Chapter 99: Subduing the Guards and Evidence

Chapter 99: Chapter 99: Subduing the Guards and Evidence

The man standing opposite the one in the white lab coat looked warily over his shoulder.

There was only a blank white wall. It was as if what he’d glimpsed out of the corner of his eye had been a hallucination.

The man in the white lab coat looked up from his experiment in confusion, but when he turned his head, he saw nothing.

"Hey, don’t overthink it," the man in the white lab coat said, handing a freshly prepared concoction to the other man. "Take this over there, pick a lucky soul at random, and make them drink it."

This was his latest creation, and he was already dying to see the results.

"Yes."

After another glance revealed nothing out of the ordinary, the man concluded he must have been mistaken and put it out of his mind.

He walked over, took the concoction from the man in the white lab coat, and headed toward another corner.

With that, the space directly in front of the scientist was left unguarded.

And all of this was being watched clearly by a device Zoe Sawyer had tossed out just before closing the door.

A moment ago, she had nearly been exposed upon opening the door. Moving faster than she ever had in her life, Zoe Sawyer had slammed it shut, tossing a surveillance device behind the scientist in the same motion. Then, she had relocated the door to the first-floor kitchen.

Once the screen showed that the area in front of the scientist was clear and that he had turned his attention back to the concoction before him, Zoe Sawyer knew. ’This is our chance!’

She opened the door behind the scientist again. Evan Keller and Heath Hale moved in perfect sync.

The instant the door opened, an anesthetic dart shot out.

The dose, powerful enough to fell an elephant, took effect instantly. The scientist’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Heath Hale caught him just before he hit the floor.

They pulled him through the doorway and set him down outside the kitchen. A team member behind Evan Keller then took out a pre-prepared rope and bound the man.

After administering the concoction, the guard walked back over, only to find that the scientist was no longer at his station.

He frowned and glanced back at the main entrance to the lab.

’I didn’t hear a door open!’

"We can’t let this one live," Barry Quinn said, recognizing the guard instantly. "He’s an internationally wanted fugitive with a notorious reputation. Once, on a whim, he killed several of our countrymen in a lawless territory. He also slaughtered many of the innocent locals there."

As someone who frequently clashed with international criminals on the border, he knew exactly who this was.

This fugitive was on their arrest list, but he had vanished without a trace in recent years, with no leads on his whereabouts.

They had even speculated that the fugitive had crossed some powerful figure and been dealt with permanently.

’Who would have thought he’d turn up here, working as a guard.’

’No wonder he fell off the grid.’

Hearing this, Evan Keller and Heath Hale silently put away their tranquilizer guns and drew the handguns they had found in the first-floor security room.

Using their service weapons was out of the question; it would be too easy to trace back to them.

But using these untraceable guns was a different matter.

Now that they knew lethal force was an option, Zoe Sawyer no longer had to calculate the perfect moment. As soon as Evan Keller and Heath Hale were ready, she opened the door.

It opened right in front of the fugitive guard.

BANG!

Two shots rang out. The guard, who hadn’t even managed to cry out a warning, stared in disbelief as he collapsed.

There were two bloody holes: one in his forehead, the other in his chest.

The guard pitched forward stiffly, smashing the vials of concoctions on the table.

The sound of shattering glass immediately drew the attention of the two other guards watching over the test subjects.

Thinking something was wrong, they rushed over.

They had barely arrived before Evan Keller and Heath Hale each took one down with a tranquilizer dart.

’As if we’d give you a chance to open fire!’

Barry Quinn carefully checked the faces of the other two guards. After confirming they weren’t any fugitives he recognized, he dismissed the thought of killing them.

Besides, by the time the guards arrived, the three of them had already stepped through the portal, so there was no risk of their secret being exposed.

In another corner of the room, the group of hostages who had been brought in earlier trembled at the sounds of the commotion.

Zoe Sawyer opened the portal behind Evan and his two companions, handing through three new white lab coats and masks that concealed their entire heads.

Heath Hale and the other two put on the disguises, making sure their features were completely obscured. Only then did they walk over, open the main laboratory door, and gesture for the hostages to hurry out.

At first, the hostages were incredulous. Once they realized it was real, they scrambled to their feet and rushed for the door.

They couldn’t help but flinch as they passed Heath Hale.

When they reached the first-floor kitchen, they were greeted by an anesthetic gas that Zoe Sawyer had specially prepared.

Sean Hughes and the others were in the main hall; they couldn’t let the hostages run out and see them.

Once knocked out, they wouldn’t be able to identify the team when the local authorities eventually took over.

Back in the lab, Evan’s team quickly destroyed everything—the concoctions, the research data, and the contents of the various jars.

Perhaps the scientist didn’t trust computers, or maybe he simply felt that paper files were less likely to be compromised.

All the research was in hard-copy form, making it quite convenient to destroy. Once they confirmed that everything was gone, Zoe Sawyer came down through the portal as well.

They carried the scientist back into the lab, placed him where they had found him, and stuck a gun in his hand to stage the scene.

Then they retrieved the surveillance device they had tossed onto the floor earlier, leaving no trace of their presence.

After all that was done, they rendezvoused with Sean Hughes and Officer Lee. Then, Zoe Sawyer led the entire team back to the station.

The entire operation took less than three hours. Their movements were so swift that they didn’t alert the lookouts posted at the main gate.

As soon as the team returned, the Chief quickly reported the situation to his superiors.

When he hung up the phone, a relieved smile spread across his face. "The provincial bureau has already notified our contacts over there. They’re going to coordinate with the local police and get to the scene as quickly as possible."

"There is a downside, however. The credit for this operation can’t be made public. But it will be recorded in your official files, and rest assured, you will receive every bit of the commendation you’ve earned."

They had not only destroyed a mad scientist’s base but had also uncovered leads on numerous missing Chinese nationals and students.

"It’s a shame," Zoe Sawyer sighed, a little dejected. "I was hoping we’d find some intel on Ruby during this op, but it looks like we came up empty."

"Who says we came up empty? Take a look at this," Officer Lee said, triumphantly pulling a USB drive from his pocket.

He hadn’t been idle while Zoe Sawyer and the others were carrying out the operation.

While he was saving the footage of sanatorium staff carrying people into the kitchen and deleting the surveillance logs of his team’s arrival, Officer Lee had stumbled upon a computer in a well-hidden corner of the security room.

It contained a file protected by multiple layers of encryption and numerous digital traps, but Officer Lee had managed to bypass them all.

In the end, he had copied another one of the day’s great finds.

It was a list of test subjects the sanatorium had acquired through its dealings with Ruby.

The file contained other data as well.

"Nice work!"