Late at night, at the New York port.
After putting on a disguise, Hunter rode a motorcycle.
Under the cover of darkness, he quietly arrived at the docks and quickly found the warehouse Diana had mentioned.
He did not rush to approach; instead, he carefully inspected the surroundings.
Sure enough, he found more than a dozen surveillance cameras placed in various spots.
"What a bunch of sneaky bastards."
Caution and paranoia seemed to be common human traits.
As he destroyed these surveillance cameras one by one, Hunter felt no emotional ripples at all.
The petty tricks of the faction behind Diana were entirely within his expectations.
Just as they did not trust him—or rather, wanted to understand him better—Hunter equally distrusted them. He was also secretly investigating the forces behind Diana, even wanting to kidnap this big treasure and make that cold, strong woman work for him.
Being schemed against only proved that you had value.
After quickly checking all the surveillance in the area and confirming there were no more cameras, Hunter finally walked up to the warehouse.
Diana had not given him the key to the warehouse door, but this was clearly another layer of testing.
Looking at the obviously newly installed locks on the warehouse door, a smile curved on Hunter's lips.
"A triple security system: a mechanical lock, a digital combination lock, and a mechanical dial lock."
"They just stopped short of adding retinal and fingerprint scanners."
"To be able to change all the locks on a warehouse door in such a short time..."
"It seems the organization behind Diana has dug up quite a bit of information on me."
Skillfully taking out a set of lockpicking tools, Hunter spent less than two minutes opening the warehouse door.
He pushed the door open and immediately stepped inside.
He quickly took out an electromagnetic signal jammer he had purchased from the Continental Hotel.
Groping in the dark and checking carefully again, Hunter predictably found over a dozen hidden cameras and recording devices pre-installed inside the warehouse.
After destroying them all one by one, he finally stored the several piles of cargo stacked in the corner into his private space.
Twenty million dollars' worth of weapons and equipment sounded like a lot, but in terms of sheer volume, it wasn't actually that much.
Hunter had indeed requested a hundred of several different types of assault rifles, along with some submachine guns, and quite a lot of ammunition and grenades.
But the most valuable items among them were five sets of Stinger MANPADS (Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems) and ten sets of Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Back in the 1990s, a Stinger system only cost around twenty or thirty thousand dollars.
But with inflation, and after the performance of the Stinger anti-aircraft missile was proven in combat, the black market price for a set had now risen to five or six hundred thousand dollars.
Just a single missile alone cost forty or fifty thousand dollars.
The Javelin anti-tank missiles were a bit cheaper; on the black market, a set sold for about two hundred thousand dollars, and a single missile cost twenty or thirty thousand.
In the Continental Hotel, both Stinger MANPADS and Javelins could be purchased.
However, the former required two Continental coins, and the latter required one, plus there were limits based on member contribution tiers, time, and quantity.
And the black market price of a Continental coin was roughly five hundred thousand dollars.
Hunter was now a B-tier contribution member at the Continental Hotel.
But he could still only purchase one set of Stinger MANPADS per year, plus one extra missile.
Hunter had asked Cole for the reason, and while Cole hadn't answered directly, Hunter had figured it out from his subtle hints.
The High Table behind the Continental Hotel seemed to have reached a tacit understanding with various national governments.
They could provide assassins with some heavy man-portable firepower, but they also had to cooperate with government controls to prevent the proliferation of highly destructive weapons.
Therefore, Hunter wanted to get some of these heavy hitters from the faction behind Diana.
Just in case some future mission required him to eliminate a powerful local warlord or tribal leader.
Or even if, one day, he ended up clashing with the Continental Hotel or the faction behind Diana.
These man-portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles could save his life at a critical moment.
He couldn't help it!
The past history of his home country of Xia had branded the "phobia of insufficient firepower" into the bones of every citizen.
Hunter was simply taking precautions and preparing in advance.
Besides, the internal volume of his private space was getting larger and larger.
Leaving it empty felt like a waste to him.
Very quickly, he stored all the weapons and equipment in the warehouse into his private space.
Hunter closed the warehouse door again and deliberately damaged the locks, so that the faction behind Diana would have to spend some time opening the door afterward.
After finishing all this, he quickly left the warehouse.
Taking a detour along another road, he switched to another motorcycle and left the docks.
Hunter was completely unaware that at this moment, inside a high-end apartment building in New York, Diana, wearing a lace nightgown, was sitting on the sofa and attentively listening to a phone call.
From the other end of the line came a man's voice, carrying a hint of a smile.
"Diana, this Asian assassin you discovered this time has truly delivered us a magnificent gift."
"Indeed..."
"Thanks to him, we have finally gained a firm foothold in the United States."
"Because of the High Table's previous blocking efforts, we haven't been able to truly establish ourselves in the U.S. for decades."
"Now we won't be like before, with our influence mainly limited to old Europe, Oceania, and Asia."
"With these politicians, we can finally secure a foothold in New York, and step by step begin expanding our influence across the entire United States, as well as neighboring Canada and Mexico."
"These two hundred million dollars were very well spent."
"You've done well."
Diana listened patiently before respectfully replying, "Director, being able to contribute to the Organization is exactly what I should be doing."
"However, on 47's side, there hasn't been much progress."
"Every time he gets close to Hunter, the target acts as if he can sense him."
"47 tells me that his instincts warn him that if he gets any closer, he will be discovered."
"47 is already the absolute top-tier assassin in our ICA right now."
"The fact that even he lacks the confidence to deal with this Asian assassin makes me deeply suspect the information our intelligence department gathered previously."
"Is that Asian man named Hunter really just an ordinary person with hyper-learning abilities?"
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