Chapter 1560: Busy work
Under the auspices of Xu Shiqi, the secret investigation process of the Ministry of Security was quickly launched. All personnel from various departments who had access to the "Diego"'s voyage arrangements were included in Xu Shiqi's investigation list. . Of course, this kind of investigation does not necessarily involve individual interrogation of the subjects of the investigation. The main work is still to conduct peripheral investigations first, especially those who have had recent contact with Su Keyi or other Dutch diplomats. They are the focus of the investigation. heavy. However, because the investigation is conducted secretly at this stage, it will not make these departments become turbulent and panic.
The special service team spent a whole day reviewing the visitor registration information of these departments to first find out the parts related to the Dutch. Even if Su Keyi did not come in person, the special service team would first list the departments they came into contact with. , to determine whether these contacts overlap with the names on Xu Qiqi’s investigation list. But what disappoints them is that, at least in the past half month, the number of times the Dutch have gone to these departments to handle matters is very few, and they are basically simple matters that are done at the service window, and they have no chance to contact them at all. to senior officials.
Su Keyi himself visited the Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Commerce once each, but these two visits were personally received by Sun Changmi and Schneider respectively. There was basically no possibility of leaking secrets in the process. Therefore, the investigation of the preliminary clues was quickly completed, and the special service team did not find any doubts.
Now that the possibility of intelligence leakage during official contacts has been basically ruled out, the next step to investigate is the private social relationships and personal financial status of those personnel in various departments who have access to confidential information. Compared with the previous troubleshooting step, the workload required to investigate these contents is much greater. Xu Shiqi had to apply to He Xi, and several civilian personnel were temporarily transferred from the intelligence analysis department of the Ministry of Security to sort out the various information at hand.
At the same time, the Ministry of Security also arranged for personnel to monitor Su Keyi's movements 24 hours a day, especially those he came into contact with, to investigate without missing a beat. After the Spanish espionage case in 1634, the Ministry of Security rarely conducted investigative operations of this scale in Sanya.
But these actions seemed to have no effect at all. After the investigation lasted for three or four days, no suspicion was found. At this time, Xu Shiqi had already begun to consider some seemingly absurd possibilities. For example, was the source of the leak of this news from the Portuguese? If the Portuguese leaked information about the "Diego" to Su Keyi intentionally or unintentionally, then even if the special service team turned Sanya upside down, there would be no real gains.
Xu Shiqi decided to launch a new investigation direction, that is, whether people from the Portuguese Embassy had appeared on the same occasion as people from the East India Company in the past half month. The focus of the investigation is restaurants, hotels and other sensual entertainment venues. Because Xu Shiqi felt that it was impossible for the Portuguese to betray this secret to the Dutch, maybe Su Keyi accidentally learned the news under some abnormal circumstances.
However, this investigation requires a wider scope. One of the most developed industries in Sanya is the service industry throughout the city. There are hundreds of restaurants and entertainment venues, and it takes more than half a month to go back. What happened before was never so easy. Almost none of the stores visited by the special service team could remember things that happened so long ago. What's more, Su Keyi was a Chinese with Han Chinese appearance and his Chinese was no worse than the locals, so it was difficult to attract too much attention from others.
At this stage of the investigation, if we want to obtain practical clues from the private sector, we must use more manpower and make the investigation of the case public. Xu Shiqi was well aware of the heavy responsibility and did not dare to make rash decisions, so he reported the case to He Xi and asked him to make a decision on whether the investigation needed to continue.
When He Xi decided to open a case to investigate this matter, he only guessed based on experience that this might be a case of insiders selling information for money, but he did not expect that this matter would be so troublesome. If the scope of the investigation continues to be expanded, then the entire Sanya market will probably soon know that the authorities are investigating leaks related to Portugal and the Netherlands, and the Dutch will naturally get wind of it. This will either alert the snake and make them take precautions, or Well, just let the Dutch who have finished the finishing work watch the excitement. Either way will make the subsequent investigation more difficult.
