114: Chapter 114 Welcome to Hell

As soon as the Gulfstream G650's cabin door opened, a heatwave wrapped in sand poured in.

It was the smell of 45-degree heat baking the asphalt, mixed with dry dust and the acrid scent of burning engine oil.

Ava Rockefeller had barely stepped out one foot before she was choked into a fit of violent coughing.

She instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight; her eyes, pampered in Manhattan, were stung with pain.

Chen Mo stood behind her, adjusting his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose.

He didn't cough; instead, he took a deep breath, as if wanting to fill his lungs with this dry heat.

"Can you smell that?" He looked down to adjust his cuffs.

"What?" Ava was coughing so hard tears came to her eyes. "Sand? Or that damn smell of cow dung?"

"It's the smell of burning dollars." Chen Mo picked up the black briefcase and led the way down the gangway. "If you set oil on fire, this is probably what it smells like."

The private tarmac at Midland International Airport was as empty as a shooting range.

There was no red carpet, no hypocritical business reception staff, only two vultures circling above the wire fence.

And three black Ford Raptor pickup trucks.

Those vehicles looked like three giant bison; they didn't even turn off their engines, just sat horizontally in the center of the exit, blocking all paths.

Each car door was sprayed with a dark red pentagram logo; it was the mark of Lone Star Energy.

The lincoln Navigator that Chen Mo had rented was sandwiched between these three behemoths, looking rather pathetic.

"It seems our reception standard is quite high." Chen Mo didn't stop, walking straight ahead.

Ava followed behind him, her high heels clicking sharply on the scorching concrete.

She could feel someone staring at her from behind the car windows; that gaze was thick and disgusting, like looking at a plucked turkey.

A big fat man in a khaki uniform jumped down from the middle pickup truck.

He was at least three hundred pounds, his belly stretching his wide duty belt to the limit. A somewhat rusty pentagram police badge was pinned to his left chest pocket, trembling with every step he took.

He was chewing a large piece of tobacco, his cheeks bulging like a hamster.

"Big Bob," the fat man said, walking up to Chen Mo without looking at him. His eyes, squeezed into slits by fat, were locked onto Ava's thighs. "Midland County Sheriff. Routine inspection."

"Inspect what?" Ava couldn't help but speak up. "I am from the Rockefeller Family…"

"I know who you are, sweetheart." Big Bob spat out a mouthful of brown saliva, landing right next to Ava's two-thousand-dollar red-bottomed shoes.

"Around here, Rockefeller is just a surname. But this is Texas, and we only recognize Lone Star."

He reached out his large, red-haired hand and grabbed directly for the suitcase in Chen Mo's hand: "Someone reported that this plane is carrying contraband. I'm going to search it."

Ava was shaking with rage.

Those were the family's confidential documents, along with the cash Chen Mo had brought.

Just as she was about to reach into her bag for her phone to call a lawyer, a hand pressed down on her shoulder.

Chen Mo smiled.

He let go, allowing Big Bob to snatch the suitcase.

"The Sheriff is right; cooperating with law enforcement is a citizen's duty."

As he spoke, Chen Mo pulled a stack of Benjamin Franklins, bound by a rubber band, from his suit pocket.

That stack was at least five thousand dollars.

Chen Mo didn't hand the money over; instead, he stuffed the roll of cash directly into Big Bob's chest pocket, right next to the police badge.

His movements were natural; he even casually patted the bulging pocket for the sheriff, as if brushing off dust.

"This is for the boys to have a cold beer." Chen Mo leaned in close to Big Bob, his voice very low. "Don't get heatstroke."

Big Bob froze for a moment. He looked down at the bulging pocket, then back at Chen Mo.

He hadn't expected this Asian man in an expensive suit, who looked like a Wall Street wimp, to be so sensible.

"Consider yourself sensible." Big Bob snorted and tossed the suitcase back to Chen Mo.

"In Midland, if you want to live a long time, don't take yourself too seriously. The soil in Texas is hard; you don't need to dig deep to bury someone."

