American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 380 Project Swift List!

Was the plan cancelled by the top leadership? With the further détente of US-Soviet relations in the late 70s, or the change of leadership in the Soviet Union and the loss of power for hardliners within the Kremlin, was this extremely risky plan abruptly halted? This is the most likely, and also the luckiest, possibility.

Did something unexpected happen? Was the key agent or intelligence link responsible for activating this safe house broken off before the plan was executed due to defection, arrest, or accidental death? For example, was the gold coin that eventually sank in the Bahamas left behind by a key figure who was involved in an accident while carrying out other missions or defecting?
And the most unsettling speculation is that the plan was not canceled, but simply put on hold indefinitely!

This safe house, along with the nuclear device inside, lies here quietly like a forgotten time bomb, waiting for a new owner to reactivate it.
Lin Yu'an dared not think any further. Every guess pointed to a bottomless vortex filled with international conspiracies and unknown dangers.

The only thing he was certain of was the encrypted book of poems in his hand.

It's not just the activation key for the "Swift" network, but more likely... the only way to find all Swifts, and the list of those dormant ones lurking across America and Europe!

More likely, it's a clue to more lost safe houses like this one!

This realization made him instantly understand the true significance of the "treasure" he held in his hands.

It is no longer a simple asset, but something capable of disrupting the global intelligence landscape and potentially bringing about one's own demise.

"One minute! Lin!" Raven's anxious shout came from behind the cover.

"Right away!" Lin Yu'an responded loudly, and at the same time quickly took the lead box out of his spatial storage and put it back in its original position as if it had never been moved.

But that book of poems, which might have contained a shocking secret, remained forever in his space.

"Safe! We've confirmed there are no other traces of us. Let's go!" He rushed out of the warehouse, grabbed Raven who had just poked her head out, and ran headlong into the depths of the cave without looking back.

"Have you made any new discoveries?" Raven asked as she ran after him. She sensed that Lin Yu'an's state was a bit off; it was a strange state that was a mixture of fear and extreme excitement.

"Nothing! Just some routine weapons inventory!" Lin Yu'an shouted without turning his head. "We must forget this place! Forget everything we've seen!"

They stumbled and ran through the rubble-strewn corridor and rushed through the central cavern covered with ancient murals.

The two rushed back to the pool, which was illuminated by the camp lights and served as a beacon of life, as fast as they could.

Without pausing, they began to put on their diving gear at breakneck speed.

The cold, side-mounted gas cylinder, the mask pressed tightly against the face, the level 2 gas pump stuffed into the mouth... every movement felt like a race against death.

"Wait!" Just as Lin Yu'an was about to jump into the water, Raven suddenly grabbed him.

"What's wrong?" Lin Yu'an turned around and saw that Raven's lips were trembling slightly in the white light of the camp lights.

“Radiation… those unseen things…” Her voice was filled with suppressed sobs and uncontrollable fear.

"If we get covered in that... that deadly dust... when we get back to camp, will... will we pass it on to my dad?!"

This question, like the sharpest icicle, instantly pierced Raven's softest and most fearful spot.

She may not care about her own life or death, but she cannot imagine bringing the shadow of death to her beloved father. This is a nightmare that terrifies her more than death itself.

Lin Yu'an stopped and looked at Raven's blue eyes, which were unfocused due to extreme fear and filled with despair.

He knew that if he couldn't dissuade her from this idea, her mental state might collapse first.

“Listen, Raven. Look me in the eyes.” His tone was like a captain’s steady command in a storm—calm, clear, and full of confidence.

“You’re right, we have to take this risk into account. So what we need to do now is to thoroughly disinfect.”

He pointed to the tight-fitting wet clothes the two men were wearing and the pool of water beneath their feet: "We face two threats."

"The first is radiation exposure, which has already happened and we cannot change it, but it is not contagious."

"Secondly, there's the radioactive dust, or contamination, that you're worried about, that might adhere to our bodies."

"And water is the best cleaning agent. This pool is connected to the sea, and any dust that is invisible to the naked eye will be washed away clean."

“I assure you, when we return to the ship, we will only bring back the story, and we will not bring back any danger to your father.”

Lin Yu'an's eyes, filled with absolute confidence, were like a warm and powerful force that instantly pierced Raven's heart, which was almost torn apart by fear.

