Chapter 134: The Confession

As the FBI raised the warrant and trained their guns on him, Robert’s heart filled with rage and fury. Yet he did not resist—not at first. Instead, he obediently raised his hands.

Reality was not a film. There were no doomed heroes who, despite possessing nothing more than an ordinary man’s physique, could somehow seize a path to escape from a group of armed FBI agents.

From the moment those men produced the warrant, any resistance from Robert would, without question, have given them the perfect excuse to open fire.

So Robert merely raised his hands—obediently, docilely, without the slightest trace of anger. As the federal agents in blue jackets approached with their guns drawn and searched him thoroughly from head to toe, he looked at the team leader—the man who had presented the warrant at the outset—and said with a kindly smile:

“Fuck you. Just wait, Agent Duncan.”

The team leader lowered his eyes to the badge he had not removed, then smiled faintly as well, showing no fear whatsoever. Instead, he leaned close to Robert’s ear.

“I’m waiting… General.”

With that, he waved his hand again, and Duncan’s expression instantly turned vicious.

“…Take him away!”

With the clang of silver handcuffs, Robert’s hands were twisted behind his back. Pulled along by several federal agents, his body was forced toward the exit.

The moment he left the hotel, Robert turned back and glanced at the luxurious suite where he had spent the past several days, its furnishings and decor utterly unremarkable.

It was an environment he had seen countless times, one he had already grown somewhat tired of. Yet now that he was about to leave it for good, perhaps never to return, the thought sent an inexplicable panic rising from the depths of his heart.

…Because whatever lay ahead was no longer something he could control.

…

When the FBI special agents broke through the door of the hotel suite, entered the room, and announced that Robert was to accompany them, he had already sensed faintly that the days ahead would be unbearably difficult.

But even the limits of his imagination could not have prepared him for how agonizing they would truly be.

Robert was not taken to an ordinary detention center to be held alongside other criminal suspects awaiting trial.

After being removed from the hotel and enduring a long journey by car, he was delivered, dizzy and exhausted to the point of near unconsciousness, to “Spane Base,” a facility under the direct authority of the Pentagon.

Robert had heard of Spane Base before. He knew it was a place the United States used to deal with and detain certain “key figures.”

There were two Spane Bases within the United States, and another nine scattered throughout the rest of the world beyond American soil.

It was a mysterious place that existed neither on maps nor in intelligence records, much like one of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. At present, no declassified government document made any mention of its existence.

Generally speaking, the people detained at Spane Base fell into the following categories:

First, important foreign nationals—for example, senior officials from certain small countries, or foreign diplomats suspected of espionage while on American territory. Such individuals could not be openly detained and tried under proper legal procedure, and could therefore only be held in custody through Spane Base.

Second, individuals within the American government or military suspected of espionage, when the circumstances of the case had to remain strictly confidential and could not be disclosed to the public.

Third, any other individuals whom the Pentagon deemed necessary to process through Spane Base.

As the highest-ranking general among the senior officers still living in the United States, Robert had never taken any particular interest in Spane Base. Though he knew of it, he had never looked into it in detail.

Now, however, Robert himself had become a resident of Spane Base.

And he was the highest-ranking military officer ever admitted there since its establishment.

…

On the first day of his entry into Spane Base—the very day the FBI brought him there—Robert, exhausted in both body and mind, was led into a completely white room measuring roughly four square meters.

The four walls, ceiling, and floor were all covered in soft, foam-like material. Numerous light sources of varying sizes were embedded throughout the room, rendering every inch of its interior visible. The brightness seemed to exceed several thousand lumens. The moment Robert entered, although exhaustion had nearly closed his eyes, the merciless illumination was so intense that even with his eyelids shut, he could still see the light shining through them.

There was no bed in the room, only a fixed toilet and the floor. Since the room was controlled by a constant-temperature central air-conditioning system, there was no way to adjust the temperature.

Robert tried lying down, only to discover that the room had been designed with extraordinary malice. Whether he lay straight or diagonally, there was no way to fit his entire body within it. He was forced to curl up part of himself.

Not long after he lay down, despite remaining under the harsh light, Robert gradually sank into an uneasy sleep as his drowsiness grew overwhelming.

But the instant he entered that sleep, an agitated noise began echoing throughout the room—a harsh, grating sound like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

Robert could endure no more.

He sat up from the floor and shouted toward the outside of the cell, where the investigators were surely watching him without pause:

“Stop! Turn off the lights! Turn off the sound! Let me out! I want to see my lawyer!”

The lights continued to blaze. The noise continued to ring out, as though Robert’s cries had not disturbed it in the slightest.

Robert began shouting wildly, apparently trying to drown out the sound. But even after he had screamed until his throat felt ready to bleed, the noise continued its steady, relentless output.

“Fuck! What the hell do I have to do for you to let me out? Fine, do whatever you want!”

Robert shouted toward the people outside the room in utter despair.

At last, the noise stopped.

The intense light, however, remained at the same blinding level.

Then a narrow slit suddenly opened in the door. Through it came a thin sheet of paper and a retractable ring-shaped pen specially designed to prevent suicide.

Robert picked up the paper.

It contained a series of confessions and sworn statements, but two lines stood out above all the rest:

“1. I admit that I was connected to the outbreak of the Blood Tide incident and that I had colluded with the Blood Angel beforehand. 2. I am willing to bear full responsibility for the failure of the United States’ East Asian strategy.”

End of Chapter