You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 263 What's wrong with you police officers?

Bob sat next to him and watched the whole thing; his mouth was agape.

He remained in that position in the passenger seat of the patrol car, his chin seemingly forgotten how to close, his eyes fixed on the Honda Civic that was upside down in front of him.

Rain was still streaming down the windshield, but what he had just seen through the film of water had temporarily shut down a part of his brain responsible for processing information.

He had just watched with his own eyes as Leon, with his right hand on the steering wheel and his left hand gripping a Glock 17 that was no different from his sidearm, leaned out of the car window.

Then, with both cars traveling at over 120 miles per hour, on slippery roads in the rain, and the cars still swaying, he fired a shot.

Just one shot.

Nine-millimeter pistol cartridges.

It smashed through the Honda's window and crawled into the driver's head.

Bob was a cop himself, so he knew all too well what that meant.

Static accuracy of a pistol at 25 meters already relies on luck, and that shot was fired while in a high-speed chase, with one hand controlling the car, one hand firing, both sides moving, and under crosswind and rain conditions.

Is this some kind of Olympic rapid-fire champion on drugs?

No matter what, he had known Leon for a considerable period of time before he was hospitalized.

He remembered a few months earlier when Leon and he were chasing a black man together. While Leon was also aggressive, it was a normal kind of aggressiveness—kicking down doors, tackling, handcuffing—

Then he pressed his knee down on the other person's neck.

Those are things that any normal white police officer would do.

What about this one?

Although I thought Leon was a bit exaggerated in the news before, I realized after seeing him in person that his growth rate was just too outrageous.

"you----"

He turned his head to look at Leon's profile.

Lyon's expression was exactly the same as when he was driving; his brows were slightly furrowed, and his left hand was smoothly pulling the Glock back to his waist.

"When the hell did you open it?"

Lyon ignored him.

"Leon. Leon Vance. Officer Vance. Chief of the ACU." Bob's voice began to rise.

"Do you even know what you just did? Are you even human? You've evolved into a superhuman and you're not taking me with you?"

Leon fastened his holster and opened the car door.

"This car is too old and not easy to drive."

"No, I'm talking to you about marksmanship, not car skills."

Lyon has already gotten off the train.

In the back seat, Miller leaned back with his hands on his knees, his eyes fixed on Leon's back.

Based on Leon's performance just now, even special forces soldiers in movies aren't this outrageous. Perhaps only the Punisher in superhero movies could do what Leon just did: one-handed, high-speed, and a one-shot kill.

But that's a movie.

Miller previously described Lyon as a "truly good cop," the kind of tough guy who wouldn't collude with corrupt cops and would dare to rush into a shootout in the rain.

He now realizes that his previous assessment may have been somewhat inaccurate, and he's unsure if he can keep up with Lyon's pace.

Lyon had already walked around the front of the car and was heading towards the overturned Honda.

Bob was about to say something, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he swallowed his words back.

The distance between the patrol car and the Honda wreckage was about ten meters. Every step he took was measured, and the intervals between his footprints in the mud were ridiculously even. His upper body hardly swayed, but his speed was as fast as if someone was pressing the fast forward button.

Bob turned his head and met Miller's gaze.

Miller was also watching Leon's back, his pupils dilated and his lips pressed into a line.

"You saw it too?" Bob's voice was very low.

"I saw it."

""

"He opened it?"

"I know."

Bob glanced back at the windshield again, then unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Never mind, I'll go down and check. You wait in the car."

Miller ignored him and had already opened the back door while Bob was speaking.

The two men stood beside the patrol car, raindrops hitting their hat brims, but neither cared to wipe them off.

The Honda Civic lay upside down in the mud, its roof crushed, and its left taillight still flashing red.

Most of the car window was shattered, and glass shards were scattered all over the ground, reflecting a few specks of light as they mingled with the mud and water.

The smell of gasoline mixed with the stench of burning rubber filled my nostrils.

Lyon had already walked to the car.

He bent down to look at the back seat, then reached out and grabbed the deformed door handle. With a single pull, the metal made a screeching sound as the entire door was ripped off.

"Holy shit," Bob muttered under his breath.

Two people were squeezed into the back seat of the Honda.

The guy on the left, who was strapped to his seat with his seatbelt, was still conscious despite being thrown around and having cuts all over his face from broken glass. He was staring at Leon, who had ripped off the car door, with terrified eyes.

The other one wasn't so lucky.

He had been shot in the shoulder by Mia earlier, and it was hastily bandaged with a tattered T-shirt. When the car overturned, he rolled around like a dice several times in the back seat and was now slumped under the seat with his left arm bent backward and blood foam coming out of his mouth.

Leon reached out, grabbed the conscious kidnapper by the collar, and pulled him out of the deformed car frame.