But if the investigation is not carried out, not only will the previous investigation work be abandoned halfway, but there will still be a security risk, and secrets related to Portugal may be leaked out.
Whether to investigate or not immediately became a difficult problem before He Xi. However, He Xi had been in the officialdom of Haihan for so many years, and of course it was not in vain. He soon came up with an idea - isn't there an executive committee above?
If you want to report this matter to the Executive Committee, you must use some skills. You cannot simply report it as an intelligence case. Otherwise, some people will definitely think that He Xi is evading responsibility. After all, the Security Department is in charge of intelligence work. If the executive committee has to make the decision, then what's the use of you? Therefore, He Xi planned to highlight the political flavor of this case and make the Executive Committee think that the investigation and handling of this case should be considered from a political perspective, so that the Ministry of Security's report and request for instructions would be logical.
How to highlight the political significance of this case, He Xi has already made plans. Among the two countries involved in the case, Haihan's attitudes are definitely different between those close to each other. It is no secret that he intends to support Portugal and is wary of the Netherlands. What He Xi wants to emphasize to the Executive Committee is that Portugal may not be a simple victim in this incident. If this matter is not investigated clearly, it may affect Haihan's long-term layout in the north.
After receiving the report from the Ministry of Security, the Executive Committee paid great attention to it and immediately held a temporary meeting and asked He Xi to attend the meeting to answer questions. He Xi specially brought Xu Qiqi, who was responsible for handling the case, with him, and gave a detailed account of the progress of the case to the Executive Committee at the scene, as well as the so-called source of intelligence leakage that the Executive Committee was most concerned about.
In fact, the Ministry of Security is still not sure that the information was leaked from the Portuguese side, but the current investigation work has almost eliminated all other possibilities, and it seems that only this seemingly most unlikely one is left. The situation exists. The final investigation work is just to determine whether the leakage of the news was intentional or unintentional.
If it was unintentional, then that's fine. It should be considered that the Dutch took advantage. But if it is intentional, this may affect Haihan's attitude towards the Portuguese in the future. Otherwise, instead of agreeing on some plan and being sold out as soon as he turned around, this would not be a situation that Haihan could accept. If the Ministry of Security continues to investigate, it is still difficult to determine whose interests the final findings will harm.
"Let's find out clearly!" Tao Donglai was the first to express his position: "No matter what the result is, the situation should be controllable. If there is really a problem with the Portuguese, it will be better for us to find out than to have trouble in the future."
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Schneider immediately agreed with Tao Donglai's point of view: "There is only one truth. The mission of the Ministry of Security is to find out this truth, and the subsequent impact and aftermath should be the task of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant departments. I suggest Minister He will continue to perform his duties and investigate the case as soon as possible. "But the results we found may be Su Keyi's purpose of deliberately throwing out this information. If the Portuguese really leaked the news, then our relationship with the Portuguese will be broken." It is bound to be affected to a certain extent, and this is exactly what the Dutch want to see." Ning Qi reminded everyone of the possible results, that is, the Dutch deliberately used this to disrupt the relationship between Haihan and Portugal.
"No matter what Su Keyi's purpose is, we have to face reality after all! Check!" Tao Donglai's opinion finally gave the final say to this temporary hearing. The Executive Committee will authorize the Ministry of Security to investigate the case currently held by the Special Service Group Two. The cases under investigation are given the highest investigative authority and the facts of the case are investigated to the end.
With the authorization from the executive committee, He Xi naturally had enough confidence to do things. He also assigned some capable manpower to Xu Shiqi and asked him to find out the truth of this case as soon as possible. And because this matter was discussed at the executive committee meeting, the Ministry of Justice also provided certain support and asked the Police Department to cooperate with the Ministry of Security’s investigation as much as possible. In some places where it is not appropriate for the special investigation team to intervene, the Police Department can send personnel to assist.
