Waiting at Sea

At three in the morning, the hour when fatigue weighs heaviest on the body, the port was left with nothing but the sound of waves crashing against the rocky shore. Quietly, a head emerged from the sea. A muscular man surveyed his surroundings, his gaze finally settling on a nearby coast guard vessel. After a minute, he cautiously began to swim forward, and other heads soon popped up from the water.

He spat out the empty plastic bottle he’d been holding in his mouth, greedily inhaled a lungful of air, then swam to the ship’s side. Supporting the muscular man, he helped him climb up the anchor chain onto the vessel.

The muscular man crouched on the foredeck, slipping unnoticed to the side of the hull, out of sight of the military police standing watch in the second-story cockpit. After waiting a few seconds, he nimbly scaled the side of the ship, ascending to the second level. At the cockpit door, he suddenly yanked it open, hurling an iron spike at the startled face of the Vietnamese military police—then lunged inside.

The officer took the iron spike to his face, falling wordlessly to the floor. Another officer, reaching for his sidearm, found himself tackled as the muscular man plunged a sharp knife toward his heart. In desperation, the Vietnamese officer raised his arm to protect his chest, but the knife, meant for carving beef, sliced mercilessly through it.

He managed only half a scream before the muscular man clamped a hand over his mouth. With brute force, he pressed the knife deeper, driving it from the arm into the officer’s chest, puncturing it.

The officer’s body finally went limp, but just as the muscular man caught his breath, the cockpit’s other door unexpectedly opened. Another Vietnamese policeman entered, for reasons unknown, at that precise moment.

The cockpit was cramped, only three meters separated them, and the muscular man was still clutching a corpse, the knife embedded deep in the body—not something he could extract in twelve seconds.

There was no choice but to fight for his life.

He dropped the corpse and charged barehanded, but the act of discarding the dead body slowed him. He managed only two steps before the officer drew his pistol and aimed it at his chest. A "pop" sounded.

Unexpectedly, the officer collapsed instantly. The muscular man, still shaken, twisted his head to see Lux, who had followed him in. She held a .38 caliber pistol, an empty soda bottle pressed to the muzzle as an improvised silencer.

"Damn it, could you have fired a little sooner?" the muscular man snapped, having brushed death.

"Don't mention it," Lux replied with a smile, as Hou Rui and the others quickly entered the cockpit.

Stripping weapons from the corpses, Hou Rui turned to Jerry. "Go check the engine room. The rest, search the ship. We’re heading out to sea immediately."

By dawn, the hijacked coast guard ship had sailed more than a hundred nautical miles from the port. Hou Rui eyed the two smashed tracking devices at his feet, still urging, "Can we go any faster?"

"This is the ship's limit," the bespectacled helmsman replied loudly.

"Can you see the rocky islands yet?" Hou Rui shouted to the muscular man atop the ship.

"Faintly. Estimated distance, fifteen nautical miles," came the reply.

With this, Hou Rui felt a measure of relief. Both tracking devices, overt and covert, were destroyed, but if the Vietnamese police dispatched helicopters or pursued them by sea, only the jagged limestone pillars of the rocky island region could conceal their vessel.

"Three o’clock! Helicopter spotted," the muscular man suddenly warned.

"Keep accelerating—we’ll disappear soon!"

As Hou Rui and his crew maneuvered to evade the helicopter, over a hundred nautical miles away, on a small island, a battered fishing boat dragged ashore in a tiny village echoed with intermittent groans and screams.

"Ah!" With a chilling cry, a hand fell to the ground, blood spurting wildly, the severed limb twitching.

After the scream, the man tied to a chair fainted from the pain. The black man with a hippie look, wielding a machete, flicked the blood from his blade and turned to Ding Ye, who sat atop an ammunition crate, fiddling with a pistol. "Looks like he really doesn’t know. We got the wrong guy."

"It doesn’t matter. We’ll find them. Bring the next one," Ding Ye said, quickly chambering a round and shooting the unconscious man in the head.

Hours later, corpses had piled high in the corner, blood covered the cabin floor, and the air reeked of iron and rot. Ding Ye smiled at a fisherman in his fifties; from him, he’d just learned the location of a nearby pirate base. With other clues considered, Ding Ye was ninety percent certain these men were the mission’s target.

