Quest

by Yufeng Zhuang

2

  I pulled the trigger, a cluster of flare blows out from the muzzle of the rifle. A hoarse gun sound spreads out in the quiet night sky. The rifle had a cheerful jump in my arms, it spits out a still hot bullet shell.

  In the aiming sight, I can see Tatto’s neck explodes with a blood flower, his head is thrown to aside by the powerful impact of the bullet and hung over his shoulder. His body sways a couple times before falls down on his back.

  Every team leader’s issues the attack command accompanied with my gunshot.

  The automatic rifles of the support team fire first.

  The cover team throws out the grenades and the smoke flares in the crowd of the other party.

  The attack team starts to assault from several different directions. The team members wear the infrared night vision devices to rush into the smoke-filled dock.

  The sounds of the MP5 three-point shooting and the miserable shrill cries of the drug dealers hit by the bullets keep coming out from the dock.

  Under the very standard special tactical attack, the fight back from the drug dealers is undoubtedly very weak. The sounds of the gunshot become less and less. I know, their finish is just a matter of time.

  I jump out of the low broken wall which was used for cover, lower my body, I run to the direction of the dock. Rat follows behind me closely.

  There not many drug dealers left, most of them are held up in the freight house.

  I rushed to the door of the freight house and gave a nod to Rat.

  “Apple!” Rat shouts loudly.

  The grenades are flew into the freight house one by one from my brothers. After the strong explosions, we run through the dust blowing our faces, while others or jump through the windows or break into the doors, we use the rifles in hand to shoot everything still moving in the freight house.

  A team member in the black urban combat clothing slides horizontal prettily, his MP5 shoots the last hapless loser who is hiding behind the boxes into a honeycomb.

  The gunshots died down, there is only low moans in the dock.

  The teams all reported, “no any target escaped from this direction. No casualties to the team.”

  I walk to the dock and step on the full of cement fragments ground.

  I watch some of the brothers make an inventory of the drugs, some confirm the dead bodies. If the opponent has not died through, they will cut his throat with the knife.

  They are executing my words “leave no survivor.” my present identity is underworld, all the things I do must be practiced in the style of a underworld character.

  “How much?” I ask one of the servants who is counted the drugs, “white flour or rock sugar?”

  “Boss, it is the no. 4 white flour. There are almost 500 kilograms, Kilograms, boss.”

  Even when I heard that it is 500 kilograms of white flour, I was shocked speechless. 500 kilograms, normally 30 or 40 kilograms is already regarded as a huge deal. Tatto? He doesn’t have that much money even if he can sell himself. Could it be said that he is just a broker acting in his own capacity? If it says so. Where is the man behind the scene?

  An severe explosions interrupt my deep thinking. I look up at it, the place where we parked our cars has already been turned into a sea of fire.

  Not even I have any responds, two of my brothers have already got hit by the bullets, the blood spills on my face.

  “Fuck!” I keep fighting back and run into a freight house nearby with fastest speed, I lean against a window and look at the outside.

  The whole dock is in a mess again, the fragments hit by the bullets spring up everywhere, the flying bullets are bring more and more casualties to my brothers.

  The sounds of the auto grenade launchers and M4A1 are so clear in the night. How? How can that be? In the city where I live, there is no such a powerful gang have this kind of firepower, even the police don’t have this kind of powerful weapons as well.

  In a twinkling, we became the ambushed people from the ambusher.

  “Boss, we are surrounded!” Rat’s voice comes out from the headphones, “it’s the army! It’s the marines! Their grenades are too powerful for us! Our brothers cannot hold on to it much longer!”

  What kind of joke is this? We are not coming here to loot the arsenal. How come there would be the troops over here?

  My face becomes pale. If the government employed the troops to deal with me, there is no way that my boss doesn’t know anything about it.

  It is detestable. I informed him this afternoon that I would have some actions tonight, that suck-ass still told me to be careful!

  I totally understand now, today the deal between the drug dealers is just a bait, a bait to make me hooked. They really look up to me! Just in order to kill me, they even put in the half a ton of drugs on this dock.

  “All the brothers listen up, every team as a unit to break out of the encirclement.” I shout out with a loud voice, no matter how combative we are, it is impossible to win with forty some people against the army which has the heavy gunfire.

  “Boss, over half of the brothers have the casualties. The rest are all scattered.” Rat brings two brothers blunt come in, “boss! I don’t think that we can get out of here, the Marines are everywhere. They have too many people!”

  “Do you regret for this?” I look at bloodiness faces of my brothers. I said, “do you feel regret that you follow me?”

  They are confused by what I am saying.

  “Boss, what are you talking about?”

