Chapter 412: Investigation

Behind a certain shop in Dongmen City was a warehouse for storing miscellaneous goods. Safe house No. 72 was located in this warehouse. It was a quiet place amidst the hustle and bustle, with convenient access from both the front and back doors. It was a place personally chosen by Zhou Botao.

The shopkeeper was one of the earliest old naturalized citizens in Lingao and was very loyal to the Senate. He certainly would not refuse a request from the “relevant departments.” Anyone who knew the secret signal would be led directly into this warehouse.

The warehouse was not large and was already filled with goods. There was only a small three-legged table against the wall and a few long benches by the door. Ke Yun and informant No. 00967 were sitting at the table.

Informant No. 00967 was a young girl, belonging to the lowest level of “peripheral informants.” She could not see any personnel from the General Bureau except for her direct superior in the investigation network. From her excited expression, it was clear that she was flattered by this summons.

Ke Yun had reviewed her file beforehand. The informant was nineteen years old, had just graduated from the nursing class, and was assigned as a nurse at Bairen General Hospital.

She was recruited during her time at Fangcaodi. She was very enthusiastic about her work and often wrote secret reports, but almost all of them were baseless rumors of little value.

“Tell me about Li Mo’s time in Guangzhou, in detail,” Ke Yun said.

The informant began to talk animatedly about Li Mo’s time in Guangzhou, especially the few days when she was acting abnormally. She was extremely detailed, almost to the point of being tedious.

Ke Yun listened very carefully and soon sorted out a clue from the informant’s disorganized sentences: Li Mo was normal for the first few days in Guangzhou, and only became upset one night.

Under Ke Yun’s gentle guidance, she recalled more details. It was probably after noon that day that Li Mo began to act strangely. During the afternoon nap that day, she noticed that Li Mo was tossing and turning and sometimes sobbing softly.

“Did anything happen that day?” Ke Yun became interested. This meant that something must have happened that morning.

“Nothing special happened,” the informant tried her best to recall the events of that day. Ke Yun soon discovered a problem: Li Mo was doing back-end work, mostly managing the warehouse, dispensing medicine, and keeping accounts, and had almost no opportunity to meet with the natives.

Why would such a person suddenly become so strange? Ke Yun asked:

“Did she have any contact with outsiders that day?”

“No,” the informant shook her head. “She’s not a nurse or a doctor, she doesn’t do triage or see patients, and she doesn’t dispense medicine or handle registration…” When she mentioned registration, the informant suddenly remembered something. “Oh, I forgot, she filled in for the registration nurse for about an hour that noon…”

Ke Yun nodded. It seemed that something had happened during that hour of registration.

Apart from this, the informant could not provide any more valuable information. Ke Yun praised the informant a few times, saying that her information was very useful.

“Comrade Investigator, is Li Mo a traitor?” The young nurse’s face flushed with excitement. It would be such an honor if she could expose a traitor, an “enemy of the Senate and the people.”

Ke Yun avoided answering and replied coldly, “You know the rules.”

Not asking about things that are not one’s business and strictly keeping the secrets of the organization were the basic principles for informants.

“Yes, I know, Comrade Investigator.” The informant was like a bucket of cold water had been poured over her head, and she immediately deflated.

“You’ve done a good job, but you must understand that discipline is discipline.” Ke Yun imitated the tone of her instructor back then—informants must be constantly motivated. “From now on, you must pay close attention to her new movements.”

It was already 7:30 p.m. when Ke Yun returned to the investigation department office. The gas lamps in most of the offices in the investigation department were on—the staff of the Political Security General Bureau preferred to work at night.

The organization of the Political Security General Bureau had expanded rapidly. The old compound outside the county town that the investigation department and the execution department used to share was no longer enough. After coordination, the execution department moved to a new location.

The offices and rooms vacated by the execution department were quickly filled with investigators’ offices and archives filled with files.

Ke Yun showed her pass to the guard at the door and walked into the two-story office building of the execution department. The central hall on the first floor was empty, with only two night-shift guards. She walked towards the corridor on the right. There were no decorations in the corridor, just simply painted white walls with simple gas lamps, and the floor was just paved with bricks. Along both sides of the corridor were office doors—about 20 of them. The frosted glass on almost every door showed light, and people were coming and going from time to time.

Ke Yun’s office was on the first floor. She lit the gas lamp. The office was small. These houses were built shortly after D-Day, and at that time, there was not enough manpower and resources, so the quality was very low. They were completely shoddy, with low ceilings, and the red brick walls had just been plastered with lime mortar last year.

