Invasion of America

Chapter 100 Joining the gang
A gust of wind blew, and the corpses on the rafters spun gently like dead leaves, the tips of their shoes casting trembling shadows on the floor.

A piece of paper was pinned to the deceased's collar, with a suicide note written on it in a sloppy handwriting. The edge of the paper was lifted by the night wind, making a slight rustling sound.

"Unknown person, please accept the most sincere apology from a dying man. Forgive me for choosing to say goodbye in such an embarrassing way.

My wife died and this house became a coffin, and I no longer had the courage to live.

Perhaps this is what the superiors really want. They think we are in the way, a waste of resources, and don't want to see us anymore.

I fought it, but I couldn't hold on.

I am dead and cannot argue. You can take whatever you want from the house. If you find them useful, it would be my honor.

The handwriting suddenly becomes blurred here, and there are traces of water stains at the bottom of the paper.

Zhou Qingfeng subconsciously looked up and met the purple face of the deceased.

The old man's sagging eyelids were half closed, but the corners of his mouth were strangely raised, as if he was mocking something.

A rough hemp rope dug deep into the wrinkles of his neck, carving a purple-black groove in his pale skin.

"Rest in peace, Mr. Brown." Zhou Qingfeng untied the knot on the beam and placed the old man's body on the lawn in the backyard. "I'm sorry, there's not much I can do."

After paying a slight salute and showing some respect to the deceased, Zhou Qingfeng entered Mr. Brown's home through the back door.

The house is very clean and the items are neatly arranged. It can be seen that the owner is very hardworking and well-educated.

The dining table was neatly tidied, and there was still plenty of food in the refrigerator. It was obvious that the old man had not eaten much before his death.

The door of the second-floor bedroom was ajar. Mrs. Brown's body remained in a pious sleeping position, her hands folded on her chest, her gray hair spread out like a spider web on the pillowcase.

But the overturned medicine bottle on the bedside table, the wrinkled sheets and the messy drag marks on the floor silently tell the story of the final struggle.

The landline phone light was flashing red.

Zhou Qingfeng pressed the replay button, and the electronic voice coldly called out a series of emergency center numbers, but none of them went through.

A first aid kit lay on the floor, strewn with bandages, scissors, and empty medicine bottles.

The bedside table is filled with all kinds of medicines that have not been used up, including fever-reducing, pain-relieving, blood pressure-lowering, and sleeping pills.
-
Zhou Qingfeng quietly left the bedroom and walked towards the study next door.

In stark contrast to the neatness of the bedroom, there was a bit of a mess here - yellowed maps of Washington, D.C. were densely pinned on three walls, some of which had curled edges and were fixed with thumbtacks.

A map of Washington, D.C.'s underground pipeline network is hung in a prominent position, covered with traces of modifications marked in red pen.

As early as the mid-nineteenth century, Americans began to build underground pipeline networks in the capital, such as the basement of the Capitol and short-distance traffic tunnels.

Over time, Washington, D.C. began construction of the subway, and the underground transportation network gradually became more and more complex.

By the mid-twentieth century, due to the need for nuclear defense, the "White House Underground Bunker", "Capitol Hill Underground Air Defense Project" and "Dulles Airport Secret Tunnel" were built one after another.

The underground network cables throughout Washington, DC have become extensive.

In the 21st century, the extension of the subway and the construction of data centers have made these transportation networks "layered," "multi-directional," and "huge," connecting the center of the District of Columbia with Arlington.

The study also has a drawing board with a tortuous escape route outlined in black marker.

The dotted line from the Capitol subway station to Dulles Airport, the red arrow from the White House Bunker to Arlington Cemetery, these lines intertwined into a huge underground spider web in front of Zhou Qingfeng's eyes.

On some key nodes, there are notes written by Mr. Brown on sticky notes: "Monitoring blind spot", "Ventilation shaft modification point", "Guard change gap".

Zhou Qingfeng took a closer look and noticed small numbers written next to the route - that was the time calculation accurate to the minute.

There were several sticky notes on the edge of the whiteboard, the latest one reading:

"Martha can't hold on any longer. Her blood oxygen level has dropped to 90 percent, and I can't get through to the emergency department. What should I do?"
-
Zhou Qingfeng pulled out a piece of notepaper and copied down the route and words on the whiteboard stroke by stroke.

