According to Li Zhen's plan, Jack would lower the spiral staircase, and Li Zhen would stay on the ship and capture them one by one. This would be much easier than resorting to arms.
"Speed up to maximum speed, we must reach the enemy ship's location before dawn..."
Tonight is destined to be a sleepless night. Not only is Zhuang Rui unable to sleep after returning to his room, but even Hui Ge is fighting off sleepiness and staying in the cockpit of the frigate.
This decommissioned Malaysian frigate still had decent horsepower. After fourteen hours of sailing, under the moonlight, they could see the huge cruise ship a few hundred meters away.
Compared to Zhuang Rui's cruise ship, Hui Ge's frigate seemed rather inconspicuous. Under the cover of night, the frigate stopped a hundred meters away from the cruise ship.
Two speedboats were launched into the sea from the frigate, and more than a dozen armed personnel wearing masks, camouflage uniforms, and carrying submachine guns disembarked one by one.
Chapter 939 Gunshots Before Dawn (Part 2)
On the silent sea, the only sound could be the crashing waves against the cruise ship. The morning star in the sky was particularly bright, indicating that the sun was about to rise.
Before dawn, the sea was shrouded in a light mist. Even though the merchant ship was more than 100 meters away, its outline could only be vaguely seen. It stood on the sea like a huge monster.
"Fifth brother, be careful, let me know as soon as you get on the boat..."
Although it wasn't the first time he'd done this kind of thing, Hui was still a little scared. After all, he used to be a tech guy, and now he was using brute force, so it was hard for him to change his mindset.
Knowing he wasn't skilled enough, Hui-ge decided to leave the murder and ship-stealing to Huo-jiang.
He was stationed on the frigate, so that in case of any mishap, he could use the frigate's machine guns to support the fire general.
"Brother, don't worry. Jack said there are plenty of girls on board. I'll definitely save the prettiest one for you..."
Fire General grinned, this life at sea suited his taste perfectly. The only downside was the lack of women. Thinking about how he would soon be able to go on a killing spree on the ship, and even have women to relieve his lust, Fire General couldn't help but lick his lips.
"Um?"
Suddenly, Huo Jiang and Liu Minghui, who were talking, both looked toward the cruise ship, because a light was lit up on the side of the ship facing them and circled three times to the left and three times to the right.
This was the pre-arranged signal between Liu Minghui and Jack. The appearance of the lights meant that everything was going smoothly, and if there were no unexpected events, the spiral staircase should have already been lowered from the deck.
"Fifth brother, go ahead, don't turn on the engine, it's too loud. Anyway, it's not far, just paddle over..."
Looking at the flashing lights in the distance, Liu Minghui's eyes revealed a sinister look. If it weren't for his age and poor skills, Brother Hui would definitely be the first to board the ship and grab Zhuang Rui from his sleep.
Decades of hard work were ruined by Zhuang Rui in one fell swoop, sending him straight from heaven to hell. Hui Ge absolutely hated Zhuang Rui to the bone. Thinking that he would be able to play with that kid's woman at will in front of him in a moment, Hui Ge couldn't help but chuckle softly.
There were twelve people on the two speedboats, which was the maximum armed force Liu Minghui could muster. Apart from a few old men under his command, the other six or seven were desperate thugs recruited by Brother Hui, and each of them had blood on their hands.
Despite the large number of people on the cruise ship, once Huo Jiang and his group boarded, the crew and staff were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter, posing no threat whatsoever.
With the sound of oars cutting through the water, two speedboats silently approached the cruise ship under the cover of night. In just over ten minutes, they arrived at the side of the ship.
The spiral staircase, tens of meters high, had been lowered, but the lights on top were still on. A man, biting a short knife and carrying a submachine gun, led the way, climbing upwards.
"Why the hell aren't you coming up here yet?"
Jack had been waiting at the entrance of the spiral staircase for about half an hour.
Feeling rather impatient, he thought, "It'll be dawn soon, and by then the security guards will be patrolling here. Getting on the ship so easily will be like climbing to heaven."
"Hey bro, can I borrow a light?"
Suddenly a voice rang out behind Jack, "It's normal for crew members to borrow lights." Jack casually pulled out his lighter and was about to turn around when his eyes suddenly widened in surprise.
Before Jack could unleash his tenor from his wide-open mouth, a strong arm gripped his neck, and a towel still reeking of alcohol was shoved into his mouth.
As he increased the force of his arm, Jack felt a dizziness and lost consciousness, while the lighter in his right hand fell onto the deck.
