Chapter 596

"You really expect me to believe that?"

Camilla gave Evenson a cold, mocking laugh.

"Do you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do? You tell me that all my country’s efforts over the years have been completely useless, expecting me to get angry and insist that you’re wrong. Then you’ll ask what progress we’ve made, and I’ll foolishly tell you everything we’ve accomplished so you can destroy it all."

She folded her arms.

"Please. I’m not that stupid."

Camilla’s expression hardened with professional pride.

"I’m a captain in the Peruvian National Police. I’ve spent years dealing with insurgents in the jungle. I’ve interrogated plenty of hard-line rebels and extracted information they swore they’d take to their graves. Trying to use such a cheap interrogation trick on me is laughable."

She’d seen this game before.

Evenson was about to discover that he’d picked the wrong woman to play it on.

"Mm... ah."

Evenson raised one hand and scratched the side of his head with a finger.

Interrogation trick?

Was that even what he had been doing?

She had practically interrogated herself and then delivered an entire conspiracy theory on his behalf.

Her imagination is doing most of my work for me.

"Hmph. I knew it."

Camilla mistook his silence for embarrassment and looked even more triumphant.

"You should give up now. I swear by Supay that I will never reveal a single state secret."

Evenson paused.

Then he pointed at her.

"Uh... do I need to remind you that you’re Spanish, you’re wearing a cross around your neck, and you’re swearing an oath to an Incan god of death?"

Camilla stared at him.

"You’re a Christian of European descent. Who exactly do you think you’re swearing to?"

"That isn’t the point!"

She waved the objection away.

"The point is that I will never betray my country!"

"Whatever."

Evenson rested his cheek in one hand, looking thoroughly uninterested.

"Your interrogation isn’t my responsibility anyway. And you still haven’t realized that whether you tell me anything or not doesn’t matter."

"Hmph."

Camilla snorted dismissively, but her instincts immediately went on alert.

Another interrogation technique.

It wasn’t particularly clever, either. It was the same trick adults used on children:

You don’t think I already know?

She refused to fall for it.

Evenson, however, continued.

"We already have that 084."

His voice was calm.

"Once we get back, all we need to do is calibrate its gamma-ray wavelength and use satellites to scan your country. Anything associated with it, anywhere it has been stored, even people who have come into contact with it—we’ll be able to identify them."

Camilla’s eyes widened.

They can do that?

Evenson gave her a sympathetic look.

"Being technologically backward really limits your imagination."

Her jaw tightened.

"And besides, I couldn’t care less what progress your country has made with that thing."

He rose from his seat.

"Because if I had to guess, the answer is none."

Camilla looked up at him.

"Your country has been dealing with an uprising for quite some time now. If you’d actually made meaningful progress, the rebellion would have been crushed already."

Camilla’s expression faltered.

For the first time, doubt began creeping into her mind.

The specialized research team responsible for studying the artifact always reported major breakthroughs. Every report claimed that another important obstacle had been overcome.

But after all these years, they had never produced a working device.

Was that because she simply lacked the clearance to know the project’s real secrets?

Or was something else going on?

"You find that strange, don’t you?"

Evenson looked at her with something approaching pity.

"You should."

He leaned back slightly.

"By the end of World War II, Hydra had already used the energy inside that thing to develop weapons. Artillery. Bombs. Even handguns."

His expression turned colder.

"So if those Hydra scientists your country took in were genuinely trying to help you, you shouldn’t still be fighting with ordinary assault rifles."

Camilla went still.

She knew enough about the history of World War II to understand what that meant.

Hydra had already developed weapons powered by the artifact’s energy. They had even produced them on an industrial scale.

So why had Peru produced nothing?

It was the twenty-first century. Could her country’s technology really be inferior to Hydra’s from decades ago?

Or were the so-called Hydra scientists who had arrived in Peru carrying the artifact frauds?

The thought came suddenly.

Are you telling me they were never actually helping us?

"No."

Camilla immediately rejected it.

"When they came to us, they had nowhere else to go. My country gave them refuge. Even if they weren’t grateful, they wouldn’t have had a reason to deceive us."

She hesitated.

"And a deception on that scale wouldn’t benefit them, either."

"Why wouldn’t it?"

Evenson spread his hands.

"You said it yourself. They were desperate."

He let that sink in.

"They handed your country the artifact as a bargaining chip in exchange for protection. That alone was enough to secure their refuge."

"But if they gave you the real technology and you successfully built weapons with it, they’d expose themselves. S.H.I.E.L.D. would find them."

Camilla fell silent.

She tried to think through the possibility.

If those Hydra scientists really were exposed, S.H.I.E.L.D. would come for them.

And once that happened, Peru wouldn’t have the strength to protect them.

Worse, if cooperation with Hydra became public, the government might decide that eliminating the scientists was safer than allowing the secret to come out.

"But..."

Camilla carefully chose her next words.

"The research has been going on for a very long time."

She avoided names and specific dates, taking care not to reveal anything classified.