He carefully took down the traffic maps pinned to the wall. These maps were covered with pencil marks, some of which were official routes, and some were secret passages discovered by Brown himself.

Zhou Qingfeng rolled them up one by one and stuffed them into the file tube next to the desk.

After finishing his packing, he looked around to make sure he hadn't missed any crucial information, then turned to leave. But just as he took a step forward, the phone on the desk suddenly vibrated.

Buzz-buzz-

Zhou Qingfeng stared at it for two seconds, then finally reached out and grabbed it, pressing the answer button with his thumb, "Hello?"

A hurried male voice came from the other end of the phone, anxiously asking, "Mr. Brown, have you planned your route map? We can't wait any longer!"

Zhou Qingfeng was silent for three seconds, his eyes swept across the file tube in his hand, and he slowly said, "Mr. Brown's wife passed away due to illness. He couldn't bear the grief and hanged himself."

"What?" A burst of chaotic exclamations suddenly came from the phone, followed by a chaotic conversation. It was obvious that more than one person was listening.

A few seconds later, the other party's voice sounded again, more tense than before: "You... who are you?"

"An insignificant intruder." Zhou Qingfeng said lightly, his finger already hovering on the hang-up button, thinking about hanging up the phone.

"Wait!" the other party shouted hurriedly, and asked tentatively: "You... are you at Mr. Brown's house now?"

"Yes."

"Are you from the Guard?"

"No."

"So you... are trapped too? From another neighborhood?"

"of course."

The person on the other end of the line seemed relieved, but then posed a more direct question: "How did you avoid the guards and cross the barbed wire?"

Zhou Qingfeng twitched his lips and said, "It's turned over."

There was a brief silence. He could hear someone whispering on the other end of the line, and in the background, the sound of shuffling papers and hurried footsteps.

Finally, the other party spoke again, his tone pleading, "Mr. Brown should have some wiring diagrams in his bedroom. Could you... help bring them over? Please let me know if you need anything."

Zhou Qingfeng poured cold water on them and said, "Are you planning to escape through the underground transportation network? Now everyone knows that there's no way out from the ground, so they're going underground instead.

But the guards are not fools, they must have guessed that someone would do this, and the success rate of this method is definitely very low."

"No..." the other party interrupted immediately, lowering his voice even more. "There's really no way out of the underground. It's been sealed off. We... plan to go through the air."

"In the air?" Zhou Qingfeng's fingers paused. "Plane?"

The voice on the phone sounded a bit more cautious: "Unless you can help me get the route map drawn by Mr. Brown, I won't reveal any information." Zhou Qingfeng suddenly sneered and asked, "You and Mr. Brown are not in the same neighborhood, right?"

There was a sudden silence on the other end of the phone, not a sound at all.

Zhou Qingfeng continued, his voice low and firm: "Mr. Brown wanted to take his wife away to seek medical treatment, but you couldn't take them with you at all, right?"

The phone remained silent, a silent acquiescence.

Zhou Qingfeng's eyes swept over the map on the wall of the study, and the intricate routes gradually became clear in his mind. He spoke slowly, his tone almost mocking:

"You want to go through the air? But Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States, and this place has a national missile defense system deployed.

Andrews Air Force Base, Arlington Air Defense Array - radars scan the sky around the clock, and any unauthorized aircraft will be shot down as soon as they take off.

Where do you get the confidence to escape?"

Suddenly, a murmur echoed through the phone, as if someone was arguing. A few seconds later, another voice took over, its tone more steady, yet with a hint of urgency:
"Washington, D.C., is currently under lockdown, but people from one special department are allowed to enter and exit freely."

Zhou Qingfeng listened quietly.

"We have pilots here, people who can get special passes, but they just can't get close to the plane."

The other party continued, "We won't leave from underground, but we must approach the plane from underground - this requires Mr. Brown, who is familiar with the underground transportation network."

Zhou Qingfeng's eyes fell on the whiteboard, where Arlington's three subway lines were densely marked in red and blue.

His eyes moved along the extension of the Silver Line and stopped at an area specially marked by Brown - "Undisclosed tunnel, left over from the Cold War, can avoid surveillance."

The voice on the phone continued:

"But Mr. Brown can't come now, and we're stuck at this last step. If you can bring his roadmap, we can leave."

Zhou Qingfeng did not immediately respond.

