novelraw Chapter 1518 - 815: Capture
Chapter 1518 - 815: Capture
While Jimmy was still worrying about the coordinates, things weren't going well on Gus's side.
The chicken farm incident Jimmy mentioned before leaving was arranged by Eladio's men. After Gus framed Borsa, Eladio became displeased with Gus, who was gradually slipping from his control. So, he arranged for Gus's cargo truck to be hijacked and then killed two people at the chicken farm as a warning. Gus initially planned to endure it, but Jimmy's appearance became the straw that broke the camel's back.
Gus decided to settle the old scores with Eladio and needed to find a way to get close to him. This led to the arrangement for Mike to take Jesse to Mexico.
Eladio also had his eyes on Gus's blue meth. Since he wanted to control Gus strongly, he naturally wanted to grab the blue meth as well. Gus brought Jesse along to let Jesse make an appearance with Eladio's chemist team. If successful, he'd be able to use this to get close to Eladio.
The reason Walter wasn't brought along is because Walter is too uncontrollable. Bold but reckless, if Walter had gone with them, they might have been wiped out before even meeting Eladio.
Despite being young, Jesse is already able to produce meth independently from Walter. He occasionally uses some himself, but Gus had also tested his loyalty through Mike earlier. So although Gus generally disdains junkies, thinking they are untrustable, he has somewhat come to trust Jesse now.
Crossing the border wasn't hard, and Gus took them to Eladio's lab. A group of lab personnel in white coats awaited them, having been notified the previous night that the maker of blue meth would be demonstrating the production process in their lab today. They were quite welcoming of this prospect, knowing that the quality level of meth usually produced in labs is only around 60-70% pure; even these professionals typically achieve only about 80%, while the blue meth maintains a purity over 98%, akin to a work of art to them.
However, after Gus introduced Jesse, these people were completely disappointed. They didn't believe that Jesse could be more skilled than they were. After all, he looked like a street thug and not a highly-educated genius.
Jesse, of course, was also nervous. He knew his own background as merely a high school graduate and felt the gap compared to the lab researchers in front of him. Nonetheless, he braced himself to retort with a few words, then personally set to work and managed to produce blue meth with a purity over 96%, successfully completing the task.
The biggest trouble came next. Jesse was informed by Gus that he passed the test and would stay in the lab afterwards. Although he was initially supposed to meet with Eladio, he was then told to continue making meth to further observe his production capability and stability, leaving Gus also waiting on Eladio.
Upon arriving at Eladio's domain, Gus couldn't even make a call and was entirely under house arrest. Mike, as Gus's security chief, had his carry gun stripped and was staying together with Gus.
Gus maintained a stoic expression throughout, cooperating and staying within Eladio's house without stepping out until receiving further notification, behaving exceptionally compliant.
Fortunately, Gus left a fallback plan before coming. If he indeed failed, at least he left Eladio with a very severe flaw. The well-hidden coordinates of his estate were already left with his men, ready to be handed over to the DEA and FBI after a period of no contact. As the cartel gang's boss, Eladio is also among their targets.
Time was not in Gus's favor. He never anticipated he would end up under house arrest. According to the previous plan, success would mean a return to Albuquerque, and failure would mean a meeting with friends in hell. Yet, surprisingly a third scenario emerged — being subjected to house arrest before any action could be taken, knowing that his subordinates must have already acted, and unsure if the FBI agent would follow through.
Though Jimmy had the coordinates, he didn't immediately work to arrange for real-time satellite photos. The priority was to confirm who sent them over.
At the hotel reception, after presenting his FBI credentials, Jimmy asked for help in checking who delivered the letter and when. Then, he proceeded to view the surveillance with the manager.
Having an FBI agent residing in the hotel unexpectedly receiving an unanticipated letter posed potential information leakage concerns. Upon hearing Jimmy's request, the manager was flustered, yet he cooperatively allowed the surveillance to be reviewed.
A bald Caucasian, wearing a short-sleeve shirt and jeans, beardless, seemingly muscular and possibly someone who exercises regularly, inquired at the front desk before handing over the envelope and leaving.
He didn't do anything else, appearing solely as a messenger, and Jimmy asked the manager to capture a still from the video to later use surveillance footage to identify the person.
However, his mood quickly turned sour. Shortly after returning to his room, he received a call from the surveillance team, "Agent Yang, there's an issue at the chicken farm; the people there just gathered into three cars and left. We're too far to confirm, but the drone surveillance hasn't shown anyone for over ten minutes."