American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

He walked around the tea plantation but didn't see Kevin.

Maybe he arrived too early? Maybe Kevin hasn't arrived yet?
Lynn sat down on a bench next to the tea room and decided to wait.

He checked his phone—11:15 a.m. He still had some time.

Just then, a voice came from behind him.

"Lynn."

Lynn turned his head abruptly.

Kevin stood a few meters behind him, wearing a dark hoodie, pale-faced with deep dark circles under his eyes. He looked much more haggard than a few days ago, but his eyes still gleamed with alertness.

“Kevin!” Lynn stood up and walked towards him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Kevin said in a low voice, “but we can’t stay here too long. Come with me.”

He turned and walked deeper into the tea garden, with Lynn following closely behind.

They walked through a bamboo grove and came to a relatively secluded corner. There was a small stone pavilion there, surrounded by dense bushes, making it almost impossible to see inside from the outside.

Kevin stopped and turned to look at Lynn.

“Your identity has been exposed,” he said. “I know.”

How did you know?

“I’ve been monitoring the fraternity’s communications channels,” Kevin said. “Yesterday at noon, they released an internal memo saying that an FBI undercover agent named Lynn Ashford has infiltrated the organization. They sent you your photo and offered a $500,000 bounty for your head.”

Lynn's heart sank. "Five hundred thousand dollars?"

“Yes,” Kevin nodded, “you’re now the most valuable prey in San Francisco. Every member of the fraternity is looking for you.”

"And what about you? Do they know you exist?"

“They might know, they might not,” Kevin said. “I’ve been very careful not to reveal my identity directly. But they might have traced it back to the hotel registration records and found out I was staying with you. So I left the hotel last night and have been hiding outside ever since.”

Where do you live now?

“At a friend’s house,” Kevin said, “a regular friend who has no connection to the FBI or the fraternity. He doesn’t know my real identity; he just thinks I’m a tourist in San Francisco.”

Lynn nodded. "That's good."

“But we can’t stay in San Francisco any longer,” Kevin said. “I’ve found something, something very important. We have to take this information back to New York and give it to Deputy Chief Morrison.”

"What is that?"

Kevin pulled a USB drive from his pocket. "I hacked into the fraternity's internal servers and downloaded a batch of core files. They contained all their financial records from the past three years, a client list, and... a very sensitive list."

"What list?"

“A list of FBI insiders,” Kevin’s voice trailed off, “lists all the FBI agents and officers who were bribed or coerced by the Fraternity. There are seventeen of them, spread across FBI offices throughout the country. Among them…”

He paused.

"This includes Thomas Harrison."

Lynn's eyes narrowed. "I knew it."

“But that’s not the most shocking part,” Kevin continued. “There’s another name on the list—Michael Donald, the deputy director of the FBI office in San Francisco.”

“Michael Donald?” Lynn vaguely recognized the name. He was a veteran FBI agent with over twenty years of experience and a consistently excellent reputation.

“Yes,” Kevin nodded, “he was the fraternity’s key informant in San Francisco. According to documents, he began providing intelligence to the fraternity five years ago, helping them evade FBI investigations. Zhou Jianguo was discovered to be an informant, and it’s highly likely he was the one who leaked the information.”

Linn was silent.

If Michael Donald were to seek help from the FBI office in San Francisco now, this person would likely be the first person to contact him. That would be tantamount to walking into a trap.

"So, you said not to contact the FBI's San Francisco office because of this?"

“Yes,” Kevin said, “it’s not safe there. In fact, there could be problems with FBI offices all over the West Coast. The list also includes people in the Los Angeles and Seattle offices.”

"Then what do we do?"

“Back to New York,” Kevin said. “The FBI headquarters there is relatively cleaner, and Deputy Director Morrison is the only person we can trust. If we can get this evidence to him, we can expose all the fraternity’s informants within the FBI.”

Lynn nodded. "I bought a bus ticket to Renault, departing at 2 PM. From Renault, you can transfer to another bus to the east."

