Sa’im had brought along his suspicion with his sudden appearance. If he hadn’t gotten a clear idea of the problem, there was no way he would decide to come to the safehouse Tsukino Kyoko had prepared for Long Bing. His presence had indicated the seriousness of the issue.

The abrupt call from her Bureau 101 colleagues launched Long Bing’s heart into a pulsating madness.

Every sign was clear. Murphy’s Law seemed to be taking place now.

Long Bing brought up the ringing phone and answered the call. “It’s me, speak.”

“Leader, we…” The voice was cut off abruptly.

“Hello?” Long Bing shouted into her phone. “Hello?! What’s going on?! Speak!”

The call ended.

Long Bing froze with the phone still stuck to her ear. This wasn’t normal, there was a bad sinking feeling manifesting in her gut. Her colleagues might be in trouble!

“We need to leave this place, now!” Tsukino Kyoko seemed to have realized something. Her tone changed to one of panic.

Long Bing kept her phone away. “We’ll leave this place and I’ll contact Xia Lei on the way.”

Tsukino Kyoko questioned, “Are you sure about that? You should know that a call from you would bring him here.”

Long Bing hadn’t intended to call Xia Lei for assistance. She only wanted to inform him of a possible skilful spy lurking within the Thunder Horse Organization. Tsukino Kyoko had misunderstood her intentions greatly.

Sa’im interrupted them. “Leave this matter for discussion later. If something had happened in Narita Airport, then this place…”

Doot… Doot… Doot…

Tsukino Kyoko’s satellite phone rang. She answered the call without hesitation, uttering only one word, “Speak!”

“There’s trouble! Leave the safehouse at once!” Anjum Khan’s panicked voice rang through the phone. “They have an expert among their lineup this time. I need to leave this place too. I’ll return to the other safehouse. We’ll meet there.”

Tsukino Kyoko ended the call. “Something’s wrong, we need to leave now!”

The piercing screech of tyres was heard all of a sudden. From the sound of it, there were numerous vehicles.

The three people seated in the living room looked at each other with a heavy gaze. With just a look, Long Bing immediately avoided all vulnerable firing spots like the doors and windows. Sa’im did the same, hurriedly hiding away from direct hit spots.

Tsukino Kyoko quickly made it over to the wall where the television was and extended an arm to press on a button disguised as a trinket. The wall sectioned itself and opened to reveal a hidden space. It was a firearm storage, filled with different weapons produced by Thunder Horse Organization. Long Bing could spot the XL2500 sniper rifle, gust assault rifle and the Viper pistol. There was even a Hellbound One-soldier Cannon. All of the other weapons came in pairs.

Tsukino Kyoko grabbed a gust assault rifle and tossed it to Sa’im. She selected the same weapon for herself.

Long Bing requested, “Get me the XL2500 and the Hellbound One-soldier Cannon.”

Tsukino Kyoko was surprised at her choice but passed the weapons to her anyway. Following that, the three set to load their weapons.

At the same time, more than twenty gunmen in casual clothing covered each other as they approached the fence of the safehouse. They were all armed with assault rifles and submachine guns.

Entering the yard, they separated themselves into three teams. One team lowered their stances and moved under the window and another climbed over the fence to sneak towards the back. The last team came to the door of the living room.

Their commander gestured and a gunman brought a door breaker to pry the frame open.

Several gunmen stuck their backs against the wall, waiting for the door to be opened.

The gunman lifted his door breaker and struck it onto the iron door.

Bang Bang Bang…

Shots were fired and the iron door began to tremble under its force. The man with the door breaker slumped onto the ground. He had worn a bulletproof vest but it did nothing to protect his unclad face. The iron bullet pierced through the iron door and embedded itself snugly in the middle of his forehead.

“Charge!” The commander was aggravated, immediately signalling their attack.

Bang Bang Bang!

The roaring gunshots made it feel as if Lunar New Year had come early. Among the concentrated ruckus, a storm of bullets made its way into the house.

Japan was a country constantly plagued by earthquakes. Hence, a majority of their construction materials were light to combat the natural disaster. However, its lightness was not resistant to the striking of bullets. In that split second, the television, couch, walls and lamps were reduced to debris. The air was saturated with dust and debris which bounced around the room. Looking at the rate of fire, not even a frog could’ve survived that, let alone human!

The first round of aggression came to an end, prompting the gunmen to reload their cartridge.

The commander gestured again for a Howa Type 89 assault rifle-wielding gunman to stand from his position on the door side to enter the house.

Slam! The shredded iron door was kicked open with ease.

No target was found in the living room nor there was any corpse to be seen. The wooden floor was littered with bullet holes and debris from furniture and electrical appliances. It was a mess.

The man who had entered gestured to his comrades and began to venture deeper into the house.

The commander swung his right arm and the gunmen entered the property. They began to search every corner of each room.

