War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 234 The Fourth Choice
In the parking lot outside Irkutsk Airport, Wei Ran carefully reviewed what he had done these days.

It is true that Karp was not wrong, and he should not have made those low-level mistakes, but in his heart, the priority of being alert and vigilant to the KGB was subconsciously ranked above the assessment task itself.

To put it more bluntly, from the very beginning, his focus was on how to avoid being followed by the KGB. Invisibly, this assessment also changed from how to kill a smuggler to how to escape the monitoring of the KGB.

But obviously, with the failure of the mission itself, all the preparations he had made to deal with the KGB monitoring were useless before they came into play.

After trying to understand the cause and effect, Wei Ran glanced at the empty parking lot, hesitated for a moment and made a decisive decision.Since the mission to kill the smugglers failed, I might as well try to see if I could use this mistake to escape KGB's monitoring and run to the other side of the Lena River!

If you can get rid of those nannies, maybe you can try to find the smuggler.After all, Karp's phone call just now was not worthless, at least the other party revealed a key piece of information, that the smuggler was in Lower Petyaskh.

With this in mind, Wei Ran got up and got into the rear compartment, closed the blackout curtain that was installed a few days ago, then opened the backpack on the seat, and changed into the whole set of clothes that he bought a few days ago from inside to outside. , only the high-waisted boots that were provided with the camouflage uniform in the small hotel in Chita were still on the feet.

After changing his clothes, Wei Ran opened a corner of the blackout curtain and looked outside. After hesitating for a moment, he stuffed the old-fashioned push-button mobile phone Karp gave him, his smart phone and the few Buryat passports into the micro In the backpack of the sniper rifle, by the way, the night vision goggles were removed from the gun.

Before getting out of the car, he took out a small mirror to check the camouflage on his face one last time. After making sure that there were no flaws, he immediately put on the hood and mask, and carrying the backpack that he always slept with, opened the car door and walked towards the parking lot. Outside.

Just as he got into a taxi and left the airport, a strong man dressed as a miner drove an off-road vehicle and stopped beside Wei Ran's abandoned van and honked his horn.

After waiting for half a minute and seeing that Wei Ran didn't come down, the strong man pushed open the door of the driver's cab impatiently, got out of the car and moved to the side of the van, covered the glass with his hand and looked in, and then tried to pull the rear seat back. The sliding door of the carriage.

With a soft "crash", the burly man pulled open the air leaking door, and at a glance he saw the backpack on the seat and half of the wooden gun stock protruding from the mouth of the backpack.

The impatience on the strong man's face turned into contempt and sarcasm, he lit a cigarette, took out his cell phone, and dialed a number slowly.But then, when the outdated electronic polyphonic bell rang from the backpack, the expression on the strong man's face finally changed.

He grabbed the backpack roughly and dumped all the contents on the floor of the van. When he saw the old mobile phone that was still waiting to be answered, he finally realized what happened.

Hang up the phone and dial again. When the call was answered, the strong man immediately said, "There was an accident, and the student ran away."

"Ran?"

The old fishing man who was already sitting in a tavern and started drinking was stunned for a moment, and then he said with great interest, "This is interesting, arrange your people to find him immediately, and the team that catches him first can Go work in Europe."

"We can."

"No." The old man put down the glass full of vodka. "He will definitely go to the other side to complete his work, but this is his assessment. So, find him before he crosses the river, this is my assessment of you."

"Understood!" The strong man in the parking lot simply hung up the phone.

And in the tavern on the edge of the city, the poisonous old man swallowed a full glass of vodka in one gulp, and then slowly took out the tablet from his bag.

Glancing at the fast-moving dots of light on the screen, the old man immediately poured himself another glass, and waited leisurely for his order to be served.

At the same time, Wei Ran had already taken off his shoes in the taxi, and then handed over [-] rubles to the taxi driver who was stopped by him, "My friend and I were playing a game of finding shoes. Take the money, and then until the sun goes down, you can take my shoes and run anywhere in the city, as long as you don’t stop. After the sun goes down and the street lights are on, pick me up at the Three Suns Bar , you can still get the same amount of money.”

"Can I take other guests along the way?" The taxi driver asked in surprise as he took the money.

"of course can!"

Wei Ran suppressed his voice and said, "However, if someone finds you and asks where I have been, just say that I got off near the Three Suns Bar, remember not to look into the other person's eyes when you speak, if you can do it, in the afternoon I will also tip you five thousand rubles more."

"No problem!" The taxi driver glanced at Wei Ran's action camera pinned to his shoulder, "Are you shooting a video and posting it on the Internet?"

"Yes! A promotional video for Yakutsk."

Wei Ran said with a smile, he deliberately fixed a second-hand sports camera on his shoulder, hoping that the other party would be less vigilant because of the existence of the camera, and by the way complete the task with more dedication.

"Don't worry, I will help you!" While speaking, the middle-aged driver stretched the hem of his clothes solemnly, trying to maintain a better image under the lens of the action camera without a memory card installed at all. .

"Remember it's three sun bars, remember not to look into each other's eyes, this is the most important rule of the game."

While Wei Ran was speaking, he took out an extra thousand rubles and handed it to the other party, "When the street lights are on, please be sure to pick me up at the Three Suns Bar. Of course, it doesn't matter if my friend takes the boots away."

After finishing speaking, Wei Ran immediately opened the car door, waited for the taxi to run away, and immediately ran barefoot into the alley by the side of the road, and pulled out a dirty, torn cardboard box from behind the trash can by the wall.There was nothing else in the cardboard box, just a pair of cheap boots and a pair of woolen socks that Wei Ran bought at the grocery store a few days ago.

