Chapter 37 The Black Hawk
The shrill sirens stopped close to 7th Street, maintaining their distance from the big entrance.
A police bullhorn blared through the air.
“To all the criminals inside, you’re already surrounded. Your only option is to lay down your arms and surrender yourselves.”
“The police are here.” Meng Xue whispered to Zhao Lingjun, her spirits lifted slightly.
However, Zhao Lingjun just tugged her hand and told her not to do anything reckless. He maneuvered his body to shield her from the robbers.
He didn’t want her to see the devastating state the four women were in. If he had not undergone tempering previously in the sewers, Zhao Lingjun would have already puked his guts out the instant he saw the four corpses in front of the fat man.
Furthermore, the reason why he told her not to do anything reckless was because he had a vague intuition that something wasn’t quite right.
When Zhao Lingjun had glanced over at the robbers, he had noticed that there wasn’t the slightest hint of panic on their faces, but rather a shadow of excitement.
“So old school.” Zhao Lingjun heard the tall guy who was in the middle of the men and women say. “Why do cops everywhere shout the same old thing every time.”
“Heihei.” The fat man at this moment had counted to five, and stopped to laugh as he heard his accomplice’s comment. He then looked at his watch, nodded towards the tall and short guys, and said, “The police here can already be considered not that bad. They’re half a minute earlier than those from our previous heist. You guys go and settle it.”
“Understood.” The pair turned to give each other a look of affirmation, then carried a duffel bag with them to the entrance of 7th Street.
“Alright, let them busy themselves with that, and we shall continue our game.” A sinister smile split the fatty’s face as he looked at the unmoving group of men on their hands and knees. Completely ignoring the sordid puke covering them, and the fact their mouths were stuffed with underwear, he started the count again, “Six…”
However, when he started counting again, all the men’s attention was directed at the duo heading towards the door.
The pair’s actions were swift, and the moment they stopped near 7th Street’s gigantic iron door that was shut, another order reverberated through the police bullhorn, “Put down the weapons in your hands…”
As the fatty had counted ‘seven’, the tall and short duo had already taken out four black things from the duffel bag.
“Ah~~ Not good! Quick, retreat! Drop to the ground!”
The voice from the megaphone which was demanding their surrender suddenly became incomparably panicky.
“Those four black things couldn’t be grenades, right?” Zhao Lingjun trembled in fear as he thought of such an outcome, the tall and short duo were already beginning to strut back to the fat man’s side.
“It wasn’t grenades?” Zhao Lingjun breathed a sigh of relief as he noticed the two of them leisurely walk back. But at this moment, the ground started rumbling violently.
It seemed as if the whole of 7th Street was suddenly shaking; Zhao Lingjun stumbled as he lost his balance and almost fell face first. Four tremendous rumbling sounds immediately followed, and exploded in everyone’s ears. Zhao Lingjun felt like his eardrums had been repeatedly smashed by an iron hammer. Even the loudest firecrackers he played with when he was younger didn’t even come close.
Zhao Lingjun was dazed to the point his mind was a blank slate. When he raised his head to look, all he saw was towering flames outside the plaza. The sky was ablaze, and some unknown fragments slowly floated down.
The big iron gate of 7th Street shook visibly as if something was battering against it; shaking so hard that it was visible to the eye. After which it creaked so hard that it caused people to grimace.
“Lunatics! They’re all lunatics!!” As Zhao Lingjun steadied himself, he only had such a thought in his head. “They even have explosives, and they threw them just like that.”
“Eight…”
All the men crawling on the floor were stunned; n.o.body thought that the robbers were deranged to such an extent. The fatty had even continued counting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.
When they heard him count to ‘eight’, the men who had their souls scatter from their bodies from fright suddenly became infused with vigour, and crawled towards the women lying on the floor as if their lives depended on it.