The burly man, weighing over 180 pounds, was dragged out of the car like a sack of potatoes and thrown onto the muddy ground, his face splattered with mud.

"Fuck—" Before the conscious kidnapper could even scream, Leon had already crouched down, pressing his knee against the kidnapper's chest, pinning him to the ground.

"Where is Vic?"

"I don't know—" The sober kidnapper's voice changed.

Leon raised his hand, the movement was very light, not at all like he was going to hit someone, but the sober kidnapper's eyes widened immediately, because Leon's fist pressed down on the soft spot between his lower chest and upper abdomen.

"Where is Vic?" Leon asked again.

"How did you kill that person?" The sober kidnapper suddenly blurted out, staring at Leon's hand, his lips trembling.

"That shot is completely illogical. A fucking pistol couldn't possibly do that—!"

Lyon pressed his fist down.

The conscious kidnapper let out a sharp scream, his whole body arching as if he had been electrocuted, his limbs kicking wildly in the mud.

Leon's grip was much stronger than it appeared; his fist pressed down right below Leon's sternum, and the dull pain of his internal organs being squeezed so hard they felt like they were about to spill out of his throat made it almost impossible for him to breathe.

Where is Vic?

"East District!"

The sober kidnapper's voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth.

"The abandoned industrial area in the East District, they say it's outside the territory of your West District Precinct."

"Furthermore, at the intersection of jurisdictional areas, even if the police chase after us, they cannot arbitrarily cross jurisdictions to enforce the law. The police in the East District are also weaker, so it is not easy for things to go wrong."

Lyon loosened his grip.

Which building specifically?

"I don't know, I really don't know."

The kidnapper's tears mingled with the mud, and his voice was already trembling with sobs.

"Vic never tells the decoy truck crew the final location. He knows who will be caught, so he doesn't let us know. What I just said wasn't told to me by him; I heard it from other thugs."

Lyon's eyelids twitched slightly.

"How is Mia?"

Upon hearing the name, the kidnapper reacted even faster than when his internal organs had been squeezed by a fist; he shrank back in the mud.

"That policewoman? She's fine!" he rattled off the words in a rapid-fire manner.

"She's still alive. There's someone inside who was shot in the shoulder by her. She stays up late at night, watching soap operas with a coffee in her hand, and she's carrying a gun."

"What the hell is wrong with you police officers? Who's watching soap operas with a gun at midnight? Then she shot at us, and then Andrei punched her—"

Lyon stopped moving.

Rain dripped from the brim of his hat onto the kidnapper's chest.

"You punched her?"

"Yes—yes."

The kidnapper swallowed hard, realizing he had said too much, but his mouth was no longer obeying his brain.

"I swear she was fine when we left. Vic specifically told us that he wanted her alive, that she had to be alive to be a hostage, so we didn't continue hitting her."

"Just one punch, Andrei's fist, hit her in the stomach, to stop her from resisting—ah!"

Lyon threw the kidnapper out of the mud.

He stood up, and once fully upright, his silhouette in the rain was noticeably taller than that of an average person.

He looked down at the kidnapper on the ground.

The kidnapper was still struggling to get up, glancing back at Leon's expression as he did so, but he couldn't discern anything; Leon's face was devoid of any emotion.

Then Leon knelt down in front of him again.

His right hand was clenched into a fist and aimed at the kidnapper's stomach.

The punch didn't even make a loud sound when it hit his stomach; there was only a muffled "thud."

The kidnapper's eyes bulged out.

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His whole body was folded in half as if it had been folded up, and then he fell to the side into the muddy water. A sound like air leaking out came from his throat.

Leon stood up and glanced at the kidnapper with the missing arm in the car.

The kidnapper's eyes were half-open, blood was still oozing from his mouth, and his consciousness was already blurred.

Leon pulled out the Glock.

"You shouldn't have touched her."

He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the head of the conscious kidnapper.

"She's just an office worker."

"She just didn't want to work and wanted to stay home and do nothing, but she was actually working the whole time."

A shot rang out.

Then he turned around and fired another shot at the one-armed kidnapper in the car.

The gunshot echoed briefly on the empty Highway 9 before being drowned out by the sound of rain.

Leon put the Glock back into its holster, then pulled an anonymous prepaid phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and tapped a number on the screen with his thumb.

The phone rang a few times before being answered.

Alex.

Lyon's voice was completely flat.

"On Highway 9, southbound, about half a mile from the Seventh Avenue exit, there's a Honda Civic overturned in the green belt on the right side of the road."

"The three bodies are all next to the car. Come and collect them. When you put them into storage, follow the procedure for the mysteriously sourced bodies."

He paused.

"Come here now."

"Wait—Leon, could you explain the situation in more detail—" Alex's voice came from the other end of the phone.

