Cicada Moving

Chapter 1162 Brave

"Walk!"

Looking at the curtains swinging in the wind, Gucci only said one word and ran quickly downstairs.

The rest of the people automatically separated into a group of people to protect the scene. Song Minghao and another group of people followed Gu Qi to the small garden on the first floor directly below the window.

 The light from the flashlight shone on the soft soil, and everyone immediately saw several lines of messy footprints. Without exception, these footprints all extended towards the wall.

Gu Qi squatted down and observed the ground carefully, stretched out his hand to indicate the size of one of the footprints, touched the brown soil, put it in front of his nose, smelled it, and spoke slowly.

“Female, the sole pattern is consistent with the leather shoes issued by the bureau. She must have been injured. The smell of blood is very strong and the amount of bleeding is not small.”

These clues all point to the missing female telegraph operator. The expressions of the people present were solemn. The staff in the telegraph room fought until the last moment, surely to cover the other party's evacuation, and the code book was probably on the other party's possession.

After finishing speaking, Gu Qi looked at the pairs of footprints next to him and continued in a deep voice: "There are no less than 10 pursuers. The footprints are deep and shallow, the strides are consistent, and there are traces of training."

Then he stood up and turned to look at the courtyard wall. Without saying anything, he jumped onto the wall in a running start, stretched his head to look outside the wall, and turned back to wave to everyone.

“Old Song, take ten people to follow me, and the rest will look for witnesses, and then notify the garrison headquarters to block all access to and from the city, including waterways.”

After giving the order, Gu Qi climbed over the wall neatly and landed on the ground. He drew his gun and hid in the darkness of the corner, looking around him warily.

After the explosion, the residents next to the safe house did not come out to watch the excitement, nor did they run around. Instead, they stayed at home quietly, and the narrow streets and alleys were deserted.

 After two years of torture by air raids, the people in mountain cities now know what they should do and what they should not do.

With a few faint sounds of landing, Song Minghao and ten agents also climbed over the wall, surrounded Gu Qi in a battle formation, and silently loaded the guns in their hands.

 “Old Song, look.”

Gu Qi lit up the flashlight and shined it on the ground, then quickly extinguished it, changed the position of his feet, and whispered a reminder.

Relying on this extremely brief light, Song Minghao saw a pair of **** footprints running towards the alley. The size closely matched the female footprints in the garden. It seemed that the other party had successfully escaped from the safe house.

Gucci didn’t need to say what to do next. The little agents were divided into multiple combat groups and started following the footprints. This was not difficult for agents who had received professional training.

After following for more than two hundred meters, they found many blood stains on telephone poles, the ground and other objects along the way. Gu Qi and Song Minghao's expressions became heavy.

With such a large amount of blood loss, even if the escaping telegraph operator was not captured by the enemy, he would not be able to survive for long without timely rescue.

 After walking another hundred meters or so, the traces suddenly disappeared.

This means that the operator was either captured, or noticed the blood and bandaged the wound himself. Judging from the environment at the scene, the former is more likely.

 Gu Qi was anxious and quickly ordered a scattered search. When the enemy took away the telegraph operator, they would definitely leave traces.

Mountain cities are no different from other places. Military and policemen are gathered here, and the surrounding area will be blocked as soon as the explosion is heard. If the enemy wants to escape safely, especially with a prisoner, he must use transportation.

So, there should be car ruts nearby, and even if it doesn't work, they can get relevant clues from nearby residents, such as the sound of car engines.

However, after searching around, the agents found no traces. The missing operators and enemies seemed to have disappeared out of thin air.

Just when Gucci was about to order a large-scale search, his flashlight accidentally glanced at a bookstore on the corner. There was a faint reflection on the surface of the closed door, as if something was stuck to it.

 “Alert! You still have something, go and take a look.”

Gucci lowered his figure, nodded to two people and made a gesture. He pointed the PPK in his hand towards the direction of the bookstore and was about to engage in a firefight with the enemy.

