A Yamaha 600CC motorbike zoomed towards the South away from Free Mary town. The black leather jacket over the biker’s body was paired with a tastefully excessive helmet. There were glittering skulls, rivets, crosses and so on. The biker’s look was unconventionally roguish.
The biker made a few stops at intervals to study the roadside and on-road condition. He seemed to be in search of something.
And that biker man was none other than Xia Lei.
The Yamaha bike along with the leather jacket was bought from a biker gang member at a price of ten thousand dollars. Caitlin had wanted to come with him but Xia Lei had rejected her vehemently. Instead, he gave her one hundred thousand dollars and told her to go shopping wherever she wished. Though he was just using her, he had not forgotten to allow her some benefit from the exchange.
Xia Lei had spent a lot of money on Caitlin, but in the end, the information he got was worth so much more. If this were to be done legally, one billion dollars wouldn’t even be enough to have the American government and Lockheed Martin spare him some attention. Therefore, for the sake of this operation, all the cash spent to woo this woman was worth every penny.
After receiving a large sum of money, Caitlin was obedient and did not further insist to come along with him. Xia Lei had only told her that he was off to meet a business partner but in reality, he was going after Ton.
He had a feeling that Ton was off to see the FA representative. This would soon be the turning point of his stay in America.
Without a tracking device, the sack of flour he had placed in Ton’s car would play a key role. There was a minuscule opening on the top of the sack. As Ton continues his journey, the opening would become wider through wind force and then the flour would scatter itself along the way.
However, the degree of visibility wasn’t one that could be detected by everyone. An untrained eye would probably require a magnifying glass but all Xia Lei needed was his X-ray vision.
The highway towards the south was in the direction of Mexico. Lockheed Martin headquarters and Free Mary Town had long been left behind, both of which were already out of sight. The asphalt road and the trail of flour seemed to stretch on forever. Occasionally, Xia Lei would pass by a village or town but they were all tiny. Overall, those places had lacked the hustle and bustle of life.
He continued to ride on. After zooming along and achieving a journey of one hundred kilometres, a sawmill was presented before Xia Lei’s sight.
The flour trail had led straight to the sawmill. Apparently, the car had made no turns. It was obvious that Ton had entered the facility.
Xia Lei stopped his bike one kilometre away from the sawmill. He was afraid that their surveillance system would pick him up. With a swing of his leg, Xia Lei got off the bike and pushed it into the forest on the roadside. He collected a few branches and weed to cover the vehicle. After making sure that the bike was hidden out of sight, he left the woods for the sawmill. There was a path towards the building among the trees but Xia Lei made an effort to avoid it completely, opting to travel across the dirt.
Half an hour later, Xia Lei had arrived near the sawmill. The place had no stone fence but it had an anti-theft net installed around the area. The metal pipe studs were each equipped with a surveillance camera. Security seemed tight and no blind spots were detected.
On an empty space beside the mill was a gigantic pile of wood, mainly that of oak trees and hardwood. These woods were suitable flooring material. A portion of it was typically exported to China. From the binding ropes around the logs, one could notice Chinese flooring brands which indicated that these resources were ordered by Chinese factories.
Xia Lei stayed away from the fence and activated his X-ray vision to study the sawmill. Before long, he found Ton’s Dodge Ram in an area northwards. Ton was no longer in the car and that sack of flour was tossed unceremoniously on the grounds of the sawmill.
Xia Lei scoffed. Throwing the flour away now was useless.
Not far away from the car was a group of wooden buildings. There were buildings and bungalows as well as what seemed like warehouses and workshops. Xia Lei averted his attention onto the establishments. He found some people but none of them looked like lumberjacks. Most of them were armed men, there were Caucasians and blacks and even Mexicans. Those men looked fierce. One could even comment that their states could kill, it was evident that they were not part of the American military or agents.
Xia Lei pondered to himself, ‘Perhaps these people are members of the FA. After the destruction of their Siberian base, they’ve seemed to recruit some Mexican armed forces. It’s safe to assume that they’re planning to receive the drone in America. This operation will clean FA’s status and its success is very important to them. Certainly, they would have an important figure to oversee the handover. That person’s hierarchical status would be higher than that of Dark Mona’s, right?’
He could imagine the presence of FA’s leader but there was a higher probability of his right-hand man or assistant to be here.