"And our own scientists are involved. It’s not just those Hydra people. Even if our scientists aren’t as talented, if the Hydra scientists were really deceiving us, surely someone would have realized something was wrong by now."

"Realizing something is wrong doesn’t necessarily mean admitting it."

Evenson smiled mysteriously.

"Have you ever seen an old movie called The Million Pound Note?"

Camilla blinked.

The question had come so far out of nowhere that she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Then she nodded.

She knew the film. It was a satirical comedy about an American who arrived in Britain without a penny to his name, only to receive a million-pound banknote from two wealthy men.

He couldn’t actually spend the note.

But because everyone believed that anyone carrying a million-pound note must be extraordinarily wealthy, doors opened for him everywhere.

By the end, he hadn’t spent a penny of it, yet he’d made several thousand pounds and even won the love of a woman.

"You mean..."

Camilla slowly understood.

"That thing is like the million-pound note."

"Exactly."

Evenson nodded.

"Your country is weak, so you’re desperate to become strong. Your scientific capabilities are behind those of major powers, so you’re desperate for technological progress."

He looked directly at her.

"So imagine what happened when those Hydra scientists arrived with that artifact."

"To you, it probably looked like a miracle sent down by God and the Incan gods together."

"The scientists immediately became honored guests. That’s obvious enough."

"But think about the people who arranged their arrival. The officials who took charge of the project. The scientists assigned to research the artifact."

"How many of them suddenly became important?"

"How many saw their careers skyrocket?"

"And how many used the project as a stepping stone to the very top of the political hierarchy?"

Evenson’s voice grew quieter.

"But what happens if one day the project runs into a problem that can’t be solved?"

"What if the artifact isn’t nearly as valuable as everyone originally believed?"

"What if its energy is incredibly powerful, but for one reason or another, it simply can’t be harnessed?"

He paused.

"What happens to all those people then?"

Camilla slowly turned toward him.

Her eyes had begun to glisten.

Her lips trembled as she forced out a single word.

"Frauds."

Evenson nodded.

"Exactly."

His voice was cold now.

"Once the truth comes out, those people don’t merely fall from the top to the bottom. They become criminals. They could go to prison. Some might even face execution."

Camilla’s mind raced.

Is that really what happened?

She remembered the man who had originally been responsible for contacting the Hydra scientists.

He had been nothing more than a minor staff officer.

Yet after the project began, his career had taken off. He had eventually become a powerful general with real authority.

And what about the people assigned to the research team?

Which of them hadn’t gone on to live comfortable, privileged lives?

Her breathing grew heavier.

Could they really have done this?

Had they chosen to protect their positions, wealth, and influence rather than admit the truth?

Had they joined forces with Hydra and deceived their own country?

Perhaps some of them had wanted to confess.

Perhaps some had still possessed a conscience.

But Camilla remembered what had happened during the early years of the project.

Several Peruvian scientists and officials had died in strange circumstances.

Laboratory accidents.

Car crashes.

Robberies.

One family had even died in a house fire.

At the time, those deaths had been treated as unrelated tragedies.

Now...

Camilla slowly closed her eyes.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

She wasn’t crying for herself.

She was crying for her country.

Peru was not an economically powerful nation. The great powers had spent decades extracting what they could from weaker countries, leaving them poorer and more dependent.

Yet somehow, the research project’s funding had never been reduced.

No matter how difficult things became, money for the project always appeared.

If the entire operation really had been a sham, then where had all that money gone?

The answer was painfully obvious.

"Damn them!"

Camilla’s eyes snapped open.

Her fists clenched so tightly that her fingernails cut into her palms. Blood trickled between her fingers.

The Hydra scientists who had deceived her country were despicable.

But the people who had willingly collaborated with them were worse.

They were traitors.

They had sold out their own nation for power and comfort.

They deserved no mercy.

"Listen to me, you pretty boy!"

Camilla glared at Evenson.

He nearly choked.

Pretty boy?

Again?

This was the second time!

He just happened to have refined features. Was it really his fault he didn’t look like Thor?

Apart from his shorter ears, his face practically looked like someone had designed a blood elf and then made the model human.

Where exactly does that make me feminine?

Camilla didn’t notice his offended expression.

"I love my country."

Her voice was fierce.

"I will never reveal any state secrets to you."

She ground her teeth.

"But everything I know about that research group and those Hydra scum..."

She stared directly into his eyes.

"I’ll tell you all of it."

"You don’t need to rush."

Evenson reached over and patted her shoulder.

"You won’t need to tell me any of that."

"Someone else will come and ask you."

Camilla frowned.

"And one more thing."

His expression became serious.

"Except for that person, don’t mention any of this to anyone."

He paused.

"If you do, there’s a good chance you won’t make it back to your homeland alive."

Camilla’s expression stiffened.

Evenson withdrew his hand.

"And yes, wanting your country to become stronger is perfectly normal."

He gave her a faint, almost helpless smile.

"But at the very least, you should find a more reliable partner next time."