31. Hawk Solos Quantico Base

The next day, early morning.

Hawk, dressed and ready, approached the front desk of the motel and pulled out thirty dollars from his pocket, handing it over.

“Extend for one more day.”

“The room key.”

“Here.”

He handed the room key across. The motel clerk took the key, glanced at the room number, completed the registration, and then returned the key to Hawk.

Hawk took back the key, thanked the clerk, and turned to leave the motel.

Not long after, he arrived at the Quantico base...

Along the mountain trail nearby.

Hawk wasn’t worried that his morning jog would attract the attention of the base soldiers.

Because besides him, other residents of the town of Quantico also used this trail for their morning runs.

Wearing a baseball cap, Hawk followed at a leisurely pace at the back of the running group, not drawing any notice.

Soon, upon reaching a bend in the trail, Hawk observed that the people ahead had not noticed him, and those behind had yet to catch up. Without hesitation, he suddenly accelerated with a swift whoosh. By the time the others caught up, Hawk had vanished.

Only the rustling of leaves in the forest beside the trail remained.

By the time Hawk reappeared, returning to the motel, it was already afternoon.

Back in his room, seated on the edge of the bed, Hawk pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Unfolding it, his eyes fell upon a simple internal map of the Quantico military base.

The barracks.

The office building.

The tank depot.

The airfield.

And...

An abandoned laboratory.

Hawk had spent the entire morning roughly familiarizing himself with his destination, then the afternoon swiftly navigating the forests near the base to find three escape routes.

He hadn’t decided which escape route to take yet.

But that didn’t matter.

Having escape routes was enough; he could adapt when the time came.

Thinking so, Hawk glanced once more at the map, marked with symbols only he could understand. Then he tore the paper into pieces, shredding it beyond repair even to the most skilled, before discarding the fragments into the room’s trash bin.

Soon, the sun began to set.

At that moment, Hawk returned to the motel’s front desk, handed over the room key, completed checkout, and stepped out.

This was a motel.

The clerk had seen guests check out mere minutes after checking in with their companions, so Hawk’s early checkout didn’t surprise him.

After leaving, Hawk found a nearby pizza place, ordered a pie, and ate by the window.

A great battle was about to begin—he couldn’t afford to be hungry.

If he got weak halfway through the fight or was caught while fleeing because of hunger, that would be a tragedy.

Nightfall was complete.

Well-fed and under the cover of darkness, Hawk dashed through the dense forest, moving so swiftly that he sounded like a sonic boom, swiftly reaching the high-voltage security fence of the military base.

He didn’t rush inside. Instead, he looked up at the towering sentry tower within the base.

The spotlight atop the tower swept slowly across a predetermined range under the night sky.

As the beam passed over, Hawk pulled his hood low and concealed himself behind a tree.

He had already used the baseball cap during his morning jog; to avoid suspicion, he didn’t wear it again.

But the black hooded jumpsuit was suitable.

He had found it in the trunk of the taxi before driving it into the river.

After leaving the pizza place, Hawk had changed into this outfit.

Soon, the spotlight moved away from the tree where Hawk hid.

In the next instant, he emerged without hesitation, bending his right knee slightly, the soft earth beneath his feet giving way, and like a great roc, he silently took flight, soaring over the security fence—something no ordinary person could manage—and landed inside the base.

Once inside, the rest would be simple.

He only had to locate the abandoned laboratory, break in, then escape.

Hawk already had a plan.

Landing inside the base, he followed the plan, darting swiftly through the shadows along the base’s edge toward the abandoned laboratory he had scouted.

A minute later, the lab came into view—surrounded by corrugated iron sheets, with two soldiers guarding its single entrance.

Hawk quietly stopped roughly a kilometer away, using a container casually placed on the base’s grass as cover, observing the two soldiers.

“Whew!”

“Ready to move.”

Hawk exhaled slowly with his eyes closed, then opened them, focusing on the target ahead.

The next moment—

Boom!

As grass scattered underfoot and a thunderous sonic boom echoed, Hawk shot forward like a projectile.

The two soldiers on duty, chatting and laughing casually, thought it was just another uneventful day.

Until—

Their peripheral vision caught something, followed by a piercing sonic boom detonating beside their ears.

Thud!

Thud!

Neither soldier uttered a sound; their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed silently.

Hawk held back from lethal force, only knocking them unconscious instantly before darting into the abandoned lab.

The next moment—

“Shit!”

“Who’s there?”

“...”

After squeezing through the iron sheets, Hawk saw two soldiers standing by the worn exterior wall of a building that looked like it had been subjected to blast testing. Their brows furrowed deeply.

Good grief.

Was that really necessary?

There were soldiers outside, and yet they stationed two more inside?

Was that really needed?

Hawk was inwardly speechless.

During the day, while scouting terrain, he could only see outside the iron sheets, not inside.

The two soldiers, shocked at the sight of Hawk in his hooded suit and wearing a surgical mask, quickly regained their wits.

The next second—

Both soldiers pulled their triggers.

“Enemy attack!”

“Sound the alarm!”

“Beep! Beep! Beep!”

Instantly, a sharp, piercing alarm shattered the quiet night above Quantico military base.

At the very moment the soldiers fired, Hawk vanished from sight.

When he reappeared the next second, he was directly in front of the two soldiers who had just attacked him.

The two soldiers outside had not fired.

They were still alive.

These two...

Expressionless, Hawk’s right hand shot forward, striking the two stunned soldiers squarely!

...