Chapter 82

Chapter 82

Xie Han looks at the screen with a smile on his face.

He sees a ‘beautiful’ picture - A man has complete control over the woman.  He is kissing her and his hands are all over her body.  But the woman is like a petrified little bird, with no means of escaping from him.

The kiss is a short one.  The man licks the blood on his upper lips.  He steps back, and points his gun at her temple.

 “Bye Jenny.”  He says in a coarse and excited voice.  

Jian Yao closes her eyes.  Her body is shivering.  She tightens her fists, and grabs on to the chains…

“Pang!” A clean shot.  

Bo Jinyan gives a mocking smile and puts his gun back in his pocket.  He turns around, lifts his head and looks into one of the cameras. 

Behind him, Xie Han can see Jian Yao’s body.  Her whole body is flopping down.  There is a blood hole in her left temple. Obviously, the bullet went through her head.  

“Oh…” Xie Han’s smile deepens.  He is so excited his hands is grabbing on to the corner of the table.  

Allen.  There’s no doubt about it.  

What a perfect test.  What a beautiful death!

Bo Jinyan says with an insolent tone: ”Hey, puppet, where are we meeting?”

He ridicules Xie Han by calling him a puppet.  It’s his way of telling Xie Han he thinks this test is childish and pathetic.  But Xie Han doesn’t mind at all.  He leans back on his chair: “There’s a car in the garage.  Drive it out.  I have set the destination inside its GPS navigation system.”

“Ok.’  Bo Jinyan puts the cap back on his head, then he lifts his head to look into the camera again: “This woman, leave her here.  I’ll come back for her body.”

Xie Han laughs: “Ok. Ok.  She is all yours.”

Bo Jinyan quickly leaves the undergound warehouse.  Xie Han sits at the table and looks at the screens.  The place is so quiet.  There is no sound or movement at all, except for the blood on Jian Yao’s forehead, dripping down onto the ground.  A drop at a time, like a poignant but bright picture.” 

Xie Han can’t wait for Bo Jinyan to arrive.  He has no interest left in Jian Yao.  He switches off the screens and walks out of the study.

—————

Two hours later.  In the State hospital.

Jian Yao slowly opens her eyes.

The first thing she sees is an unfamiliar ceiling.  Drapes that are light blue in colour blocks the sun rays from coming through the window.  She is lying on a bed.  She is wearing a clean set of clothes, with IV drip attached to her.  

Beside her bed, a nice looking man wearing hospital clothes is sitting in a wheelchair.  He looks thinner than a few weeks ago.  And there is IV drip attached to his arms too.  

A wave of relief comes over her.

  

Ziyu.  

Her head is still heavy, but she slowly sits up.   She remembers the horrible underground warehouse where she was kept for the past few weeks, and everything that happened when she was there. 

It’s over.  It’s finally over.  

—————

After the violent kiss, Bo Jinyan moved his lips away.  He stared at her, with his face just centimeters away from her.  

He didn’t say anything.  He put his forefinger over his mouth.  It’s a sign to ask her to be quiet.  

Her heart was pounding.  What was he doing?  Wouldn’t Xie Han see that?  

But then a strange thing happened.  She could hear from Xie Han’s voice from the loudspeaker.  He gave an approving “Oh..” sound.  

She was confused.  Bo Jinyan then lower his head again, put his hand around her waist and kissed her.

It’s a different kiss from the one he just gave her.  There’s still the smell of blood in both their breaths.  He gently touched her chin, which was a little bruised from his much rougher squeeze earlier.  He kissed her silently, softly, steadily, in a manner that is familiar to her.  His hand tightened around her waist, as if he wanted her to merge into his body.

Tears were flowing down her cheeks.  Soon, he let go of her.  His fingers wiped away her tears gently.  Then he moved back a few steps.

Their eyes met.  Jian Yao bit her lower lips to stop herself from making any sound.  He took a last look at her, and looked towards the camera: “Hey, Puppet, where are we meeting?”

————-

Soon, Bo Jinyan left her again.  