Each investigator had their own office so that they could concentrate on their work without being disturbed. One wall was made into a bookshelf with plain wooden boards, filled with file boxes and various internally published standard work manuals. To accommodate the low level of the staff, all work was broken down into standard steps.

By the window was an unpainted Holy Ship brand desk and two simple chairs with backs. To withstand the scorching heat of the Lingao summer nights, the glass windows were all open, with iron screens on the outside to block the dense insects attracted by the gas lamps.

The screens were not only to defend against insects, but also to prevent paper from being blown out of the office. “Not a single scrap of paper can leave the office” was one of the internal regulations formulated by Zhao Manxiong.

Out of consideration for office frugality, all documents that needed to be destroyed were packed and sealed by a dedicated person every day and stored in a vault. When a certain amount had accumulated, they were transported by a dedicated person in a dedicated vehicle to the paper mill to be destroyed in the pulp pool.

Ke Yun sat down at her desk. The desktop, like all desks in the Senate’s administrative agencies, was covered with a glass plate. Underneath was a woodcut calendar customized by the Political Security General Bureau.

She took a dip pen from the pen holder and began to fill out the application to review the files. She wanted to review all the routine surveillance reports on the activities of the medical tour team personnel from the Guangzhou Station’s Security Department, as well as the duty records and eavesdropping reports from the Ziminlou for that day.

These reports were all kept in the archives of the Guangzhou Station’s Security Department. In general, the actions of every naturalized citizen member of the medical tour team after leaving the Guangzhou Station’s facilities were recorded in a report written by the accompanying personnel. This was part of the routine filing system.

Unless there was a clear suspicious situation in the records or the subject was already on the Political Security General Bureau’s surveillance list, these records were only stored as reference materials in the archives until one day an investigator suddenly became interested in a certain person’s whereabouts on a certain day and they would be reviewed.

The request for review was sent from the confidential communications room, and it would take 72 hours for the materials to be transported back from Guangzhou. Before that, Ke Yun could only wait patiently.

During this time, she summoned a “commissioned agent.” A commissioned agent was a level higher than an ordinary informant. They were also part-time, amateur personnel, but they were no longer just simply monitoring the people and things around them. Sometimes, they would be assigned some simple tasks by the investigators.

This commissioned agent worked on the Agricultural Committee’s farm and looked like an honest farm worker. His residence was very close to Li Mo’s apartment.

“From now on, you are to record Li Mo’s daily movements, morning and evening. What she does every day, who she meets with. Report to me daily. This mission is confidential—you report directly to me.”

“Yes, Comrade Investigator.” The commissioned agent indicated that he understood completely.

“What is your relationship with her? Does she have any friends?”

“It’s just an ordinary relationship,” the commissioned agent frowned. “We’re just ordinary neighbors. We’re polite and greet each other when we meet. Li Mo doesn’t have any friends in the Agricultural Committee. Everyone says she’s very arrogant and looks down on us. She’s only on good terms with Chief Wu’s wife, Chuqing.”

“Alright, just keep an eye on her.”

Subsequently, Ke Yun summoned another informant and assigned the same surveillance task—only the target was changed to Li Quan.

The informant was a female primary school teacher. She seemed surprised by the order, but she accepted it silently.

“Are you her class teacher?” Ke Yun asked.

“No, she’s in class 2-11,” the female teacher said. “But I’ve taught this class before.”

“Do you have an impression of her?”

It was difficult for the female teacher to have an impression of an ordinary student because every primary school teacher was overloaded with work. Except for a few students with particularly outstanding or particularly poor academic performance, ordinary students did not leave much of an impression.

But she did have an impression of Li Quan.

“She’s very different from the others,” the female teacher said after a moment of hesitation. “Her parents may be working for a certain Senator, and her family’s conditions are very good.”

“Why?”

“I’ve seen her wearing casual clothes a few times—the kind of Australian-style clothes that only the Senators’ children wear…” The female teacher said that her school supplies were also very high-end, not the standard issue goods from the school, and some were obviously only available to the Senators.

“Anything else?”

“She doesn’t seem to talk much and isn’t very active. Her grades are average.”

“Please pay more attention to her movements in the future,” Ke Yun said. “I’m not suggesting she has any problems. This is just out of cautious concern. So you must keep it completely confidential. I don’t need to repeat the relevant regulations to you again.”

After dismissing the female teacher, she sent her instructions to the inspection office of the Bairen General Post Office according to the standard investigation procedures: “From this day on, all incoming and outgoing mail of Li Mo and Li Quan shall be subject to inspection.”

After completing this series of investigation procedures, Ke Yun checked the items she had listed on her list again. They were all checked off. All that was left was to wait for the files from Guangzhou to be transported back.