She looked at him, and her wildly beating heart miraculously calmed down. This man would always make the right and reassuring decisions in dangerous moments.

"Okay...I believe you."

"Then let's begin." Lin Yu'an's tone was unquestionable, but his eyes held a hint of complexity.

He turned around, his back to Raven, and issued the heart-stopping instruction in a purely technical tone:

"The first step in the disinfection process is to remove all clothing that may have dust on it. From the outside in. Wet clothes... must also be removed. Their rubber surface is most likely to attract particles."

Raven's body froze instantly.

In the light of her headlamp, she could see that Lin Yu'an had already begun to move.

With swift and unwavering movements, he unzipped the back of his shirt and pulled the wet garment clinging to his body off his muscular shoulders, revealing his bronzed, well-defined back.

The air seemed to freeze at this moment.

Surrounded by stalactites formed over millions of years, beneath one's feet lies a cold pool of water connecting to an unknown abyss, and behind one lies a death warehouse that may emit deadly rays.

In this secluded underground temple, filled with an atmosphere of primitiveness and danger, they are about to break the last private taboo of human civilization.

Raven's cheeks instantly flushed, a mixture of shyness and inexplicable panic rushing into her heart.

But when she glanced at Lin Yu'an's back, which was devoid of any ulterior motives and acted purely for survival, she thought of her father, who was far away at the camp, waiting for their safe return.

All hesitation crumbled in the face of extreme fear of nuclear radiation and deep love for family.

She bit her lower lip, turned around, her back to Lin Yu'an, and with trembling hands, unzipped the wet clothes in front of her.

The icy air instantly touched her skin, causing her to shiver involuntarily.

This was the first time they had met naked at such close range.

There was no ambiguity, no lust, not even the slightest hint of romance. Only the complete trust that led to entrusting one's life entirely to the other when facing the threat of death together.

And... a subtle awkwardness between men and women that can never be completely erased.

Neither of them turned around or made a sound. Only the rustling of clothes against skin and their increasingly rapid breathing echoed in the deathly silence.

"Are you done?" Lin Yu'an's voice broke the suffocating silence.

“…Okay.” Raven’s voice was barely audible.

"Jump down."

Lin Yu'an was the first to jump into the icy pool, only keeping his head above water.

Raven followed closely behind, and the icy pool water instantly enveloped her burning body, giving her brain, which was about to explode from nervousness and shyness, a moment of calm.

Underwater, they could not see each other; only the beams of their headlamps swayed.

"Wash every part of your body, especially your hair and nails."

Lin Yu'an's voice remained professionally calm, as if he were not speaking to a woman who had just been naked in front of him, but rather instructing a soldier on how to disinfect.

It was this extreme professionalism and composure that dispelled the last trace of embarrassment in Raven's heart.

Right there in the icy pool, they performed a near-ritualistic cleansing. Every movement was filled with a yearning for life and awe of the unknown.

After cleaning up, they put their wet clothes back on and plunged back into the cold darkness that connected them to the outside world.

Following the orange guide rope, they desperately fled towards the cave entrance.

Their only thought now is to leave this underground temple shrouded in the shadow of death as soon as possible and return to a world with sunshine, sea breeze, and life!
The road back was far more difficult and terrifying than the way there.

The tide is coming in!
The gentle, inward-flowing water had now transformed into a powerful, raging undercurrent, attempting to push them back into the depths of the cave!
They had to use all their strength, desperately paddling their flippers, to fight against the force of the sea and move forward inch by inch along the guide rope.

Lin Yu'an led the way, keeping his body extremely low to reduce water resistance. Ruiwen followed closely behind him to avoid being separated by the current.

In the darkness, they could clearly hear a growing, louder rumbling sound coming from behind them—it was the roar of the "Devil's Breath" as the tide rose!

The entire underwater tunnel resembled the esophagus of a monstrous beast awakening, teeming with deadly danger.

In the fifty-meter underwater tunnel, they felt as if they had swum for an eternity.

When they finally squeezed out of the narrow opening and returned to the relatively open mangrove waterway, both of them were exhausted.

But the danger was not over.

The water level in the waterway had risen by nearly two meters since they arrived, and areas that were previously accessible by foot now required swimming the entire way.

Even more terrifying, the surging water brought by the rising tide creates countless small whirlpools and rapids in the narrow waterway, constantly impacting them and trying to pull them under the tangled mangrove roots.

