American comic book: I, with my abundant martial virtue, love to do good to others.

Chapter 751 Ground Guidance

"I'm not following that Ford," he said. "I'm following the people inside that Ford."

Lynn looked at him but didn't say anything.

"I spent almost a year following a story," Javier said, his speech still slow, but each word sounding like it had been suppressed for a long time and finally found its outlet. "A story about people. Not ordinary people, but the kind you know."

"Mutants," Lynn said for him.

Javier's eyes flickered.

“Your friend said you know these things,” he said, “so I’m willing to meet with you. If you were just here to see Wayne, I would tell you what I know about Ford, and then you can go your separate ways, and I’ll continue with mine. But your friend said you’re looking for something else besides Wayne.”

Lynn neither confirmed nor denied it.

"You followed that line for a year, what did you find?"

Javier climbed off the wall, walked to the table, and bent down to tap a few times on his laptop. The screen lit up, displaying a photograph—a two-story gray building with all the windows sealed shut, and two black SUVs parked in front, without license plates.

"This is an abandoned warehouse district east of Reynosa. This photo was taken three months ago." He pointed to another photo; the same building, but now a white van was parked in front, its door open, revealing several blurry figures inside. "This one was taken two weeks ago. Can you see the difference?"

Lynn looked at the comparison between the two photos.

"They reinforced the doors and windows," he said. "All the windows on the first floor have been reinforced with steel plates from the inside. There are newly laid gravel patches on the road in front of the entrance, which indicates that there are more vehicles coming and going than before."

Havel nodded once, then nodded again.

The third photo. The timestamp shows it was taken yesterday afternoon. The lighting was excellent; the sun was on the right side of the building, illuminating the entire wall clearly. There was a new graffiti on the wall—not a gang mark, but a symbol resembling a V and a 0 stacked together, with a diagonal line running through the middle.

"Is this symbol related to mutants?" Lynn asked.

“I’m not sure,” Javier said, “but I first saw the symbol six years ago. Virginia, on a basement door. There were four mutant children being held in that basement who had been taken from their home. I found it by chance while investigating a missing persons case.”

The room fell silent for a moment. The light bulb overhead flickered, as if the current was unstable, emitting a very low hum.

"You're a reporter," Lynn said.

"A freelance journalist," Havel corrected, "meaning nobody pays me a salary or buys me insurance."

But I don't have to follow anyone's instructions when writing.

"How did you manage to chase me all the way from Virginia to Reynosa?"

Javier swiped his finger across the touchpad, and the photo on the screen shrank, revealing a map underneath. The map had a dozen or so red markers stretching from the east coast of the United States all the way to northern Mexico, like a broken trail of blood.

“It’s not a straight line,” he said. “It’s many lines. Each line represents a person I’ve been tracking. Some I found, some I only found the place where they were last seen.” He pointed to a red dot on the map. “This is Baltimore. A man was last seen here and then disappeared. Three months later, an informant in Reynolds sent me a photo of a man whose back looked exactly like his. But I couldn’t confirm it because by the time I got to Reynolds, the man was gone.”

He then pointed to another red dot.

"This is New Orleans. A girl, sixteen, disappeared from home. Her parents said she had no reason to run away from home; she had good grades, many friends, no boyfriend, and no trace of online social interaction. They thought she was abducted. I investigated for six months and finally found someone in New Laredo who matched her description, but she was using a different name and a different identity. I didn't approach her to confirm because someone was always following her. I didn't want to get her killed."

Lynn listened, her brows never relaxing.

"Do you think these disappearances and Wayne's kidnapping were committed by the same group?"

“I don’t know if it’s the same group,” Javier said, “but I know there’s a common pattern behind these disappearances. The people taken away are all mutants, or suspected of being mutants. They were taken from the United States to Mexico, and then dispersed from Mexico to places further south. Some were eventually sighted again in South America, and some disappeared completely.”

He closed his laptop and turned to look at Lynn.

"Wayne isn't a mutant. But the way he was kidnapped has a lot in common with the missing persons cases I've been investigating. Early morning operation, security system precisely cut off, signs of high temperatures, multiple individuals working together. I've seen these things at crime scenes in Baltimore and New Orleans. So when I heard about this case on Long Island, I started following it."

"You've been following me since Long Island?" Lynn asked. "Alone?"

“I got some help,” Javier said, “but most of the time I was following them alone. When they were on the toll road, I was about two miles behind them. When they changed cars in Philadelphia, I was watching them through binoculars from the rest area across the highway. That Grand Cherokee they changed out of—you found it, right?”

"Found it. It's empty."

"They were in the car for less than ten minutes before transferring Wayne to the Ford. That Toyota Sienna was just to mislead you. The mannequin on the roof was made of clothes and duct tape, and from a distance it looked like a person curled up."

Lynn took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

Do you know where they are right now?

Javier walked to the table and unfolded the top map. It was a map of Reynosa, marked with several lines and circles in pencil. He pointed to an area in the east with his index finger.

"Aztec Road. I told your friend. But I checked it out there this afternoon, and there were no cars in that abandoned auto parts factory. They're not there."

Miles, standing behind Lynn, couldn't help but speak up upon hearing this: "Not here? You said they went towards the industrial area."

"The direction is towards the industrial area, but they didn't stop at that factory." Javier moved his index finger about two centimeters southeast on the map. "This is another place, about three kilometers from Aztec Road, a row of abandoned warehouses that used to belong to a bankrupt logistics company. I saw a dark Ford drive out from behind the warehouses and head south this afternoon."

"Where is to the south?" Lynn asked.

