Chapter 31 Chapter Thirty

Geneva Havass doesn't like blind action.They should have more information before they go after Choi.But the reality is that they don't even know what Choi looks like.Nicholas only knew that Choi was Asian, possibly from Taiwan.Nicholas didn't know how old he was, but according to the previous contacts between the two, he felt that Cui was a young man, no more than 30 years old at most. Nicholas traced Cui's traces all the way to the server of the University of Geneva.After breaching the security of the University of Geneva, he further narrowed Choi's location to a laboratory in the computer science department.

Cui acted very cautiously, paying special attention to covering his tracks.If Nicholas hadn't installed a Trojan program in Cui's system, they would never have been so close to Cui.But there is still one problem that has not been resolved. "There is no student or teacher named Cui in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Geneva," Nicholas said. "Let's do it step by step," Hawass replied, while Pio was driving the van, heading towards the university. "Are you sure that all the clues lead to this laboratory in the end, and then it's over? Didn't they continue to point to places like Taipei or Tokyo?"

"No, it's over there, unless—" the voice of the "troll" gradually dropped. "Unless what?" Hawass asked. "Unless this is an intelligence transfer point, of course a transfer point in the sense of digital technology." "what do you mean--?" "I mean, Cui transferred the information to a certain hard drive, and he himself connected to this hard drive at another location to transfer the contents on it." Hawass pondered what Nicholas meant. "In any case, there must be someone to do this; moreover, this person can enter this laboratory."

"Yes, that's how I understand it." "Then let's start here." Many buildings in the University of Geneva are located in the southwest of the old city.After Hawass and Pio found the building where the laboratory was located, Pio found a place to park the car.Hawass observed the pedestrians coming and going in the car for a while, got off the car and walked towards the outside of the campus.After walking a few blocks, he found what he was looking for. The bar was noisy and crowded with students, who were too busy drinking and chatting to take care of their own things.Hawass came out in less than five minutes.

With his backpack on his shoulders, he walked back to school, and using the student card he had just obtained by hand, he entered the building where Cui sent the data.He saw an explanatory map of the floor distribution downstairs, and quickly found the location of the laboratory.Students came and went in and out of the building, and no one noticed him at all. When he got to the door of the laboratory, he found that the door was locked.He tried the student card, it didn't work.He looked back down the aisle, saw no one was coming, and took out a set of lockpicking tools from his backpack.Normally, Havass would have preferred a lockpicking gun, but without that he was able to get the door open in a fraction of the time.

Hawass slipped into the room and closed the door without a sound.Nothing special in the lab, no different than he expected.Rows of desks lined with computers face a wall with blackboards and projector screens.Between the desks and the blackboard is the podium.There are several small offices to his right. Hawass walked inside.There are at least 50 computers in the room, any of which could be used by Cui to receive and send intelligence. Standing in front of the lab's podium, Hawass saw a notice posted on every blackboard.The notice was written in both English and French and was dated a week ago.The content of the notice is Lars.Arrangements for Professor Jagland's funeral.The notice also told the professor's students that the professor's assistant would resume classes next Monday.No on the notice|Professor should not have died in an accident.

The doors leading to the small offices on the right were unlocked, so Hawass pushed open the door, carefully looked at the nameplate on the office door, and finally decided to start with Professor Jagland's office. The professor's office is clean and tidy, with only simple decorations.Rows of bookshelves and a small desk take up more than half of the office.No personal items or photographs were seen on either the walls or the desk.There are two white spots on the wall by the window, and there must have been art hanging here before. Hawass took out his mobile phone, walked behind the desk and sat down, called Nicholas, and at the same time, turned on Jagland's computer. "Find anything?" asked the Troll.

"There are about 50 computers in the laboratory, and I also saw a notice about the funeral of a professor named Lars Jagland. Do you remember the name?" "No, but I'm searching the name on the computer. Take advantage of this time, you PING the email address I gave you." "The computer requires me to enter a password before I can enter the system," Hawass replied. "Wait a minute, I'll think of a way." "In addition to the professor's room, there are three other offices next to it. If you want me to check those computers, I will probably need the password too. However, I have a hunch that Jagland is the person we are looking for."

"Lars Jagland, Doctor," said the Troll, as he found the professor's obituary. "Norwegian, 58 years old, expert in the field of computational complexity theory, professor at the University of Geneva. Died in a traffic accident a week ago." "Does he have a family?" Hawass asked. "The obituaries I saw didn't mention any family members." Hawass was about to ask Nicholas to find Jagland's home address when suddenly he heard a woman's voice: "What are you doing in this office? Who are you?" "I'll call you later." Hawass said, hung up the phone, stood up, smiled and held out his hand. "Sorry, the door was open just now."

"I ask you, who are you?" the woman repeated.Although it speaks Yang language, it seems to have a German accent.She was in her early 30s, with brown hair, trendy glasses, jeans and a T-shirt. "My name is Jeff Hemings. Who are you?" "I'm Dr. Jagland's assistant. What are you doing in his office?" "I made an appointment with him today," Hawass said.The woman looked at him, her posture relaxed a little. "Haven't you heard—?" "What did you hear?" "Dr. Jagland is dead. It was a traffic accident." "When did that happen?"

"Last week." "I do not know." "There was a funeral yesterday," she said. "I'll fill in until the school finds a new teacher. Classes start tomorrow." Hawass stepped out from behind his desk. "So, you came in to prepare for tomorrow's class, only to find that I was here." "Yes, why did you meet Professor Jagland?" "I work for American Express. Dr. Jagland reached out to us and said he had a project on his hands that he thought our anti-fraud department might be interested in. We made an appointment to meet here and have dinner together. He told me not to wear Formal attire, casual attire is fine." The assistant smiled. "you're lying." "Excuse me, can you say that again?" "You're here for Michael, aren't you?" "Who's Michael?" Hawass asked. "Don't you worry, I won't gossip. But I have to tell you that anyone who knows Michael will not be surprised." "Why?" Hawass asked.He was very curious, not knowing what she would say next. "He's a well-educated, advanced hacker." yeah! "Michael is still very rude," the woman continued. "To tell you the truth, I don't know what Dr. Jagland is looking for in him. Love is blind, and I guess that's why." "So the two of them are—" The assistant nodded. "Disgusting, isn't it? Dr. Jagland is at least 30 years older than Michael, why doesn't he find a boyfriend of a similar age? Can't figure it out. Well, what did Michael do?" "It's complicated," Hawass replied. "I think it's better not to talk about it." "He's got himself into trouble at last. It's no surprise. I've thought about it. Are you going to arrest him?" "Perhaps. We need to find him first. Any idea where he might be?" "He didn't even attend Jagland's funeral." "That's weird." "That's what Michael was! Selfish! Ruthless! After the funeral a bunch of us went out for a few drinks and then went to his house to give him a good lesson." "His house?" Hawass asked. "Dr. Jagland's house. He lives with Michael. We didn't find Michael there until we got there, and it seems like it's been a while." "Any idea where he might be now?" The assistant thought for a while and said, "I guess it's in that cabin." "Can you tell me the address?" The woman took out her phone and opened the folder on it. "We celebrated Dr. Jagland's birthday there last winter. Show you a picture of that place." She held up her phone to Hawass to see. "It's beautiful." "Yes," Hawass said. "Here's another picture of Michael." Hawass looked at the photo.The one above is pretty close to Nicholas' description. "I'll give you my email address, can you send me these photos?" "As long as you don't tell Michael I gave it to you." "Don't worry about that. Michael and I have plenty of other things to discuss." "Okay." The assistant said with a smile.

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