Spy work is boring, dull, and tedious. Initially, Yang Yi didn't quite believe Li Fan's words, but now he thoroughly believed them.
The operation had reached its thirteenth day, and after the novelty wore off in the first two days, neither Yang Yi nor Kate had any of the initial enthusiasm left.
Every day they sat in the car, hovering around a building, and they had to disguise themselves and change cars every day, because they needed to be ready to help anyone whose identity was compromised leave at a moment's notice. They couldn't just leave the car at will, had to eat in the car, and couldn't step out except to use the toilet.
Thinking that this kind of day could go on for two months, Yang Yi really felt like he was about to break down.
Over these thirteen days, Yang Yi felt he had learned quite a bit, but he hadn't learned the really key things because he simply wasn't qualified to blend into Egertoni Company like Ryan or Wells and take on the task of ultimately exfiltrating the intelligence.
John Jones was generous in teaching Yang Yi, but the problem was that John Jones also would never let a pure novice like Yang Yi jeopardize the entire team's operation. It was okay to learn; John Jones could teach gradually, but letting Yang Yi take on more important responsibilities during the operation was out of the question.
John Jones, as the brains controlling everything, naturally had no time for hands-on teaching after the operation started. His idea was to let Yang Yi start with the most basic tasks and work his way up gradually.
So Yang Yi could only undertake the lowest skilled tasks along with Kate. As for what Ryan and Wells did after they infiltrated Egertoni Company on the fourth and eighth days, and how they did it, he had no idea.
Logically, with a long duration of extremely boring work repetition, Yang Yi and Kate's relationship should have eased a bit. However, even if they were dying of boredom in the car, neither would take the initiative to speak a word to the other that was unrelated to the mission.
Therefore, Yang Yi and Kate's time together not only didn't make their relationship more harmonious, but it made it even more awkward.
But today was a bit different, because there was an extra person in the car.
Daniel sat in the back seat, but Yang Yi, who had been hoping for someone to chat with all these days, quickly became disappointed, as Daniel was a chatterbox who said nothing at all.
Yang Yi couldn't stand it anymore. Three people sitting in a car not saying a word to each other was driving him to the brink of collapse, so he turned his head to look at Daniel and whispered, "Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat? I can go buy it, and I'll treat you."
Daniel raised his head and nodded at Yang Yi, then lowered his head again.
Yang Yi, feeling helpless, asked with a frown, "What will you eat?"
Daniel didn't speak, but Yang Yi's phone pinged, and when he opened it, a new message had appeared: "A burger will do, plus a cup of coffee, thanks."
Putting down his phone, Yang Yi said helplessly to Daniel, "Buddy, you're right in front of me, face to face. Can't you say a word instead of typing?"
Daniel looked up at Yang Yi, then lowered his head and clacked away at his laptop keyboard.
Yang Yi raised his hands in exasperation. He wanted to curse, then he heard the sound from his phone, opened it, and saw a new message that read: "I think this works just fine."
Yang Yi sighed and gestured with his hands, saying helplessly, "A burger and coffee, alright. I need to use the bathroom, and I'll bring yours when I come back."
Yang Yi turned to Kate and said coldly, "What do you want?"
Kate pulled out a ten-pound note, without even looking at Yang Yi, and said, "Whatever."
Yang Yi grumpily took the note, unbuckled his seatbelt, but just as he opened the car door and stepped one leg out, he suddenly pulled his leg back in and quickly closed the door.
"Wayne Rushford, I see him!"
Yang Yi's voice was tense because he had spotted the chairman of Egertoni Company.
Kate immediately asked, "Where?"
"The man in the black suit who just got out of the car, with a beard, accompanied by two people. Do you see him?"
Kate only saw a back view and frowned, "Are you sure? Have you seen Wayne Rushford before?"
"I haven't, but I've seen his photo."
"So you can confirm that this is Wayne Rushford? Are you sure you've seen clearly?"
Without any hesitation, Yang Yi declared, "It's definitely Wayne Rushford!"
Kate spread her hands and said, "I have my doubts, but it doesn't matter. It's his company downstairs, isn't it normal that he appears?"
Although Yang Yi didn't want to talk too much with Kate, he couldn't help but say, "Been here thirteen days and finally saw someone related to the operation. I'm a bit excited."