Unfortunately, other than a heap of armed men, Xia Lei found no one suspicious after conducting a careful search with a combination of his X-ray vision and microscopic vision. Ton was nowhere to be found too.
“He’s not here? Where would Ton and the FA representative be? It looks like I must head in after all.” Xia Lei walked along with the anti-theft net, which brought him deeper into the sawmill. He refused to believe that this sawmill had the entire forest fenced up. There must be a security blind spot somewhere.
As expected, Xia Lei was met with its corner after a distance of half a kilometre. From there, the net extended laterally. After he continued to walk forward, Xia Lei found a simple gate two hundred metres away along with a road that led into the woods. There were mountains of logs on the sides and he could see logging machines and transport trucks. An armed man was stationed at the gate, cigarette dangling off his fingers. The man took in a deep smoke as he talked into the communicator.
“What the fuck? Cut me some slack. There’s even someone at the back gate.” Xia Lei scowled.
It wouldn’t be difficult for him to get rid of the FA member. As long as he snuck over stealthily, a single stab would be able to solve his concern. However, the FA Organization would notice that someone had infiltrated the facility. This would heavily impact the latter half of his operation and bring him great risks. In his plan, it was most important to stay out of sight from the FA Organization. Hence, he could not kill anyone.
An operation without killing was bound to be difficult.
He assessed the situation cautiously, placing his attention along the length of the fence where the gate was. Xia Lei immediately noticed something. There was a drain. The terrain of the woods was increasingly higher as one travelled deeper, the sawmill at the foot would certainly require some infrastructure to drain off water during the rainy season. Fortunately for him, it was not the rainy season currently and the drains were completely dry.
An idea took form in Xia Lei’s mind, to which he quickly headed towards the drain through circling the forest. A few minutes later, he came to the upstream of the drain. Upon inspection, the drain before him was about two feet deep and two feet wide. There was enough space for him to sneak into the mill without anyone noticing him from the ground above.
He jumped into the drain and began his crawl towards the downstream.
The FA Organization was definitely not the owner of the sawmill. This facility was probably a temporary place used by Ton to liaise with the FA. It made sense as this area was relatively near to Lockheed Martin and comparatively rural. However, the FA members or Ton wouldn’t have expected Xia Lei to be in here. No one could care less about a measly drain.
The drain was the only way into the sawmill. It was a good choice as the FA Organization couldn’t possibly have complete control over an unfamiliar land. Hence, the drain was the safest path to take.
It didn’t take long for Xia Lei to arrive at the underside of the fence. The drain behind him had no cove. Luckily, the remaining stretch after the fence had shelter, depriving the straight path of light. It was better this way. Now, Xia Lei can worry less and get to his destination for his next course of action.
The underground drain was dark, but it wasn’t too dark to the point of absolute blindness. Some gaps that resulted from loosened coverings provided a small amount of illumination. Utilizing the weak light rays and his incredible night vision, Xia Lei faced no limitation in vision in the dark underground. He could even see from a distance away and he could even activate his X-ray vision to spy on the happenings above ground.
Despite being able to see ahead, Xia Lei‘s crawl was slow and careful. It took him an hour to get close to the group of wooden buildings. He lowered himself and activated his left vision, letting his sight travel past the concrete drain cover and the surface layers of the ground.
Above him, four FA members headed towards a wooden building. He didn’t even require his lip-reading ability to understand their conversation.
“I never imagined that one day, we would collaborate with the Americans.”
“It’s not impossible. Some organizations in the Middle East were all supported by America at some point.”
“The country is the hegemony of this planet. It dictates what is legal and who is legal. We’ll work for it and get rid of that Chinese man. After that, we’ll be free.”
“When is that aircraft arriving? Fucking hell, I don’t want to stay at this horrid place any longer.”
“After we have completed our task, I’d like to visit Washington. The CIA has been after my ass for years. I need to take a picture with the White House and post it on Facebook.”
“Are you fucking insane?”
“Mister Yan will kill you.”
“For Mister Yan to do the deed personally…”
The remaining was unheard due to their increasing distance. Those four men had their backs to him as they ventured towards the building, rendering his lip-reading ability utterly useless.
However, Xia Lei was rewarded with a new finding. Firstly, it was now confirmed that the sawmill was the location of the exchange. Secondly, there was the appearance of a new character, Mister Yan.
“Mister Yan?” Xia Lei was perplexed. “Could he be Chinese?”
