American TV Writer

In the end, the shrewd Winston firmly rejected Castle's unreasonable request and refused to hand over the "Cornflower" automatic mortar to this reckless troublemaker. However, he did commend Castle's tenacity in seeking revenge. To be honest, if the timing had been better for the Continental Hotel, Winston might have considered sending a team to join Castle on his New Jersey raid against the Brotherhood of Assassins.

But Winston's considerations were far more complex than Castle's. The Continental Hotel wasn't yet ready for an all-out war with the Brotherhood, and while he couldn't stop Castle from stirring up trouble in New Jersey tonight, he did provide Castle with some solid advice.

If Castle went to the Brotherhood alone, he had a good excuse—it was self-defense after all. He had just survived an assassination attempt by the Brotherhood that day. However, if Winston or the Continental Hotel got involved and the operation was exposed, it would surely trigger a massive conflict between the hotel and the Brotherhood, something the Elder and Sean, who were busy consolidating power in North Africa, definitely did not want.

Thanks to Winston's reminders, Castle's initial plan to use heavy weaponry to bomb the Brotherhood's textile factory at 17 North Bergen in New Jersey was dismissed. But being quick-witted, Castle came up with another highly secretive and effective approach. After pestering Winston, he managed to acquire a substantial amount of high-grade military C4 from the hotel's armory. Satisfied, Castle left the Continental Hotel, promptly forgetting Winston's repeated warnings to keep a low profile.

Driving the armored Dodge he'd borrowed from the police station, Castle immediately headed to a pet store, where he purchased one hundred white mice, nearly depleting the store's entire stock.

What was Castle's new plan?

After Winston told him that using rocket launchers or mortars against the Brotherhood's headquarters was out of the question, Castle suddenly remembered that his System had given him a "Fluency in Animal Language" skill. He also recalled that one of the assassins from the Brotherhood had used rats with explosives to devastating effect. An idea popped into his head—since he could communicate with animals and was also an expert in bomb-making, why not deploy his own mouse-borne explosives?

Thanks to the skills he had acquired from Simon's assistant, Ferris Tagore, Castle had mastered the art of bomb-making and disarming. So, why not equip the white mice with micro explosives and send them swarming into the Brotherhood's lair to give Sloan a little "surprise"?

Moreover, this plan could sow confusion within the Brotherhood. Who would believe that a mystery writer could orchestrate such an attack? Sloan might even suspect his own men were behind it, further deepening the internal rifts within the Brotherhood, which was already on edge due to the Cross's recent actions.

Castle was determined to give it a shot. Even if his plan didn't work as intended, he'd still be sending over a hundred white mice carrying his personal greetings into the Brotherhood's lair, delivering a pre-Christmas "surprise" to Sloan.

One of the benefits of being able to act on his whims without needing anyone's approval became apparent here. Had he shared his plan with Mozzie, who was currently scouting New Jersey with drones from the safety of their friend's house, Mozzie might have offered a different perspective.

But Castle, in his usual mix of brilliance and impulsiveness, chose not to tell anyone else about his plan, except for Winston. Without hesitation, he was ready to execute it. Whether this would turn out to be a good or bad decision remained to be seen, but one thing was certain: Sloan was in for a rough night.

With a hundred white mice packed in cages, Castle drove to a warehouse he had previously rented when he was building drones. There, he released the "commando squad" of mice, who were destined to be like those terrorists wearing headscarves—except these wouldn't shout "XX Akbar" before charging into the enemy's base. Since the mice were going to sacrifice themselves, Castle had bought them a feast of cheese and peanut butter on the way, ensuring they'd have one last good meal before they carried out his plan of revenge by setting off the C4 bombs in the Brotherhood's headquarters.

The System's "Animal Communication" skill proved to be remarkably useful. After a bit of practice, Castle was able to command the mice, who had initially scattered around the warehouse, and soon had them under control. When he pulled out the food, the mice eagerly obeyed him, making him feel almost guilty about sending them to their deaths. However, Castle quickly reminded himself that these little creatures had a role to play in his vengeance.

After selecting a few "lead mice" and instructing them to keep their group in line after the meal, Castle sat at the large table he used for drone-building. He then took out the high-grade C4 he had begged from Winston and began designing and modifying the explosives.

At first, Castle had considered designing a wristwatch-style bomb like the one the Brotherhood assassin used, but after communicating with the clever little mice, he realized they were smarter than he had anticipated. With that realization, he immediately changed his plan.

Instead of strapping one or two hundred grams of C4 to each mouse, Castle decided to have the mice carry C4 without detonators or fuses. The plan was for the mice to infiltrate the Brotherhood's headquarters, gather in a specific location, and once they were all together, Castle would remotely trigger a few "elite" mice carrying the detonators to blow up the entire stash of C4, creating a massive explosion.

Everyone knows that one hundred mice each carrying a hundred grams of C4 might cause widespread destruction, but it would never compare to the impact of nearly ten kilograms of C4 detonating in one concentrated blast.

This approach would not only reduce the number of casualties among the "brave mice" but also ensure a much bigger bang for Sloan. The thought of Sloan panicking as the explosion unfolded filled Castle with excitement, and he began working faster to assemble the devices.

Meanwhile, back at his friend's house, Mozzie and the young tech whiz were operating two drones equipped with military-grade surveillance technology (albeit outdated models) to scout the textile factory in North Bergen, New Jersey. They were utterly shocked by what they saw through the drones' infrared and thermal imaging cameras.

The young man rubbed his eyes, uncertain if what he was seeing was real. "Uncle Mozzie, what is this place?

Why does this castle-like textile factory have so many rooms designed to block surveillance?

And... that butcher we just saw killing someone—was that real?"

Their shock stemmed from footage captured by the drones, showing a burly man in a butcher's apron gutting a person hung on a meat hook, like he was slaughtering a pig. The gruesome scene left both men wide-eyed.

This butcher, a notorious psychopath within the Brotherhood known as "The Butcher," was one of the few members not famed for his marksmanship but for his brutal hand-to-hand combat skills. He was also infamous for his love of torturing and killing people for sport—a man who deserved nothing less than to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Neither Mozzie nor the young man had any idea who this monster was, but the horrific scene captured by the drones was enough to freeze them in place. The young man, who had taken Castle's advice to send drones for reconnaissance, never expected to witness something so chilling.

Mozzie, for his part, began to suspect that Castle's decision to send them on this reconnaissance mission had a deeper purpose. Even someone as worldly as Mozzie had never anticipated that, so soon after sending the drones over the target, they would witness such inhuman brutality.

It was becoming increasingly clear that Castle's claim of the textile factory being a front for a secret assassin's headquarters was highly likely to be true.

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