Javier's finger continued moving south.

"Another crossing on the Rio Grande. Not the one we crossed the bridge at, but an unofficial crossing. It's used by locals to smuggle goods. The river is narrow, the current is slow, and on the other side is a sparsely populated area of ​​Texas. It's the best option for them to cross back into the United States."

“They won’t go back,” Lynn said. “They just came from America; it’s impossible for them to go back so soon. Unless—”

""

"Unless they're not going further south in Mexico, but taking Wayne back to another place in the United States," Javier finished for him. "That's what I think too. But I'm not sure. So I waited there for over an hour this afternoon to see if the car would come back. It didn't."

Lynn stood up, walked to the map, and looked down at the location of the unofficial ferry crossing. The city of Reynosa slowly took shape in his mind—they were now in the Mercado Market, slightly north of the city center; Aztec Road was to the east, the row of abandoned warehouses to the southeast, and the unofficial ferry crossing was further south, near the river.

"Did you take a picture of that Ford driving out of the warehouse area?" Lynn asked.

Havel pulled up a photo on his computer. The lighting wasn't great, as it was taken in the late afternoon when the sun was setting, and the shadows of the buildings blocked half the frame. But Lynn could still clearly see the outline of the Ford Explorer, and—the profile of a person in the passenger seat.

It's not Wayne.

It's that woman.

The woman Lynn saw that night in Florida. The woman who fed Wayne his pills in the back seat of the car. Light-colored hair, delicate profile, in the photo she was tilting her head and talking to the person in the driver's seat, her lips slightly parted, as if she were saying something important.

Lynn stared at that face for several seconds, then turned to Javier.

"Did you manage to get a picture of that person's face?"

“No,” Javier said. “She was always wearing sunglasses, or with her face turned to the side. She was very careful, extremely careful. Much more careful than the driver.”

"She is the one in charge."

“I think so,” Javier said. “My informant has connections within drug cartels in Mexico. He said a woman has been working for an organization in recent months, acting as a transport agent.” Not transporting people herself, but organizing them. She’s responsible for contacting the collectors in the US, arranging routes, and connecting them with the recipients in Mexico. Her codename, if she is indeed that person, is “Kira.”

"Kira," Miles repeated, "the Spanish word for moon."

Javier nodded.

Lynn memorized every detail of that photo: hair color, face shape, the angle of her shoulders, the way her hands were on her knees, the color of her clothes, and the design of her neckline.

"Can your informant confirm that she's still in Reynosa?"

“No,” Javier said. “But I know one thing—they haven’t handed Wayne over yet. I have informants in the drug cartel, and if Wayne had been sold, the news would have leaked out. There’s no news yet. So they’re still looking for a buyer, or waiting for someone to come and take over.”

Lynn looked at the location of the unofficial ferry crossing on the map.

"Where would they most likely be making a handover?"

"It's either in that abandoned warehouse district or by the river," Javier said. "But the riverside is too exposed; it's easy to be seen during the day and easy to be spotted by patrols at night. The warehouse district is ideal—enclosed, deserted, with enough space to park multiple cars, and no residents around."

Lynn straightened up and turned to Miles.

"Bring Bates and Chen in."

Miles went out for a minute and returned with Bates and Chen, along with two other agents, Russell and Yang. The six men, plus Javier, crammed the less than fifteen-square-meter room even more. The light from the overhead bulb was fragmented by the shadows of the seven men, falling on the walls and table like a chaotic collage.

Lynn stood in front of the table and turned the map so that everyone could see it.

"This is the target area." He pointed to the row of abandoned warehouses. "Southeast, about a twenty-minute drive from us. The suspects might be transferring hostages there, or it might just be a temporary stop. We don't know how many of them there are, what their weapons are, or the size and firepower of the support group. But we don't have time to slowly gather information—Wayne's medication won't last until tomorrow."

He looked at everyone's face.

"Once we're in the warehouse area, Miles and I will go first. Bates and Chen will go on the left flank, and Russell and Yang on the right flank. Maintain eye contact and don't get separated. If you spot a target, report their location immediately. Don't act alone. Remember, our priority is to keep the hostages alive. The fate of the suspects isn't important, but capturing one alive would greatly help our subsequent intelligence gathering."

However—" he paused, "if you have to choose between the safety of the hostages and capturing the suspect alive, always choose the former."

"Received," Bates said.

The others didn't speak, but they all nodded.

Lynn turned to Havel.

"Can you help us with ground guidance? You know this place better than we do."

Javier hesitated for a moment, then said, "It's very short, so short that it's almost invisible."

"Okay. But I'll only take you to the outskirts of the warehouse area. I won't go inside. I don't want to appear in anyone's camera or on their phone."

"That's enough."

Lynn bent down, picked up the backpack, and slung it over his shoulder. He checked the gun; it was chambered and the safety was on.

He holstered the gun back on his waist and pulled up the hem of his coat to make sure it was completely covered.

Havel closed his laptop, stuffed it into an inconspicuous canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder, and opened the iron door. The darkness of the corridor rushed in, like a bucket of ice water poured over everyone.

They exited through the market's back door. The alley was narrower and dirtier than the one they had come through, the ground puddled with water, and it was hard to tell if it was water or some other liquid when they stepped on it. A stray cat perched on a trash can, watching them, its eyes glowing green in the darkness, its tail slowly swishing back and forth.

Javier walked in front, his steps quick but silent. He knew the area too well; every turn, every fork in the road felt like an extension of his being. Lynn followed behind, noticing that he always stayed close to the wall, always kept himself in the shadows, and never lingered in open areas longer than necessary.