Benjamin left the meeting room without taking the files, leaving only Jimmy and Chris staring blankly. Jimmy looked at Chris and asked in a low voice, "Who is that person?"

Chris shook his head, "I don't know either. Stop talking and just wait."

Jimmy shrugged, sat up straight, and after waiting for a while without seeing anyone enter, he simply shifted his chair back, leaned against the chair's backrest, crossed his legs, and started swaying the chair while staring at the ceiling.

After waiting for over half an hour, Jimmy checked the time. It was almost time to get off work, and Benjamin had not returned yet. Bored, he waited for almost another hour. Finally, the door of the conference room opened, and Benjamin entered with another person who placed a small tray on the conference table and then left.

Benjamin sat across Jimmy and introduced the items on the tray, "These are your cell phones; all the data inside have been extracted into storage 1, and storage 2 contains the outgoing and incoming call records of this phone for the past month. You can take them now."

Chris stood up, and Jimmy also got up, "Thanks, Benjamin, we appreciate your help. Jimmy, pack up, let's head back."

Chris, Jimmy, and Benjamin shook hands. Jimmy collected the items from the table into his briefcase and left the building with Chris—a building they hadn't fully scoped out.

Outside, Jimmy glanced back at the entrance, driven by curiosity. As one of the most secretive intelligence agencies, the NSA was renowned, even the Department of Homeland Security had not encompassed the NSA upon its establishment. They only coordinated, obtaining specific intelligence designated by the NSA.

Chris, without looking back at Jimmy, said, "Stop looking. The people here are tough to deal with. You wouldn't want them to see everything about you."

Jimmy quickened his pace, walking beside Chris on the sidewalk, heading straight back to the FBI office at Federal Square.

Jimmy connected storage 1 to an offline computer, opened it, and saw that it contained contact lists, text messages, and call log information just as Benjamin had said. To ensure safety, Jimmy copied the contents to the computer, then opened storage 2.

Storage 2 was rather impressive; it contained various audio files, with the titles marked with the other party's phone number and call time—a real convenience since Jimmy didn't have to rearrange them chronologically.

He copied these as well. Jimmy would not dare to use the NSA-provided storage directly on an FBI networked computer—not because he feared 10,000 things, just the "what ifs".

With his computer, Jimmy returned to his desk. The first task wasn't to review the recordings but to investigate the phone numbers. There were too many recordings; it was more practical to first retrieve information corresponding to the phone numbers to facilitate targeted retrieval of the recording information.

As an independent investigative journalist, Ashi's contact list was truly extensive; whether he truly knew that many people or not, having so many contacts listed was impressive. Why think so? Because Jimmy had checked several phone numbers, and most belonged to media professionals, including several editors. Many people might only be reporters under media conglomerates or departments managing paparazzi; contacting higher-ups directly would be quite difficult.

Jimmy turned to Chris, "Chris..." Where is he?

Jimmy looked at his watch; it was almost 9 PM. Since when had he started working overtime? He shook his head, laughed quietly, tidied up his desk, and got up to head home to rest. At this hour, cooking was out of the question; he'd grab something to eat on the way.

The next day, Jimmy returned to the office. Chris was already there. After greeting him, Jimmy continued yesterday's investigation.

Chris: "Jimmy, did you find anything?"

Jimmy: "Not yet, still verifying people from Ashi's phone contacts." Jimmy waved his notebook briefly then continued searching phone numbers on the computer. It definitely wasn't a task that could be completed swiftly.

Chris: "Let's pause for now. Hughes has arranged someone to come and assist later. You can delegate some tasks to them then. Investigating together will speed things up a lot."

"Alright, taking a break would indeed be a relief. To be honest, checking over 100 phone numbers in the contact list, Jimmy felt like it would kill him, death by eyestrain."

Hughes truly let loose this time, assigning four trainee field agents and two trainee intelligence officers, totaling six people, to report to Chris in the Manhattan office. Chris had contacted the administrative department ahead of time to supply extra computers for their office, thankfully, there were enough vacant spots.

Jimmy gathered them around his computer, "This time, your task revolves around the contact list in this computer, which contains over 100 phone numbers. Assign yourselves numbers and investigate according to the names and cell phone numbers, verify everyone's identity, and remember, this computer must absolutely not connect to the internet, especially not to our internal network."

"This is the first step. Once we confirm the identities on the list, we will separately analyze these call records. You will need to match them according to the identities you've found to figure out our final target. Is that clear?"

"Understood." Jimmy handed over the standalone laptop to them, permitting them to copy down and then investigate, while Jimmy returned to his prior tasks, those cars with bumper guards and dented fronts.

The NYPD had already agreed to Chris's request to investigate these cars, and almost a day had passed, it was about time to report back the information.

"Jimmy, we have results. The station wagon has been confirmed as a cloned car. The original owner's car hadn't left at all that day and was just in the garage. Road surveillance confirmed it."

After receiving a call, an excited Chris told Jimmy before he thanked the person on the other end and hung up the phone.

Jimmy shouted, "Yeah! We've got him. Chris, we'll need support from the control center to monitor the vehicle's subsequent movements."

Chris, "Go ahead, take care of it yourself. I'll leave this to them here."

Jimmy nodded, picked up his coat, and left for the NYPD control center where viewing traffic footage was most convenient.

The investigation process was rather boring, fortunately, they finally pinpointed the location of the car in a certain district where it hadn't appeared again, theoretically, it should be right there.

Jimmy contacted Chris, who headed straight for Brooklyn. Chris also departed from the office; as a team, they definitely needed to go together. Although Jimmy was used to working alone, this was a major case, and he needed to ensure there were no procedural issues, otherwise, if someone held him accountable, the evidence he collected alone might be considered invalid.

Arriving at the district, Jimmy checked around, and the car wasn't parked on either side of the road, but there was a public parking lot. Jimmy and Chris went to the parking lot, flaunted their badges, and the printed video screenshots, and inquired if the corresponding car had been parked there.

Unfortunately, the FBI isn't omnipotent; the security guard retorted that they work in shifts and he knew nothing. Looking at the slight tattoo peeking out from the guard's neck, this guy was no simple person.

Jimmy and Chris directly drove into the parking lot, then split up to look around for the corresponding car model. When they came back together, they realized there were three identical station wagons, yet none of these was the clone they had identified before.

Jimmy, "Chris, could the person have swapped the original clone plates before entering the parking lot? Road surveillance can't see this side of the parking lot, maybe he switched the plates somewhere along the road."

Chris scratched his head with his intact right hand, "That's possible; what do you want to do?"

Jimmy, "How about we stake out here for a bit? When the owners of these three cars come back, we'll inquire right there. This is our most direct lead now."

Chris, "Alright then, I'll head back to the car to rest for a bit."

Jimmy nodded, went ahead to note down the license plate numbers of the three cars, then called the bureau to investigate their identities. After receiving the information, he stood at the nearby intersection, lit a cigarette, and his eyes roamed all over the parking lot. If not for his sharply tailored suit, his demeanor almost gave off the vibe of scoping out to steal a car.

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