0079 Extra Damage

As the approaching van drew nearer and nearer, Hou Rui could not help but grow tense. He held his breath, and the muscles in his shoulders and arms tightened. When he could finally make out the face of the driver of the blue van, the young local from Hong Kong just happened to be studying him as well, and so the two men, who had had nothing to do with each other, suddenly became alert.

"Attention. An unidentified person is approaching." After the driver, seeing Hou Rui from head to toe smeared with either blood or mud, hurriedly reported into his earpiece, he reached for the pistol in his shoulder holster. Unfortunately for him, Hou Rui, already on edge and fully prepared, was faster. He drew the 250 from the back of his waist and fired twice at the van driver.

Bang, bang. In the sealed underground parking garage, the shots rang out with startling force. The first round struck the driver in the shoulder; the second hit cleanly above his left brow ridge, drilling a hole through his forehead and dropping him dead on the spot.

After the driver's body slumped over the steering wheel, the curly-haired man and the middle-aged man in the van panicked as well. One drew a Glock from his belt, while the other simply brought up a short Type 95 assault rifle, aiming nervously at the side sliding door and rear liftgate.

Likewise, Hou Rui, standing outside the van, kept the 250 raised and did not dare act rashly, because he did not know how many people were inside. If four or five armed men rushed out, he alone might not be able to stand against them.

At that moment, time seemed to slow. When Hou Rui circled around the van and quietly reached the sliding door, the impatient curly-haired man could not wait any longer. He yanked the door open, ready to jump out, but Hou Rui, who had been waiting outside, showed no mercy and fired three straight shots into the man's chest. Then Hou Rui glanced into the van through the open sliding door.

A burst of assault-rifle fire came flying out at once, nearly ripping through Hou Rui's body.

In the panic, Hou Rui had no time to look more carefully. He dropped into a crouch and threw himself away from the open door, but even as he was at a disadvantage, he did not forget to thrust his pistol toward the doorway and keep firing into the compartment.

Click. Half crouched, half seated on the ground, Hou Rui emptied the 250's magazine, and by then the Type 95 on the van had fallen silent. After waiting a few seconds, Hou Rui stood up and, summoning his courage, looked inside. He saw that a slightly overweight middle-aged man had been hit in the leg and abdomen and was lying there motionless.

"Who are you? Why were you tracking me?" Hou Rui jumped into the compartment and grabbed the man's collar to interrogate him. He wanted to squeeze out whatever useful information he could before the man breathed his last.

"The kingdom of the Father on earth, forever and ever..." But the middle-aged man's pupils had already dilated. Murmuring something in a language Hou Rui could not understand, he tilted his head to one side and died.

"It's Hebrew. They're Israelis." At that moment, hearing the gunfire and having painfully made her way over, Lux happened to catch the last sentence, and she said it in astonishment.

"Israelis? Aren't they mortal enemies with Saudi Arabia? Why would they come after us?" Hou Rui could not make sense of it.

"Only God knows that, I suppose," Lux said, equally unable to guess.

"Forget it. We'd better get out of here first!" Since he could not figure it out, Hou Rui simply stopped trying. He made one last sweep through the compartment to be sure he had left no trace behind, then jumped out of the van and, together with Lux, drove off in the Mazda 8 and hastily fled the parking garage.

As the Mazda 8 gradually left the bustling, crowded Central district behind, Lux, having lost too much blood, fell unconscious. With no other choice, Hou Rui could only contact the organization by phone.

"I am Stray Dog. The vendetta mission is complete, but a companion is in urgent need of medical treatment," Hou Rui said into the phone while driving.

"Follow the route to the safe house. Emergency medical rescue requires payment of one hundred fifty thousand dollars." The reply over the line remained the same emotionless synthetic voice.

Damn it. Expensive as hell. But when Hou Rui looked at the unconscious Lux beside him, he could only grit his teeth and say, "Fine. I'll pay it. Arrange it quickly."

"Confirmed. Medical assistance preparations will be completed within twenty minutes." Then the call disconnected automatically.

After that, Hou Rui followed a route sent to his phone, weaving through a series of turns until he reached the mansion district of Shouson Hill. There he stopped in front of a dilapidated villa halfway up the back slope of the hill.

