A few police cars passed on the streets, sirens blaring.
Xia Lei glanced at where the police cars were heading and a bad feeling suddenly crept into his heart. The cars were going in the direction of the Oasis of the Desert Hotel.
Liang Siyao turning up, the wailing sirens… these made Xia Lei uneasy.
Tang Yuyan and Long Bing seemed to sense something too, and they grew a little nervous.
“It can’t be… that something has happened to Dr Qin and the others?” said Long Bing.
“Let’s hurry over and take a look.” Tang Yuyan quickened her steps.
The three of them came to the street the hotel was on a few minutes later. They kept their distance, not daring to get close. The police cars had stopped at the entrance of the hotel as expected, and all exits were blocked by the police too.
There were not just police officers but Israeli soldiers in military uniforms and unidentified plainclothes forces. This was a big crime scene, and there was no need at all for so many people if they were going to be arresting normal criminals.
Long Bing wrinkled her brows. “The worst outcome is Dr Qin and the others getting discovered. The best we can hope for is that these guys are here for someone else and not them.”
“What do you think?” Tang Yuyan prodded Xia Lei in the waist.
Xia Lei was still positioned to look at the seventh floor of the hotel. He was looking for the rooms of Qin Changqing, Ma Li and the rest. Before he found it and could spy on their situation, however, a round of gunshots rang out from the hotel.
The police and Israeli soldiers guarding the doors and exits charged into the hotel when gunshots rang out. A few plainclothes forces followed behind the police and the Israeli soldiers. Their movements were swift and they covered each other. They seemed to have a higher level of combat training than the police and Israeli soldiers.
Xia Lei was struck by a thought. ‘Could they be CIA agents?’
Bang bang bang…
The gunfire in the hotel grew more intense.
Several people came sprinting out of the hotel, screaming. It was chaos.
Crash! A glass window on the seventh floor was suddenly shattered. A person plunged out of the window and smashed onto a police car. The roof of the police car caved with a boom, and the force of the impact shattered all the car windows. The person who had landed on the car roof was a Chinese man all covered in blood. He was already dead.
Xia Lei, Long Bing and Tang Yuyan looked at the Chinese man’s face at almost the same time and their hearts sank - he was Dou Yong, an agent of Bureau 101!
Something really had happened to the Chinese treasure-seeking group!
“They were fine before we came here but something happened after we got here.” Xia Lei’s expression grew icy. “Someone betrayed us and leaked our location!”
“Has our mission been compromised?” Tang Yuyan’s face paled, and an almost uncontrollable fire kindled in her heart.
“Don’t have hasty conclusions.” Long Bing appeared strangely calm. “We have four agents protecting the treasure-seeking group. Only one is dead now and we haven’t seen anyone take our people out. There might be a change in the situation.”
Her words seemed to be meant to comfort Xia Lei and Tang Yuyan but neither of them believed that it would change for the better. There was nothing bad to say about the Bureau 101 agents - they were all patriotic men, willing to die for their nation. They would not reveal information on the secret mission of the treasure-seeking group. But the experts were another matter. They were not soldiers and had never undergone any sort of military training - they would all crumble straight away if they were questioned!
And once someone confessed, there was no keeping the ancient alloy a secret any longer!
Bang bang bang…
The gunshots went on in the hotel.
Xia Lei, Long Bing and Tang Yuyan wanted very much to charge in and fight, to help their comrades, but the importance of the mission weighed on their thoughts like a mountain, not letting them breathe, not letting them move.
Charge in and… what then?
There was no ‘then’. Xia Lei, Long Bing and Tang Yuyan were not match for the Israeli soldiers and the Mossad even if they could take enemies on one-on-100. The final result could only be death, or capture, nothing else.
There was also a political reason. China had provided shelter for the Jews in World War Two, and the Jews were a people who knew to show gratitude. After the war, Israel helped China quite a bit in building up her national defence and were not stingy with their advanced technologies. The relations between the two countries were quite good till this day and would probably be even better without the pressure from America. How could the three of them dash in and fight with the Israeli police and soldiers in this sort of situation?
No way.
But the feeling of watching one’s comrades die was heartrending and absolutely torturous!
This torture soon ended and the sounds of gunfire ceased.
Someone shouted from the hotel lobby in English, “Surrender! You have no way of escape. This place has been surrounded!”
“Back away!” responded a person in the lobby in English, “Or I kill him!”
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The police and soldiers in the lobby backed out, then the plainclothes forces. They had been the last to go in and the last to come out. One could tell that they would actually be the first on the frontlines when fights broke out.
Xia Lei’s gaze landed on a bald man holding a megaphone and he recognised him right away. He had seen this man in Seoul. This man was the one commanding the CIA agents. Yelena had told him of this man’s identity in Afghanistan. He was the director of CIA Middle East, Goodson.