  “We never feel sorry for following your lead!”

  “Even if I die today, I still have no regret for following your lead!”

  “Don’t call me Boss, and no need to call me Boss!”

  I stared at my brothers and listened to the outside, the gunshots are coming closer and closer.

  I spoke to them slowly, “my real identity is an undercover, a real military officer. I am the tool designed to kill people by the government. I am not your boss. My real name is Jackie Chan.”

  They are stunned. I can see the shock in their eyes.

  Rat exerted himself to shake his head, he said to me, “boss, no matter what your identity is, you are always you in my mind. We brothers will never betray you.”

  The other two brothers also don’t know what to say, they just put forth their strength in nodding their heads.

  “Really?” I had a wry smile and said, “take a look at the outside there, those troops will not let us to survive. If I don’t guess it wrong, they are all here just to kill me.”

  “Why? Are you not one of them, boss?”

  “There is nothing strange, they just want to kill me to prevent the divulgence of secrets. Maybe I know too much, somebody wants to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Boss, you say it in a word. Anyhow, it has already been like this, the worst scenario is just death?”

  “Let’s defy death! Everybody, follow me to rush out!”

  There is nothing we can do except die, somehow we will fight like a man.

  I took a look at the empty freight house and say, “let’s go through the back door!”

  We just run a couple of steps, a small cylinder is dropped in front of me from outside of the door.

  Flash bomb! The words just pop up in my mind, the intensive bullets shoot at us accompanied with the dazzling white light.

  I feel a warm wave on my leg, and lose my balance, fall down to the ground. When I struggle and want to return fire, several more bullets hit under my right arm, my right arm flies out off my body holding the rifle. One of the bullets cuts a big wound on my back.

  When my eyes got back to normal, the Marines were standing around me. The bodies of Rat and the other two brothers fall in the places not far from me, their bodies are fragmentary.

  After one Marine kicks all the around guns away from me, a familiar silhouette shows up in my eyes and walks to me, I didn’t guess it wrong, indeed as expected, he is my boss.

  “Jackie, I never thought of that one day I would have to k
ill you personally.”

  “Yes, sir. I also never thought that it would be you, I really can’t let you feel secure?” I can feel that my life is flying away from my body quickly accompanied with the puffs of blood gushing out from the wounds.

  “You have done too many things. It is time for you to retire now,” my boss’s fat lips moved up and down, “there will be a rookie to take over everything you left behind.”

  “So, you mean that this is all my fault?”

  “Don’t blame me cruel-hearted, somebody has already had some doubts about your identity in the government. You get to blame that you don’t execute your task low-key. I can explain to the chief for those gang members whom you killed. But for those important government figures who died in your hands, I can’t play at it vaguely. In order to prevent the fire to burn to the State’s Department of Internal Affairs, to get me in trouble, I have to give up on you.”

  “Fuck you! You made all the decisions and all the orders!”

  “I know, but there will be nobody else knowing after you die.”

  “Sir!” one officer walks quickly to come over, “mission accomplished, all the targets are destroyed. But the cost of us is not small neither, there are more than fifty casualties.”

  “Jackie, I have to admit that you are excellent. Look at them— trash and garbage, after trained by you, they can even fight against the real army.” my boss obviously seemed to be somewhat stunned, “but I think that it is cost-effective to kill you with this high cost.”

  “Cost-effective? It is not even a little bit cost-effective for me.” I shook my head, my left hand slowly groped a cold thing in my waist, I pushed on the concave bottom on the middle. I said, “at least it should also add you in.”

  In the ridicule eyes of my boss, I pull my left hand out from under my body, I raise my hand, it‘s really heavy. In my hand is an eight-inch long, two-inch in diameter silver-white metal object. I feel that it is very heavy for the present me, the glowing red light on it blinks faster and faster...

  “Air bomb!”

  “Everybody get out of here!”

  “That’s a cloud-detonation bomb! Get out!”

  “Kill him!”

  “It's too late!”

  After a not to loud explosion sound, it was a huge explosion. A huge fire ball wreck havoc within 150 yards. Even miles away, people still can feel the strong vibration of the ground…

  “Breaking news, every audience. According to the news we just received, last night, in the abandoned number six dock of the city, a battalion of Marines exchanged intensive fire with the drug dealers, they were executing an anti-drug task. Both sides exchanged fire nearly ten thousand shots at the scene. When the drug dealers are all shot dead, the Marines have a great loss as well. Especially at the last moment, the last drug dealer initiated the strong explosion. Thirty three officers were killed in the line of duty, including five top chief officials for the State’s department of Internal Affairs. On the screen, now we can see the explosion center…”