She was still hanging by the chains in the warehouse.  But she guessed what just happened.  Bo Jinyan must have asked Anam to change the images which Xie Han saw on his screen.  Xie Han would think that she is dead, and completely believe Bo Jinyan is Allen.  She thought she was going to die.  But once again, it’s only a plan.  Bo Jinyan had everything under control!

But she was still worried for him.  Bo Jinyan was on his way to see Xie Han.  Why did he go alone?

After a while, she could hear someone coming into the warehouse.  It’s a few FBI agents.  They quietly entered the room.  Jian Yao gave them a signal to keep quiet.  They then splited themselves into two teams.  The first team looked everywhere for video cameras and microphones and made sure they covered them with some sort of metallic cover.  

The second team came to Jian Yao, to free her.  Then they put her onto a stretcher. 

The whole operation was swift and fast.

Soon, Jian Yao was carried to ground level.  She saw sunlight for the first time in weeks.  It was too bright for her.  She lifted her hand to block the brightness.  Tears flows down her face uncontrollably.  

Once she was on the ambulance, one of the female agents assured her: “Miss Jian Yao, you are safe now.”

Jian Yao asked immediately: “What about Bo Jinyan?  Is he going to see Xie Han alone?”

The agent did not answer her.  Then the medic came over and started to check her vital signs and examined the wounds on her body.  Jian Yao had a high temperature.  She was exhausted from the ordeal, soon she dozed off.  

——————-

In the hospital room.  Perhaps it’s her movement that woke Fu Ziyu, he immediately looks up.  They look into each others’ eyes.  Perhaps it’s because they both had a near death experience, they just quietly gazes at each other.  At this moment, no words are necessary.  They smile at one another.  

Fu Ziyu stretches his arms open, and gives her a hug.

“Where is Bo Jinyan?” Jian Yao asks him.

Fu Ziyu pauses, then he answers: ”He’s probably arrived Xie Han’s estate by now.  That’s his lair.”

Jian Yao’s eyes widen slightly.  She asks: “What is his plan?” 

If Bo Jinyan does not have split personality, then all the crisis, betrayal, drama… it’s all part of a trap he’s set for Xie Han.

But Bo Jinyan… how did you manage to achieve all that?  And what is the next step?  What are you planning to do?

Fu Ziyu laughs: “It’s a long story.  It’s a sophisticated plan. So many people got involved.  But it’s worth it.  We saved you.  Don’t worry, he will be okay.  Let me bring you to a place, and you will understand.” 

Jian Yao relaxes a little after hearing what Fu Ziyu- said.  

Fu Ziyu is confined to a wheelchair, but Jian Yao is okay to walk by herself.  One of the agents pushes Fu Ziyu’s wheelchair.  The three of them goes to Anam’s hospital room.

The afternoon sun shines through the windows in the corridor.  Jian Yao looks out and sees the sky.  She thinks about the underground prison she was trapped for a few weeks.  It’s only been a few hours since she is freed.  But what a difference.  

Fu Ziyu takes out a plastic bag from his pocket and passes it to Jian Yao: “I am returning it to the owner.”

Jian Yao takes it.  She stops walking.  

It’s her ‘suicide note’.  Xie Han sent it to the TV station.  Now it’s back in her hands.

She looks at it.  It’s been neatly and carefully folded, and well preserved.  Someone circled three of the sentences she wrote.

The first line is “…to be someone like my father.”

The second line is  “first time we held hands?  …You said I was tickling you.”

The last line is: “I’ve met my parent’s expectations.  I became someone they wanted me to be.”

Jian Yao is pleased in her heart.  He understood the clues.  He deciphered them correctly.  

On the day when they received the letter, everyone was very sad and touched.  They couldn’t imagine how wretched Bo Jinyan would be reading a letter like that.

But after the initlal shock, Bo Jinyan quickly pointed out the clues Jian Yao left him:

“Someone like her father - a police.  She…” He paused: “that time she tickled me.. we weren’t holding hands.  She couldn’t have remembered incorrectly.  That’s the Killer Machine case.  And lastly, her mother doesn’t want her to become a police.  So she is trying to tell us, that Xie Han disguised as an officer in the Killer Machine case.”

Then he continues: “He can’t be a sworn officer.  I work with all of them very closely.  Perhaps a community police , because a lot of community police helped in that particular case…. “ He suddenly stops, his eyes widens: “I think I know who he is.”

