The dog head grinned and turned its head to look at the scenery outside the car.
Luke finally called Selina and told her about the situation.
Selina said, "No problem. I'll take care of things here. Just be careful."
Luke said, "Gold Nugget is with me. You …"
Selina didn't think much of it. "It's fine. That guy is very good. It's fine as long as he can help you."
Luke simply hummed and hung up.
There was no need for him and Selina to thank her for something like that.
In less than twenty minutes, he arrived at a private airport in the suburbs. Luke, who had disguised himself, only said Jenny's name before he was welcomed onto the plane by a flight attendant.
Luke wasn't in the mood to exchange pleasantries with the pretty flight attendant. He simply thanked her and said, "We can take off now. I'm in a hurry."
The flight attendant didn't waste any time. Few people who were on an emergency flight at night weren't in a hurry.
Luke wasn't her employer, but her employer was powerful and influential, and anyone who could borrow this plane couldn't be ordinary.
Luke took out his laptop and checked the intelligence on the plane.
Luke naturally knew about Robert and Catherine's travel plan, but he hadn't studied it carefully. He frowned when he found the location of the cruise ship.
This was a cruise ship from New York to Europe. Like Robert had said, it wasn't going anywhere.
The cruise ship was hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest land, and it was almost a thousand kilometers from New York.
Considering what Robert had said, it was possible that those people had come prepared. Luke felt that the situation was worrisome.
He didn't need to call the police.
The police's first choice for a major case involving a thousand people on a cruise ship was to negotiate with the kidnappers.
It would probably take more than ten hours for a professional team to be dispatched for a rescue operation.
The number of tourists who died in the rescue operation was just a matter of numbers for the police.
As long as nobody important was killed, it didn't matter who the victims were.
Luke only wanted to ensure Robert and Catherine's safety. The safety of the other tourists wasn't something he could take care of. He couldn't take care of a thousand tourists at once.
On the way east, Luke checked Robert's messages from the satellite phone every now and then.
The situation wasn't bad, but it wasn't good.
The criminals on the cruise ship seemed to have a clear target. They didn't kill the tourists, but gathered them in batches, as if they were looking for someone.
But as the tourists were chased to a few detention locations, Robert and Catherine's room to maneuver became smaller.
There were already more than two hundred of them. They had a clear division of labor, and their plans were meticulous and professional.
They cleared the cruise ship layer by layer, clearing out all the tourists.
Robert did not dare to act recklessly.
These criminals all had walkie-talkies, and they were all working in groups. They regularly reported their safety.
If he moved, he would be discovered in less than ten minutes, and a bunch of criminals would be searching for him.
At the same time, all the key points of the cruise ship were blocked by the bandits.
If Robert was alone, this kind of blockade would be useless.
But with Catherine, he wasn't confident that he could hide in the place that had been cleared by the criminals.
Thankfully, the cruise ship was huge, and the criminals weren't in a hurry. A carpet search was also time-consuming.
Calculating the time, Luke was still a little anxious.
The best case scenario would be for him to arrive first.
That way, he would have absolute confidence in ensuring Catherine's safety.
He didn't have to worry about Robert's safety, since he wasn't an ordinary person.
So, the worst case scenario was that Robert and Catherine would be found as well. Luke could only hope that Robert would be too impulsive.
But three hours into the flight, Robert sent out bad news: the police had learned that the cruise ship had been hijacked.
Clearly, Robert wasn't the only person on the cruise who had a satellite phone.
This made the criminals more impatient, and their methods became a lot more violent. The first unlucky person to be shot also appeared.
It was a police officer who was traveling with his wife. When his wife was pushed by the criminals, he got agitated and got into a fight with the criminals, and one of the criminals opened fire.
Luke frowned deeply.
This was exactly what he was afraid of.
In a relaxed state, the criminals were less wary of the outside world, and wouldn't act too impatiently in an environment like the cruise ship.
But the threat from the police was bound to cause a chain reaction.
Also, the criminals had already shot someone, and naturally wouldn't care if they shot the next person who resisted.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning in New York, Luke got off the commercial plane in a hurry and boarded another small plane at the private airport.
The pilot was a bearded man. After Luke gave him the order number and the coordinates of the destination, he started the plane and took off.
The pilot didn't care what this black client, whose face couldn't even be seen clearly, was doing in the middle of the night.
After all, the client had paid him ten times the usual price.
The pilot didn't mind taking some risks for the sake of this windfall.
He wasn't a law-abiding citizen, and this plane had been modified. It was absolutely illegal to use it for passengers, but it flew faster and farther than regular small planes.
A round trip of almost two thousand kilometers couldn't be completed by a regular small plane. Also, this client was going to parachute halfway, which was an extremely rare request.
But so what? In any case, the client had already paid him.
In the vast night, the small plane quickly climbed and left the brightly lit metropolis of New York behind.
Looking at the speed of the plane, Luke asked, "How many hours will it take for us to reach our destination?"
The bearded man said, "Within three hours."
Luke looked at his watch. It was ten past twelve.
Pondering for a moment, he asked, "What's the fastest time we can get there without affecting safety?"
He wanted this small plane to fly at the speed of a rocket, but he was afraid that it would break up in the air and fall free.
After a brief silence, the bearded man said, "If you want to get there earlier, you'll have to pay more."
Luke said, "Okay."
The bearded man said, "I can guarantee that we'll get there in two and a half hours. How much can you pay?"
Luke said, "Two hundred thousand."
The bearded man turned his head and glanced at him. "I don't accept checks."
Luke took out a black bag from his backpack and threw it next to the bearded man. "The countdown starts now. If you don't get to the destination at twenty minutes to two, you won't get a single cent."
The bearded man didn't care at all. He simply stretched out one hand and quickly picked up two stacks of cash. He then stuffed the bag into a space under his seat. "As long as you have the money."
As he spoke, he pressed a few buttons on the dashboard, and the plane suddenly sped up.
Luke completely understood what the bearded pilot was doing.
If he wasn't desperate for money, why would he dare take on a private job in the middle of the night and fly a thousand kilometers overseas?
If he wasn't here for the money, why would he turn a blind eye to a client who wanted to parachute halfway?
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