"Stay close to me! Don't stop!" Lin Yu'an's voice was a little hoarse.

He abandoned the energy-saving breaststroke and switched to the more explosive freestyle, like a sailfish swimming upstream, cutting through the water ahead.

Raven gritted her teeth, squeezing out every last bit of strength, and followed closely the pillar of light that was guiding her in the darkness. Finally, just when they felt their lungs were about to burst, a bright pillar of light appeared ahead!

It was Mike! He was already waiting at the waterway exit, using a searchlight to light the last stretch of their way home!

When their feet finally touched the solid rocks again, Raven could no longer hold on, her legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground.

Lin Yu'an also leaned against the rock wall, panting heavily, his chest burning as if on fire.

They finally came out.

"Mike rushed forward, supporting the two nearly exhausted men on either side, and evacuated them towards the observation post on higher ground."

When they finally returned to the relatively safe rock platform, Raven could no longer suppress the pent-up fear, exhaustion, and lingering dread. She threw herself into her father's arms and burst into tears.

"Daddy! Waaaaah...Daddy..."

Her cries were filled with the vulnerability of surviving a disaster and the boundless fear of the nightmare she had just experienced.

Mike's heart sank to the bottom. He held his trembling daughter tightly, feeling the shiver that came from the depths of her soul.

He knew that they must have encountered something far beyond their imagination down there.

"What's wrong? Sweetheart, what happened?!" he asked anxiously, his gaze like a dagger shooting towards Lin Yu'an, who was equally exhausted beside him.

Lin Yu'an leaned against the rock and drank half a bottle of water before he could barely catch his breath. He looked at the father and daughter embracing and weeping, and a bitter smile, even more painful than tears, appeared on his face.

In an extremely dry and somber voice, they recounted every single discovery they had made in that cement warehouse.

From those Soviet-style weapons to that ominous radioactive symbol, and finally to the discovery he identified as a "suitcase-sized nuclear device."

When the word "nuclear radiation" came out of Lin Yu'an's mouth, Mike, who was holding his daughter's arm, suddenly froze.

The old captain, who had weathered countless storms, lost his color at a visible speed, replaced by a pale face that was a mixture of shock, fear, and disbelief.

He stared blankly at Lin Yu'an, his lips moving a few times, but in the end, he only managed to squeeze out the purest curse from his throat: "F**k...Holy F**king Sh*t!!!"

After a brief moment of distraction, immense fear and anxiety engulfed him like a tsunami.

He immediately released Raven and carefully examined her eyes and skin, as if trying to find any trace of radiation burns.

"How...how are you feeling? Is anything bothering you? Dizziness? Nausea?"

“I…I’m fine, Dad.” Raven was infected by her father’s anxiety and cried even harder.

Lin Yu'an stood up, walked forward, and pressed down on Mike's trembling shoulder.

“Mike, calm down.” His voice wasn’t loud. “Listen to me. We found out early, our exposure was brief, and we evacuated immediately.”

“We also conducted the most thorough cleaning. Theoretically, the radiation dose we received should have been below the safe threshold. But theory… is just theory.”

These words made Mike's heart sink again, as he had just begun to feel a glimmer of hope.

He looked at his only daughter, and then at the young man who had brought them into this life-or-death crisis.

But there was no blame in his eyes. Because he knew that this was the price of exploration.

After a full half minute of silence, all the fear, panic, and worry in the old captain's eyes slowly faded away, replaced by an unwavering determination as a father!

“The voyage must be stopped immediately.”

He stood up and announced his decision in a resolute tone.

"I don't care about any damn treasure or Cold War secrets! Right now, the only important thing is to take you to the best hospital for the most comprehensive medical check-ups! Not a second can be wasted!"

He turned and strode quickly to the map. "It will take three hours to get back to our camp from here. After an hour's rest, we'll set off immediately back to Samana Port. We must leave the Dominican Republic before noon!"

He picked up the GPS and began rapidly calculating the return route and time.

"The nearest port from Samana to the continental United States is Miami, Florida, which is about 700 nautical miles away as the crow flies."

His fingers flew across the screen. "It's trade wind season now, and we're heading back against the wind and current! The Polaris can't possibly go very fast."

"Even if we use engine assistance 24 hours a day, braving the wind and waves, the average speed can only be maintained at a maximum of 6 knots."