The two little spies who received the order did not hesitate. They covered each other and moved outside the store door. One of them leaned sidely to listen to what was going on inside, and the other leaned close to the door and sniffed.

Blood!

 The disappearing blood stains reappeared here. The little agent turned around and clenched his fist to indicate that he had discovered something. Then he walked to the door and kicked the door panel hard.

After a bang, the thick solid wood door panel was kicked open, and a scream suddenly came from the pitch-black shop.

 “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I didn’t see anything.”

Two spies, one on the left and one on the right, broke into the room using Zuo's maneuver. They held guns in their right hands and flashlights in their left hands. The light quickly swept across the room.

This gesture of holding a flashlight is common in low-visibility indoor combat. The purpose is to allow hidden enemies to misestimate their own height and position, although it is of little significance.

Under the bright flashlight, a middle-aged man wearing a long gown came out of the cabinet, raised his hands, and kept begging for mercy at them, with a look of horror on his face.

In addition, at the entrance, there was another person lying at the feet of the two people. There was a collapsed bookshelf in front of the other person. Except for a broken kerosene lamp, there were no other items on the ground.

After checking the house and confirming it was safe, one of the agents walked to the door and made a brief report to Gu Qi and Song Minghao outside.

Gu Qi thought for a moment and ordered someone to go back to report the news and guide the large forces that came later to come here for support. He strode into the bookstore and leaned over to check the person who fell to the ground or the corpse.

With the help of a flashlight, a pale female face appeared in front of him. There were burn marks on her hands, and there were multiple gunshot wounds on her back and legs. The wounds on her legs were simply bandaged.

In those dim eyes, there was fear of death, a little relief from pain, and more of an indescribable determination.

“Her name is Xiao Lingzi. She is from Shanghai. She is the only daughter in the family. After graduating from the Liling training class last year, she entered the telecommunications department of the second department. She is just 18 this year.”

On the sidelines, Song Minghao introduced the identity of the deceased in a low tone, thinking of the scene when they met in the afternoon.

At that time, the other party told him with excitement that she wanted to visit the north after driving away the Japanese. She was born in the south and had never seen white snow. She had only seen the vast white plains in books. This is a child who should be studying in school without any worries and enjoying all the beauty in the world. Her life should not end here.

 “Damn devil!”

Song Minghao's eyes were red and he cursed bitterly. He stretched out his hand to help Xiao Lingzi close her eyes. Then he looked up at Gu Qi as if he thought of something.

"The explosion of the safe house should have been caused by the guards. This was the last resort to protect the codebook. The purpose was to die with the enemy. But now only a small half of the explosives have been detonated. There is something wrong with this."

As soon as these words came out, Gu Qi was shocked. Although this sentence was short, the meaning behind it was very complicated.

 Why was only a small part of the explosive detonated?

 Is it failure due to moisture?

 Or was it demolished?

But how did the enemy know this, and how did they find the exact location of the explosives? In addition, the secret surveillance point was attacked. These cannot be explained by coincidence.

 There must be an insider within the military command and even the two departments!

 Gu Qi thought for a while, turned his head suddenly and looked at the middle-aged man in a long gown who was undergoing a body search, and asked coldly: "What's going on? Please tell me honestly."

The middle-aged man's hands were handcuffed behind his back, and several pistols were placed on his forehead. When he heard his question, he immediately replied in Shancheng dialect with a sad face.

"Sir, as soon as I closed the door, this girl rushed in and pushed down the bookshelf. She took out a small book from her arms and mixed it with the books on the floor. She then held a kerosene lamp and burned her fingers. Then she died. .

When I saw this situation, I hid in the cupboard, and a few more people rushed in. They touched Yaomei's neck and shot her several times. The things on her body and the books on the ground were also destroyed by these people. Take away.

