59: Chapter 59 The Death Dance in the Rainy Night

The downpour was like countless whips, lashing fiercely against the reflecting pool in front of the lincoln Memorial.

Jessica Vance stood by the edge of the pool, soaked to the bone. Her trench coat was heavy with water, hanging on her frame like a body bag.

She had no umbrella; the rain flowed down her hair and into her collar, freezing and bone-chilling.

The area was deserted, save for the warning light atop the Washington Monument in the distance, flickering with a scarlet glow through the curtain of rain.

Ten o'clock sharp.

No one came.

The mysterious call might have been a cruel prank, or a lure to expose her in an open area.

Jessica wiped the rain from her face, reached into her trench coat pocket, and gripped the unnumbered spare glock.

Three hundred meters away, in the shadows of the bushes at Constitution Gardens.

An eye was pressed against a night-vision scope. The crosshairs were locked on Jessica's brow.

"Target confirmed. Cleanup protocol initiated."

The sniper's finger rested on the trigger.

His breathing slowed, his heartbeat syncing with the sound of the rain. This was his favorite moment: pulling the trigger and watching the person in the distance fall like a marionette with cut strings.

Just one shot.

"Bang!"

A muffled sound.

It wasn't a gunshot.

The sniper felt his neck go cold, and the world in his vision suddenly spun—it was his own head leaving his torso.

He saw a headless body still holding a rifle, kneeling in the muddy water.

That was himself.

Chen Mo stood behind the corpse, a tactical knife in his hand flicking off a string of blood droplets that mixed into the rain.

"Too slow."

He evaluated softly, his voice swallowed by the downpour.

In his system vision, there were seven red hostile markers remaining.

They were surrounding the reflecting pool in a fan shape, waiting for the sniper's gunshot as the signal to attack.

Chen Mo pulled his hat brim low; his black raincoat allowed him to melt into the night.

[Gun Kata] initiated.

The world changed in his eyes.

The trajectory of falling raindrops turned into slow-motion lines, and the splash of every water droplet mapped out the minute disturbances in the surrounding environment.

To the left, at the two o'clock position, the bushes.

Chen Mo pushed off with his toes, his body like a swallow skimming the ground.

The ambushing gunman only felt a gust of wind sweep past.

Before he could even turn his head, a hand had already crushed his throat.

"Snap."

The sound of bone shattering was crisp and pleasant.

Chen Mo didn't even slow down. Using the momentum of his forward rush, his left hand drew the suppressed glock and fired blindly at an oak tree to his right.

"Pfft."

The agent behind the tree, who was just about to pull the pin on a grenade, was shot in the brow and fell backward.

The grenade rolled into the mud without exploding.

Three down.

The remaining four finally sensed something was wrong.

"The sniper is quiet! Something's wrong! Open fire!"

Someone shouted.

Jessica turned sharply.

Several tongues of fire spat out in the rainy night.

Bullets struck the marble edge of the reflecting pool, sending stone chips flying and grazing her cheek.

She quickly dove behind the steps, her heart pounding wildly.

There really was an ambush.

But the gunfire didn't last long.

She heard a strange rhythm coming from the darkness.

"Pfft, pfft."

Two gunshots accompanied by the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground.

Followed by short screams, then the tearing sound of sharp blades cutting into flesh.

Chen Mo danced in the rain.

[Death's Dance] allowed him to predict the trajectory of every bullet.

He sidestepped a hail of gunfire, his body twisting at an angle that defied human mechanics, and the glock in his hand spat flames.

The bullets pierced the rain curtain and drilled into a gunman's eye socket.

He stepped on the knee of that corpse to leap into the air, his right leg descending like a battle axe, smashing the cervical spine of the last enemy who tried to draw a knife.

Seven seconds.

Except for the sound of the rain, the world returned to silence.

Jessica lay on the ground, gripping her gun tightly with both hands.

She couldn't hear gunfire anymore, nor could she hear footsteps.

This deathly silence was more suffocating than the firefight just moments ago.

"Come out."

The electronically processed voice sounded abruptly above her head.

Jessica flipped over violently, pointing her gun upward.

Chen Mo stood on the steps, looking down at her.

Rainwater flowed down his black mask, gathered at his chin, and dripped off.

He held a still-smoking gun in his hand, and a corpse lay at his feet.

The corpse was wearing an FBI tactical vest.

Jessica's pupils contracted; she recognized that face.

It was Miller, an agent from Internal Affairs.

Just last week, he had complained about the terrible coffee with her in the cafeteria and had smilingly shown her a photo of his daughter.

Now, there was a bloody hole in Miller's head; his eyes were wide open, staring in death.

"How... how could it be him?" Jessica's voice trembled.

"Because he was the most useful blade." Chen Mo walked down the steps, his boots stepping into the accumulated water and splashing black spray.

"And the cheapest blade, too. A pension, or a piece of leverage, was all it took to make him turn his gun on his former colleagues."

Chen Mo bent down, pried the gun from Miller's stiff hand, removed the magazine, and threw it into the pool.

"Look around, Agent Vance."

Jessica stood up shakily.

By the light of the lightning, she saw it.

In the bushes, under the trees, on the grass.

Corpses lay scattered everywhere, some in plainclothes, some in tactical gear.

They were all familiar faces.

There were those in charge of logistics, those in intelligence analysis, and there was even an intern she had once trained.

"This is your funeral honor guard." Chen Mo's voice was as cold as ice.

"They didn't come to catch you; they came to clean you up. As long as you are dead, Senator Gore's scandal can be pinned entirely on you—a crazy woman who lost her mind, forged evidence, and committed suicide out of fear."

Jessica felt her stomach churning. She wanted to vomit.

This was the organization she had sworn to serve.

This was the order she had fought to protect.

"Why?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"Because you were in the way." Chen Mo walked up to her and stopped at a distance of one step.

The eyes behind the mask showed no pity, only scrutiny.

"In this game, there are only hunters and prey. You want to be a sheepdog? Sorry, sheepdogs are usually the first ones slaughtered for meat."

Jessica looked at Miller on the ground, the rain washing the blood on his face, those dead, grey eyes seemingly mocking her innocence.

Anger.

An unprecedented rage rose from the soles of her feet, burning through her reason, burning away her fear.

She raised her head and stared fixedly at Chen Mo's mask.

"You knew it would be like this all along."

"Yes."

"You did it on purpose."

"Yes."

"You used me."

"Exactly." Chen Mo admitted it frankly.

"If I didn't let you see this, you would always hold illusions about that rotten system.

You would think about turning yourself in, about following the procedure, about justice eventually triumphing over evil."

He reached out and pointed at the corpses on the ground.

"This is the end of the procedure."

Jessica fell silent.

She let go of the gun she was holding, letting the spare glock drop to the ground.

She had lost, lost completely.

The old Jessica Vance died at this moment.

She took a deep breath, the air mixed with the smell of blood and mud filling her lungs, choking her and making her want to cough, but she held it back.

"Teach me."

Jessica looked at Chen Mo, no longer any confusion in her eyes, only two burning ghost fires.

"Teach me how to kill them all."

Chen Mo laughed. Although it was behind a mask, Jessica could feel that he was laughing.

The laugh of a hunter seeing a cub finally grow fangs.

"Get in the car."

Chen Mo turned and walked toward the black sedan in the darkness that hadn't been turned off.

"Welcome to hell, Agent."