Chapter 164: Too Late

Chapter 164: Too Late

Xinmao Shopping Center, underground parking garage.

A five-car convoy came down into the garage.

At its head was a Bentley Continental coupe, driven by Li Ruobing herself, her trusted bodyguard Zhou Huan in the passenger seat.

The four vehicles behind were all SUVs, each packed with bodyguards.

“Boss, there’s no need to push this hard. We’re already in the garage…” Zhou Huan could not help saying it again.

It was not the first time.

When they set out, Li Ruobing’s Bentley had been in the middle of the convoy.

That was where it belonged. The boss’s vehicle was safest in the middle.

But she had apparently decided the convoy was moving too slowly. Halfway there she changed lanes, accelerated past the others, took the lead, and drove extremely fast.

That violated basic security doctrine.

With only two vehicles traveling together it made little difference whether Li Ruobing’s car ran front or back.

With more, her car had to be in the middle.

Of course, she was the boss. She could ignore the rules if she wished.

Zhou Huan could not.

Still, there was little he could say. Beyond urging her repeatedly to slow down and warning that a crash would only cost them more time, what else was there?

Li Ruobing drove with a face of ice and ignored him.

Once inside the garage they naturally had to find parking. Since they were going upstairs, she led the convoy toward the far end, hunting for spaces near the elevators.

Business here really was dreadful, and the mall had only opened a short while ago. There were almost no cars in the garage. It was nearly empty.

From a distance Li Ruobing spotted Wu Chen’s Lamborghini.

She saw the basement elevator doors as well, as they drew closer.

And she saw—

A group of masked men clustered before the elevator, jabbing at the call button.

It was the height of summer.

Unless a man was in formal dress, a suit or something like it, ordinary people rarely wore jackets at this time of year—and certainly not heavy ones.

Zhou Huan had noticed the men by the elevator from some way off.

He watched them for several seconds and frowned faintly.

“Everyone stay sharp. Something may be wrong here,” Zhou Huan said into his radio first.

Protecting Li Ruobing came before everything, so every other bodyguard had to be warned.

He lowered the radio and turned toward her.

“Boss, those men up ahead are carrying weapons.”

He was a professional.

He could see it.

Heavy jackets, with faint bulges beneath.

They had something on them.

“Hm?” Li Ruobing started, shot Zhou Huan a glance, then looked out again.

Just then the basement elevator doors opened.

The men filed in.

One of them drew a “stick” wrapped in newspaper from inside his clothes and swung it up, smashing the car’s surveillance camera.

Whatever was wrapped in that newspaper was plainly not a stick.

It was a blade.

Li Ruobing’s pupils shrank violently.

“Desperadoes,” Zhou Huan said, watching too.

He was certain of it. That was how desperadoes worked.

There were cameras in the underground garage as well, but being filmed here did not concern them. Smashing the elevator camera would draw the property staff’s attention quickly and bring someone down to look.

Plainly they did not care.

They were all masked. Even if the earlier cameras had caught them, nobody would know who they were.

The only thing they had to prevent was the act itself being recorded.

In a fight their masks might be torn away. They might be wounded. If footage caught their faces or showed exactly where they had been hurt, those details became identifying marks and would make escape far harder.

They looked careless.

In truth they were extremely professional. No time wasted on unnecessary preparation.

Kill the man and go.

Speed was everything.

“They’re going up to kill Mr. Wu,” Zhou Huan added.

Almost in the same instant, Li Ruobing’s foot went down.

The Bentley Continental surged, racing for the far end of the garage. As it neared the elevator doors she stamped on the brake, and the car screamed to a halt with only three or four meters to spare.

The vehicles behind accelerated after her, then braked as well.

Li Ruobing jumped out, ran over, and hit the elevator button several times.

It was already too late, of course.

The doors had closed just as Zhou Huan finished speaking.

The car was on the fourth floor.

“Upstairs! Take the stairs! Fifth floor!” Li Ruobing spun and shouted.

A crowd of bodyguards had only just gotten out of the vehicles.

Some ran at once for the stairwell.

Others stayed. Someone had to remain with Li Ruobing and protect her.

Zhou Huan came over with one hand still inside his jacket.

He had a gun, but he had not drawn it. He would not use it lightly.

Alert to his surroundings, Zhou Huan glanced at the elevator indicator.

The car had stopped on the fourth floor before going on to the fifth.

He understood immediately.

They meant to pen their man inside the elevator.

They had not gone straight to the fifth floor because if Wu Chen happened to be coming down and saw a crowd of men already inside, he would sense something was wrong and refuse to get in.

So they had waited on the fourth.

Once Wu Chen was in the car, they could call it from the fourth, let it come down, then pile in all at once and trap him.

Zhou Huan—a former special forces soldier who had also been through specialized security training—could even infer that someone must have gone up to the fifth floor first to watch Wu Chen and report the moment he headed down.

That way the men below could time their ascent exactly.

The car reached the fifth floor.

At the same moment Li Ruobing pulled out her phone and called Wu Chen to warn him.

“Beep… beep… beep-beep-beep…”

It would not connect.

She called again.

Nothing.

The car had already stopped at the fifth floor and was coming down to the fourth.

“Mr. Wu is in the elevator,” Zhou Huan said, his face grim.

It seemed—

They were one step late.

Li Ruobing realized at once that there was no signal inside the car. She turned and started for the stairwell.

Zhou Huan caught hold of her.

“Boss! You can’t go!” he said.

There was no possibility of letting her run into that.

Afraid she would not listen, he paused and added, “It’s too late!”

It truly was.

There was not even time to run to another floor and call the elevator from there.

The mall’s elevators and stairwells were not built together, nor anywhere near each other. To reach the stairs they would have to run to the far side of the garage.

Which was where some of Li Ruobing’s bodyguards had just gone.

The separation was dictated by fire-safety regulation. Pedestrian stairwells were emergency exits, and a shopping center this large required many of them, properly distributed. Elevators, meanwhile, went where customers found them convenient. You could hardly put an elevator beside every stairwell; inside the mall, escalators carried most of the ordinary traffic between floors.

Something in Li Ruobing came apart.

She raised a hand to her forehead.

Her eyes reddened faintly, and her breathing grew heavier.

She stared at the indicator as it kept showing the car going down.

Then she suddenly put out a hand to Zhou Huan.

“Give me your gun.”

Inside the elevator, the space cramped with eight men.

The instant the seven of them moved, Wu Chen moved too.

Faster.

In a flash he tore the knife from the man nearest him, who had only just drawn it, and drove it back up under the man’s ribs. His other hand caught the back of the man’s collar. He pulled and turned, hauling the body in front of himself as a shield.

Then he shoved him forward hard, seized the arm of another attacker swinging a blade at him, yanked it in, and drove his own knife toward the man’s throat.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The narrow car filled with the sound of bodies colliding and fighting.

The elevator kept descending.

Blood sprayed.

Someone screamed.

The car shuddered slightly, but it did not stop.

Fourth floor… third… second… first… basement…

Ding!

The doors opened on the basement level.

A blood-soaked man who had been slumped against them spilled straight out, his body wedging the doors open.

Two meters away stood Li Ruobing, a gun in her hand.

The instant she saw inside the elevator, her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

Beside her, Zhou Huan and six or seven other bodyguards went rigid.

Their faces changed.

Horror flashed through their eyes as they stared into the car.