Free Web NovelChapter 229: Chapter 145: Departing for Salt Lake City, Better Safe Than Sorry
Li Wei glanced at the hesitant Craig and said in a deep voice, "Kill them, Craig!"
"Ah!" ƒrēewebnovel.com
’Holy shit, man, are you serious?’
Craig was completely stunned. He had still been lost in Jasmine’s twisted logic, and Li Wei’s words made him gasp in shock.
"Kill... kill them?" Craig stammered. "Is that... really necessary?"
"Hahahaha," Li Wei laughed. "Relax."
"But seriously," he said, looking from the silent Marcus and head-bowed Jasmine to Craig, "what do you want to do with them?"
Craig had always been a good-hearted person. The first time he and Li Wei met, Jasmine had tried to cause trouble for Li Wei, supposedly on Craig’s behalf, but Craig had put a stop to it as soon as he found out.
He had calmed down after impulsively punching Marcus, but now he didn’t know what to do.
"I don’t know..." Craig shook his head, his eyes full of confusion. "To be honest, I’m just exhausted. I just want to go home and rest."
"Don’t worry," Li Wei said comfortingly. "Leave this to me."
...
「Three days later. Inside a closed, climate-controlled hangar at Kennedy Airport in New York, belonging to a private defense company.」
A heavily customized and modified bulletproof Cadillac Escalade ESV was parked silently on a truck scale.
Beside it was a chartered Boeing 747 cargo jet, about to take off on a direct flight to Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah.
Don Quixote was in an office, using the Google Translate app on his phone to converse with the manager of the private defense company.
According to Lady Delores, this was a private defense company that specialized in serving ultra-high-net-worth tycoons from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The owner was a close personal friend of Mr. Sergey, so security and privacy were not a concern.
Fulfilling his duties as an agent, Don Quixote planned to discuss a potential partnership for when Li Wei needed security at public events.
The only problem, which was giving him a bit of a headache, was that the manager’s English didn’t seem to be very good.
"What kind of place is this? Is this still New York?" he communicated with the manager via the Russian translator. "Why do you only offer services in Russian and Arabic?"
"Ninety-five percent of our clients are from those two regions," the manager shrugged. "If you want English service, you have to call our customer service line first, and we’ll arrange for an interpreter."
Don Quixote rubbed his temples in frustration and gave up on the idea of finding an English-speaking representative.
He began to miss the simultaneous interpreter he’d had back when he negotiated cross-border M&A deals.
He pressed and held the microphone icon on his phone screen again, speaking into Google Translate in the most articulate English he could muster:
"Listen, buddy, let’s skip the formalities. I’m representing my client to negotiate a long-term security contract. He—" He pointed to Li Wei, who was standing by the plane. The manager nodded. "He’s a big shot. When we go to, say, the West Coast, he’s going to blow up in Los Angeles. There will definitely be a lot of troublesome reporters, and we’ll need your professional team to help us with the shoots."
The manager froze for a second, then subconsciously sat up straighter.
Don Quixote, thinking the manager understood, nodded in satisfaction and continued speaking into the translator. "During this process, we need to ensure our plan is executed perfectly, so we can make a killing in California."
The emotionless, mechanical female voice played back the sentence in Russian.
The manager, who had been casually trimming his nails, straightened up completely. He gave Don Quixote a look of admiration before speaking a few solemn words in Russian into the translation software.
A moment later, the English translation appeared on Don Quixote’s phone screen, accompanied by the text-to-speech voice:
"Set off an explosion in Los Angeles next month? Shoot United States reporters? And plan and execute a major massacre in California? We’ll have to charge a 300% high-risk premium. Also, we only provide weapons, firearms, and personnel. We do not provide a passenger plane for extraction."
"Fack!" Don Quixote jumped, and a cold sweat instantly broke out on his brow.
If this was intercepted by an FBI or NSA surveillance system, he and Li Wei would be having a reunion at Guantanamo Base by tomorrow.
"No, no, no, this damned translation app," Don Quixote said hurriedly. "I was just using a metaphor! He’s a heavyweight in the sports world, a real bombshell!"
Unexpectedly, the look of awe on the manager’s face only deepened. He took out his phone, did a quick search on Yandex (the Google of Eastern Europe), and then showed the screen to Don Quixote.
"If you need a bomb," he said into the translation app, "do you want conventional C4 or a radioactive dirty bomb? The dirty bomb is extra. It’s a shame we haven’t been able to get our hands on nuclear warheads from Russia since 1995..." freewebnovel.cσ๓
Listening to the translation while looking at the manager’s smiling face, Don Quixote almost choked with exasperation.
"What’s wrong?" Li Wei pushed the door open and walked in. "Mr. Mamenov, the supplies I ordered are here. We can start taking inventory and loading the vehicle."
"Li Wei, quick, talk to him," Don Quixote said, showing Li Wei the translation history on his phone. "For some reason, Google’s Russian translation is coming out completely different from what I mean."