Then Leon hung up immediately.

He put the phone back inside his jacket and took out a second anonymous phone from another pocket.

This phone is specifically for contacting the base; it only contains Lei's number in the contacts.

Dial it.

The call was answered very quickly this time.

"Ray, let MacArthur answer the phone."

A few seconds later, MacArthur's voice came through the receiver, and in the background, one could vaguely hear Pastor Thomas calling for gauze in the church.

"Sir?"

"MacArthur, have you finished treating your wound?"

"It's not too late yet. The screwdriver guy is still on the operating table. Reverend Thomas said the bullet was half a centimeter away from piercing his lung, and they're removing it now."

MacArthur paused for a moment.

What do you need?

"There was a car overturned on Highway 9, a dark blue Honda Civic. The roof was crushed and all four wheels were upside down."

"Now arrange for someone to bring over that truck we got from Big T, and take this scrapped car to the junkyard."

MacArthur was silent for a moment. There were clearly many circumstances in this matter that needed to be explained, but he didn't ask anything.

"I see."

MacArthur's voice was short and forceful.

"After I finish treating my wound, I'll take Walter and Ray over there immediately. I trust them. I can't drive, so I'll handle the negotiations with the junkyard."

"Go."

Lyon hung up the phone.

He tucked his second phone inside his jacket, then looked up at the rain.

At that very moment, a line of pale blue fluorescent text appeared on his retina.

[Mission Completed: Crush the Blood Gang's Bait]

Participation rate: 100%

[Kills: Driver (headshot with pistol), kidnapper in the car (executed after collapsing), kidnapper with severed arm (executed)]

[Mission Reward: 800 Justice Points]

The fluorescent text flickered twice, then faded from view like melting ice.

It's still raining.

Lyon turned around, took a couple of steps, and found Bob and Miller still standing next to the patrol car, motionless.

Bob's mouth was open, even wider than before.

Miller's hand was on his holster at some point, but he didn't pull it out; it was just there.

"Get back in the car," Lyon said.

"Leon."

"Um.

"Did you just execute two unarmed people?"

Lyon opened the driver's side door and paused before getting in.

"They are kidnappers."

"That's a question from the program—"

"Bob," Leon interrupted him, "get in the car."

Bob's lips moved, but he didn't say anything. He opened the passenger door and got in.

Miller was a beat slower than Bob. The first thing he did after getting in the car was to fasten his seatbelt again, and then look up at the back of Leon's head.

He didn't ask Leon anything.

But the confusion in his eyes had largely dissipated, leaving only a very quiet light, as if he had understood something very mysterious.

Lyon started the patrol car, turned the steering wheel, and aligned the car with the northbound return route.

Then, he pulled out the cell phone from his jacket pocket with his right hand—the one Sterling had just sent to call the guy in charge of surveillance.

He pressed the redial button.

After two beeps, the call was answered.

"Speak," the man's voice, tinged with static and heavily enunciated, rang out again.

"No need to check that Honda Civic with the broken right taillight," Leon said calmly, looking at the road ahead.

"I've already checked. It was bait laid out by the Blood Gang; there were only a few good-for-nothings inside."

There was a long, dead silence on the other end of the phone.

Only a faint electrical hum could be heard.

The man Sterling sent to check the surveillance footage—whether he was a policeman or a professional surveillance officer from the Sterling family—was clearly overwhelmed by the inefficiency.

From the time he gave the license plate number and location until now, it has been no more than ten minutes.

During this time, Lyon not only caught up with the Honda speeding on Highway 9 and intercepted it, but also completed the "verification" and cleared it of suspicion.

"—You intercepted them?" The man's voice finally showed a hint of emotion.

"Physical interception".

Lyon didn't waste any time on the issue. "Now adjust your or your team's monitoring priorities."

"Since they sent out decoy vehicles to draw fire, the real car with the hostages tied up will definitely not drive particularly fast or conspicuously, nor will it take those main roads that are easy to expose."

"I have received concrete intelligence that their destination is the abandoned industrial area in the East District."

"Concentrate all the cameras you can access, whether they are municipal or private, onto the auxiliary roads and intersections leading to the abandoned industrial area in the East District."

"Send me the coordinates immediately if you spot any suspicious vehicles."

"Understood." The man's voice regained its professional tone. "Wait for my message."

"I'll head towards the east district first."

Leon pressed the hang-up button.

He tossed his phone into the storage compartment on the center console and put his right hand back on the steering wheel.

The moment the phone touched the plastic base, the screen suddenly lit up again, accompanied by a rapid vibration.

A buzzing, unfamiliar number with no location displayed was flashing on the screen.

Lyon held his breath instantly.

It seems that the two Sterling family private soldiers have already arrived near 12th Street.