The Pentagon has been a code name for the Department of Defense since 1947, when President Harry S. Truman's U.S. Department of Defense began its operations at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. For decades, beneath the 2,359,000-square-meter building, hidden secrets that the world would never know.

William Lynn thought that as a senior adviser to five defense secretaries and now the Pentagon's No. 2 man, he should be no stranger to all the country's major secrets, but apparently some secrets can always be hidden in the deepest depths, so deep that even the first deputy secretary of defense cannot dig up.

"Leon, I wish it was April 1st, and all you just said was just a prank that would make me laugh." Sitting in his secret meeting room, he hung his shoulders and looked deeply at his old friend Leon Parnett, who was sitting directly opposite.

Leon Barnett is the top CIA chief and William Lynn's most formidable rival, and in two months' time, the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, will retire normally, and will be succeeded by William Lynn as first deputy secretary or Leon Parnett as CIA director, an unwritten tradition that has served as CIA director for many years.

"I also hope it's just a joke, but it's true, and only Secretary Gates of the Department of Defense had permission to know about it." Leon Parnett took off his glasses, and while wiping the lenses with a square towel, he frowned and spoke, his hair was gray, and his forehead was full of furrow-like forehead lines, and I don't know how much dirt was hidden in them.

"Since there is this ......," William paused for a moment, and Leon added, "Its creator called it 'The Machine,' a simple name, but with unimaginably powerful abilities. ”

"Oh, I'd like to ask, with this machine that can listen and analyze data on a large scale, why didn't we know about those damn monsters in Los Angeles, and why did so many mutants sneak into our country — hell, they even got to the Third Fleet Commander's office — and we still didn't know about it?" William glared at Leon, and he was going to use this question and his eyes to hit Leon Parnett's arrogance.

"First of all, it must be admitted that this is a gross dereliction of duty on the part of our CIA. Then, Your Excellency the President is not here, and there is no need for us to engage in meaningless arguments in order to belittle each other, please give me a chance to explain. Leon put on his glasses and his face was full of waves, and not long ago, in the presidential emergency operations center, he was so shocked by the same problem that he was covered in cold sweat and completely lost his mind.

"We have to start with the origin of the 'machine', we are ashamed to admit but we have to admit that sometimes it is difficult for government workers to do some very creative work within the confines of the system, the 'machine' is actually a project outsourced to a contractor, we didn't have much expectations at first, but the contractor's ability is amazing, borrowing government resources, he has completed the creation of the 'machine' for many years."

"But due to hardware limitations, the 'machine' cannot be a truly complete artificial intelligence, it is very capable, but not enough to process all the data - the creator of the 'machine' added many restrictions to the 'machine' when he completed the project, according to him, so that the machine can keep running normally even if the hardware is not up to standard, and exclude the possibility of the 'machine' being used maliciously, and now we are very skeptical of his claim."

"Then find him." William said in a deep voice, "We have the Patriot Act!" ”

"Can't find it." Leon shook his head with a wry smile, "He has no relatives, no friends, no lovers, and he has god-like technology and ghost-like stealth, we have been tracking for three years, and we have never found the slightest clue." Okay, to get to the point, one of the limitations he left for the 'machine' is that the 'machine' will only give information related to terrorist activity, in other words, if someone is involved in terrorist activity — for example, to assassinate the president, which is terrorist activity - then the 'machine' will give his social security number in advance, but if the assassination target is a civilian, then it's only a criminal offense, and the 'machine' won't give us any information. When the mutants infiltrated our land, they had no plans to carry out terrorist attacks, nor did they show a tendency to carry out terrorist attacks, so the 'machines' chose to ignore these anomalous creatures instead of reporting them. It was also because of the over-reliance and trust in the 'machine' that we let our guard down, which eventually led to the current situation. ”

"Ridiculous!" William slapped the table angrily, "We invaded the privacy of our own people, risked ending our careers to fight terrorists, and this contractor gave us a castrated weapon!" Now the country is in crisis because of his stupidity, and he must be found! ”

"Of course, we'll find him." Leon nodded, "But before we do, we'll have to solve some problems. ”

"Huh?" William was stunned, apparently this "old friend" came to the secret conference room under the Pentagon to tell himself this shocking secret, not to share the secret.

Leon curled the corners of his mouth and smiled, and said, "William, you were supposed to work until retirement as before, and then enjoy the life of a commoner, knowing nothing about the existence of the 'machine'. But His Excellency the President and I agree that at this critical juncture, we must be closely linked and use all our strength to defend the country against the crisis, not to fight for the budget. ”

William's eyelids blinked twice quickly, but he didn't speak.

"There is no need to shy away from it, this is also true. In the case of cyber tracking, the country's 51 federal organizations and military commands in 15 cities are engaged in tracking the movement of funds from terrorist networks, and almost all of the major intelligence services and at least two military commands claim to play a major role in the emerging field of 'cyber warfare', which is not strictly defined. But what about the facts? The truth is that we're all using this as an excuse to scramble for more budget. As a result, a lot of security and intelligence services are duplicated and wasted – although this makes the 'machine' more or less convenient, we can completely avoid wasting and devote resources to more critical places. ”

Hearing this, William understood that the other party was seeking real cooperation, since the two sides wanted to work together, as the first deputy secretary in his position second only to the secretary of defense and in charge of most of the daily affairs of the Pentagon, of course, he had to know everything, so while his security authority level remained unchanged, Leon still chose to tell himself the secret he shouldn't know.

"Have you talked to Secretary Gates?" William asked.

"He's retiring." Leon replied not to the question.

"Oh." William replied, thoughtful, "Then, we can start with the exchange of intelligence between the Army Intelligence Department and your department......"

"Sorry, wait a minute." Leon pulled out his phone, which had been set to vibrate mode, looked down at the narrow screen, and when he looked up again, the forehead lines on his forehead deepened.

"Suddenly, there's an imminent terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., and we've received two Social Security numbers." Leon showed the screen of his phone to William, "One number is an unemployed homeless person in New York, and the other is a member of the President's Cabinet, Sean Conrad." ”

(PS: William Harrison and Sean Conrad are fictional characters, while Leon Parnett and William Lynn and Robert Gates are real characters, respectively in 2011 CIA director, deputy secretary of defense, secretary of defense, after Robert Gates retired in July 2011, Leon Parnett succeeded as secretary of defense, and William Lynn retired for personal reasons.) In reality, I don't know why I retired, but the words in the book, hehehehe. ）

(Re PS: Request genuine subscription support!) Recently, my average set has risen to 1400.,I'll try to make three updates every day.,The higher the subscription,The more updates.,Please be sure to subscribe to the genuine version~~~ I especially don't want to open the anti-theft chapter.。 There are two more to send later, such a diligent Wen Yan, don't you vote or reward, what are you waiting for! ）