After the heavy discussion, it was finally time for the most exciting part: splitting the spoils. Everyone present, even the pregnant Gianna, who had considerable influence in Italy, was gleaming with excitement. After all, the treasure Castle had brought back last night was enormous, and even a fraction of it would be of immense value.
Before Castle returned, the group had already agreed that since he had done most of the work, he deserved the lion's share. They had all simply been spectators. The remaining six—Moz, Neil, the chubby guy, Bob, and Gianna with her husband—decided to split 30% of the treasure equally among themselves, leaving 70% to Castle, who had done all the heavy lifting and discovered the treasure.
When Castle learned that the group had already decided to take only 30% of the treasure and split it among themselves, he didn't argue. After all, his decision to intercept Ben Gates and the stolen Declaration of Independence had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Moz and Neil had played key roles as experts, Gianna was going to handle the sale of the items, and the chubby guy had helped with the surveillance equipment, so each taking half a percent of the treasure was fair.
As for Bob, even half a percent of the treasure was more than enough for him to achieve financial freedom. Castle also planned to take another portion of the treasure to reward the ten former Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs operatives now working security at his estate. After all, Castle was starting to feel the need to build his own loyal force. In the future, with potential targets like Mount Rushmore on the horizon, more power would be essential!
While the seven of them happily discussed splitting the treasure in Long Island, across the Atlantic, the UK was engulfed in gloom. The explosion that had rocked the eastern coast that morning, with a force comparable to a nuclear bomb, was too big a disaster to ignore. Worse yet, this bomb had originally been secretly placed by the UK and the USA inside the Russian president's residence, with the intention of detonating it at an opportune moment.
When the Russians learned that the bomb's creator, Dr. Bailey, had detonated it in the UK out of desperation, they wasted no time in exposing the whole plot. They revealed that this bomb had been planted by the UK and the US over thirty years ago during the Cold War, intended as a surprise for the then-Soviet Union.
When the British public discovered that their government, along with their American cousins across the Atlantic, had crafted this bomb and that it had been lurking for decades, they were outraged. Bailey had placed the bomb in the Kremlin's hidden chamber, but after his betrayal by the British government, who had locked him up in the Tower of London for over thirty years, he had escaped, retrieved the bomb, and tried to sell it. Instead, British and US agents chased him relentlessly, driving him to detonate the bomb on British soil.
The public, now informed of the truth thanks to the Russians, was furious. If not for the idiocy of their own government, how could the country have been subjected to such a devastating explosion, one nearly equivalent to a nuclear attack? Fortunately, it seemed that Bailey's bomb didn't leave behind dangerous radiation like a nuclear bomb would. Otherwise, 10 Downing Street might have been stormed by enraged citizens.
Even so, the British government was in chaos. The Prime Minister, on the brink of being ousted, lashed out at the head of MI5. "Are all your agents brainless? You knew Bailey was heading toward the UK with that bomb, but you still chased him to the point where he had no choice but to blow himself up! What's in your agents' heads, sewage?"
What made the Prime Minister even angrier was that the best scapegoats they had—the retired CIA agents and a retired MI6 operative, Victoria—had all mysteriously disappeared less than five minutes after the explosion. No one knew where they had gone. This was intolerable!
If not for these agents storming into the mental institution beneath the Tower of London where Bailey had been held, MI5 would still have had him under control. Bailey had only escaped to retrieve the bomb because those meddlesome agents had intervened.
While it was true that Frank and his team had prevented the bomb from falling into Russian hands, thus sparing the UK and US an international disaster, the Prime Minister couldn't shake the feeling that it would have been better for the bomb to end up in Russia than for it to go off on British soil. What would Russia have done with it anyway? At least if the Russians had the bomb, it would be a diplomatic issue. Both the UK and US could stand united against Russia and weather the storm. Now, however, the explosion had directly devastated the UK, and the damage was immense.
Even worse, while the explosion had killed some CIA field agents, the US had gotten off relatively unscathed. Meanwhile, the UK had suffered over 200,000 casualties in what was its worst attack since World War II. The Prime Minister felt like he was on the verge of collapse. Why was it that the UK had to bear the brunt of this disaster while the US seemed barely affected?
The Prime Minister's anger grew as he thought about it. After all, the 9/11 attacks in the US had caused far fewer casualties, yet now one bomb had caused such catastrophic damage to his country. This was a disaster of unprecedented proportions since the Second World War.
To make matters worse, Frank and his team, who had been forced to cooperate with MI5 in tracking down Bailey, had somehow disappeared right under the noses of British intelligence. This was unacceptable! Not only had they lost their scapegoats, but they now had no one to blame. They couldn't even shift the blame to the US, since Russia had already exposed everything to the world. How could the UK pin this on the Americans now?
Moreover, Dr. Bailey, the only person who knew how to make the red mercury bomb, had blown himself up, leaving no one to take responsibility for the disaster. This left the Prime Minister with a splitting headache. What could he do? There was no way to shift the blame, and now he was stuck bearing the full weight of the catastrophe.
As the Prime Minister fumed, across the sea in Africa, Frank, Sarah, Victoria, and Marvin were finally safe, thanks to Shawn's timely intervention. After Bailey had detonated the bomb, Shawn had swiftly extracted Frank's team from MI5's surveillance, smuggling them through the Channel Tunnel to France and then flying them to Africa. This move had saved Frank from being framed by the furious British government, which was now desperate to pin the blame on anyone.
Frank, now safely in Africa under Shawn's protection, couldn't care less about the UK's madness. He was just glad to be out of the chaos.
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Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 256)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 336)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 542)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 924)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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