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Chapter 227: Escape, Response, Come to Me
While the police officers from the Sabin City Police Department and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation were setting up checkpoints at all the entry and exit points of Sabin City, Gap had already left the city.
He had been hidden in a specially modified oil drum and transported out along with other oil drums. The drum was divided into two layers, with the top layer containing the same liquid chemicals as the other drums, and the bottom layer large enough to hold an adult.
These industrial assembly drums were at least two meters high and more than half a meter in diameter, making it easy to hide a person inside.
The police and agents did intercept the truck, but the vehicle had legitimate chemical transport documents and the appropriate cargo manifest. Additionally, the driver cooperated fully with the inspection, which led them to become complacent.
The police and agents searched many oil drums but found nothing unusual, so they allowed the truck to pass.
Once the transport truck left Sabin City and entered the interstate highway, it quickly disappeared from view. Gap successfully evaded the police blockade, but he did not feel relieved. He felt that the situation was much worse than he had imagined.
Due to Listoan's conflict with the governor and the mayor, their foundation in Sabin City had completely collapsed, and Gap now found himself in a precarious position.
He held the key secrets to Listoan’s altered ledgers. If he fell into the hands of the investigators, he could easily reveal the hidden secrets in the modified accounts.
Would Neo, the CEO, let him go?
Or did he really have a chance to "flee" abroad?
The long journey and the risk of crossing the border meant that any mistake could bring irreversible consequences.
Not to mention that even if he managed to leave the country, as an illegal immigrant in another country, he might die unnoticed on the streets.
Gap began to regret his actions. This was a common habit among educated and cultured people—they would overthink things.
Some said that thinking was the greatest obstacle to action. This statement may not be entirely correct, but it wasn't entirely wrong either. The more one thought, the more they tended to complicate things for themselves. However, reality would not always follow the script they envisioned.
As challenges increased, so did despair, and regret became a very normal response.
The truck transporting the oil drums stopped at a motel on the highway. Several workers who had been waiting there unloaded some of the oil drums from the truck, including the one hiding Gap.
After finishing the job, the workers left with the truck, making the whole process appear routine, with no one aware that one of the oil drums was different from the others.
Shortly after, in a daze, Gap felt the oil drum rolling and then being laid down. The bottom of the drum began to make some metallic scraping sounds—they were opening it!
He was temporarily confined to a room on the second floor of the motel, with someone watching outside. Officially, these people were there to escort him out of the federation to escape abroad, but from Gap’s perspective, they seemed more like they were controlling him.
The increasingly uneasy atmosphere made Gap restless. He searched through all the drawers in the room but didn’t find a single usable tool, not even a screw. They had preemptively cleaned the room.
Sitting on the bed in a daze, Gap silently removed his glasses. He easily took a lens out of the frame with his fingers, then placed the lens on the floor, convex side up, and stepped on it lightly.
A few minutes later, Neo, who was struggling with insomnia and trying to force himself to sleep with alcohol, was interrupted by the sudden ringing of the phone, turning all his efforts into nothing.
He "energetically" walked to the phone, waiting for it to ring twice more in his hand before picking it up.
“It’s me…” His voice was as deep and firm as ever, unaffected by recent events.
He hoped everyone would remain as calm as he was—no panic, no mistakes. But he was destined to be disappointed, as his emotions exploded within seconds, along with everything he had been repressing over the past few days.
“Useless!”
“You all are fucking useless, you know that?”
“Fucking useless!”
“A dog is more useful than you—it at least can bite, but you can’t do anything right!”
He kicked over the exquisite table holding the phone. It was about one foot square, approximately four feet high (about 1.2 meters), with four legs. This beautiful phone table was made entirely of wood and decorated lavishly, costing around five to six hundred bucks. Its sole purpose was to hold the phone.
The phone fell to the floor along with the table, and suddenly the line went dead, possibly due to some issue.
Neo picked up the phone, continuing to vent his anger. He was as furious and foolish as a gorilla trying to destroy the world, smashing the receiver forcefully, trying to hang it back up but only succeeding in making it fall, picking it up, and smashing it again...
Finally, after he threw the phone to the ground with all his strength, this thousand-buck phone made of special materials met its end.
Maybe because the phone was completely destroyed, the phone on the other side of the hall rang again. Neo glared at it viciously and quickly walked over.
As he answered the phone, a woman’s shadow appeared in the hallway on the second floor, and the voice inquired, “What happened, dear? I heard some noise.”
The ferocity in Neo's eyes faded, and he calmed himself down. His voice remained unchanged from before, “Nothing, something fell. The maid will handle it.”
After the shadow upstairs disappeared, he put the receiver to his ear, listening to the person on the other end apologize for their incompetence.
Gap had escaped under strict guard. The guards said he had somehow obtained something sharp and escaped while they were dozing off.
A guard had discovered him but got his face slashed, ultimately allowing Gap to escape successfully.
It was all due to the guards' negligence. They didn’t believe that a bookish guy like Gap could escape right under their noses, let alone have the courage to do so.
After a moment of silence, Neo glanced at his bleeding left hand and spoke in a gradually colder voice, “I don’t want to see him again, nor do I want to hear any news about him. Do you understand?”
After hanging up, Neo called for the maid to dress his wound. A little later, he made a call to a friend.
It was time for those who owed him favors to repay them!
The next morning, Lynch received a call from Vera, asking if he could come over.
Lynch, of course, wouldn’t refuse such a request. Vera had managed his accounts very well and was very responsible during her time working for him. He could trust her with his work more than any ambitious man.
When Lynch arrived at Vera's house, he noticed that someone was watching the place, but they weren’t police officers or agents—they weren’t working for the government.
As for how he knew… everyone in the federation could easily distinguish who was a cop, who was an agent, and who was a bad guy!
Upon entering the house, Lynch sensed something was wrong. Given Gap’s disappearance, the police should have treated this place as an important site. At the very least, they should have left a few officers here in case Gap returned unexpectedly, allowing them to control him immediately.
But there were no police here.
Considering the people outside, something had changed.
After sitting down, Vera voiced her concerns, “The police were here until this morning, but they all left suddenly not long ago, and then some people appeared outside. I’m worried.”
“Where’s your mother?” Lynch asked, looking around. He remembered Vera's mother had been staying with her recently to help take care of things.
Vera explained, “She went back to take care of the kid…”
It was common for both spouses to work, sometimes leaving their children in full-day daycare or preschool, but more often with their parents, as hired help never cared as well as family.
The old woman had been staying here for several days, and Vera's father was almost going crazy, so she had to go back.
At this moment, Vera was alone in the house. Feeling uneasy was normal for anyone in such a situation.
After thinking for a moment, Lynch stood up and extended his hand, “If you don’t mind, you can stay at my place for a few days.”
The invitation was sudden, but Vera had no other options.
Going to her parents’ place?
What if it endangered her child?
Going to her siblings’ places?
They had their own families and were unrelated to this matter.
In the Baylor Federation, sometimes relationships with friends could be closer than with relatives. At least friends often interacted, whereas family members rarely did, except on a few scarce holidays.
Going to Gap’s parents’ or siblings’ places?
Gap wasn’t a local; he was an outsider who had settled in Sabin City because of his employment with Listoan Group.
As a half-housewife with little social interaction until recently, Vera didn’t have many choices, and Lynch had become one of the few.
Vera quickly agreed. Perhaps being with Lynch made her feel safer. After packing her things, she left with Lynch in his car. Jack, who was driving, soon noticed they were being followed and informed Lynch.
Sitting in the back seat, Lynch could clearly feel Vera’s tension. She kept looking back and tightly held Lynch’s hand.
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