"Hey, not bad," a limited edition from 1942...
Before the lighter could even touch the ground, a hand grabbed it. Peng Fei, with a slightly wicked smile, appeared under the light hanging on the railing. With a flick of his wrist, a flame lit up the cigarette in Peng Fei's mouth.
"Make it quick and efficient. Take them down one by one as they come up, and try not to fire any shots..."
Peng Fei craned his neck and looked down. The firefighter at the top was still more than 20 meters away from the deck. He quickly gestured to the people next to him.
"Jack? Jack?"
After climbing to the top of the spiral staircase, Fire didn't rush up. Instead, he held the knife in his mouth, peeked out, and whispered Jack's name twice.
“I am here…” a voice with a Portuguese accent answered the Fire General’s call.
Because the light was pointing outwards, the spotlight was directly in Huo Jiang's eyes. For a moment, he could only see that the entire deck was empty except for the person standing in front of him. Huo Jiang immediately felt relieved and gave a safe signal to the person below.
With a powerful push against the ship's gunwale, Huo Jiang's massive body appeared exceptionally agile, landing silently on the deck like a nimble cat. His right hand gripped the paratrooper knife tightly as he warily watched Jack before him.
"Huh? You're not Jack?"
Once on deck, as Huo Jiang's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he discovered that the person standing in front of him was not wearing crew uniform, but rather dressed in dark clothing like himself, and was smiling at him.
"Damn it, I've been tricked..."
"Huo Jiang is a henchman in Brother Hui's former Qianmen organization. He has seen a lot of murders and arson over the years." He grinned maliciously and stabbed the man with the knife he was holding in his right hand.
Because there was only one security guard on the deck, Huo Jiang didn't suspect that their entire plan had failed. He thought that the incident was caused by the security guard's patrol. He figured that as long as he captured the man, the plan would proceed as scheduled once the other men boarded the ship.
Due to the time constraint, Huo Jiang didn't even have time to notify Hui Ge before he began his actions.
What puzzled him was that the person seemed like a puppet, ignoring the knife he had thrown at him, and displaying a strange smile on their face.
"Damn it, there's someone behind us!"
Just as Huo Jiang sensed something was wrong, he suddenly heard a whooshing sound behind his ear. Because his attention had been entirely focused on the person in front of him, he had no time to dodge.
With a muffled thud, blood gushed from Huo Jiang's head like a fountain, and his massive body swayed a few times before collapsing to the ground in despair.
"Damn, this thing really works..."
Peng Fei held a wrench the size of an arm in his hand, a sly smile on his face. With a swift movement, Huo Jiang's massive body and Peng Fei vanished from the deck at the same time.
For safety reasons, there is a row of baffles under the hull on the deck, which are recessed inward by about half a meter, just enough for a person to crouch and hide inside. Peng Fei and seven or eight security personnel were hiding inside. From the spiral staircase, they could not be seen at all.
Just now, Peng Fei caught Huo Jiang off guard when he wasn't paying attention to what was behind him. From behind, Huo Jiang was definitely a huge guy, and he must have some skill. So Peng Fei didn't care about any rules of the martial arts world and just took him down.
"Is that the kid? Damn it, hasn't he learned his lesson the hard way?"
Only after Huo Qiang pulled off the mask covering his face did Peng Fei realize who these people were. A sinister smile crept across his face as he gripped the wrench in his hand and chuckled, "This is what they call 'If there's a road to heaven, you won't take it; if there's no gate to hell, you'll have to walk right in!'"
Although so many things happened after Huo Jiang came up to the deck, it only took a few seconds. Just as Peng Fei pulled Huo Jiang's body under the barrier, another bandit climbed up.
This guy was even more unlucky. He had just poked his head out of the ship's railing when he felt a tightness in his shoulders and was suddenly lifted onto the deck as if floating on clouds. Before he could look around, he was hit on the back of the head and immediately lost consciousness.
"This guy is really quick. I wonder where Brother Hui found such a ruthless person?"
Following behind that guy was an old man from Liu Minghui's former Thousand Gates sect. He was admiring the guy's nimble skills when, unexpectedly, he got to experience the same treatment himself.
Six men in a row were swiftly taken down by Peng Fei and his men, while the thugs on the second speedboat below began boarding and had already climbed to the middle of the spiral staircase.
"Wait, this is a trick..."
Although the fog at sea was so thick that even with binoculars, it was impossible to see what was happening on the other ship's bow, the pre-arranged signal between Hui-ge and Huo-jiang had not been transmitted, causing Liu Minghui's heart to tighten.