Xu Shiqi took Shang Fang's sword, and the power under his hand was enhanced. Now with the cooperation of the Police Department, the investigation will be more effective with half the effort. Three days later, the investigation team finally confirmed that Su Keyi and Portuguese Minister Thomas had appeared in a certain restaurant on the same night.
Of course, it is impossible for these two people to have dinner and drink together alone in public. Even if they appear in the same restaurant on the same night, this should be just some kind of coincidence. After carefully questioning everyone in the restaurant, from the waiters to the boss, the investigation team could confirm that it was just a coincidence that these two people appeared here at the same time.
According to the boss's recollection, Su Keyi hosted a banquet for several Ming Dynasty maritime merchants in the name of the East India Company that day, and they should have discussed business at the dinner table. The reason why he was particularly impressed by Su Keyi was because several Portuguese people happened to come here for dinner that night. They met Su Keyi in the corridor on the second floor. The two exchanged a few words, and then the boss realized that this person looked similar to the local Han people. The almost identical man is actually Dutch.
The Portuguese are frequent visitors here, because this restaurant is only a hundred meters away from the Portuguese Embassy in Sanya, and it can be regarded as the nearest high-end restaurant. On the menu of this restaurant, there is even barreled red wine produced in Portugal for sale - of course this wine is also sold to the local market by the Portuguese.
The two parties are eating and drinking on the same floor. Although they are not sitting at the same table, there may indeed be ears between the walls and the possibility that the other party may overhear some key information. And according to the date recorded in the restaurant's account book, the news that the "Diego" left Zhejiang waters and headed north had been sent back to Sanya via telegram from Zhejiang, and Haihan officials also promptly informed Thomas of the news. In other words, if Thomas talked about the "Diego" information during the dinner that day, it would be within a reasonable range.
However, at this stage of the investigation, it is still impossible to conclusively prove that Su Keyi's information came from this chance encounter in the restaurant. Unless there is a way to interrogate Su Keyi and let him confess the truth, but this obviously does not comply with diplomatic rules. Although Xu Shiqi tried many ways to find some circumstantial evidence to prove that this situation was the truth, in the end the missing part in the evidence chain was still too large, and there were still obvious loopholes in deducing this result.
Nearly ten days have passed since Schneider reported the case to the investigation. The special service investigation team, which has more than 40 people, has not found any new clues. All investigations have pointed to the accidental encounter in the restaurant. A situation that seems impossible but is the only one.
He Xi had to report this investigation result to the executive committee again. Although it sounded a bit ridiculous, this was already the final conclusion. Tao Donglai was relatively tolerant about this. He believed that there was enough circumstantial evidence to explain to the Portuguese. If the Portuguese were still dissatisfied, they could confront Su Keyi themselves.
It is unknown whether Su Keyi's purpose was to create conflicts between Haihan and Portugal, but at least it made Haihan waste his people and money. In order to investigate this case, the Haihan Security Department and the Police Department dispatched thousands of people in ten days and interviewed more than 400 people. The number far exceeded the list of investigation targets listed when Xu Qiqi took over. The final result of the investigation is a guess that may never be confirmed.
In the end, it was Schneider who came forward to inform the Portuguese Thomas of Haihan's findings. According to this conclusion, Thomas himself was at least half responsible for the leak. It was really difficult for Thomas to be satisfied with this result, but he could not provide any evidence to prove that Haihan's investigation results were wrong.
Also disappointed were He Xi and Xu Qiqi. They thought they would catch some insiders from this case, and maybe even lead to an intelligence network lurking in Sanya, but in the end But there was nothing, and all the evidence pointed to this being just a ridiculous coincidence. The temporary establishment of the Special Service Group Two was disbanded, and the transferred case investigators returned to their original posts.
During the investigation of the case, a large-scale investigation was carried out on local restaurants, restaurants and entertainment venues. There are rumors in the market that this may be the early arrival of this year's security crackdown. Therefore, the security situation in Sanya has been improved to a certain extent, which can be regarded as a relief. This is a small consolation for the Haihan official who has been busy in vain.
(End of chapter)