Chapter 2439: Finally Waiting for You

After nearly two hours of flight, the helicopter gradually landed at the Nordic royal family's residence in Bergen, the second-largest city in the Nordic region.

The royal residence is located in the suburbs and covers a large area, but due to the recent decline of the Nordic royal family and the parliament's continuous cuts to the royal budget, this residence has also fallen into disrepair due to lack of maintenance.

The Nordic royal family's own financial situation is also not optimistic; although they have assets exceeding one billion euros, most of this is the discounted value of real estate, and these properties cannot be sold by the Nordic royal family in their lifetime—for example, their palace in the capital Oslo and this residence in Bergen—valuable as they are, once they reach the point of selling ancestral property, they will surely face contempt from the Nordic people.

It would be like the British royal family turning around and selling their Buckingham Palace—it would definitely cause an uproar.

After the helicopter landed, Ye Chen could feel the straitened circumstances here.

Such a vast residence, yet only a handful of staff are on duty, and the stone-paved ground in the central courtyard already has many damaged spots that remain unrepaired; even more absurdly, over a third of the surrounding streetlights are not lit.

Helena also did not expect that this residence would now be in such a state of disrepair.

Since she lost her support in the Nordic royal family, she has not come to this residence for years; seeing this dilapidated scene, she felt a bit embarrassed for a moment and could only say somewhat apologetically to Ye Chen: "Sorry, Mr. Ye, this place has been neglected for years and is not in good condition; please don't mind."

After Helena finished her enthronement ceremony, the steward had once mentioned to her the condition of this residence, hoping the royal family would allocate ten million euros to repair it.

But Helena, in order to reduce the royal family's expenses, refused the proposal.

At that time, she hoped to use the funds to organize more activities and promotions to strengthen the influence of the Nordic royal family.

But she never imagined that one day this residence would have any connection with Ye Chen.

If she had known this would happen, she would have even split a single penny in two to scrape together some budget to repair this residence at least somewhat, so it wouldn't look so shabby.

Ye Chen also noticed Helena's embarrassment and thus said with a smile: "I think this place is quite good; it has a distinct Nordic character, and it looks like a genuine historical building, unlike those tourist attractions that are all modern imitations of ancient architecture—though lavish, they give a feeling of being incongruous."

Helena lightly nodded and said: "This place has over three hundred years of history; although it has undergone many repairs, the overall framework and most of the structure have remained unchanged, and the last major renovation should date back to 1980."

Speaking, Helena added with some emotion: "But I haven't been here for many years either; since my father passed away, I haven't come back."

Ye Chen nodded, seeing that there were still two or three hours before the other party's landing, and said with a smile: "There's still time; why don't you show me around?"

"Sure!" Helena agreed without hesitation, smiling: "Although I haven't been here for many years, my memory of this place is still very vivid."

Just as Ye Chen was touring this ancient residence with Helena's company, the Boeing 777 of Yuan Tai International Express was flying over Finnish airspace, still about 1,300 kilometers from Bergen.

Wan Pojun and the twenty carefully selected soldiers of the Wan Long Temple had already landed in Oslo at this time, and the first thing he did after landing was to send Ye Chen the flight path of that Yuan Tai Express aircraft.

Ye Chen also remained calm, waiting until the other party had only one hour of flight left before temporarily bidding farewell to Helena, dressing in a black outfit, and driving alone to Bergen Airport.

According to Li Yalin's analysis, the last time they went to New York to carry out this mysterious organization's mission, they were first transported to Mexico by Yuan Tai International Express via cargo, and then entered the United States by land through smuggling from Mexico.

Therefore, Ye Chen and Li Yalin both believe that the other party's true destination this time should not be Bergen; Bergen is likely just a stepping stone for their mission this time.

They are likely also transporting the assassins to Bergen by cargo, then transferring them via other routes to other cities, or directly out of the Nordic region.

Thus, Ye Chen's plan is to infiltrate Bergen International Airport before this aircraft lands, closely monitor this aircraft and the people and cargo it unloads, to see where their destination actually is and who their target truly is.

Although Bergen is Norway's second-largest city, its population is only a few hundred thousand, so Bergen International Airport is not particularly large in scale.

The airport is built by the sea, with runways oriented north-south, the terminal located at the central position of the airport, and the maintenance and logistics areas located respectively above and below the terminal.

Since Norway is one of the EU member states, and Bergen's international flights are almost all to other EU countries, customs management here is relatively lax; international flights landing here, whether passenger or cargo, almost never undergo strict entry inspections.

The airport has only three normal entry and exit routes: one is the terminal for normal passenger traffic, one is the staff passage for internal employees, and another is the dedicated entrance and exit for cargo.

Moreover, the airport's security situation is also highly procedural; most of the airport is enclosed by iron fences, combined with steel blade barbed wire and security monitoring equipment, which constitute the primary security measures here.

As for security personnel, the overall scale is not large, and patrols are not particularly active; in most cases, they stay in the monitoring room watching monitors and security equipment, and rush to handle any situation immediately.

However, due to the increasing advancement of security equipment, even without personnel patrols, basically no one can pass through these devices unnoticed, so the airport has almost never experienced illegal intrusions.