Doors were kicked open but no one was found.

This house was surrounded by their people. Unless they could turn invisible, why had everyone inside of it disappeared?

At that moment, a gunman pointed to an area behind the television wall. The particular wooden plank was two centimetres higher than the others. It was not easy to spot without careful inspection.

The commander silenced them with a gesture and began to approach the plank cautiously. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was just a cover for an underground passage disguised as part of the flooring.

The commander made no move to lift the cover. Instead, he adjusted the Type 89 assault rifle in his arms.

Bang Bang Bang…

The commander opened fire and his underlings backed off and began firing at the cover as well. Wooden shards flew about the air and the disguised cover was destroyed soon enough. The entrance to the underground passage was circular. The only thing left was a woman’s shoe. This had meant one thing. The woman had made a frantic escape!

“Get down!” The commander no longer used gestures.

A gunman came to its entrance and began to descend with the metal ladder stuck to the concrete walls.

The gunmen that guarded the back rejoined their group through the backdoor. The gunmen guarding the windows were the last to enter. All of them were gathered at the span of the area behind the television wall, awaiting their turn to enter the underground passage to pursue their fleeing target.

“It’s very deep!” The first person to enter observed and lifted his head. “I can’t see the end. They must’ve escaped through this passage.”

“We’ll split into two teams. One will follow the passage and the other shall search around the underground area. Miss Hattori had ordered us to not let them escape. The woman with the surname Long must be captured alive!”

“Understood!” The gunmen responded in unison.

Thump!

A grenade dropped from the ceiling.

A portion of the gunmen had noticed it but before they could do anything, it exploded!

Boom!

A fiery explosion sounded out and flipped the gunmen onto their backs. Those around the centre of the explosion had died right away, their bodies blasted into a bloodied minced meat mess. A ripped arm crashed through the glass window and flew into the yard.

“They’re in the ceiling! Shoot them!” The commander roared, pointing his gun upwards at the same time. The grenade shards had injured his leg earlier.

The surviving gunmen fired their weapons insanely towards the ceiling. The rapid storm of bullets causing the wooden ceiling to disintegrate, its material falling onto them in the constricted space. What had fallen from the ceiling were only wood and tiles, no human presence was to be detected.

Bang Bang Bang…

A bullet whooshed by abruptly from the back windows and hit a man. The person immediately slumped onto the ground with the rest of his comrades.

The ambush had only lasted for two seconds. Following that, the sneaky assaulter hid away before even exhausting a cartridge. When the gunmen spun around to search the area, the only thing left behind was a broken glass window and a waft of blue smoke floating about.

There was someone on the roof and there was someone at the back of the house. Despite the advantage of a larger group, the gunmen were forced to be passive. The entire thing felt like a clumsy obese fool going up against an agile athlete.

“Evacuate the area!” roared the commander. He was now afraid of the outcome of their mission. Half his team was already dead. If they continued to stay inside, he was certain that this battle would end soon. They would all die instead of their targets.

However, just as the surviving gunmen began to retreat, a bomb was launched from the door and collided with the first retreating commander. Just as the soft impact of human flesh on the solid bomb had occurred, the commander was torn apart and destroyed. The energy emitted from the explosion blew away everyone inside the house and then demolished the building. In under a second, the house was reduced to nothing!

Long Bing was the one who launched the bomb.

Sa’im had attacked them from the back.

And Tsukino Kyoko had attacked them from the roof. Before Long Bing had blasted everyone away, the female ninja had left the roof and joined the other woman.

This was a house personally designed and built by Tsukino Kyoko. How could a ninja’s house not have a few escape routes to spare? Those gunmen had assumed that they surrounded them but had no idea that they were instead, surrounded by Tsukino Kyoko, Sa’im and Long Bing.

“Who the hell are these people?” Long Bing placed the piping hot Hellbound One-soldier Cannon down.

Tsukino Kyoko answered, “The weapons they carry are specifically used by the Japanese Land Self Defense Force. They must be the Special Forces of the troop. I reckon that there’s a possibility that the Intelligence Department members are involved in this.”

Long Bing fell silent. “No matter what, I need to give Xia Lei a call. I need to inform him that there’s a spy around him.”

Sa’im urged, “Let’s go, you can call him on the way. We created a commotion. They will be sending reinforcements soon.”

The three of them head to the road.

Sa’im straddled his motorbike. “Ladies, come ride with me. My driving is superb.”

Tsukino Kyoko only graced him a middle finger and climbed into the Toyota Lukuze that the gunmen came in. Long Bing shrugged at Sa’im nonchalantly and joined Tsukino Kyoko.

Perhaps the vehicle was being tracked but that wouldn’t be an issue to Departmental Head Long of Bureau 101. This was her expertise after all.

The car engine roared to life and zoomed forward.

Sa’im followed the vehicle closely with his loud engine blaring in the wind.