Just then, the walkie-talkie in the car suddenly crackled to life, and John Jones said in a very rapid tone, "Left hand begins the operation, the connection with the target's computer network has been established, Daniel, start receiving data now!"
The sudden command from John Jones left everyone stunned.
There was no plan to steal information today, as Ryan and Wells were not even qualified to access Egertoni Company's trade secrets, and they didn't even know where the company's trade secrets were stored. Therefore, if everything went normally, it would be good enough to confirm where the information was hidden within a month.
The core secrets of a company can't be hung on the web or seen by too many people. The information to be stolen would likely relate to different departments' work, such as the financial situation from the accounting department, files on acquisition cases from the marketing department, and perhaps the acquisition plans from the chairman or CEO themselves.
It was impossible for Ryan and Wells to gain positions within just two months that would allow them to access these secrets. Time didn't allow them to obtain the information while undercover, so they had to resort to the simplest and oldest method—stealing.
Nowadays, data isn't likely to be printed on paper and locked away. In this era of computers, almost all files are stored on computers or hard drives. However, some particularly important things are physically isolated, which simply means that the computers or hard drives storing these files cannot be connected to the external network.
Daniel was a computer hacker, but no matter how skilled, he couldn't hack into a computer that wasn't connected to the outside world. However, computers that are only connected to a local network or even standalone systems become very simple for him if they connect to the external network and don't require any firewall breaches—just downloading the data inside.
Ryan had already connected a computer, which he believed contained secrets, to the outside world. What was left was for Daniel to receive the data, and then the operation that was originally planned to take two months, and ideally to be completed within one month, could be declared finished.
The good news came so suddenly that Yang Yi hardly believed his own ears.
Only Daniel seemed not at all excited. He typed rapidly on his computer, then immediately said in a low voice, "Starting to receive. The file is huge, the network is slow, it will take twelve minutes to complete the download."
John Jones immediately said on the walkie-talkie, "Understood, Ryan is in the chairman's office, time is limited, select the important files to download."
Kate turned pale, and before Daniel could speak, she hastily said on the walkie-talkie, "Ross just saw the chairman. I can't confirm if it was him, but the chairman is coming upstairs!"
Silence fell, then John Jones whispered on the walkie-talkie, "Damn it!"
Yang Yi didn't know what exactly had happened in this operation, nor did he know why they suddenly had the chance to steal information, but he knew it was a rare opportunity. If they lost this chance, it would very likely be impossible to enter Wayne Rushford's office again.
Egertoni Company leased two floors of this building, on the seventh and eighth floors, and had its own private elevator.
Although Yang Yi didn't know the situation inside, he knew Wayne Rushford's walking speed—it would take less than a minute to enter the building, ten seconds to a minute for the elevator to arrive and forty seconds to reach his eighth-floor office, since there were no stops in between, the elevator was that fast.
That meant Wayne Rushford could reach his office in a maximum of three minutes.
John Jones was only silent for a brief moment before he said on the walkie-talkie, "There's no time, Wayne, abort! Clear your tracks immediately and leave the office, Daniel, erase the download traces!"
It was clear John Jones was reluctant, but he made a quick decision. It was a pity to give up on this chance, but there would be other opportunities. If they were exposed, it would be a complete failure with absolutely no room for recovery.
Yang Yi felt he had to take action, so he immediately said on the walkie-talkie, "I can hold up the chairman! I can try to delay him!"
John Jones responded quickly, "No!"
Yang Yi opened the car door, urgently saying, "It's a rare chance, and I am confident! And it won't expose us!"
With no time for further consideration, John Jones had to either let Yang Yi try or completely abandon the operation.
Yang Yi looked at Kate and said quickly, "Watch for my signal, a nod for success, a shake of the head for failure!"
Kate said anxiously, "What are you going to do!"
Yang Yi had not yet received instructions from John Jones, but he had already begun briefing Kate on the next steps—as he had no way to communicate invisibly and silently, he could only use hand gestures to indicate to Kate whether he was successful or had failed.
At that moment, John Jones finally said in a grave voice, "Give it a try!"
Yang Yi immediately dashed out of the car like a shot.
Wayne Rushford was about to enter the building, and Yang Yi needed time to run there, to reach Wayne before the elevator doors opened, so whether he could delay him was up to fate.