Chapter 12 — End of Line Bus 08

The clock struck one o'clock in the morning. Saigon has fallen into a deep sleep, but in the old auto repair workshop in District 4, the atmosphere is suffocatingly tense.

Huy closed the lid of K's laptop and massaged his temples, which were twitching continuously. The plan to release electronic data at ten o'clock tomorrow morning was perfectly set up by K. But Huy, with his experience as a journalist who has faced many underground forces, knows that that is not enough to defeat Bui Thanh Long on the spot.

"Electronic data is very easy to be accused of being fabricated or collaged by AI, especially when we don't have an official newsroom to vouch for it," Huy spoke up, breaking the silence. "Long has enough money to hire the world's leading cyber security experts to analyze and bend the truth. To catch him irrefutably in front of hundreds of media lenses tomorrow morning, I need one thing: Physical evidence. An original contract with Bui Thanh Long's fresh signature."

"In the pile of files I just cracked, there was a mention of a 'Van Loc Archive'," K clicked on the keys, bringing up a map on the screen. "It is a self-storage warehouse located deep in District 9 High-Tech Park. According to internal emails, the 'most sensitive' contracts were never stored at Dai Nam's headquarters, but were hidden as paper documents in a secret compartment in Van Loc, under the name of a ghost company."

Tue approached the screen and squinted at the satellite map. "I know this area well. My route 08 runs past the intersection about two kilometers away. In the past, my factory rented a temporary parking lot nearby. Van Loc's security is not average: electric fences, infrared cameras, 24/7 patrol guards."

"We have to break in there tonight," Huy said, his voice final. "Chamber number 404, according to the email. That's where the toxic waste disposal contracts are stored."

"You're crazy, Huy," Tue frowned. "We're not spies. You're a journalist, and I'm a bus driver. Breaking into a heavily guarded archive? They're armed."

"If we don't do it, tomorrow millions of people will face the risk of being poisoned," Huy looked straight into Tue's eyes. "You dared to crash your car into gangsters to save a stranger. Do you dare to come with me again?"

Tue was silent for a few seconds, her chest heaving. Finally, she sighed, grabbed her leather jacket and hung it on the chair. "Okay. But I drive. And we do it my way."

K threw Huy a tiny device that looked like a USB stick with an antenna attached. "Short-range camera jamming device. Radius about five meters. It will cause flickering of the signal transmitted to the control room, creating temporary blind spots. Good luck. I'll be here to keep an eye on the system."

Twenty minutes later, Tue drove the motorbike borrowed from K, carrying Huy and rushed through the dark night towards District 9. The cold wind whipped at his face, but Huy felt like there was a fire burning in his heart.

The Van Loc storage area looms like a gray concrete fortress among the deserted grasslands. The three-meter high fence is covered with barbed wire on top. The main gate is closed and has a lighted guard.

Tue did not go towards the main gate. She turned the car around to the back of the warehouse, which bordered a large drainage ditch that was under construction. Mud The mud prevented the motorbike from going further. Tue turned off the engine and hid the car in a thick reed bush.

"This way there is no direct surveillance camera, only wide-angle scanning cameras at both ends of the wall," Tue whispered, pointing towards the fence. "But there are guards patrolling every fifteen minutes. Use that signal breaker."

Huy turned on K's device. They waited until the security team's flashlight passed behind the fence and gradually faded away. Tue, with the remarkable physical strength of someone who steers a heavy truck all year round, gently climbed a branch of a large conch tree growing close to the wall, then swung and jumped over the barbed wire fence, landing on the ground inside as softly as a cat. Huy struggled harder, scratching a piece of skin on his hand before he could climb over.

Inside are long rows of warehouses, with powder-coated iron doors tightly closed, clearly numbered. The space was so quiet that one could clearly hear the chirping of crickets and their own light footsteps.

"Range D. Compartment 404," Huy whispered, looking at the sketch map K had sent over the phone.

They weaved through the narrow gaps between warehouse rows, avoiding direct light from high-voltage light poles. It took nearly twenty minutes of extreme tension before they found row D.