Sitting on the cardboard box and changing into clean socks and boots, Wei Ran didn't dare to delay for a moment. He threw the action camera he was pretending to use into the trash can, and immediately ran towards the car rental agency at the other end of the alley.

Walking into the car rental shop, Wei Ran took out a driver's license and a thick stack of rubles from his pocket, and easily rented an off-road vehicle that he had fancied a few days ago.

He drove to the door of an outdoor clothing store on the other side of the city. After entering the door, Wei Ran quickly took a few sets of clothes and a pair of boots, and immediately drove straight to a nearby street that was not monitored.

Parking the car on the side of the road, he changed into another set of clothes he bought, and by the way, threw the shoes that he changed not long ago into the trash can on the side of the road.

The reason why he changed shoes frequently was because when he was in the small hotel in Chita, he had already discovered that the boots provided by the other party were equipped with positioning devices.That's why he left those boots in the taxi when he got out of the taxi.

Also equipped with a small positioning device, there is also the old-fashioned push-button mobile phone, the wooden butt of the sniper rifle, and even the dilapidated van, and even his own mobile phone. He suspects that it is also unsafe.

After tying up his shoelaces, Wei Ran took out a pair of license plates from his backpack and hung them on the front and rear of the car.This pair of license plates and the driver's license for renting a car were borrowed by him from a local who was drunk at the entrance of a local bar a few days ago.Even the off-road vehicle he rented was pre-optimized with reference to the other party's model.

Quickly put on the license plate, threw the original license plate into the glove box, Wei Ran immediately stepped on the accelerator and changed the position again, then took out a pre-printed photo from his pocket, and compared it with the one in the photo that was printed by himself. The drunk man who was dizzy used the cosmetics in his bag to change his face similar to the one in the photo.

In the end, he threw the used cosmetics together with his backpack to the side of the road, Wei Ran didn't care anymore, he drove the car to the center of the city, bought some food and drink at random, and immediately walked along the road out of the city Go south and leave the city of Yakutsk.

While he was leaving the city, the poisonous old man who was full of food and drink also drove to catch up with the taxi. After stopping it roughly, the old man opened the door and saw the pair of glasses still placed directly behind the driver's seat. After the boots, the expression on his face became more and more satisfied.

"Where did the person in your car get off from?" The venomous old man picked up the pair of boots, and at the same time took out a few rubles and handed them to the taxi driver who was about to yell.

Hastily taking the banknotes, the taxi driver leaned over to open the glove box of the passenger seat and put the money in, and replied, "I remember getting out of the car with bare feet at the alley on the right of the entrance of the Three Suns Bar. He seems to be in a hurry."

The venomous old man who had already thrown his boots into his car didn't care. He didn't wait for the other party to straighten up before he got into the cab, stepped on the accelerator and rushed towards the direction of the Three Sun Bars.

As for the taxi driver, he opened the glove box again, took out the banknotes he had just put into his pocket, and drove straight to a lady who was waving at him on the side of the road.

When the venomous old man arrived at the door of the Three Sun Bars, Wei Ran had already left Yakutsk by car, and ran southward along the main road for about [-] kilometers until the Lower Petyaskh on the other side had passed away. After being left behind by him, he drove the off-road vehicle off the main road and drove east along the muddy dirt road to a small place called Tabagan on the bank of the Lena River.

However, just as he had expected at the pier, although the road leading to Tabagan was only a short five kilometers, most of it was turned into mud and even mixed with a lot of gravel due to the melting of permafrost. swamp.

After driving less than halfway, Wei Ran had to park the car at the edge of the coniferous forest. During the nearly two kilometers of the road, the off-road vehicle he rented got stuck four or five times. .If he kept driving like this, he might not be able to finish the remaining half of the road in one day.

So instead of wasting time here, it's better to walk there on foot.But just after he bypassed two mud pools that were more than ten meters long, a heavy truck full of coking coal slowly drove over behind him, and honked its horn when Wei Ran turned his head.

"Do you need me to pull the car out for you?" The truck driver lowered the window and asked enthusiastically.

"How about taking me directly to Tabakan?" Wei Ran handed the other party a large bill while speaking.

"Get in the car!" The driver took the cash that Wei Ran handed over to the window without hesitation.This kind of situation often occurs in this wasteland, but few people are willing to take the initiative to pay.

After running for a full hour on this truck full of coking coal on a short three-kilometer mud road, Wei Ran rushed to Tabagan.

He came here only because the passenger ship that would leave for Nizhny Pettyaskh as soon as tomorrow morning departed from here.

According to the information he found, this passenger ship departed from Tabakan in the morning, the first stop was Nizhny Petyaskh, and the second stop was Yakutsk. After arriving in Yakutsk, it returned the same way.Simply put, there are two round trips a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This is also the main public transportation line connecting the three places across the Taiwan Strait in summer.

However, to his surprise, the truck driver, perhaps because of Wei Ran’s generosity, offered him the second way after learning that he was planning to go to Petyaskh — take a cargo ship transporting minerals, And the price is only one thousand rubles, which is an absolute surprise for Wei Ran.

After paying the fee happily, the driver enthusiastically took Wei Ran to a bulk carrier transporting coking coal.In less than an hour, the cargo ship full of coking coal left Tabagan slowly at dusk.

The distance was only about 20 kilometers, plus it was going downstream, before Wei Ran even had time to eat the pan-fried salmon provided by the cargo ship for free, he saw the brightly lit wharf in Lower Petyaskh.

(End of this chapter)