He spat again and turned to climb into the pickup.

The three Raptors revved their engines, kicking up a cloud of dust, and as if deliberately showing off, fishtailed in front of the lincoln before roaring away.

"You just let them leave like that?" Ava watched the vehicles retreat, gritting her teeth. "They were insulting me just now."

"They are leading the way for us." Chen Mo tossed the dusty suitcase into the lincoln's trunk.

During that pat on Big Bob's shoulder, a fingernail-sized micro tracker had already been stuck to the inside of the fat man's duty belt.

"Get in the car." Chen Mo opened the car door. "Unless you want to stand here and turn into beef jerky."

The lincoln drove out of the airport, and the scenery on both sides quickly became desolate.

Endless pumpjacks, like tireless monsters, pumped black blood from the ground, bobbing up and down.

Ava sat in the passenger seat with the air conditioning on full blast, but she still felt hot and kept staring at the rearview mirror.

"Someone is following us," she said.

Two old jeeps without any license plates, like two mangy dogs, were tailing them about two hundred meters behind.

The dust kicked up obscured the windshields, making it impossible to see how many people were inside.

"I know." Chen Mo held the steering wheel with one hand and lit a cigarette with the other.

He didn't even glance back.

"Are they from Lone Star Energy? Or sent by that sheriff?" Ava's voice was tight. "Should we call the police?"

"Call the police here?" Chen Mo exhaled a puff of smoke and pointed to the endless desert outside the window. "That fat man was the law; you expect the law to arrest the law?"

He picked up the box of paper matches tossed on the center console.

On the box, which was soaked in grease, the handwritten number had become somewhat blurred.

Chen Mo dialed the number.

The phone rang for a long time before it was answered.

There was no polite "Hello"; what came through the receiver was a crisp metallic clatter.

It was the sound of a pump-action shotgun being chambered.

Immediately following was a rough, gritty voice that sounded like someone speaking with sandpaper in their mouth.

"If you're selling insurance, I'll blow your balls off. If you're an IRS tax agent, I'll blow your other ball off too."

The voice paused for a moment, and the sound of an electric drill came from the background.

"Speak."

Chen Mo smiled and said into the phone, "George says his knee hurts and wants to find someone for physical therapy."

The other side was silent for two seconds.

"That old bastard hasn't rotted in the Hudson River yet?"

The murderous intent in the voice faded slightly, but a hint of mockery was added. "Are you here to pay his debts, or to die for him?"

Chen Mo glanced at the rearview mirror.

The two jeeps began to accelerate, clearly not wanting to let them enter the city.

"I'm here to buy a 'Bible'," Chen Mo flicked the cigarette ash. "The largest caliber kind."

"Then you've got the wrong person; I only have stuff that makes the devil shut up."

"That's perfect." Chen Mo yanked the steering wheel to the left. The lincoln Navigator let out a sharp screech of friction as it charged straight into a gravel-filled side road.

The car body jolted violently; Ava screamed and gripped the handle tightly.

"I have two tails behind me right now," Chen Mo said calmly into the phone.

"I'll be at your church in about five minutes. Prepare a hole for me that can bury people."

"Hahahaha!" A burst of crazy laughter came from the other end of the phone. "Did you bring enough money? Kid."

"I brought enough."

Chen Mo hung up the phone and floored the accelerator.

In the rearview mirror, the two jeeps were like sharks that smelled blood, engines roaring as they broke through the dust and bit down hard.

The sunroof of one of the cars opened, and a guy wearing a red bandana leaned out halfway, holding an Uzi submachine gun.

"Get down." Chen Mo reached out and pressed Ava's head down, pinning her against his legs.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

A burst of bullets hit the lincoln's rear windshield; the bulletproof glass instantly covered with spiderweb-like cracks.

"Welcome to Texas." Chen Mo stared at the cracks, his eyes colder than the air conditioning. "We don't welcome tourists here."