Chapter 264: No Escape

“Boss, we got him to talk.”

An hour later, two National Security officers stepped out of the interrogation room, heading straight for Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu nodded. When the unit two team was on it, he knew things would be handled right.

“Ma Biao confessed,” one of the agents reported. “The man who set all this up goes by the name Old Ghost. A few years back, Ma Biao met him out of town. Last month, Old Ghost showed up here in S City with half a million in cash, paid him to dig into the evidence warehouse. Once Ma Biao handed over what he’d found, Old Ghost vanished. And it turns out this Old Ghost is the same middleman we’ve been tracking in the terrorist case.”

The other officer added, “Goes by Wang Gui, alias Old Ghost. Age unknown, real identity unknown. All we know is he used a fake ID to get in and out of the country. Our team and foreign agents are already hunting him down.”

“Good work.” Xiao Yu smiled, nodding in appreciation.

“Anytime,” one officer said with a grin.

Xiao Yu shook hands with both agents. “Thanks for the help.”

“No need for thanks, we’re all on the same side.”

After a quick goodbye, the agents left.

Back at the major crimes unit, the special investigation team members were looking grim. They all knew it—the trail had gone cold. Every lead pointed straight to this elusive Old Ghost.

“There’s still a way to trace this,” Xiao Yu said, leaning back in his chair, blowing out a lazy smoke ring. “Let’s go after the perpetrators directly.”

The perpetrators? The killers who stole the counterfeit plates?

Everyone’s eyes lit up with realization.

They turned back to the footage taken the day of the crime: the van, the two men setting up a tent, disappearing inside, only to reemerge in the afternoon. It was the clearest lead they had.

But why hadn’t they looked into this sooner?

Because they knew one thing: every detail had to be checked. They wouldn’t let any innocent person suffer, nor any criminal go free.

Thanks to the security camera footage, they could make out two men wearing masks and hats. The van had no license plates, making the investigation that much harder.

But difficult didn’t mean impossible.

When the full resources of the provincial police were mobilized, they got results.

Three days later, they found the vehicle from the crime scene.

In interviews, the vehicle’s owner reported never lending it to anyone and confirmed it had been in the basement parking lot the entire time.

Parking lot footage caught the two men on tape again. They’d been walking around in the parking lot before they stole the van.

Didn’t they worry that the owner might realize the van was missing?

Well, based on the dust on the vehicle, around the tires, and underneath, the car clearly hadn’t been moved in a long time.

A car sitting undisturbed for ages? The thieves must’ve known the owner wouldn’t notice it was gone anytime soon.

“Solid surveillance skills and sharp counter-surveillance,” Xiao Yu muttered, eyes fixed on the video feed.

The other task force members nodded. Each one was a seasoned investigator, and all could see it plain as day. The weight in the room was unmistakable. These were no average criminals. Ordinary people don’t generally have both reconnaissance and counter-surveillance techniques at this level.

With that thought, everyone’s minds drifted back to the slain officers, to the weapon that took their lives.

“Stop!” Xiao Yu suddenly instructed.

The officer working the monitor quickly tapped the space bar, freezing the frame.

“Back it up by a second,” Xiao Yu continued, “and zoom in. Focus on the mask, just around the corner of his eye. Double the zoom.”

All eyes were glued to the screen, studying the edge of the suspect’s eye.

There it was—a dark spot. No, not just a spot—a black-red birthmark about the size of a pinky nail.

The team’s eyes widened with hope. While faces can be similar, birthmarks like that are usually one of a kind. Mask, hat… it didn’t matter. They had something identifiable now.

“Get surveillance footage from all major transport hubs. Airports, buses, train stations,” Xiao Yu ordered. “Focus on footage from the days before and after the incident, and especially check the long-distance buses.”

“Understood!” the team responded in unison.

Searching through such large crowds might sound overwhelming, but it was not impossible. After all, whether it was an airport or a train station, everyone passed through a security checkpoint.

Passing through a security checkpoint meant each person entered individually. If the suspects used any form of public transportation to leave, they would eventually find them.

A suspect without their own car? 

Almost guaranteed. 

They used a stolen vehicle for the job in S City, so it was unlikely they owned one. This also probably meant they weren’t local.

If they were local, they wouldn’t have needed to rely on Old Ghost and a pile of cash to gather information on the storage facility. Since they were not from around here, they’d have to leave sooner or later.

So why was Xiao Yu so focused on long-distance buses? 

Simple, because of those counterfeit plates. 

How would anyone get those past security? Airports and train stations had stringent checks, but long-distance buses? Far more relaxed. That made it the best chance for someone to smuggle out two counterfeit plates without raising red flags.

Of course, investigating other transport options, like flights and trains, was still important. There was a chance the two suspects could split up. 

Who knows if the one with the birthmark decided to fly out solo, taking nothing with him?

Each possibility needed to be covered, no matter how tedious.

But it was an enormous task. The nine members of the task force spent four days poring over surveillance footage from airports, train stations, and bus terminals. They worked around the clock, grabbing takeout for meals, and catching naps in their chairs.

Then, on the fifth day…

“Got them!”

A task force member shouted in excitement, drawing everyone over. Bloodshot eyes fixed intensely on the computer screen.

They rewound the footage by five minutes and hit play.

On screen, a man carrying a suitcase walked into the long-distance bus terminal. Right behind him, another man followed, empty-handed. As they reached the security checkpoint, the first man went through, while the second one reached out, as if asking for something. The guy behind passed over a jacket, deliberately avoiding the checkpoint scanner.

Why go around the security gate? Oh, they knew why.

The video froze. They zoomed in on the face of the first man, revealing a distinctive mark—just beneath his left eye, a reddish-black birthmark the size of a fingernail.

“Haha!” Cheers erupted around the room.

Xiao Yu’s face broke into a smile too. Since long-distance buses require ID registration, even if they’d used fake names, they’d still have a lead to trace them!