Takeoff

"Captian, your back, "Su Chen said as he noticed the central door opening.

"mhm," Ling Xiao hummed 

"Did something urgent come up?" Lin Zhou asked." You seemed to be in a hurry when you left?" 

"Nothing serious, I just met up with Emilia for a bit."  he replied.

"Sister-in-law?" Qin Yu asked, looking up from his book.

"Yes, I had asked her to drive the jeep over. Since the mission has been compromised and we are being hunted down, we can't continue using the exact car we left the base with. After all, all military vehicles have tracking chips in them." Ling Xiao explained as he came to sit on a chair next to Lin Zhou.

"Right, why didn't I think of that Xiao Yuchen said, slapping his thigh.

"If you really could think of that, we would be more surprised Qin Yu snickered

"Hey, what do you mean by that?" Xiao Yuchen stood up as he shouted 

"I mean..., honesty, what do you think I meant." Qin Yu said, not once moving his eyes away from the book he was reading. 

" Why, you brat!" 

Ling Xiao just ignored those two, completely used to their usual banters. Of course, he was lying when he said he met up with Emilia to get the car keys. He had already had someone else bring the car here two days ago, and he collected the keys earlier during the day on his way to the base. It was just an excuse he was using since he couldn't exactly tell them about the space. Not yet anyway. He instead turned towards Lin Zhou. "Have you found a route yet?"

" Yes, I found something. It's one of the usually bypassed routes out of the city, so no one will think to check that path first. We'll be able to reach the highway with no accidents. Especially since they are expecting us to head to the heliport." Lin Zhou said as he showed Ling Xiao the route he had found.

"Good then, let's prepare to leave." He said, getting up.

"Already?" Xiao Yuchen asked, startled, ignoring Qin Yu and looking over to him.

"Yes, we've disappeared from their sites for too long. I'm sure they have already noticed something is wrong, since we haven't reached the ambush by now, so we need to leave before they find us again. Now that we have the route and vehicle, let's pack up the move. The earlier we leave the city, the better." Ling Xiao explained as he grabbed his bag and headed towards the door.

"Yes!"  the four responded.

Everyone quickly got up and began repacking the equipment that was offloaded earlier. Once they had everything, they all headed downstairs. Lin Zhou first dropped off the room key at the counter before they headed for the garage. And just as Ling Xiao had said, Parked not too far from the car they came in was a black jeep.

"Alright, let's load up and get out of here, "Ling Xiao said, throwing the key over to Su Chen.

Everyone quickly moved their bags into the new car as well as transferred whatever was left in the old car. Once they were done, they buckled up and drove away.

As the car exited the parking, Lin Zhou took another look at the spot where the jeep was parked. He looked at the red car that was parked next to it.  Lin Zhou was quite sure that he had seen the jeep parked next to the red car when they first arrived. He might have doubted himself a minute ago, but now he was sure. If there was anything he never doubted, it was his photographic memory. And if the jeep was there when they got here, then what exactly did Ling Xiao do when he was away?

...................

"Deputy, there's a problem the Black Butterfly team has disappeared!" A man said as he hurried into the office.

"What!" the deputy exclaimed ,his eyes shooting a dark look at the man who just walked in. "What did you say?"

"The team did not use the intended route. They did not show up at the heliport at all..."  He stuttered

"Did you check any other routes that lead to the port. The deputy asked, frowning.

"Yes, I've had my team check. The Black butterfly team did not use any routes towards the port. There has been no movement there. And even if they used another path, we would have known when a helicopter or plane rook off, but nothing happened. All planes are still accounted for." The man responded.

"Well It's impossible for them to disappear off the face of the earth. Did you try tracking their movements from when they left the base?"

"No, we haven't done that yet." The man responded.

"Well, go and have it checked idiot." The deputy said, throwing a pen at him. The man dogged before quickly leaving the room to go and check. "Yes, sir."

10 minutes later, the man reappeared in the deputies office with an additional tablet this time.

"Sir, we located the team." he said.

"Oh, where are they?" The deputy asked, looking at the man.

"Well, sir, actually... we only found their past location, not the current one. I'm afraid the team has probably left the city already." The man replied.

"Oh, it seems that Ling Xiao had already detected that something is wrong. We really shouldn't underestimate the captain of the black butterfly team. But anyway, that's fine no matter which route they took the destination is still the, same so come on tell me.  Where did they stop?" The deputy asked as he leaned back into his chair. 

The man standing across him looked down at his tablet screen for a second before looking back at the deputy and talking. "It seems like the team headed to a hotel first, sir.  They should have changed vehicles there because the original car was still there when our team arrived."

" The car they arrived in was still in the hotel, but they were not to be found, huh?" the deputy asked. Couldn't you check security the cameras and figure out which car they left and track them?"

" I'm sorry, sir, but that's the problem. The cameras in the hotel for the entire hour that the team should have been there are all scrambled."

"  There's no footage. It should be the work of Lin Zhou. As for outside the hotel? The deputy asked, intrigued. 

"There was a party in the hotel at around that time and there were lots of cars seen leaving and since we did not know which car they were in we couldn't follow them." The man responded.

 " Alright, it's fine. Tell your men to stand down.  Since they managed to escape the ambush, then that's fine. I'll give them that, but at the end of the day, the destination is still the same. You can leave now and make sure you wipe out all traces of tonight's attack. Don't leave behind any evidence, " the deputy said . 

" Yes sir," the man said, standing in salute before walking out. The deputy, on the other hand, looked up for a second , laughed, and then went back to his work.

....................

"Captain, we've made it out of the city." Su Chen responded as he drove off the highway onto a secluded path.

"Any signs of us being followed?" Ling Xiao asked as he looked back at Lin Zhou through the rearview mirror. 

Lin Zhou was silent for a second as he checked his tablet. "No, there's no sign of anybody tracking us. The camera I left in the hotel lobby, however, does show  that some men came there to look for us just 30 minutes after we left." He said, showing Ling Xiao the footage. 

"That means they should know that we had detected the ambush." Qin Yu said.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter, they wont have a chance to ambush us anymore tonight." Xiao Yuchen responded. "But Captain, won't they then attack us once we reach M Country. What if they leak the information out about our mission? Wont we be walking into a trap?" he asked.

"Attack us, probably. As for leaking the information, they won't do that. They are only a handful of people who are aware of this mission and our mission target. If Head courters were to be notified of a leak, the suspects would be very few, and it would be easy to identify the culprit. Our attacker is not so dumb." Ling Xiao responded. "It doesn't matter. We will deal with it as it comes."

"mhm," Xaio Yuchen hummed.

"Alright, Su Chen, drive towards these coordinates. There is a small plane waiting for us there." Ling Xiao said as he passed Su Chen a paper with an address. 

"Alright," he responded, inputting the address into the GPS.

It took 10 minutes for them to drive to the hanger from their current location. Once they arrived, Ling Xiao collected the key to the hanger and airplane from behind a tree right inside the gate. The team did a quick inspection of the plane to make sure that there were no bombs or any damages that could lead to a crash once they were in the air.

After Xiao Yuchen had given the go-ahead that everything was okay, only then did they load their bags and equipment onto the plane. By the time the plane actually took off to H City, the city at the border between M Country and their own, the sun had already begun to come up.