"Well, Russian is a pretty difficult language..." Li Wei took the phone, glanced at it, and immediately started laughing. After he said a few words to the manager, Mamenov, the man shrugged, raised an eyebrow, and broke into a hearty laugh.
Li Wei laughed too, handing the phone back to Don Quixote. "Don’t worry, Uncle. He’s just messing with you."
"Really?" Don Quixote looked at Mamenov, who was roaring with laughter, and finally relaxed.
Mamenov got up and followed Li Wei to inventory the items for the vehicle. As he passed Don Quixote, he leaned in and whispered in broken English:
"Is not joke. If you need."
He made a "call me" gesture and gave Don Quixote a wink.
Anya, under the instruction of Lady Delores and Kaja, was fiddling with a satellite phone and antenna, checking the satellite communications link.
"Miss Anya, as your attendant, I must remind you," Kaja said, "a thirty-minute deployment time for the helicopter team is the absolute maximum I can accept. I’m only being that lenient on account of Mr. Li Wei, the armored vehicle, and the weapons. If you find this unacceptable, I will notify Mr. Sergey immediately."
"Alright, I know! Just don’t tell my dad," Anya said. "But can we keep it to just the helicopters? I don’t want to see a motorcade trailing us in the rearview mirror."
Meanwhile, Li Wei and Mamenov climbed into the Cadillac Escalade, settling into the back where the third-row seating had been removed and replaced with Maybach airline-style massaging seats.
"First, the tactical supplies," Mamenov said, holding a checklist and pulling open a side drawer. "Two tactical medkits for penetrating wounds—"
"Hold on," Li Wei said. "We’re not going to a battlefield. Why do we need tactical medkits? For penetrating wounds?"
"Just in case. It was Miss Kaja’s request," Mamenov said, shaking his head and continuing down the list. "Two licensed Staccato C2 tactical pistols." He popped open two hidden compartments under the seats. "With 100 spare rounds."
He pressed a hidden panel in the ceiling. "For the local flora and snake venoms: four doses of physostigmine, a specific antidote, and four vials of rattlesnake antivenom."
"Wait, there are only two of us. Why four of each?" Li Wei asked. "Are we planning on getting poisoned twice?"
"Just in case," Mamenov chuckled. "Gives you a chance to mess up once. Besides, Miss Kaja insisted."
Finally, he pressed a control panel on the door and glanced at the 100% battery display. "One jump starter with a peak current of 3000 amps."
"Titanium alloy recovery boards, a dual-cylinder high-pressure onboard air compressor, a Heimplanet camping tent..." Mamenov continued, ticking items off his list. "That’s about it for the essential gear."
But that wasn’t all. In the space created by the removed seats in the back, there were eight full cases of Norwegian VOSS water in glass bottles and four dozen bottles of SVALBARDI polar iceberg water, all securely fastened to shock-absorbent racks. Alongside them were Anya’s favorite "Three Guys and a Chili" brand potato chips and an assortment of other high-calorie snacks and food.
Additionally, there was a storage compartment exclusively for Anya, filled with a complete set of makeup, La Prairie skincare products, an after-sun care kit, a custom-formulated "Desert Soothing" cream suitable for pregnant women or extremely sensitive skin, face masks, and other such items.
Then there were two large suitcases filled with all sorts of clothing, from dresses to hats, and even five pairs of shoes.
....
"That’s everything," Mamenov said after finishing the checklist. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he asked, "Where’s your stuff?"
Li Wei silently pointed to a single 20-inch suitcase. It contained his razor, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, and a charger. That was all.
"All done?" Anya walked over in a pair of white-soled sneakers and casually linked her arm with Li Wei’s. She watched the Cadillac Escalade being slowly guided into the Boeing 747’s cargo hold. "I just checked the weather. It’s supposed to be beautiful in Salt Lake City tomorrow. Perfect for a drive."
Once everything was in order, Don Quixote and Kaja saw the pair off in a private car bound for the passenger terminal. As they settled in for the flight, Li Wei finished telling Anya the rest of the story about Jasmine and Craig.
"So you had your buddy spread the story all over campus and the university’s social media?"
In the front row of business class, Anya was meticulously sorting through the dozen or so selfies she had just taken with Li Wei on her phone.
She wasn’t satisfied with any of them, feeling her face looked too big when she held the phone. She handed the phone to Li Wei to take some from his angle instead.
"Yep," Li Wei said as he snapped a few photos. "She’s infamous in her social circle now. Everyone knows what she did."
Since Craig couldn’t bring himself to act, Li Wei had to resort to his other option: completing the mission by ensuring Jasmine’s social death.
"As for that Marcus," he said, handing the phone back to Anya, "I spoke with Rubin, the owner of Fanatics. He’s been completely blacklisted from the American sports industry. No legitimate sports agency, publisher, or brand will dare to work with him again. I also heard that a few of the NCAA athletes he screwed over are preparing to file a joint lawsuit against him."
And just like that, Li Wei’s Spirit smoothly increased from 2.8 to 2.9.
Now, he was just 0.1 away from reaching 3.0 and completing the evolution of his Knight: Silver Body (Extraordinary)!