"Rest up. We move tonight. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be out of this country," Ding Ye said, raising his hand and pulling the trigger before the old fisherman could fall. He announced to the trainers around him, eager and impatient.

The trainers cheered, brandishing their weapons—brand new Vietnamese-standard arms, including portable anti-air missiles and night vision gear.

A curly-haired Latin youth sidled up to Ding Ye, asking quietly, "Boss, what about the villagers? Should we lock them all up?"

Through the porthole, Ding Ye glanced at the 670 men, women, and children kneeling on the beach under guard. Indifferently, he replied, "Don’t waste your energy. Tonight, I need everyone fighting at full strength. Clean them out." Instantly, the beach was filled with the rapid sound of eighteen guns firing.

As dusk deepened, Hou Rui's group, having played hide-and-seek with the helicopter all day, finally had a chance to rest.

"Watch the radar and radio, turn them on intermittently to gather intel. Don’t let them spot a pattern," Hou Rui instructed, then left the cockpit. Truth be told, the scenery of Ha Long Bay was striking, especially at dusk, when sparse light fell on massive stone pillars rising from the sea like giant beasts, grouped together as if roaring into the sky, their presence awe-inspiring. Yet the sea itself was calm, the contrast between tranquility and grandeur gave the landscape a paradoxical beauty.

As he walked, the muscular man was dismantling and recalibrating a sniper-modified 74, Jerry was tinkering with the heavy 12.7 caliber machine gun on the foredeck, probably hoping to detach it for use. Bald-headed Eighteen was helping Jerry, while Lux sat cross-legged on the aft deck, eyes closed, carefully loading pistol rounds into magazines.

Hou Rui was about to fetch some food from the cabin when Lux suddenly opened her eyes. "You don’t like killing?"

"I’m just an ordinary person," Hou Rui replied calmly.

"Then how did you end up on Zero Island? Once you enter this world, you can never be ordinary again."

"If I hadn’t come to the island, I’d be dead already."

"What will you do after the mission’s over?"

"Go back to being ordinary."

Before they could continue, the bespectacled radio operator poked his head out and shouted, "Picked up a mysterious frequency—all English, probably from Ding’s team."

"They’re here," Hou Rui rushed back to the cockpit. Lux, watching his retreating figure, murmured, "I hope your wish really comes true."

"Spread out! Disi, you four cover the left flank, Sula, you two provide rocket fire support!" Ding Ye’s voice came through the radio, fragmented but clearly issuing attack orders. They’d soon be moving.

"The transmission power is low, their position should be at the edge of the forty to fifty nautical mile range," the bespectacled operator told everyone once the radio went silent.

"How sure are you? If we can’t find them, we’ll expose ourselves," Bald Eighteen voiced his doubts.

"Sixty percent," the operator hesitated, not fully confident.

"That’s enough. Get the charts. If they’re armed pirates, they need an island base. The largest islands in the estimated range are our targets," Hou Rui decided swiftly, not wanting to waste time or watch pointless debate. "Ding Ye’s team has already set out. We have to arrive before they finish the fight."

Lux and Jerry pulled out a nautical chart, quickly drawing two circles with a ruler, marking with a pencil. Soon, Lux looked up and announced, "Within the estimated area, there are forty-three reefs, twenty-one of them over three square kilometers, eight over five, two over nine."

"Too large draws attention, rule out the nine-kilometer ones. Of the remaining eight suitable islands, these two are isolated, making incoming ships too conspicuous—rule them out. These three are near fishing ports, with busy routes—not good for hiding. I think the target is among the last three reefs," Lux continued her analysis as nobody objected.

"Start the ship, let’s go," Hou Rui decided. With pressure mounting from the Vietnamese authorities, Ding Ye, and their organization, he had no choice but to gamble. The others understood—this wasn’t the best option, but it was their greatest chance.

The coast guard ship accelerated, and after an hour they entered another cluster of reefs. Far off, on a relatively flat reef, flashes and the sound of explosions and gunfire could be seen and heard.

"Judging by the flashes, Ding’s team has begun their assault," Jerry handed the binoculars to Hou Rui.

Hou Rui took a look. "They’ve just landed on the beach. The enemy will hold them up for a while. We’ll circle around to the back of the reef." The helmsman, hearing this, swung the wheel sharply, sending the coast guard ship in a wide arc toward the rear of the island.