“I bought a ticket too,” Kevin said, “but it’s for Sacramento. I thought it would be safer for us to split up.”

“No,” Lynn shook her head, “we’ll go together. If we separate, we won’t be able to take care of each other if something happens.”

Kevin thought for a moment and nodded. "Okay, then I'll cancel my Sacramento tickets and go to Reno with you."

"Where did you buy the ticket?"

"A small ticket window next to the long-distance bus station."

“Then we don’t need to return it,” Lynn said. “It wasn’t expensive anyway. Let’s go straight to platform three and wait for the 2 PM train.”

"it is good."

They left the Japanese tea plantation and headed towards the park exit.

Kevin handed the USB drive to Lynn. "Take this. If anything happens to us on the way, you have to find a way to get it back to New York."

Lynn took the USB drive and put it in her pocket. "Nothing will happen. We'll go back together."

They left the park and hailed a taxi by the roadside.

“The long-distance bus station,” Lynn said to the driver.

The taxi wound its way through the residential area surrounding Golden Gate Park in the midday sun, eventually reaching a wide main road. The Victorian wooden houses lining the street shimmered in soft hues under the sunlight—pale blue, pale yellow, grey-green, rose pink—like rows of carefully dressed old women, standing quietly on either side of the sidewalk. The trees cast long shadows, and a few squirrels leaped among the branches, occasionally stopping to nibble on something. Lynn leaned back in the seat, his hat pulled low, his gaze sweeping through the window, taking in every corner of the street. His right hand unconsciously traced the outline of the USB drive in his pocket, feeling the cool touch of its small plastic casing.

Kevin sat next to him, his hoodie pulled up so that half his face was obscured. A plain black backpack rested on his lap, his hands gripping the straps tightly, his knuckles white.

The driver was a quiet, middle-aged Indian man. The car radio was playing a soft Bollywood song with a melodious tune that blended with the bright California sunshine outside the window, creating a false sense of tranquility.

“Turn left at the next intersection,” Lynn suddenly said.

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "Turning left will be a slightly longer route."

"It doesn't matter."

The driver shrugged and turned on his left turn signal.

Kevin turned his head and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?"

“It’s nothing,” Lynn said, also lowering her voice. “There’s a black SUV at the intersection ahead, parked on the side of the road with the engine running. Someone in the passenger seat is looking at their phone; they’re probably just an ordinary person, but I don’t want to take the risk.”

Kevin didn't turn around to look; he simply nodded slightly.

The taxi took a longer route, approaching the bus station from another street. Lynn stopped the car two blocks from the station.

"This will do."

He paid the fare and got out of the car with Kevin.

The sun was blazing, casting dappled patterns of light on the asphalt. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline from the gas station and chili powder from the Mexican restaurant next door, creating a strange but not unpleasant ambiance. A few high school students in uniforms whizzed past on skateboards, their laughter as clear and crisp as glass beads.

“We’ll go in separately,” Lynn said. “You go in first and find a seat near platform three. I’ll come in in five minutes.”

"Why?"

"It would be too conspicuous for two people to go in together."

Kevin thought for a moment and nodded. He adjusted the shoulder straps of his backpack, lowered his head, and walked towards the station at a leisurely pace, looking like an ordinary young traveler.

Lynn stood there, watching Kevin's figure disappear at the station entrance, then turned and walked into a convenience store next door.

The convenience store was small, with shelves filled with snacks, drinks, and various daily necessities. Behind the counter, a young girl was chewing gum and watching a video on her phone, completely unaware of Lynn's arrival.

Lynn grabbed two bottles of water, a few energy bars, and a bag of beef jerky. After thinking for a moment, he also grabbed a copy of the day's newspaper and a pair of cheap sunglasses.

He went to the counter to pay.

"Twelve yuan and forty-five cents," the girl said without looking up.

