Chapter Sixteen: A Desperate Counterattack (2)
“Cheng Muyang,” she protested softly, “could you give me some warning next time?”
“Give you some warning?” He laughed. “It would affect your mood for having fun. Not worth it.”
Good reason.
It seemed he always had a reason, whether it was sound logic or twisted logic.
By now, dusk was approaching. The setting sun was like blood, and the desert was like blood.
The weathered sandstone hills were drawing closer.
Those hills, eroded by wind and sand over a hundred years, stood in the distance in all kinds of strange shapes. No matter what they looked like in the daytime, late at night, under the moonlight, they would all take on the outlines of pagoda-like silhouettes. She remembered being drawn to a sight like this when she had first arrived in Saudi Arabia. Cheng Muyang had mentioned those pagoda silhouettes under the moonlight, too.
Sunset lasted only an instant.
By the time they abandoned the camels and entered through a natural fissure in the mountains, night had already fallen.
Cheng Muyang was very familiar with the terrain here. At each of the several forks in the path, he made his choice without hesitation. In such a vast expanse of dunes, it was extremely easy to get lost. Before long, the six or seven CIA agents following behind them had disappeared without a trace.
In the end, Cheng Muyang emerged completely from the maze-like Yin-Yang Mountains. After circling around a massive dune, he unexpectedly saw two or three clusters of campfires, with people who had been waiting there for some time sitting beside them.
There were tents already set up, too.
Oman and Kyle were speaking in low voices. When they saw the two of them appear, Kyle finally looked up with a grin and said in strangely accented Chinese, “Happy Valentine’s Day, you two.”
Cheng Muyang ignored him and walked over.
Everyone sitting beside the campfires immediately stood up and silently watched him.
Cheng Muyang leaned forward and carefully inspected the meat roasting over the fire, then casually sprinkled some powdered seasoning over it.
“Our original plan was to have someone disguise themselves as the two of you and lure the CIA people here,” Kyle said with a smile, looking at Nan Bei. “Unfortunately, today is Valentine’s Day, and Cheng insisted on celebrating with you.”
Nan Bei smiled.
Cheng Muyang’s kind of romance was not something an ordinary person could handle.
For example, however big a surprise he could give you, that much danger would be waiting behind it. Fortunately, he was Cheng Muyang.
Ning Hao, who was beside Oman, had been using a computer to monitor the CIA agents inside that stretch of hills the entire time. Red dots representing human body heat kept moving across the screen. Sometimes, when several of those red dots clustered together, they could even hear the sound of a small-scale gunfight from nearby. It seemed Cheng Muyang had not only arranged this maze, but had also arranged countless obstacles.
Soon, the dense gunfire disappeared.
Cheng Muyang pulled a short knife from behind him, cut off the best piece of meat, then walked over to Nan Bei and squatted down to feed it to her.
Nan Bei bit off half the piece and chewed it lightly twice.
“Is it good?” he asked.
“The meat is good,” she said with a smile. “It’s delicious.”
Cheng Muyang smiled and ate the rest of the meat. He told Oman that he wanted to take a hot shower, and that everything would proceed according to the original plan, beginning in an hour. They had to resolve everything before seven tomorrow morning.
After giving his instructions, he took Nan Bei into a small tent.
There was already a shower set up, along with fresh water for washing.
“Water here is more expensive than oil, Boss Cheng. You’re really extravagant.” Under the running water, Nan Bei washed her hair, rinsing away all the fine sand caught in the roots. Large patches of white foam covered her hair, and she narrowed her eyes.
Through the sensation of touch, she felt his hand helping wipe away the foam that was difficult to rinse from behind her ears and along her chin.
Then it slid down along her neck and grasped her breast.
“Pervert.” She could not open her eyes, and only muttered the playful insult with a laugh.
“Not a pervert,” he teased. “A bandit.”
That was what she had mocked him with that afternoon. She had not expected him to remember it so clearly.
She pursed her lips into a smile without saying anything.
Cheng Muyang pressed himself against her body and washed her, cleaning her meticulously from her hair to the rest of her body. “I’m a little curious why Zhousheng Chen would help you.”
Nan Bei thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Maybe it was just a favor. Or maybe it was because his younger brother really likes me. But either reason feels pretty weak.”
In the mist, Cheng Muyang’s eyes held a beautiful sheen.
Only at this moment, he was genuinely a little displeased.
Nan Bei smiled and poked his cheek with one finger. “Maybe think of it this way. We all have Chinese blood running through our veins. If it’s just a small favor, why not do it?” Cheng Muyang said nothing, only lowering his head to kiss her.
Their bodies pressed together, and soon both of them were reacting to their desire for each other.
But just as he was about to act, the sound of gunfire suddenly came again from the distance. The agents must have encountered the man-made “obstacles” in the valley once more. Nan Bei took the opportunity to pull his hand away. “There are a lot of people outside.”
He smiled. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”
She looked into his eyes and said softly, “I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Double?”
“Double.”
“Six days and six nights. How about that?”
What an appetite.