Even if occasionally someone overestimates their ability attempts to enter the airport's interior through the outer security measures, they are often precisely identified by the security equipment; as soon as they approach, security personnel receive an alarm, and by the time they arrive, the person is often still on the iron fence, trying to find a way to break through the sharp blade barbed wire.

Therefore, even if an ordinary person wants to sneak into the airport, there is basically no possibility of success.

Of course, this was before Ye Chen appeared.

To Ye Chen, this iron fence over three meters high is essentially meaningless; he only needs to lightly leap up to clear it while also avoiding the security monitoring equipment on both sides.

Thus, daring to do so, twenty minutes before the aircraft's landing, Ye Chen easily slipped into the airport interior, waiting in the dark beside the runway for the arrival of that Boeing 777.

At this time, it was already past 2:00 a. m., and the entire airport had fallen into silence.

Ye Chen was now wearing wireless earphones, through which he was communicating in real time with Wan Pojun and Li Yalin.

At this moment, Wan Pojun told Ye Chen: "Mr. Ye, according to the airport's departure and arrival information, tonight's passenger flights have already ended, and the remaining flights are all cargo flights; moreover, within the next three hours, only seven cargo flights are scheduled to arrive, with long intervals between them, and the next landing flight is precisely that Boeing 777 of Yuan Tai International Express."

Ye Chen softly replied: "Before the aircraft lands, let's double-check the information."

"Alright, Mr. Ye."

Five minutes later, Ye Chen could already see a slowly moving point of light in the southern sky.

He cross-checked with Wan Pojun, and according to the flight trajectory display, it was undoubtedly that aircraft.

Subsequently, that point of light drew ever closer and lower.

However, before landing, the aircraft adjusted its direction, flying from the southern side of the airport to the northern side, and fifteen minutes later, it landed into the wind from the northern side of the runway.

Ye Chen's eyes remained fixed on this aircraft; seeing it touch down and engage reverse thrust, it then rapidly reduced speed to taxiing speed, and then, under the guidance of the follow-me vehicle, it left the runway and taxied all the way to the cargo apron on the southern side of the airport.

At the same time, Ye Chen also closely followed this aircraft, moving swiftly through the darkness.

A few minutes later, this aircraft came to a stop on the open-air apron outside the cargo area.

Several loading and unloading workers had already driven their loading and transport vehicles here, waiting in advance.

After the cargo aircraft's hatch opened, these workers used the lifting loading vehicles to raise themselves to the side of the cabin, opened the hatch, and began to unload one set after another of cargo secured with loading boards.

Since the aircraft's transport uses a modular method, all cargo is packed on boards; put simply, it is a dedicated aluminum board measuring 3.1 meters by 2.4 meters, with fixed positions of uniform specification on the board; all cargo is loaded board by board, and entire boards are transported into the aircraft interior for fixation; during unloading, the same method of unloading entire boards is used to improve efficiency.

This aircraft quickly unloaded four loading boards, and each board was almost fully loaded with cargo, showing no abnormality.

Ye Chen whispered: "So far, the cargo unloaded from the aircraft appears to be ordinary goods, with nothing unusual detected."

Wan Pojun couldn't help but ask: "Mr. Ye, could they be hiding assassins inside the cargo?"

After Ye Chen released a bit of spiritual energy to probe, he said firmly: "There is no one inside these cargo items; at least, none of the cargo already unloaded contains anyone."

Speaking, Ye Chen's brows suddenly furrowed, and he couldn't help muttering: "A bit strange."

What struck Ye Chen as strange was that, to unload these few loading boards, the several loading and unloading workers actually took turns; each time a board was unloaded, they would have another person go up.

Normally, skilled work should involve reasonable division of labor: those responsible for operating equipment should specialize in operating equipment, those responsible for moving should specialize in moving, and those responsible for transport should specialize in transport.

Like this situation where everyone takes turns going into the aircraft cabin to transport the loading boards one by one, it just seems highly suspicious.

Ye Chen immediately relied on his all-pervasive spiritual sense to detect the clues.

It turned out that eight people were still hidden inside the aircraft's cargo hold at that moment.

These eight people had been hiding at the far end of the cabin, dozens of meters inside, making them impossible to see from outside.

Moreover, every worker who went up to move the cargo panels would, upon entering the cabin, swap places with one person inside—himself hiding in the cabin while the person who replaced him came out to push the new cargo panel.

Ye Chen immediately understood their method, using their own people to replace these workers.

The replaced workers were hidden inside the aircraft, while those who came out could assume their identities and openly leave the airport, leaving no immigration records.

Even more strangely, after careful observation, Ye Chen discovered that although the people inside had indeed been swapped, those who entered and those who came out wore identical clothing, had the same appearance, and even looked exactly alike.

Only after more meticulous investigation did Ye Chen discover that each of those who came out had a hyper-realistic silicone mask stuck to their face.

It was precisely through these hyper-realistic silicone masks that they were able to match the facial features of the workers almost perfectly, making any difference nearly invisible to the naked eye.

Seeing this, Ye Chen silently wondered: "Could these airport workers also be members of that mysterious organization?"

Soon, the last mysterious person to be swapped out gave Ye Chen the answer through action.

After completing the swap with the last worker, he immediately drew a dagger from his sleeve.

Then, with a sudden swing of his right hand, the eight workers who had been swapped in were instantly slit throat by him in one stroke.