Chapter 605 - It'll Cost More to Get There Earlier, and I Don't Accept Checks

The dog curled its lip and turned its head to look at the view outside the car.

Luke finally called Selina and told her the basic situation. Selina: “No problem at all. I’ll take care of things here. Be careful.”

Luke: “Gold Nugget is with me. You…”

Selina didn’t consider it a big deal. “That’s fine. That guy’s amazing, it’ll be good if it can help you.”

Luke just hummed in agreement and hung up.

He and Selina were too close for him to thank her for something so small.

He reached a private airfield in the outskirts twenty minutes later. Disguising his appearance, he simply reported Jenny’s name and was led to a plane by the waiting flight attendant.

Luke was in no mood to talk to the beautiful flight attendant. He simply said thanks and then said, “We can take off now. I’m in a hurry.”

The flight attendant didn’t waste time on words either. Few people who urgently needed to fly at night wouldn’t be in a hurry.

Luke wasn’t her employer, but her employer was very powerful, so whoever could borrow this plane couldn’t be ordinary.

On the plane, Luke took out his laptop and checked the intelligence.

He knew what Robert and Catherine’s travel plan was, but hadn’t studied it in detail. At that moment, he frowned when he found the ship’s location.

The ship, which left from New York for Europe, was right in the middle of nowhere, like Robert said.

It was hundreds of kilometers to the nearest continent, and almost ten thousand kilometers from New York.

Considering what Robert said about those people being prepared, Luke felt that things didn’t look good.

There was no point reporting this to the police.

In a major case like this where a thousand people were held as hostages on a ship, the police’s first choice would be negotiation.

It might be more than ten hours later when they really sent out professional teams for a rescue operation.

As for the tourists who were killed in the rescue operation, that would just be a number for the police.

It didn’t really matter who died, as long as they weren’t important people.

Luke, on the other hand, only wanted to ensure Robert and Catherine’s safety. The safety of the other tourists wasn’t something he could take care of. He couldn’t protect over a thousand tourists on his own.

As the plane flew east, Luke checked the messages which Robert sent to him every now and then via the satellite phone.

The situation was neither good nor bad.

The assailants on the ship seemed to have a clear target. They didn’t attack the tourists, but had them gather in groups in different locations, as if they were looking for someone.

But as the tourists were herded toward several locations to be locked up, there were fewer places for Robert and Catherine to hide.

There were over two hundred assailants, each with their own role; they were very careful and professional.

They set up a perimeter and cleared the ship floor by floor of the tourists.

Robert didn’t dare do anything at all.

All the criminals had walkie-talkies. They were also operating in groups and checking in with each other regularly.

If he killed any of them, it would be discovered in less than ten minutes, and the other criminals would search for him.

At the same time, the assailants had sealed off critical locations on the cruise ship.

If Robert was on his own, these blockades would be nothing

But Catherine was with him, and he wasn’t confident they could sneak back and hide in the areas already cleared by the assailants. Thankfully, the ship was quite big, and the criminals weren’t in a rush. A blanket search would take some time.

Luke silently calculated the time, and was still a little worried. The best outcome would be that he arrived first.

That way, he would absolutely be able to ensure Catherine’s safety.

He didn’t have to worry about Robert, who wasn’t an ordinary person either.

The worst outcome would be that both Robert and Catherine were discovered. Luke could only hope that Robert wouldn’t act impulsively when that happened.

But just three hours into the flight, Robert sent a piece of bad news: the police had already learned that the ship had been hijacked.

Clearly, he wasn’t the only one with a satellite phone on the ship.

The assailants thus picked up their pace and became rougher in their methods. The first unlucky b*astard to be shot also appeared.

He was a police officer who was traveling with his wife. He got riled up when his wife was shoved by the assailants and he got into a tussle with them. One of the assailants then opened fire. Luke furrowed his brow.

This was exactly the situation he was afraid of.

On an isolated ship, the assailants would be more relaxed and less wary of the outside world, and wouldn’t act too hastily.

But the threat of the police was bound to cause a chain reaction.

Also, now that the criminals had shot and injured someone, they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the next rebel.

Finally, at midnight in New York, Luke quickly got off the plane and boarded another small plane on the private airfield.

The pilot was a bearded man. He simply started up the plane and took off after Luke recited the order number and the coordinates of his destination.

He didn’t really care why this client, who was covered all in black, including even his face, was going to the ocean in the middle of the night.

After all, the client had paid ten times the usual price.

For this unexpected fortune, the pilot didn’t mind taking some risks.

He wasn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen. This plane had been personally modified, and it was against the law to use it for business purposes, but it flew faster and further than other planes of its size.

A round trip of almost two thousand kilometers wasn’t something a regular small plane could do. Furthermore, this client would be jumping out of the plane halfway, which was quite rare. But so what? In any case, the client had already paid. In the dark, vast night, the plane climbed swiftly, leaving behind metropolitan New York that was ablaze with lights.

Looking at the speedometer, Luke asked, “How many hours to our destination?”

The bearded man: “Within three hours.”

Luke checked his watch. It was ten past twelve. Pondering for a moment, he asked, “How much faster can you go without risking our safety?” While he wished the plane could fly like a rocket, it would unfortunately just disintegrate in the air if that happened.

After a brief silence, the bearded man said, “It’ll cost more to get there earlier.”

Luke: “I can do that.”

The bearded man: “I can get you there in two and a half hours. How much more can you give?”

Luke: “Two hundred thousand.”

The bearded man glanced back at him. “I don’t accept checks.”

Luke searched his backpack casually and took out a black bag. He tossed it to the bearded man and said, “Start the countdown. If you don’t get to our destination by twenty to three, you won’t get any of the money.”

The bearded man paid him no mind at all. He just swiftly checked the two wads of cash with one hand before he stuffed the bag into the space under his seat. “With money, it’s possible.”

Saying that, he pressed several things on the dashboard, and the plane suddenly accelerated.

Luke completely understood the bearded pilot’s way of doing things.

Why would he accept a private job at midnight to fly out to the ocean a thousand kilometers away if it wasn’t all about money?

Why would he turn a blind eye to the client jumping out of the plane halfway if he wasn’t greedy?