“These guys have hand grenades; they aren’t even afraid of the police and dared to bomb them, what else could they not do?” All the men on the floor only had such a notion in their hearts. They knew that the only way to live was to crawl as quickly as possible and lie on top of the nearest woman.
“Ten…”
But they were instead stupefied, after counting to eight, the fatty had jumped straight to ten.
When the count of ten was up, only a few people had crawled to sit on top of a woman, and the majority were still lacking a few meters.
“You… Why didn’t you count ‘nine’ and immediately jumped to ten? Those people not on top of a woman started snivelling.
“Heihei, it’s my domain, I make the final call.” the fatty laughed. “Therefore you can only blame yourself for being too slow, and not me.”
“Ah…” Many people upon listening to his explanation immediately fainted on the spot.
Even while crying and yelling, the others almost flew over to the women on their hands and knees. Some of them, upon realizing there was no one left for them to climb atop, became crazy and started wailing sorrowfully in grief.
Zhao Lingjun looked at those people wailing in a disordered state and felt disgusted, but at this moment, fear was his biggest emotion.
He was afraid that the thin guy would raise his gun and shoot those that didn’t get onto a ‘chair’ to death.
But at this moment, Zhao Lingjun saw the fat and tall men beckon him over.
“Let’s go, bro.” The fatty directed a smile towards Zhao Lingjun and Meng Xue and said. “Send us off again.”
“Just what is going on today?”
Xiao Ping had the habit of taking a short nap after eating lunch everyday, and everyone in the office teased him that his pot belly was formed exactly because of this.
But Xiao Ping enjoyed it and ignored them, and went to nap as usual. Midnap, he was suddenly awoken by many police sirens pa.s.sing by the road below the office. When he looked out of the gla.s.s window, he noticed that other than ordinary police cars, there was a heavy black police van. All the cars were speeding over to an area with rising thick smoke, not far in the distance.
“It’s the direction of 7th Street, what is happening there?” Xiao Ping shivered. “Even the Black Hawk was dispatched.”
“According to the news, there are four gold robbers in 7th Street. They are armed with firearms, and even have powerful weapons such as grenades. This time everyone has to be doubly careful.”
In the heavy black police van, seven people with similar black outfits were sitting in it. Their outfits only exposed the nose, eyes and mouth, and the person speaking was sitting nearest to the driver. He is the current team leader of the Black Hawk, w.a.n.g Zhaoping.
“Understood! Captain, but aren’t they just four thieves? Do we have to be so nervous? On the way here, you have already repeated it three times.” pointman Li Yaosheng languidly asked. “When the time comes, we can just find a vantage point and let Little Fu snipe those four.”
“Heihei.” The sniper, Fu Shun laughed non committedly.
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and it’s always wise to play safe.” w.a.n.g Zhaoping looked at his team members and said, “I feel that this time, it won’t be so simple. I’ve never heard Old Qian so anxious over the phone before.”
“He is always like that, when isn’t he anxious?” Li Yaosheng laughed. “The men under him aren’t bad at arresting wh.o.r.es and prost.i.tutes and such, but can’t cut it if they were to meet someone who was slightly stronger.”
“Exactly, perhaps they were so scared of a few homemade grenades that they p.i.s.sed in their pants.” They rumbled with laughter. “How could they compare with us, the Black Hawk. We are the strongest armed force. Besides, there are only four criminals and there are seven of us, what is there to be afraid of?”
“Heihei.” w.a.n.g Zhaoping looked at the six men across him and couldn’t help but join the laughter.
If anyone was to hear their conversation, they would find them to be arrogant, but w.a.n.g Zhaoping knew that they had the ability to be. He knew that facing these youths full of vigor, even if he continued warning them, it would enter one ear and exit the other. This was because, they were currently like an unsheathed blade, the only thing capable of changing them was the tempering of time.
Therefore after laughing, w.a.n.g Zhaoping only said one last sentence, “Be careful when you’re doing things, don’t injure the hostages by any means.”