507: Chapter 507 Financial Thunder Bombs Himself in Merida

"Otto Kramer. Former commander of the 1st German Navy Submarine Squadron, retired in 2019." The intelligence officer of Lin Xiao Special Forces read the file over the encrypted channel, "After retirement, he was recruited by Blackwater, carrying out underwater operations in the Persian Gulf and the South Pacific successively. His last sailing record leaving the Suez Canal was two months ago, and the registered vessel is this Type 214. The payer of his employment contract is a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands, and the shareholders of the shell company, when penetrated, point to a trust fund controlled by Council of Elders."

Kramer was brought into the temporary interrogation room on the bridge of the Bhamo.

It was temporarily converted from the officers' meeting room, with the long table pushed against the wall, leaving only two chairs.

The ballast of the overhead fluorescent tube was aging, and the buzzing of the electric current mixed into the low-frequency noise of waves slapping against the hull.

Kramer sat on one of the chairs, his hands cuffed behind the back of the chair, with the handcuff chain passing through the horizontal bar of the backrest.

His submarine officer uniform had its shoulders splashed and dampened by seawater, and the silver oak leaf badge was slightly crooked.

The special operations interrogator of Lin Xiao Special Forces sat opposite him, placing the captured encrypted satellite phone on the table.

The screen still retained the last undeleted message—the sender ID was completely consistent with the encrypted signal source intercepted at the Merida estate:

[Received, please confirm. Course three degrees east-south, maintain heading straight to the Nacala Port channel entrance.]

"Your employer is not only laying submarines in the interception waters." The interrogator turned to the next page of the interrogation record, "He also made you synchronously deflect eastward. The course points straight to the Nacala Port channel entrance—what mission did you execute there?"

Kramer stared at the desktop.

The waterproof Mozambique Channel nautical chart was spread out, with the Nacala Port channel entrance marked by a red circle.

He stared at the red circle—for two seconds, then looked away.

"You are not a submariner." Kramer said slowly.

He stared at the oil stains on the interrogator's cuffs—that was shipboard lubricating oil, not the type used on submarines.

"You couldn't even ask about the silent RPM of the AIP system."

The interrogator didn't respond to this remark.

He pushed the photos on the deck of the EOD team's barge in front of Kramer.

The remains of seven DM-61 anchored mines, with fuzes and detonators arranged separately, each mine body imprinted with manufacturing batch number DM61-2020-0447 on the side.

The dismantled remote control module was placed separately on a waterproof tarp, the encryption chip had been removed and marked by Anvil, and the communication antenna was broken into two pieces.

Kramer stared at the photo for five seconds.

His Adam's apple rolled once.

"How did you dismantle the remote control module?" he asked, "That thing should have detonated upon detecting illegal disassembly."

"Your remote operator didn't have time to press the detonation button."

The interrogator also pushed over the photo of the remote control terminal captured by Lin Xiao Squad.

The activation countdown on the screen stopped at two minutes and eleven seconds, the coordinates of the first four of the seven anchored mines had turned red, and the remaining three were still in green standby status.

"When he was pinned down at the abandoned fishing village pier, your second phase had already been initiated."

The corners of Kramer's mouth twitched.

His lips were chapped and cracked, and his tongue tasted the blood oozing from the splits.

"Razor has failed." He said, as if confirming a fact to himself.

"Your message records show that forty-eight hours ago you received your final combat payload resupply.

That day, a fishing vessel entered the sea area where your submarine was located from the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel, stayed for four hours and then left."

The interrogator pointed at the third message, "After the fishing vessel left, you sent 'Payload loaded' to Merida.

Were the combat payloads these seven sea mines?"

Kramer nodded.

"DM-61 smart anchored mines.

Deployed at the main channel entrance of Nacala Port at a water depth of forty-five meters.

The fuze is set to passive acoustic trigger, disarming the safety after identifying merchant ship propeller noises.

Each carries a charge of three hundred kilograms.

The remote control module you dismantled was added seven days ago—Merida sent technicians over to update the remote control protocol."

He paused for a moment.

"They didn't tell me the specific details of the second phase.

But I heard a few words in the encrypted channel."

Kramer raised his head, the emergency red light reflecting two red dots in his pupils, " 'Financial markets', 'Asian digital currency', 'Short selling'.

The people from Merida said a sentence—"

He paused for several seconds.

"The chess game lost beneath the water's surface, they want to win it back on the exchange's order book."

The interrogator pressed the communicator.

"Chief Zhang.

Kramer confessed—all channel sea mines have been cleared.

He confirmed that the second phase involves financial markets, Asian digital currency, and short selling, but does not know the specifics.

Merida has updated the remote control protocol, and the encryption chip in Anvil's hands requires reverse compilation."

Naypyidaw Command Center.

After listening to the encrypted communication, Zhang Cheng tapped open João's encrypted channel on his tablet with his finger.

"João.

Kramer confirmed it—seven sea mines, matching the batch numbers dismantled by Anvil.

Merida updated the remote control protocol seven days ago.

Have him reverse-compile the communication frequency for the encryption chip Anvil dismantled.

Vega needs not only to be able to listen—but also to feed false signals back in."

João's reply came back a fraction of a second later, his voice raspy from not having time to drink water after EOD operations: "All sea mines have been cleared.

Anvil has finished disassembling the communication protocol of the remote control module—Merida's remote control frequency is now in our hands.

I've asked him to continue with reverse compilation.

Has the specific timetable for the second phase been extracted from the submarine captain interrogated by Senior Colonel Lin Haisheng?"

Zhang Cheng sent the keywords confessed by Kramer to Li Lanzhi—'Financial markets', 'Asian digital currency', 'Short selling'.

He typed a line of text to João on his tablet: "Sea mines cleared.

The financial sea mine is going to blow up on Merida's own head."

Vega's alert tone came through the encrypted channel—on the London Metal Exchange cobalt futures order book, a short position opening volume exceeded two thousand lots three minutes ago.

"Acoustic fuzes fear two things the most."

Anvil took the pencil from behind his ear and pointed it at the first coordinate on the channel chart, "The electromagnetic pulse of an electric welder can deafen its hydrophone.

A high-pressure waterjet cuts the fuze circuit of the safety pin.

But dismantling this thing—I'm not professional at it."

He placed his coffee cup on the table and pulled three control terminals of the 'Deep Diver' unmanned underwater vehicles out of the tool cabinet.

When the screens lit up, the corrugated iron walls of the container office were cast in a layer of blue light.

João stood behind him, his left arm suspended in a bandage, his right hand gripping the captured tail fin fragment of an FMK-2 mortar shell.

He had grown accustomed to using this thing as a pointer, tapping the markings on the chart with it when speaking.

"I've assigned someone to you."

João tapped the third coordinate point with the tail fin fragment, "They arrived ten minutes ago."

The door was pushed open.

The person who entered wore a black one-piece training uniform, with white lettering embroidered on the left shoulder strap—EOD-07.

A Naval EOD Death Soldier.

He carried a waterproof equipment case in his hand, its body covered in lead seals and shockproof labels.

When he set the case down, the desktop trembled slightly.

"DM-61 anchored mine."

EOD-07 opened the equipment case and took out a handheld terminal dedicated to underwater EOD, the screen startup screen being the index interface of the NATO sea mine database, "German-made, NATO code-named 'Sea Eel'.

Passive acoustic fuze, capable of distinguishing merchant ship propeller noise and marine life sound waves.

The mine body sinks into the seabed sediment layer, the anchor chain connects to the buoyancy control unit, and the warhead is suspended at a depth of twenty-five meters from the seabed—just the fully loaded draft depth of a 100,000-ton freighter."