Ian sat alone in his room as his mind continued to sort through the clues of the past few days. Images of Jack's contact with the Storm Council, the details of Linda's handling of supplies, and Roy's investigative actions flashed clearly through his mind. Each clue seemed to point directly to a different figure in the hierarchy, yet there was a certain incongruity that prevented him from coming to a firm conclusion.
He rubbed his brow, feeling his thoughts become even more confused. Just as he was deep in thought, the door to his room was suddenly pushed open sharply, and Rayne rushed in with an anxious look on his face.
"Ian, something big has happened!" Rayne's voice was tinged with tension.
"What happened?" Ian immediately stood up.
"News just came in, our new batch of material transportation team was attacked again, the whole army was wiped out, and all the materials were lost!" Rayne's voice was urgent, "Linda's side of the logistics department is a mess right now, Mia has just urgently summoned everyone to a meeting, requesting you to go over immediately as well."
When Ian heard Rayne's words, he did not feel worried, the corner of his mouth curved slightly as he silently thought, "It's really like this! Looks like it's not far from the truth."
He and Rayne quickly rushed to the conference room, where the atmosphere in the room was heavy, anxiety and anger written on everyone's face.
Mia sat in the center of the conference room and looked at everyone calmly but seriously, "Everyone, the route for the transportation of supplies has always been known only to a few of us at the top, and now that it has been attacked with precision once again, it's enough to prove that there are traitors among the top."
Everyone looked at each other in disbelief, the room fell into silence for a moment, everyone had suspicion and doubt in their eyes.
Linda's face paled as she said in a deep voice, "I did make adjustments to the transportation plan this time, but I assure you that I definitely did not leak any information!"
Mia raised her hand to signal her to stop, then said, "Linda, I believe in your character, but in order to appease the people, you will be temporarily relieved of your duties, and wait for the matter to be investigated clearly before making plans."
Linda opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she just nodded silently and bowed her head.
Jack's eyes flickered slightly as if he was pondering something, while Roy watched everyone's reactions with unblinking eyes.
The meeting ended quickly and the crowd dispersed. Mia left Ian alone and the two of them made their way to a secluded office.
"I've already heard from Roy, you went to investigate Jack last night, what did you get?" Mia asked, lowering her voice.
Ian glanced at the door to make sure no one was listening before whispering, "Jack did have contact with someone from the Storm Council, but his motives don't seem to be purely one of betrayal. While he was providing information to the Storm Council, he also asked the other side to protect his family."
"Protect his family?" Mia frowned, "I never knew Jack had a family?"
"Maybe it's some hidden relationship you don't know about." Ian mused, "Roy's side of the family investigated a similar situation, only each clue subtly led us to suspect a different person, but couldn't completely confirm either side's guilt."
Mia's face became even more somber, her fists clenched slightly, "Now that we've already suffered heavy losses, if we don't find out the truth, I'm afraid we'll soon be completely disintegrated."
"Don't worry, the truth is already very close. But don't act casually for now with the current situation." Ian revealed a confident smile, and Mia looked at Ian's confident expression and felt slightly relieved, "Good, I've already explained to Roy not to make any moves for the time being."
Linda left the conference room and walked towards the logistics department in a state of disorientation, in her mind she was also still thinking about the attack on the transportation team, she must find a way to prove her own innocence, otherwise she would only allow the real traitors to continue to jeopardize the Resistance.
"Ian, tomorrow my adjutant Green will return to the stronghold from Storm City, he will temporarily take over Linda's job when he comes back, and I will let him help you as well."
"Adjutant? How come I haven't heard you mention that?"
"It's like this, we still have a lot of sleepers within the Storm City, responsible for collecting intelligence as well as raising supplies for transportation into the stronghold, Green is leading these sleepers in the Storm City, rest assured that this person is absolutely reliable, he is the earliest person to follow me, and his mind and ability to improvise are both top notch. If it wasn't for the unexpected situation this time, I wouldn't have let him suddenly rush back, and our intelligence leakage is too serious, my next plan is to let the city's infiltrators temporarily withdraw first, calling him back is also to discuss the evacuation plan with him."
"So that's how it is." Ian pondered.
"It's not good! The supply warehouse is on fire! "A Resistance member hurriedly came to the conference room to report.
"What did you say! " Mia's complexion changed drastically, she and Ian quickly rushed to the supplies warehouse, Roy and Jack had already arrived at the scene, a number of Resistance members with water-based powers were extinguishing the fire, Mia pulled one of the members and asked, "What's going on, who had been close to the warehouse just now! "
The member in charge of the warehouse guards said, "Before the fire, Linda had come to the warehouse, after she left, the warehouse suddenly burst into flames."
"Linda, where is Linda?" The crowd looked around and realized that there was no figure of Linda, the warehouse had made such a big commotion, Linda actually did not appear, at this time the fire extinguishing had also entered the end, Mia quietly listened to the members of the logistics department report the loss, "We lost one fifth of the food resources, and half of the medical supplies."
Such a loss could truly be described as heavy, and the member in charge of counting the losses reported a new discovery: a suggested time-delayed ignition device had been found in the warehouse.
Rayne said in exasperation, "Could it be, that the traitor is really Linda!"
"No matter what, let's find Linda first... Everyone, carefully search the stronghold and the surrounding area, make sure you find Linda!" Mia calmly ordered.
After a night of searching, there was still nothing, only a few stunned resistance members were found around the stronghold.
"Dammit! Linda is actually really a traitor! She actually attacked our members!" Inside the conference room Rayne slammed his fist into the table in front of him.
"Rayne, calm down, if she was determined to defect, she wouldn't have just knocked out the searching members, even if she's not good at fighting, she's still a Flare rank, it's still very simple to kill a few people who are Spark ranked and those who haven't even reached the Spark rank, but she didn't do it, maybe she has some unavoidable reasons as well. " Jack said in Linda's defense.
"If she was innocent, she would have come back properly and made it clear, we've been fighting side by side for so long that we would have listened to her explanations, but it's hard not to be suspicious when she just ran away, and you're actually defending her, Jack, you're not complicit in this, are you?" Roy aimed his spear at Jack.
"What are you saying! You don't just suspect people!" Jack was in a rare rage.
"All calm down, now that Linda's whereabouts are unknown, we can't sit here and argue, the most important thing at the moment is to find Linda and at the same time quickly raise a new batch of supplies to be shipped to the stronghold." As Mia spoke, everyone fell silent.
At that moment, a man pushed his way in, "Everyone, it's been a long time."
Everyone except Ian showed a surprised expression, "Green! Why are you back!"