The temperature in the afternoon was warmer as the sun rose over the clouds.
An International truck carrying a very long container drove along a path between the forest. The speed of the truck was rather slow due to its length.
The driver was a young and decently attractive black female. At the moment, Jack was her passenger who’d sometimes sneak a glance at her thighs. Her thick thighs stretched her leggings taut, which allowed the garment to emphasize the curve of her limbs. It was all in all seductive. However, all he could do was stare because he knew that the black chick was Ton’s underling, which meant that she was an elite special agent working for the CIA. On the contrary, he was just a member of the CIA reserve team.
Nevertheless, he believed that he would become an official member after this mission. He had hoped that he would be given a significant role.
“Wanna touch?” said the black female agent as she turned her face to look at Jack.
Jack sheepishly avoided eye contact. All of a sudden, he screamed, “Watch out!”
The black female special agent snapped her attention back to the front, slamming the brakes.
Ahead of them was a young Caucasian pair having sex. The man was putting in so much effort whereas the woman’s reaction was crazily exaggerated. In broad daylight, they shamelessly continued, blissfully ignoring the truck inches away from them. In fact, they did not even have the slightest intention to stop.
“Hey!” The female agent couldn’t resist but laugh. “What are these jerks doing?”
“You know what they’re doing,” said Jack unamused. The man moved his hand and honked at the couple.
The horn was deafening but the couple was unfazed by the sound, opting to continue their fornication. Their pale asses looked dazzling under the winter daylight. The shameless couple even went to the extent of placing in twice as much effort than before. Perhaps they felt the need to appease their audience.
While Jack and the female agent were distracted by the bewildering display, a black mass fell from the branches and landed itself directly behind the container of the truck. The mysterious mass had successfully evaded the side mirrors of the truck.
Xia Lei was the shadow.
Xia Lei leapt effortlessly, grabbing the side of the container and crawled to the top.
The container was not locked with a single-use steel lock. Instead, it was locked with a very advanced combination lock. If it were a single-use steel lock, Xia Lei would’ve left unwanted traces. Yet, this combination lock gave him a chance to clear his tracks.
Twenty seconds later, Xia Lei successfully unlocked the combination lock without triggering the alarm system.
Xia Lei kept his encoder away and pried the container door open. Following that, he then squeezed in through the gap, remembering to shut the door behind him. His stealthy mission had taken him all but thirty seconds.
The container was loaded with the disassembled wing from the customized Predator B drone. The drone body was fixed to a frame.
Xia Lei went below the plane body and pried the cabin door open, immediately presented with a host of data ports. Then, he took out his hacking laptop and connected it to Predator B’s data port.
Meanwhile, on the asphalt road, the couple continued their show.
The black female agent decided she had enough of them. She pulled out her pistol and reached her upper body out to its muzzle at the white young man. “Get off or I will shoot you!”
The young man shivered. Perhaps he was frightened, or perhaps it was due to some other reason.
“How dare he…Ugh, fuck!” The female agent pulled the trigger of her pistol.
Bang! The bullet hit the road and sparked a little.
The young man began to run for his life while he attempted to pull up his pants. His girlfriend, however, stumbled to the ground due to her underwear that restricted her ankle. The scene looked exactly like it was a snippet from a movie directed by Tinto Brass.
The female agent put her gun away and scoffed mockingly. “Can’t you guys do this at home? What a fucking asshole!”
Jack seemed to be reminded of something. “Wait a minute.”
The female agent looked at him questioningly. “What?”
Jack replied, “Doesn’t this feel strange? It worries me. Let me check the back of the truck.”
“Alright, I’ll come with you,” said the woman. With that, Jack and the female agent got off the truck. Cautiously, she held her pistol and aimed it at the back of the truck.
Both of them came to the tail of the truck. There was no one behind and there were no unusual signs. The container lock seemed to be perfectly in place.
“Should we unlock it and take a look?” asked the female agent.
Jack replied, “That’s not necessary. I alone hold the combination to this lock. Even the best hacker in this world would take at least ten minutes to crack this combination lock.”
“Is it that good? It’s just a normal combination lock to me.”