More than two hundred books, it’s so useless. If my wife (wife) in the house knew about it, I would be in trouble. Sir, I really didn’t see anything. Those people had their faces covered. "

  The middle-aged man felt that he had suffered an unreasonable disaster, and the more he spoke, the more he felt aggrieved. He opened a small bookstore and did business as usual. Who knew he would encounter such a thing.

 Gu Qi and Song Minghao fell into silence after listening to his narration, and looked at Xiao Lingzi with eyes full of respect.

 The two of them knew that the other party's series of actions had only one purpose, which was to protect the codebook.

The safe house suffered a sneak attack. The enemy had a well-planned plan, accurate marksmanship and mastered the safe house's internal intelligence. The staff had no time to destroy the code book, so they had to cover Xiao Ayako, who had been shot, to evacuate with the code book.

 The reason why the hope of survival was left to her may be because she is the youngest among the agents, or because she was the least injured.

  Xiao Ayako lived up to everyone’s expectations. After realizing that she could not survive, she made a last-ditch effort and tried her best to do two things.

 One is to hide the code book with the help of many books in the bookstore.

The second is to destroy the fingerprints to prevent the enemy from obtaining these books and finding the code book by comparing the fingerprints.

In this way, even if the codebook falls into the hands of the enemy, the enemy will not be able to find the codebook from the two to three hundred books by trying to decipher it through the secret code file in a short period of time.

 At the moment of death, Xiao Ayako was not thinking about how to escape, but about the mission. She made the most difficult decision in the shortest time, at the cost of her own life.

As for why the codebook was not concealed during the escape, in that case there was no time at all, and the enemy was not a fool and would definitely search along the way.

It is not safe to destroy the code book after entering the store. Once it is not dealt with completely, it will give the enemy the possibility to decipher the code base. Xiao Ayako's approach is the best choice.

"salute!"

Gucci gave a low drink, straightened his body and gave a standard military salute to Xiao Lingzi. The agents present raised their right hands and put them in front of their foreheads to see off this brave and young colleague.

After saluting, Gu Qi slowly put down his hand and asked Song Minghao a question: "Old Song, was the codebook specially compiled, or was it selected from books on the market?"

This issue is very important. If it is a specially compiled code book, the enemy can easily find the correct target from the book taken away.

Song Minghao swallowed his saliva and said with a smile on his face: "According to the instructions of the deputy chairperson, the password for contacting the printing house must be changed regularly. It would be troublesome to compile it specially, so the code books are selected from books on the market."

 Gu Qi breathed a sigh of relief. Just change it regularly. In this way, no matter whether the enemy can find the code book or not, he can only decipher part of the secret message content.

 Immediately, he asked the middle-aged man whether the books in the bookstore had seals or marks, and how new they were.

 These two issues are also related to the security of the codebook.

If the books are stamped in a conspicuous place or are new, a codebook with traces of use will still be visible to the enemy at a glance.

Fortunately, the middle-aged man said tremblingly, the bookstore was full of second-hand books, old and new, and the pages were not stamped.

 Confirming that the codebook was safe, at least temporarily, Gu Qi gave Song Minghao four orders.

“Old Song, send someone to protect this bookstore owner. After the enemy takes away the books and finds that he cannot find the code book, he may come back and attack him.

You personally lead a group of people to cooperate with the garrison headquarters to strengthen the blockade in and out of the city. All land and water transportation and mail packages must be checked one by one. The other party or the code book cannot be allowed to leave the mountain city.

In addition, organize all the remaining personnel from the first and second offices, together with the police station, to conduct a large-scale search of the city. Not a single room or suspicious person should be missed.

The brothers at the scene are responsible for visiting residents near the safe house, surveillance point and bookstore, conducting detailed surveys of the three sites, figuring out all the details of the incident, and pursuing the enemy's escape trajectory. "

As he spoke, he rubbed his swollen and painful head and added: "I will report the matter to the bureau chief immediately and send a report to the deputy chairperson. Everyone, please hurry up."

 (End of this chapter)