Chapter 342

Under Rachel and Anna’s guidance, the people got off the bus one by one from the front. During the trip from Helso State to New York, the attitude of those who had been listless had changed considerably. It seemed they were finally beginning to feel that they had regained their freedom.

While Rachel led the people toward the assigned lodging, Anna took the three male researcher captives who had escaped the underground tunnel with them and moved toward the back of the bus. It was because she needed to look after Lewis, who was still asleep without regaining consciousness.

“His face is way too pale.”

Anna felt her heart plummet at Lewis’s pale lips. Until about thirty minutes ago, when she had last checked on his condition, he had been breathing lightly and evenly, as if he had fallen into a deep, restful sleep.

“It’s the fluorescent light. It only looks that way because of the lighting.”

One of the men reached a hand toward Lewis, who lay motionless on a thin mattress over plywood. The man brought his palm close to Lewis’s face to check his breathing, and his expression slowly stiffened.

“I don’t think he’s breathing.”

“What?”

“He’s not breathi—”

“Move.”

Anna shoved the researchers aside and rushed right up to Lewis. Her trembling gaze wandered frantically over his pale face. She had no idea when her brother had stopped breathing. Anna barely managed to recall the CPR training she had once received and climbed over him. Placing her clasped hands over his chest, she pressed down repeatedly with all her weight, without hesitation.

But Lewis still did not breathe. In extreme terror, she let out a scream.

“Get a doctor. Help! Please!”

Baekgyeong turned the wheel and drove the car back toward the place where they were supposed to meet Malcolm. The sound of the tires scraping the road rang through the silent night air. He pressed the accelerator and picked up speed. At that moment, a scream like something tearing apart came from outside the window. It was coming from inside the construction site.

“Stop.”

No sooner had Isaac finished speaking than Baekgyeong hit the brakes. A barricade blocking the road and the construction site came into view. A waterproof tarp hung from a metal frame, fluttering. But it was too violent on one side to be just the wind. It looked as though someone was clutching the tarp and struggling not to be dragged away.

Isaac opened the door and jumped out of the car. Holding a Glock fitted with a suppressor low, he ran quickly toward the barricade.

When he pulled the tarp aside, the interior of the construction site came into view at a glance. Since it was still in the foundation stage, the ground had been leveled evenly, and bundles of rebar and concrete panels were piled here and there, but there was nothing blocking the line of sight. A work light set up on one side of the site illuminated the area in patchy pale stains. And in that dim light, muzzle flash flared.

The first and second bullets barely missed Isaac and punched through the metal fence dividing the pedestrian path from the construction site. Isaac ran toward a structure that could serve as cover. The attacker’s shooting was awful. That was because he was continuing to attack while dragging someone away at the same time.

Isaac pressed himself behind the wheel of an excavator and stuck his head out again. The attacker kept moving toward the rear like someone who had already mapped out a route to escape with an unconscious person. Faintly graying curly hair, dark skin, a man in his sixties who looked to be around one hundred eighty centimeters tall. The “someone” being abducted by the attacker was clearly Malcolm Knox, who had failed to appear at the meeting place.

Isaac recalled the surrounding terrain he had seen while they drove past. Gray metal panels surrounded the construction site, and the road bordering the panels in the direction the attacker was heading connected to the road leading out to the highway interchange. The bastard had likely parked a car by the roadside to make escape easier.

But the man’s movement was not smooth. Malcolm, unconscious, hung limp and restricted his movement. Staying hidden behind the excavator, Isaac aimed his gun while watching the man, who appeared for an instant under the dim work lights installed at the site, then sank back into darkness again.

However, it was not easy to aim because the man was holding Malcolm Knox against himself like a shield. Just as Isaac carefully judged the timing and was about to fire, light poured over him and a chilly voice came from behind.

“Hands up.”

Someone standing about five meters away from Isaac shone a flashlight and gave the order. The voice came from slightly above. He was clearly a giant well over two meters tall. A strong smell of sweat and faint Pheromones came from him. An Alpha. Isaac tried to turn around, but at that moment a bullet barely grazed his earlobe as it passed.

“Hands up, eject the magazine, and throw it on the ground.”

Having no choice, Isaac raised both hands. With his hands over his head, he ejected the magazine and threw the gun to the ground, then said,

“Can I turn around now?”

“Dream on. Get on the ground and put your hands behind your back.”