Jack replied, “This lock was manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Let’s go, we can’t have Mister Ton wait too long.”
They returned into the truck and drove towards the sawmill.
After driving for a certain distance, the female agent peered outside. She saw the weird young man pulling his pants up while his girlfriend tried to clean her body with pieces of tissue. The young woman had hurt her knees and there was blood trickling down from her wounds. Her brows were furrowed in pain. As they noticed the approaching truck, they got frightened again and jumped into the bushes by the road like rabbits.
The female agent stretched an arm out of the window and flashed her middle finger.
“Bitch!” The young man crawled out of the bushes after the truck drove by, spitting vehemently towards the ground.
“Darling, there’s no need to be angry. We’re about to receive twenty thousand dollars. We should be happy,” said the woman in an attempt to console her boyfriend.
“Let’s go find him. He still owes us fifteen thousand dollars,” said the man.
The couple returned onto the road and walked towards the location where they were separated from Xia Lei.
In the meantime, inside the container of the truck, a progress bar shown on-screen had just been completed. It was copying all the data, programs and software of Predator B onto Xia Lei’s laptop.
Xia Lei had almost failed his mission a few minutes earlier because of Jack and the Black female agent. He would have to kill them if Jack had opened the container. And if that happened, both the CIA and FA organization would be alerted and changes would be made to their Plan A.
Xia Lei’s fingers danced on top of the keyboard. It was the only thing audible in the very quiet container. Nevertheless, he was not worried that the sound would be detected by Jack and the female agent since the container was equipped with an outstanding soundproofing function.
He was keying in a virus code he wrote, which he had affectionately named ‘Xiaoqian’.
The inspiration of the name Xiaoqian came from a classic horror movie titled A Chinese Ghost Story. Xiaoqian was the main leading character in the film, who was later turned into a powerful ghost.
He implanted Xiaoqian on the control system of Predator B so that he could lurk at its control like a ghost. Once the FA organization does a test run on Predator B, Xia Lei would gain access to relevant data. This would be very useful to him as he was about to dwell into drones.
More importantly, once Predator B’s trial mode was activated, all he needed to do was to send a command to Xiaoqian. Then, he would be able to control Predator B. He could bomb anyone as he pleased!
Xia Lei ended his operation a few minutes later. He bagged his laptop and opened the container, squeezing through the gap to exit the truck. He made sure to close the container and then grabbed its sides. Steadily, he lowered his feet onto the road. After running a certain distance with the truck, he released his grip the moment the truck turned a corner. Immediately, he fell and laid flat on the ground. The spot he had laid himself was the exact blind spot of the driver. That way, Jack and the female agent would not spot him.
The truck continued its journey to the sawmill as Xia Lei got up and left the road into the forest.
His plan was one-third complete.
Recalling the process, he had to admit that it was very troublesome and full of risks. However, the rewards were truly incomparable. Even the reward for the drone itself could not be measured with money.
About a minute later, he arrived at the place where he hid his Yamaha. There, he also spotted the young couple waiting for him.
“Hey, Boss. We did as you asked, please pay us the remainder,” uttered the young man.
The young woman was staring at Xia Lei eagerly. Her pants were dyed red due to the bleeding wounds she sustained on her knee. For the couple, they had risked their lives to please this sick China brat. Yet, twenty thousand dollars was worth all the fright and pain.
Xia Lei took out his wallet and handed the young man a stack of US dollars along with some large denomination Euros. After that, he pushed his Yamaha and left.
“What a weirdo,” commented the young man.
“He sure is. If he wasn’t weirdo, there’s no way he’d pay us twenty thousand dollars for that,” muttered the blushing woman.
Abruptly, Xia Lei turned his head around. “Remember, I never met you and you have never met me. I did not pay you twenty thousand dollars. If word spreads out, I will return and take back all my money.”
“Don’t you worry at all. I will never speak about it,” swore the young man.
Who was foolish enough to lose twenty thousand dollars?
Xia Lei pushed his Yamaha back onto the road. With a swing of his leg, he rode on top of it and roared the engine into life. The man headed back to Free Mary Town.
He had executed the most difficult part of his plan. This made the rest of it significantly easier.