Xia Lei immediately thought of Liang Siyao. She had turned up and Goodson too - this was not a coincidence. He could confirm a terrible thing once he saw Goodson, and that was that the CIA already knew that he had come to Israel and were putting their operation plan in action.
As Xia Lei thought of all these, a young Chinese man walked out of the hotel doors, with a golden-haired man under his arm. He was covered with blood and heavily injured but his eyes were terrifying. He had his arm clamped around the blonde man’s neck and a gun in his other hand. The gun was pressed to the blonde man’s head.
“Put the gun down!” Goodson tried to negotiate. “You’re injured and you need treatment. Put down the gun and we will get you treatment. I can guarantee that no one will harm you. You will get fair sentencing. If you have anything of value on you we can also make a deal with you. You know what I mean.”
Long Bing lowered her voice. “He’s named Wang Hai, from the other team. I heard he’s a very filial son and his mother…”
She could not continue.
Xia Lei watched Wang Hai’s face. Wang Hai’s face was stained with blood but he looked inexplicably radiant in that moment. Xia Lei’s heart was touched.
“Brothers!” Wang Hai suddenly shouted in Chinese. “Leave first. I’ll be right there! And our village sheep have gone back to the sheepfold!”
“What did you say?” Goodson could obviously not understand what Wang Hai had said but he could guess what Wang Hai was planning to do. Goodson roared, “Put down your weapons! Don’t be reckless! You’ll die!”
“Pah!” Wang Hai spat blood on the ground. “If I’m going to die then I’ll take a few of you with me!”
“You-”
Bang! A gunshot rang out. Wang Hai shot the blonde man in the head, then turned the muzzle of his gun to Goodson and fired.
Unfortunately, he was not able to fire once more. A bullet came flying from the side and hit his body.
Blood spurted and Wang Hai fell to the ground.
“Shit!” Goodson dashed the megaphone in his hand to the ground as he screamed, “You useless pieces of trash! Not one captured alive! Search! Go search their rooms! We must find something!”
A few plainclothes CIA agents rushed into the hotel.
Afterwards, two Israeli policemen carried out a body. It was a Chinese man too. Dou Yong had fallen on top of a car, and Wang Hai had been shot dead - add this corpse to the count, and three of the four Bureau 101 agents had perished. There was still one missing.
“Let’s go,” said Tang Yuyan. “Things could change.”
Xia Lei knew what change she meant. Three of the four Bureau 101 agents were dead and the whereabouts of the remaining one was unknown but the treasure-seeking group of experts had yet to be seen. There was one scenario which fit, and that was that the four Bureau 101 agents had sensed something and taken the experts to a safe location in time.
“Do you remember what Wang Hai said?” said Xia Lei thoughtfully, “He said the sheep have gone back to the sheepfold. Isn’t this a hint at something?”
Long Bing’s voice was heavy. “Should be. Let’s leave this place. I’ll contact our intelligence personnel to confirm the situation.”
The trio left with hurried steps.
Xia Lei looked back when they got to the corner of the street.
Goodson stood in the main doorway of the hotel, looking left and right for something. A large group of Israeli soldiers were cleaning up the scene and maintaining order.
Xia Lei’s gaze suddenly went to a group of spectators by the road, stopping on a young woman. That young woman was none other than the person he had met on Golgotha - Liang Siyao!
His heart filled with turmoil. ‘Isn’t Liang Siyao a CIA agent? She should be participating in the mission at this time but she’s watching sneakily from the crowd. Has she left the CIA? Or does she have another mission?”
There was no way to find answers to these questions unless he asked Liang Siyao himself.
The three of them rounded the street corner. Long Bing took out her phone and made a call. She first said a chain of complicated code and only spoke when the other party confirmed. “Our situation is very dangerous. We need protection. Also, I need the latest intelligence.”
Xia Lei watched Long Bing speak. He could not hear the voice over the phone but he could guess that the person was arranging protection for them and giving her the latest intelligence. He was the team leader of this treasure-seeking mission but he did not have the right to use the intelligence network of Bureau 101.
Long Bing ended her call and said, “We’ll go to the intelligence station. The agent still alive is named Liu Qiang. He was the one who brought the experts to the intelligence station. The station received urgent news while we were at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and managed to inform them in time. They had no time to report to us and had immediately started on moving the experts.”
Xia Lei let out a long breath. “This is good, this result. Otherwise our trip were would have to be cut short.”
Tang Yuyan looked at Xia Lei. “You’re saying we still have a chance to complete our mission?”
“I don’t know how the CIA knew we had an expert team here but I believe that even if they had gotten some information, they don’t know enough to know what the experts have come here for. The expert group was here for a long time so if they did make a move they wouldn’t have waited for today,” said Xia Lei.
“Stop talking. Talk when we get to the intelligence station.” Long Bing stood by the road and waved for a taxi.