“700 nautical miles, at a speed of 6 knots…” He arrived at a despairing figure, “We’ll need at least five days! Five whole days and nights to get back to America!”

This time felt like a mountain, weighing heavily on everyone's hearts.

Five days is far too long when considering the potential and unknown harm from nuclear radiation.

Five days, 120 hours, were spent in the agonizing fear of unknown radiation damage; every second was hellish torture.

Mike slumped against the rock, his face filled with a deep sense of helplessness. For the first time as a navigator, he felt an intense hatred for the vastness of the sea and the slowness of the ships.

He had the best sailboat, yet he couldn't get his daughter out of danger quickly enough; this feeling was more desperate than any storm.

Just when the atmosphere was so tense it reached freezing point, Lin Yu'an, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke.

"No, we don't need five days."

His voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally clear and firm on the desolate shore. Mike and Raven both jerked their heads up, looking at him with disbelief.

Lin Yu'an didn't look at them; his gaze was fixed on the iPad that Raven had placed on the ground earlier, which displayed a satellite map of the entire Caribbean region.

He strode forward, picked up the iPad, and his fingers flew across the screen, zooming in and out. A completely new route, entirely different from the one taken at sea, quickly took shape in his mind.

He turned the iPad screen toward the two of them and pointed to the location of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

“Look here, it only takes two hours to drive from Samana to the Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo via the entire highway.”

"It's a large international airport with more than a dozen direct flights to Miami, New York and Atlanta every day, with a flight time of two hours."

"Therefore, our new plan is—amphibious transport by sea, land, and air!"

"After daybreak, we drove back to Samana Port as planned. But instead of going to the port, we drove directly to Santo Domingo Airport!"

“We’ll be at the airport in four to five hours. I immediately booked the earliest flight to Miami online.”

"If all goes well, we should be able to land in Miami before midnight tonight and walk into the emergency room of Jackson Memorial Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the United States!"

The supplementary plan, which completely broke away from the nautical mindset, instantly illuminated the hearts of Mike and Raven, which were shrouded in despair!

"Right! An airplane! I completely forgot about this," Mike muttered to himself.

"But... what about the ship?" Raven raised the most practical question. "The North Star is still in port, and we can't just leave all our luggage and equipment here, can we?"

Just as Lin Yu'an was about to speak about his plan to stay behind, Mike raised his hand to interrupt him.

“I’ll handle the boat.” His voice was hoarse, heavy, and firm.

He looked at Lin Yu'an, then at his beloved daughter, and announced his plan: "Lin, take Raven and fly back to Miami immediately."

“No! Dad!” Raven immediately retorted, “You should come with us! You need to get a checkup too!”

Mike turned to look at Lin Yu'an, his eyes filled with pleading and a sense of entrustment between men: "Lin, you and Raven must undergo the best possible examinations immediately, without a second's delay."

"As for me, I await your results. I believe she will be safe. I entrust her to you; please, make sure she is safely brought to the doctor."

Then, his gaze returned to Raven, his eyes softening once more: "Sweetheart, listen to Daddy. I'm more useful staying here than going back with you."

“I’ll handle everything on the ship, or I’ll sail it back myself. I’ve spent my whole life on this sea; what storms haven’t I weathered?”

“I know better than anyone how to deal with the people here and how to get our ‘home’ back safely. It’s my responsibility and my mission as captain.”

“But you…” Raven wanted to argue, but tears welled up in her eyes again.

Mike interrupted her, "No buts, sweetheart. Don't scare yourself. You'll all be fine."

"You're just going for a simple medical check-up. I'll wait here for you to come back and continue your voyage."

"Lin, promise me you'll take good care of Raven."

Lin Yu'an looked at the great father in front of him and nodded heavily: "I promise you, Mike. I will bring her safely."

"Okay!" A relieved smile finally appeared on Mike's tense face.

"Alright! No time for sentimentality!" Mike immediately regained the old captain's decisiveness. "It's six in the morning, it's already light! Everyone, pack your gear!"

"Raven, check your documents! Lin, book your tickets online right now! Let's go! Full speed ahead to the airport!"

The gloom of despair was swept away, replaced by a powerful drive for family and companions.

The three sprang into action, embarking on an emergency sprint against time and the unknown nuclear radiation!
(End of this chapter)