He reached out and traced a dotted line on the map, a path that Brown had specially outlined with a red pen—a maintenance passage between Rosslyn Station and Pentagon Station that had theoretically been closed long ago.

There was also a line of small, scribbled words next to it:

"Maintenance Channel J-12, closed in 1987, is a surveillance blind spot. Once you enter Rosslyn Station, you can reach the city center."

Zhou Qingfeng raised the corner of his mouth slightly, "You are in the Rosslyn neighborhood, right?"

There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a chuckle: "Did you guess it?"

The other party didn't seem surprised, but rather expressed some appreciation. "Very good, we welcome smart people to join us."

Zhou Qingfeng tapped a coordinate on the map and whispered, "Tell me your exact location. I'll be there right away."
-
In an apartment in Rosslyn, several men sat around a dining table covered with hand-drawn maps, the air filled with the bitter smell of coffee and lingering cigarette smoke.

The silence after hanging up the phone was like an invisible wall, making it hard to breathe.

A man wearing black-framed glasses adjusted his glasses, his eyes bloodshot behind the lenses. He deliberately made his tone seem relaxed:
"Don't be so pessimistic. Think positively—at least someone is willing to take the risk and send us the roadmap. Let's wait for a while."

A sneer came from the corner of the table.

A man in a faded military uniform looked up and tapped the hand-drawn block defense map on the table, which was covered with densely packed warning marks circled in red pen.

“It took us a few days to figure out the guard’s deployment. If someone could come easily, we would have left on our own.

Unless that guy can be like a ghost and cross at least three blocks of barbed wire under the noses of those guardsmen."

The man in military uniform pointed his finger at the red crosses on the map: "These barbed wire fences are equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and there are automatic searchlights at every intersection.

Not to mention those watchtowers with M240 machine guns mounted on them—two people who tried to climb over them the day before yesterday were nearly shot to pieces.”

The women at the table subconsciously hugged their children tightly. The children looked sick, listless, and unusually quiet.

No one in the apartment answered.

On the TV screen, the chief medical adviser of the 'White House' is talking about the need for 'herd immunity'.

"Washington, D.C., has a high proportion of elderly people, and natural deaths occur every day, regardless of whether there is a virus or not. The public should not panic over individual cases."

The camera switches to a data chart, and the death curve looks very flat.

"We have completed the vaccination of all residents in the SAR, and 70 percent of the population is already immune. The lockdown will only take another week at most, and the epidemic will be over."

"Now is the critical moment of the lockdown, and we must not give up halfway. With only a very small price to pay, the federal administrative system will be restored to its original state."

As the chief medical advisor spoke, the sound of children coughing and groaning echoed throughout the apartment. Several mothers looked at their husbands, hoping they would come up with a plan quickly.

But the men have already run out of ideas and even gone crazy, and have no idea what to do in the face of the difficulties of reality.

After waiting for about an hour, as everyone was losing patience, we suddenly heard the sounds of climbing outside the apartment building. Someone was knocking on the window.

Several men were startled, but a mother holding a child reacted very quickly, pulling open the curtains and opening the window.

A masked figure rushed in from outside the window. After landing, he glanced at everyone and asked in a deep voice, "Who is Mr. Fili?"

The man with glasses stood up and exclaimed, "I'm Fili, you're Victor? You really came?"

The man in military uniform was even more surprised. He took a few steps forward and grabbed the man's hand. "How did you get through three barbed wire fences?"

The person who came was Zhou Qingfeng. He shrugged and said vaguely: "Drill over, jump over, walk over, there is always a way."

Another man anxiously inquired, "Did you bring Mr. Brown's route map?"

Zhou Qingfeng patted the document tube behind him and asked, "Tell me, what exactly is your plan?"

The men exchanged glances, and the one in military uniform pointed to the hand-drawn map on the dining table. "Everyone else wants to run outside, but we plan to head into the city first."

The man with glasses continued, "The president is ill, so his private jet, Marine One, is definitely not going to be used."

The third man spoke the final words, "'Marine One' is not a specific plane, but the president is on that plane, and the corresponding call sign is 'Marine One'.

But no matter which Marine One it is, it is equipped with a dedicated friend-or-foe identification system to ensure that Washington, D.C.'s air defense radars will not identify it as a target for attack.

As long as we can get a special agent plane, we can easily escape with our whole family."

Zhou Qingfeng thought about it and nodded, "Okay, I'll join."

(End of this chapter)