……..

Now they have a drawing of Xie Han.  

Anam almost hacked all the relevant surveillance sites he could in China, Hong Kong and the US.  He found many footage of him… He frequently attends a university lecture in B city; he visited a lot of famous tourist attractions in Jian Yao’s hometown;  he lived as a low profile millionaire in Hong Kong.  They found records of his properties.  He even has a house in the suburb that Jian Yao and Bo Jinyan lives in.  He was so close to them, lurking around in their neighbourhood.  

His latest appearance was on the day Bo Jinyan escaped on his way to the hospital.  The CCTV from a building a few streets away had images of him walking down a flight of the stairs.  He must have a place somewhere inside the building, and used it as a base to monitor Bo Jinyan.  From that image, they traced back some earlier CCTV footages, and they were able to find the villa which Jian Yao is imprisoned, and from there, they also detected the bombs that’s buried underneath the villa.

Bo Jinyan knew Xie Han well enough.  If the police tried to rescue Jian Yao forcefully, Xie Han would detonate the bomb.  Therefore, he decided to stick with the original plan.  He would disguise as Allen and find Xie Han.  

………

“Thanks to your letter, we were able to track him down much more quickly than we expected.”  Fu Ziyu said: “Jinyan kept this letter with him every day.  He only passed it to me this morning to safeguard it for him.”

Jian Yao’s heart hurts when she heard that.  She carefully folds the letter and puts it in her pocket. 

—————-

‘Anam’ hospital room is the control centre for this operation.  The curtains are closed.  Ten or so computers are set up, with technical staff working attentively behind the computer screens.  Anam is the leader for the technical team.  There are also a number of FBI agents in the room.

Jian Yao looks at the first computer screen.  There are two pictures on the screen.  Each taking half of the screen.  The background of both is the same - the warehouse that she was imprisoned.  On the left hand side, the warehouse is empty.  The chains that once bounded her were cut and hanging down to the ground.  On the right hand side, a woman is still in the warehouse.  Her left temple has blood hole, the result of a gunshot. And on the floor, there is a pool of blood.  

Jian Yao asks: “This is…”

Anam hears her voice.  He turns around, smiles at Jian Yao and says: “Samuel did it.” 

An Afro-American with a FBI vest that is sitting two seats next to him gives Jian Yao a victory hand signal.  

Jian Yao fully understands now.  They have hacked into Xie Han’s system.  So what he saw on his screen is not what’s really happening.  

Even though she doesn’t know how it could be done, she is amazed by their talents and skills.  

Jian Yao and Fu Ziyu sits in front of a different computer screen.

The images show the views through a front windscreen of a car.  They can hear the breathing sound of a man.  The images show that the man has arrived at an estate in the woods.  There is a white mansion inside the estate.  

These are images from a pinhole camera attached to Bo Jinyan.  Through this camera and a small listening device they’ve put on Bo Jinyan, they are able to see and hear what he is seeing and hearing too.  

An agent explains: “Although we have worked out the GPS location of the estate, we believe there are over ten hostages kept in this property.”

“We will need time to come up with a rescue plan, and how to bypass the security system.“  Another agent continues: “So, we need Simon to distract him to buy us some time.  But don’t worry, we have troops scattered around the area, ready to attack if we need to.  They only need two minutes to get Simon to safety.”

Jian Yao nods and looks at the screen again.

Still… he’s put his life on the line again, so he can save the other victims.  

Bo Jinyan has entered the estate. He stops the gate.  There are several guards with machine guns standing there.  Obviously, instructions have been given to them to let Bo Jinyan in.  They take a look at him and wave him to continue. 

The car drives through the gardens and stops next a flower bed in the middle of the gardens.  

Bo Jinyan opens the car door and steps outside.  He looks around, and ignores the number of guards that are standing not far from him. They are all armed with guns.  

Then, a tall man that is standing at the entrance of the white mansion slowly walks towards him.  He is wearing a simple white shirt and trousers.  He’s obviously just tidied his appearance. He welcomes Bo Jinyan with a smile. 

Bo Jinyan smiles back at him.  

“Hi.”

“Hi.”