Compartment 404 is located halfway up the row. Unlike other compartments that use mechanical locks or conventional U-shaped locks, compartment 404 door is equipped with an electronic code lock system combined with fingerprint recognition.

"It's over," Tue grimaced. "Can you break this by faith?"

Huy took a deep breath, took out his phone, and opened the optical fingerprint scanner application that K had pre-installed. "K said that these warehouse managers are very lazy. They usually don't clean the sensor surface after opening the door."

The Huy shines ultraviolet light (UV light) from a tiny flashlight integrated into the code keypad and fingerprint sensor glass. Sure enough, old fingerprints appeared faintly on the number keys 2, 5, 8 and 0.

"The password has 4 numbers. 2, 5, 8, 0. We have 24 permutations," Huy muttered.

He connected K's specialized device to the mini-USB port below the lock. This device sends small electrical pulses to disable the anti-tamper alarm system, and allows the wrong password to be entered multiple times without being locked.

Fifteen minutes passed. Sweat drenched the back of Huy's shirt. He tried each combination one by one.

*Titus. Titus. Title.* Report error.

Suddenly, from the beginning of the warehouse row, there was the sound of steady footsteps echoing along with a flash of flashlight scanning the walls. Security on patrol.

"Huy, hurry up!" Tue nudged his shoulder, leaning close to the cold iron door.

"Final combination..." Huy mumbled, his hands trembling as he pressed the key: 8 - 5 - 2 - 0.

A dull *click* sound rang out. The LED light on the lock changes from red to green.

"It's open!" Huy pushed hard on the iron door, pulling Tue into the darkness of the compartment right before the security's flashlight beam swept across the spot where they had just stood.

They held their breath in the darkness, heard the guard's heels walking past the door of compartment 404, then fading away.

When the space became quiet again, Huy dared to turn on the tiny flashlight. The compartment is about ten square meters, with no furniture except for three large fireproof safes stacked against the wall.

"Safe? Have to break the lock again." Why?" Tue sighed sadly.

Huy approached the safe in the middle. Whether it was because of overconfidence in the perimeter security, or because of the carelessness of someone who had just arrived here, this safe was half-closed and had not been fully latched.

Huy used both hands to yank open the heavy safe door. Inside are dozens of red folders, carefully labeled.

He quickly pulled out the top three folders, shined the flashlight and scanned the pages filled with words. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it wanted to jump out of his chest. Here it is. Original contracts.

Not only Bui Thanh Long's fresh signature. There are not only contracts to bury chemicals from industrial parks.

Huy flipped to a contract appendix stamped "CONFIDENTIAL", his eyes widened in horror. "Tue, look at this."

Tue bent down. Under the dim light of the flashlight, bold letters caught her eyes.

"Level 3 medical waste treatment project. Hospital... Radiation level..." Tue read hesitantly, goosebumps forming on her skin. "They... they buried radioactive medical waste in the foundation of the house?"

"Not just heavy chemicals. They turned the foundation of the urban area into a permanent radioactive landfill to reap huge profits from hospitals and research facilities," Huy gritted his teeth, rolled up three files and stuffed them into his backpack. "If Phase 2 breaks ground on underground water, Saigon will have a miniature Chernobyl disaster deep underground."

"We have to get out of here now. There is evidence!" Tue urged.

At that moment, a deafening sound tore through the quiet night. A high-powered siren was activated, howling loudly from all corners of the storage area. High-powered headlights simultaneously turned on, dazzlingly illuminating the entire sky, brightly illuminating warehouse row D.

They have been discovered. Someone in the central control room noticed something unusual when the door to compartment 404 was opened.

"Damn it!" Huy cursed.

Tue pulled out an iron bar about half a meter long from inside her jacket - something she conveniently picked up at the mechanical workshop to bring with her for protection. She pressed her back against the partially open door of the capsule, her eyes looking out into the brightly lit corridor, where the pounding footsteps and shouts of the security forces were pouring towards them.

"Tie that backpack tightly to yourself as a journalist," Tue growled, her eyes shining with the fierceness of a cornered animal. "Prepare to open the bloodline."