According to the agreement, "after Huo Jiang successfully gets onto the deck, he should tap the walkie-talkie three times." However, more than half an hour has passed, and Huo Jiang has not made a sound.
Hui-ge became anxious, disregarding the fact that the sound coming from the walkie-talkie would alert the people on the ship. He grabbed the walkie-talkie and shouted, "Fifth Brother, Fifth Brother, reply if you hear me, reply if you hear me..."
Fire General is obviously unable to reply now.
Although he was physically strong, that wrench blow was enough to knock him unconscious for two hours. All he could hear was Liu Minghui's voice coming through the walkie-talkie on the deck.
"Return them all! Return them all! Quickly, return everything..."
Liu Minghui was a decisive man. He knew that the enemy must have been prepared to kill Huo Jiang so silently. At this moment, he couldn't care less about the life or death of his old brother who had followed him for one or two decades. He immediately ordered the people around him, "Set sail! Set sail immediately..."
The third brother beside Hui, unable to bear it any longer, opened his mouth and said, "Big brother, fifth brother, he..."
Before the third brother finished speaking, a gunshot rang out from a hundred meters away, followed by more than ten powerful spotlights piercing through the layers of fog and shining on the frigate.
"Brother Hui, you're here, so why are you in such a hurry to leave?" A slightly sinister voice came from the walkie-talkie in Brother Hui's hand.
Chapter 940 Gunshots Before Dawn (Part 2)
"ah……"
As the gunshot rang out, a shrill, desperate cry shattered the silence on the sea, and a dark figure plummeted heavily into the water from the ship's hull, which was more than twenty meters high.
A hundred meters away, Hui Ge felt a chill run down his spine. He knew he had probably met his match. He picked up the walkie-talkie and, not afraid of being heard by the people on the other ship, shouted, "Fight back! Fight back!" To be fair, Liu Minghui's gang of pirates were quite capable. As they slid down the ship, they had already drawn their submachine guns, which spewed fire.
Flashes of fire shot toward the bow of the ship, temporarily preventing Peng Fei and the others from getting up. Deafening gunfire echoed across the sea. If most of them hadn't been drunk yesterday, who knows what kind of panic would have ensued.
Zhuang Rui barely slept all night. He originally wanted to stay in the monitoring room, but he was afraid of frightening his wife and children, so he stayed in his room the whole time.
The gunshots that rang out on the sea sounded particularly crisp. As soon as the first shot rang out, Zhuang Rui immediately sat up in bed.
Qin Xuanbing was also awakened by the gunshot, but she couldn't tell what it was. She lazily rubbed her eyes, looked at Zhuang Rui, and asked, "Honey, what's wrong? Are we working so early?"
Because working at sea at night is dangerous, and it's too hot at noon, the working hours are usually in the early morning and evening. Zhuang Rui has been getting up very early these past few days, and Qin Xuanbing has gotten used to it.
"It's not work, Xuanbing, you just stay inside and watch the children. No matter what happens, don't go out..."
Before Zhuang Rui could finish speaking, bursts of submachine gun fire rang out. Even if Qin Xuanbing was inexperienced, she could tell that it was gunfire. Her face paled instantly, and she jumped up and rushed into the house next door.
Although Qin Xuanbing didn't know what had happened and was very scared, she immediately put the danger aside when she thought of her children and rushed into their sleeping room.
"Mom...Mom..."
Fangfang and Yuanyuan were also awakened from their sleep by the gunshot, and they grinned, looking like they were about to cry.
"Damn it, how could I forget to put earmuffs on them..."
Zhuang Rui patted his head, picked up his son, walked to the living room, casually turned on the satellite TV, and started watching a blockbuster action movie.
The surround sound system was truly amazing; the gunshots coming from inside immediately overshadowed the sounds outside, making the sounds from the television seem even more realistic.
Although the two little ones didn't know why their dad made them watch TV so early in the morning, they were quickly drawn to the lively fighting on TV and couldn't tell where the gunshots were coming from.
"Honey, you...you mustn't go out..."
Qin Xuanbing became nervous when she saw Zhuang Rui putting on his coat and about to leave the room.
Zhuang Rui put his arm around Qin Xuanbing, kissed her on the forehead, and said with a smile, "Hehe, it's okay. I'll go to the monitoring room. Don't worry, everything has been arranged, nothing will happen..."
"Daddy, I want it, I want it..."
Seeing Zhuang Rui's actions, the two little ones reached out to him, wanting him to kiss them too.