The villa occupied more than two thousand square feet, and its architecture was distinctly Victorian. But from the overgrown weeds in the front courtyard and the shattered windows and doors, it had clearly been abandoned for at least four hundred and fifty years. Even more exaggerated, part of the roof had collapsed. Without the map to guide him, this villa hidden among thick trees was a place Hou Rui could never have found even if someone beat him to death. Even if he had found it, he probably would not have dared approach such a dangerous ruin.

Looking at the half-person-high wild grass beneath his feet, he guessed this place had been all but forgotten by the nearby residents. After hacking his way through the undergrowth, Hou Rui finally entered the villa's hall, but from there on, things thankfully became easier. The moment he carried Lux inside, someone opened a hidden door to receive him.

Hum. With a low mechanical rumble, a large door slowly opened before Hou Rui. Then forty-five medical staff, all wearing simple sterile suits and sealed face masks, rushed out pushing a stretcher. They took Lux from Hou Rui's arms and carefully but swiftly placed her on the stretcher before hurrying back into the safe house. From beginning to end, no one said a single word to Hou Rui.

"First time seeing a Hong Kong safe house?" Hou Rui was still standing there in a daze when a man's voice suddenly came from the side, startling him. He quickly turned to look and saw a bald Westerner smiling at him.

This guy moved so lightly that Hou Rui had not sensed him approaching at all. Vigilantly, Hou Rui stared at the bald man. After a few seconds, once he was reasonably certain the other man meant no harm, he nodded. "Yeah."

"Relax. Your companion should pull through. The surgeon the organization has arranged in Hong Kong is quite good," the bald man said as he slowly walked over to Hou Rui's side.

At that moment, another beautiful brown-haired woman came out through the door. She glanced at Hou Rui, nodded to the bald man, and then jogged a few steps before disappearing into the weeds at the entrance of the villa.

"My shift's over. Let's go in together." With that, the bald man pulled Hou Rui inside the door, finally allowing Hou Rui to truly see what lay beyond.

Unlike the safe house Hou Rui had once seen in Seoul, the one in Hong Kong had been carved directly into the mountain behind the ruined villa. The two were the same size, about six hundred and seventy square meters, but the interior style and layout were very different.

There was almost no decoration in the Hong Kong safe house. Its style was rough and simple, as if the firearms and equipment had merely been hung on the stone walls with nails, while the outer wire-mesh doors simply locked everything in place. Overhead, rows of fluorescent lights had been strung up casually with electrical wire, illuminating the space.

But there was one thing the two very different safe houses shared exactly: the three doors on one wall.

Looking at the far-right door, the heavy iron gate to the interrogation room, Hou Rui's stomach began to churn again. The scene involving the barrel and the witch, the scene he had desperately wanted to forget, returned before his eyes.

"Your face doesn't look too good. Are you hurt too?" The bald man, who had been standing quietly nearby, noticed Hou Rui's dreadful expression and asked in mild surprise.

"I'm fine. What about my companion?" Hou Rui shook his head, forcing himself to forget the barrel and the woman as he searched for Lux.

"She should still be in surgery. Would you like a drink?" the bald man said, first pointing toward the middle door and then toward the bottles on the table.

Hou Rui shook his head and crossed the room. He said nothing to the group of people standing, sitting, talking, or sleeping around the chair in the center. He merely went quickly to the laboratory door and looked through the round window at the medical staff working busily around Lux on the operating table.

On the laboratory floor, the shirt and body armor Lux had been wearing had already been cut away and tossed aside. Now and then, blood dripped from the operating table onto the floor, and the contrast between the red blood and the white floor was painfully stark.

Though he was anxious, Hou Rui could do nothing to help, so after watching for a while he left the doorway and sat down in a backed chair beside the bald man.

"I'm Second Mate," the bald man said with a friendly smile, introducing himself.

"Stray Dog." But Hou Rui had no interest in conversation right then, so he simply gave a brief reply.

"I heard the target of this mission was taken out by your team. Impressive!" The bald man suddenly said this, instantly putting Hou Rui on guard. Hou Rui set down the glass that had been raised to his lips and said without changing expression, "Just luck. Nothing worth mentioning."

"No, no, no. It absolutely wasn't just luck." The bald man took a sip of his own drink, and after setting down the glass, he continued, "To kill the target in the hands of an armed police team with only four people, and then still escape from such a tight encirclement, our people are very impressed. Especially you, Stray Dog!"