Nan Bei found it amusing. She nodded casually, took the bath towel, quickly dried the water from her body, and put on clean clothes. Soon, she had also put on the black robe, headscarf, and veil. After their escape across the desert earlier, she had suddenly grown fond of Saudi women’s clothing. At least it kept the fine sand, as powdery as it was, from getting everywhere and leaving her covered in grime.
When they walked out, everyone was already prepared.
A group of people climbed up along the side of the mountain. As they made their way across the uneven sandstone at the higher ground, they could see all the scenery below through the gaps. Cheng Muyang carried a submachine gun as he led everyone across the mountaintop.
It was not until they entered a small encirclement that Nan Bei finally saw several men lying prone on the mountaintop, shielding themselves behind huge boulders as they continuously exchanged fire with the people below.
This was a carefully designed trap. Unfortunately, the CIA agents still did not understand that.
These men who considered themselves the finest agents in the world had run into a trap laid by their enemy while carrying out an assassination mission. Nan Bei thought that, no matter what, they would never be willing to admit it.
Unfortunately, what Cheng Muyang wanted to do was make them despair.
Cheng Muyang took out his small silver flask and drank in tiny sips. This was the first time he had violated the rules since coming to this country. He usually showed great respect for his friends’ faith, but he was not nearly as merciful toward his enemies.
The desert was swept by fierce winds late at night.
His hair was blown into disarray, falling across his face, but his gaze remained sharp and direct.
After watching the battle for only five minutes, he said two things to the men exchanging fire with the agents, in very brief Russian. Their expressions stiffened somewhat, but they quickly put away their guns and stopped shooting.
Cheng Muyang put on his night-vision goggles and quickly raised the gun in his hand, taking aim at the bottom of the valley. The shrill sound of bullets tearing through the air came without pause and without mercy. Nan Bei repeatedly saw figures throwing away their guns, but no one fell.
He was only disarming them.
Or rather, intimidating them.
His shooting posture was exceptionally striking. Especially in the sandstorm, it carried a suffocating sense of intimidation.
There were roughly twenty-five or twenty-six of Cheng Muyang’s men on the mountaintop, together with agents from Moscow’s security service, yet he alone conducted this extremely contemptuous barrage of gunfire, as though he were putting on a show of force.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he finally lowered his gun and said in English to the Americans. “On the contrary, I’m going to return a friend to you and let you go home safely. So put down your guns. It will be better for all of us.”
The figures at the bottom of the valley did not move, but it was obvious that they had stopped shooting.
Cheng Muyang tossed the gun to Oman beside him, then walked behind them and said to Afaf, whose hands and feet were bound and whose mouth was taped shut, “I know why you came to Saudi Arabia this time, and you should also know what I’m here to do.”
Afaf widened her eyes as she looked at him.
Before she had encountered this man, she had read a great deal of information about him, but it had all been superficial. Until he suddenly appeared in the Philippines, when her superiors immediately canceled the secret order under which she had been undercover for years and changed her mission to tracking the movements of this arms tycoon.
What kind of man was he, really?
Her first impression had been of a man who was gentle and attentive toward the woman beside him on a Philippine island. Later, the Philippines’ internal terror attacks among anti-government organizations caused him to disappear without a trace. Only when she returned to headquarters did she see the bloody footage of him single-handedly slaughtering several agents. In the words of an Easterner, he was a demon that had walked out of hell, an asura.
An internationally wanted criminal, an important figure on the assassination list, had actually brazenly snatched away the nuclear scientist they had recruited in Saudi Arabia, kidnapped her, and even surrounded the CIA agents sent to assassinate him in the heart of the desert.
Cheng Muyang looked into her eyes and tore the tape from her mouth.
“What are you going to do?” Afaf asked him in a hoarse voice.
“Hand you over to the Saudis.” His expression was calm, carrying the cold detachment of an onlooker. “Of course, you can report to them that I took the nuclear scientist. Whether they believe you or not, they’ll kill you first. Then a large number of people will come to hate your country. Terrorist attacks will continue without end, impossible to guard against.”
He spoke slowly, which brought out the cold softness in his tone.
His objective analysis was difficult to withstand.
Every word Cheng Muyang said was correct.
“If you’ve thought it through, I’ll let you go down there.” Cheng Muyang smiled. “In the days that follow, you’ll undergo prolonged drug-assisted and psychological interrogation. Then your country will certainly compromise through economic investment to negotiate the return of agents like you. I have only one piece of friendly advice: keep your mouths shut and forget about the nuclear scientist. That is the only way you’ll make it home alive.”
After he finished speaking, he stood up and gestured for the people around them to untie her.
“Good luck.”
He did not look at her again. Instead, he turned and walked back to Nan Bei’s side, gently brushing aside the hair the wind had blown across her face before kissing her forehead. It was as though he and Nan Bei had merely happened to pass through this place and decided to spare Afaf’s life.
“Cheng Muyang,” Nan Bei said softly, “sometimes, you’re really frightening.”
“Really?”
The corners of her eyes curved slightly. “Really.”
Nan Bei gradually began to hear the rapidly spinning sound of helicopter rotors. The deafening noise interrupted their conversation. As the sound grew louder and closer, powerful beams of light shone toward them, and there was more than one.
Chaotic beams of light swept across the dunes, illuminating the faces of everyone there.
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