when they eventually confronted Zheng Zhilong with evidence of his conspiracy.

Now the question was: where was the woman?

Xu Ke organized a search of the harbor area. If she was still in Kaohsiung, she might be hiding among the fishing boats or in one of the ramshackle inns that catered to transient workers. But after two days of searching, they found nothing.

It was possible she had already fled—slipped out on a departing ship before the lockdown was fully in place. Or she might have died in some hidden corner, having completed her mission and then disposed of herself to prevent capture. Professional assassins sometimes did that.

But Xu Ke had a feeling she was still out there.

On the fourth day after the murder, they found her.

A patrol boat had spotted a small sampan drifting near the harbor mouth, apparently abandoned. When they boarded it, they discovered a woman's body inside.

She was exactly as Li Shun had described: short, dark-skinned, with rough hands that spoke of hard work. She was dead—had been for at least two days, judging by the state of decomposition.

The cause of death was immediately apparent: she had cut her own throat with a small knife that still lay beside her. Suicide.

"She knew we were closing in," Lei En said as he examined the body. "Rather than be captured, she killed herself."

Xu Ke stared at the corpse. So this was "the Dart"—if that was indeed who she was. A small, unassuming woman who had killed without hesitation and then ended her own life rather than face interrogation.

"Professional to the end," he muttered.

But something nagged at him. Why wait two days? If she had intended to kill herself immediately after silencing Senkyu Sho, she could have done it right away. Why drift in a sampan for days first?

Unless she had been waiting for something—or someone. A pickup that never came?

He ordered a thorough search of the sampan. Hidden beneath a false bottom, they found a small waterproof pouch containing a single item: a bamboo tube with a rolled-up piece of paper inside.

The paper bore Chinese characters—a message of some kind. But it was written in code.

"Send this to Lingao immediately," Xu Ke ordered. "Priority transmission. The cryptography people need to see this."

Whatever secrets this woman had carried, they might be preserved in that coded message.

(End of Chapter)