National important task

Author: Ding Aimin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: On the early morning of June 2, 2005, a passenger train entered Yongping City, a northern coastal tourist destination in China. Thunder rumbled in the sky. The thunder was far from the platform of Yongping Railway Station, and no one was startled. Only the sea climate, damp air carried by the wind made people feel a chill. Although it was summer, the cold was inevitable in the dead of night as heavy rain was approaching. With a sudden gust of wind, the passengers couldn't help but quicken their pace, passing through the dimly lit underground passage and heading toward the exit. The footsteps and the sound of people talking or coughing loudly seemed like an unstructured variation in the air. Walking side by side at the end of the long line of passengers were two men, each less than 1.70 meters tall. The one on the left was wearing a red T-shirt, and the one on the right was dressed in a dark suit, carrying a light blue leather suitcase. Their faces, clearly marked by southern features, showed no expression as they shuffled forward. At this moment, the police officer on duty at the exit was Xiao Li, from the station's police station. Xiao Li's gaze swept over every passenger passing before him. He glanced aside and noticed an ordinary small van parked in the brightly lit station square, with three police officers standing by it, looking toward the exit. "It must be fellow officers on duty," Xiao Li thought naturally. His duty was to block any suspicious individuals inside the exit, while those outside were left to the local police. One by one, passengers exited through the iron gate of the station and quickly disappeared into the night. Just as the last passengers were about to leave the exit, the two southern men appeared in Xiao Li's line of sight. Suddenly, his intuition, honed by experience, told him that despite their calm appearance, their demeanor was unnatural. Xiao Li decided to flag them as suspicious individuals. In fact, Xiao Li's intuition was spot on. These two southern men were not ordinary passengers; they were coming from Yunnan to Yongping City for a drug transaction, and the light blue suitcase contained no less than ten kilograms of heroin! Before setting off for Yongping, the buyer had warned them to transport the "goods" in a clever way. However, they insisted on using their own method, which they believed was the best, and mocked the buyer as a "fearful turtle who had never seen the big world." The buyer then told them to "do as they wished." "Is someone waiting for us outside?" the man in the red T-shirt whispered to his accomplice. The man in the dark suit shifted the suitcase slightly and snorted softly, also whispering, "They may not be picking us up, but they have to pick up the 'goods.'"