Invasion of the United States

"An unimportant intruder." Zhou Qingfeng said indifferently, his finger already hovering over the hang-up button, thinking of ending the call.

"Wait!" The other party hurriedly shouted, tentatively asking, "You... are you now at Mr. Brown's house?"

"Yes."

"Are you with the guards?"

"No."

"Then are you... also trapped? From another block?"

"Of course."

The person on the other end of the line seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, but then followed up with a more direct question, "How did you avoid the guards and get over the barbed wire?"

Zhou Qingfeng smirked, "Climbed over."

A brief silence. He could hear someone on the other end discussing in low voices, the background filled with the faint sound of papers flipping and hurried footsteps.

Finally, the other party spoke again, with a tone of pleading, "There should be some route maps in Mr. Brown's bedroom, could you... help bring them over? You can ask for anything you need."

Zhou Qingfeng said coldly, "You're planning to escape through the underground network? Now everyone knows you can't get out on the surface, so they turn to the underground.

But the guards aren't fools; they surely suspect someone would do that, and the success rate of this plan is definitely low."

"No..." The other party immediately interrupted, speaking even quieter, "The underground is indeed not an option, it's already sealed off. We... plan to leave by air."

"By air?" Zhou Qingfeng's finger paused, "Planes?"

The voice on the phone became more cautious, "Unless you can help get Mr. Brown's drawn maps, I won't reveal any more information."

Zhou Qingfeng suddenly chuckled, responding, "You're not in the same block as Mr. Brown, are you?"

The other end went silent abruptly, not a sound was heard.

Zhou Qingfeng continued, his voice low and certain, "Mr. Brown wants to get his wife out for medical treatment, but you can't take them, can you?"

The phone remained silent, admitting it without words.

Zhou Qingfeng's gaze swept over the map on the study wall, the intricate routes gradually becoming clear in his mind. He spoke slowly, almost mockingly:

"You plan to escape by air? But Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States, this damn place is deployed with the national missile defense system.

Andrews Air Force Base, Arlington Air Defense Array - radar scans the sky around the clock, any unauthorized aircraft will be shot down upon takeoff.

Where do you get the confidence to escape?"

A murmur suddenly sounded on the phone, as if someone was arguing. A few seconds later, another voice took over the conversation, more stable yet tinged with urgency:

"Washington D.C. is currently under lockdown, but a special department has people who can come and go freely."

Zhou Qingfeng listened quietly. Content presented by MV|LEMP|YR.

"We have pilots here, someone can get a special pass, but we just can't get close to the planes."

The voice continued, "We're not leaving from underground, but we must approach the plane from underground - this requires Mr. Brown, who is familiar with the underground network."

Zhou Qingfeng's gaze fell on a whiteboard, three metro lines in Arlington marked densely with red and blue.

His eyes followed the silver line extension, stopping at a specially marked area by Brown - "Unpublished tunnel, a relic from the Cold War, can avoid surveillance."

The voice on the phone continued:

"But now Mr. Brown can't come, we're stuck at this last step. If you can bring over his maps, we can leave."

Zhou Qingfeng did not immediately respond.

He reached out to brush a dotted line on the map, a path specially outlined in red pen by Brown - a maintenance tunnel between Roslin Station and Pentagon Station that's theoretically closed long ago.

Beside it was a scribbled note:

"Maintenance Tunnel J-12, closed in 1987, surveillance blind spot. Just enter Roslin Station, and you can reach downtown all the way."

Zhou Qingfeng's lips curled slightly, "You're in Roslin block, aren't you?"

The other end was briefly silent, then came a light chuckle, "You guessed it?"

The other party seemed unsurprised, even with a touch of admiration, "Very well, we welcome smart people to join."

Zhou Qingfeng lightly tapped a coordinate on the map and said softly, "Tell me your exact location. I'll come over immediately."

-----------------

In an apartment in Roslin district, several men sat around a dining table covered with hand-drawn maps, the air filled with the bitterness of coffee and lingering smoke.

The silence after hanging up the phone felt like an invisible wall, suffocating everyone.

A man with black-framed glasses adjusted his frames, eyes bloodshot behind the lenses. He deliberately made his tone appear light:

"Don't be so pessimistic, think positively - at least someone is willing to risk bringing the maps. Let's wait a bit."

A cold laugh came from a corner of the dining table.

A man in a faded military uniform raised his head, tapping the hand-drawn block defense map on the table, which was densely marked with warnings in red pen.

"It took us several days to figure out the guards' defense layout; if someone could easily come over, we would have left ourselves.

Unless that guy can move like a ghost, slipping past the guards under their noses, and over at least three blocks of barbed wire."

The military man's finger heavily struck several red crosses on the map: "These barbed wires have thermal imaging cameras installed, and every intersection has automatic searchlights.

Not to mention the watchtowers with M240 machine guns - two people trying to climb over almost got shot to pieces the day before yesterday."

The women around the dining table instinctively held their children tighter; the kids were sickly, listless, and unusually quiet.

No one in the apartment spoke.

On the TV screen, the chief medical advisor of the 'White House' was discussing the necessity of 'herd immunity.'

"Washington D.C. has a high proportion of elderly people, natural deaths occur daily with or without the virus. Citizens should not panic over individual cases."

The camera switched to a data chart, the death curve looking very flat.

"We've completed mass vaccination in the district, with seventy percent of the population immune. The lockdown needs only one more week at most, and the pandemic will end."

"Now is the critical moment of the lockdown, absolutely no concessions in the middle. With minimal sacrifice, the federal administrative system will return to normal."

With the chief medical advisor's words, a few coughs and moans from children echoed in the apartment. Several mothers looked at their husbands, hoping the men would quickly come up with a solution.

But the men were already exhausted, even frantic, helpless in the face of harsh realities.

About an hour passed, as impatience grew among them, climbing sounds suddenly came from outside the apartment building. Someone was knocking on the window.

The men all jumped startled, but a mother holding a child reacted quickly, pulling open the curtain and opening the window.

A masked figure leaped in from outside, glanced around at everyone, and asked solemnly, "Which one of you is Mr. Phil?"

The man with glasses shot up, exclaiming, "I am Phil, are you Victor? You really came?"

The military man was more surprised, stepping forward and gripping the newcomer's hand, "How did you cross three barbed wire barriers?"

The newcomer was Zhou Qingfeng, who shrugged and ambiguously said, "Crawled over, jumped over, walked over, there are always ways."

Yet another man anxiously asked, "Did you bring Mr. Brown's maps?"

Zhou Qingfeng patted the document tube on his back, asking back, "So tell me, what exactly is your plan?"

The men exchanged glances, the military one pointed at the hand-drawn map on the dining table, "Others want to run outwards, we plan to head into the city first."

The 'glasses man' followed, "The President is sick, his 'Marine One' aircraft is surely unused."

The third man said the final words, "'Marine One' isn't a specific aircraft, but when the President is on a plane, the corresponding call sign is 'Marine One.'

But no matter which 'Marine One,' it's equipped with a dedicated friend-or-foe system to ensure Washington D.C.'s air defense radar doesn't identify it as a threat.

As long as we manage to get a special security aircraft, we can easily escape with the whole family."

Zhou Qingfeng thought for a moment, nodding, "Okay, I'm in."