Lynn paid, put on his sunglasses, and stuffed the rest of his things into his canvas tool bag. He folded a newspaper and held it in his hand—it could be used to cover his face or to pass the time in the car.

He walked out of the convenience store and headed towards the station.

The waiting hall of the long-distance bus station was filled with a stench of cleaning agents, sweat, and fast food grease. Several fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling flickered and emitted an annoying buzzing sound. Rows of plastic chairs were mostly occupied—Latino families dragging huge suitcases, young people wearing headphones and resting with their eyes closed, and elderly people hunched over flipping through paperback books.

Lynn walked through the waiting hall without stopping anywhere, heading straight for platform three.

The platform is on the side of the building, an open-air parking area. Several long-distance buses are parked in different locations, their engines emitting a low rumble, and wisps of white smoke rising from their exhaust pipes. On platform number three, a white mid-sized bus is parked, with the words "Western Express" written in red and blue on its body. The paint is somewhat faded, indicating that it is quite old.

Kevin was sitting behind a concrete pillar next to the platform. When he saw Lynn coming over, he slightly raised his chin in greeting.

Lynn walked over to him and stood leaning against the pillar.

"There are still forty minutes before departure," Kevin said in a low voice.

"Um."

They fell silent and waited quietly.

More passengers arrived at platform three. A young white man, tanned and with a stubble beard, carrying a huge backpack, looked like a backpacker who had just come down from Yosemite National Park. Two middle-aged Mexican women in floral dresses chatted and ate tortillas. An elderly Black man wearing an old-fashioned top hat, leaning on an ornate cane, walked unsteadily to the waiting area, slowly sat down, and then took out an exquisite pocket watch from his pocket to check the time.

Then, the family of three came over.

The man was about thirty-five or thirty-six years old, of medium build, wearing a plaid shirt and khaki trousers, with brown hiking boots on his feet. He had a square face, a neatly trimmed short beard, and wore metal-framed glasses, making him look like a high school teacher or an accountant. He carried two suitcases in his right hand and held the hand of a seven or eight-year-old girl in his left.

The little girl wore denim overalls and a white T-shirt, with pink sneakers on her feet. Her hair was tied in two ponytails, and she held a plush toy—a gray rabbit with its ears slightly distorted from being crumpled. Her big eyes curiously surveyed everything around her, and whenever she saw something new, she would tug at her father's hand and ask questions in her clear voice.

The woman walked behind them, carrying a large canvas bag filled with various snacks and drinks. She was in her early thirties, with shoulder-length dark brown hair, wearing a loose beige linen shirt, and had a gentle face with a faint smile on her lips.

"Daddy, is that the bus we're going to ride in?" the little girl asked, pointing to the white bus.

“Yes, Sofia,” the man replied, “we’ll take this car to Renault, and then transfer to another car to Grandma’s house.”

Is Grandma's house far away?

"It's a bit far, but you can sleep in the car and wake up when you're almost there."

"I don't want to sleep, I want to look at the scenery outside the window."

"Alright, alright, you can watch it if you want."

The woman walked up, put the canvas bag on the ground, and reached out to straighten the little girl's ponytail. "Sophia, don't run around, we'll be on the bus soon."

"Mom, did you bring any juice?"

"I brought it, I'll give it to you when you get on the bus."

The family of three stopped a short distance from Lynn and began unpacking. The little girl, Sophia, looked around, her gaze lingering on Lynn for a moment before being drawn to something else.

Lynn looked at the family, a feeling he couldn't quite describe welling up inside him. After the darkness and violence he had experienced in the past few days, this ordinary yet heartwarming scene seemed especially precious. A father, a mother, and an innocent little girl were on a typical family trip to visit their grandmother in the distance.

This is what a normal person's life is like. This is what he has been protecting all along.

At 1:50 PM, the bus driver finally appeared. He was a burly white man, his beer belly almost bursting out of his uniform, his face covered with wrinkles etched by time, and a faint scar on his chin. He held a whiteboard in his hand and had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. (End of Chapter)