“Did Hybris send you? You must be a coward. You’re making a lot of demands.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

As Isaac lay down on the ground, he became aware of the spare gun shoved into the inner chest pocket of his jacket. But he could not draw it now. Just attempting something like that would make the man put a hole in Isaac’s head. The man behind him asked Isaac,

“Who are you?”

He still did not know who Isaac was. No one could have predicted Isaac would be here at this moment, and since the man had approached stealthily from behind, he clearly had not seen Isaac’s face. And even now, Malcolm, holding the “data” he had intended to hand over to Isaac, was getting farther and farther away.

“Jackson Cliff sent me.”

“What?”

Isaac’s answer was clearly outside the range of what the man had expected. The man raised his voice.

“Jackson? That’s impossible.”

“Did you think Jackson would hand over data without any contingency plan? He left instructions before he died.”

It did not matter whether it made sense or not. From the start, the point had been to draw the man’s attention. Keeping his ear pressed to the ground, he felt a faint vibration. Footsteps with their presence suppressed. Then, at once, a series of muffled shots blocked by a suppressor rang through the silence, and the man’s body slowly collapsed. Everything had happened in an instant.

Isaac immediately got to his feet and flipped over the man who had fallen forward. Unfortunately, the flashlight the man had been holding to keep Isaac in view revealed his position to Baekgyeong, who had appeared too late. The first shot missed, and the second bullet pierced the man’s lung. Bloody foam poured from his mouth every time he breathed. He was in no condition to speak.

“No way, is he dead?”

Baekgyeong came running toward Isaac, breathing hard.

“Not yet. He’ll die within ten minutes.”

When Baekgyeong realized the man’s condition, his steps gradually slowed. In a voice gone stiff, Baekgyeong said,

“Fuck, I wasn’t trying to hit anything vital.”

“Then you should’ve been more careful.”

Clicking his tongue, Isaac picked up the gun lying on the ground, inserted the magazine, and shot the man in the forehead. From the direction where the attacker who had abducted Malcolm had disappeared, the sound of a car taking off at full speed rang out.

“Malcolm’s been kidnapped. Follow him.”

The two men returned to the car where Siron was waiting and launched it so abruptly that their bodies felt yanked backward for an instant. Sitting in the cargo space of the car, which had no back seat, Siron clung to the passenger seat so his body would not be thrown around. Glancing at him, Isaac pulled out the Desert Eagle he had kept in the glove compartment. It was a pistol chambered with large-caliber rounds that caused devastating damage on impact.

“At the next block, turn left. I heard a car horn from that direction.”

Following Isaac’s instruction, Baekgyeong turned the wheel. He did not reduce speed even as he turned, to the point that inertia lifted the wheels off the ground. The moment the car barely struck the road again, he pushed it even faster.

Demolished buildings and construction fencing swept by on both sides, and lonely standing buildings appeared only here and there. After racing down the empty road with no intersections and no traffic lights, they spotted the rear end of a car about two hundred meters ahead. It was driving down the dark road, where there were hardly any streetlights, without even turning on its headlights.

Judging by the terrifying speed it was moving at, it had to be the car that had kidnapped Malcolm. Isaac rolled the window all the way down, leaned the upper half of his body halfway out, and braced his right armpit firmly against the window frame to reduce the shaking. Holding the pistol in both hands, he bent his arms in preparation for the recoil. Then he fired.

The right rear tire of the car ahead exploded with a roar. The speeding vehicle lost control and swerved wildly right and left. Crossing into the opposite lane, it slid more than ten meters down into thick brush, and only after crashing into a massive tree did it finally come to a stop.

Baekgyeong slammed on the brakes and stopped the car in the middle of the road. At the same moment, Isaac jumped out and pushed through the brush toward the vehicle. The Alpha who had abducted Malcolm just moments ago was caught between the huge tree and the body of the car, his body hanging through the window. Isaac shone the flashlight on him. His head had been crushed like a tomato.

Siron, who had come down behind them before anyone noticed, asked in a grave voice,

“Is he... dead?”

Isaac shone the flashlight at the ground so Siron would not see the corpse and answered,

“Yes. He’s dead.”

“Th-then Malcolm?”

Baekgyeong snatched the flashlight from Isaac and walked to the front of the vehicle. Shining it through the windshield at the passenger seat, he said,

“He’s alive. ...But he’s in bad shape.”