louisehourcade Chapter 716 I shouldn't have kept a backup plan!
Chapter 716 I shouldn't have kept a backup plan!
The people by the platform didn't walk towards the car door at all. Instead, they suddenly turned around and tossed something towards Lynn. It wasn't powder, it wasn't smoke, but a pile of extremely fine and shiny fragments. Those fragments seemed to shimmer in the rain, creating an eerie sense of light refraction in the air.
"Don't look at it!" Lynn shouted.
Jason immediately tilted his head and closed his eyes, rolling towards the right-hand cover based on his memory. The next second, the man had already used that half-second to rush to the back of the repair vehicle. His accomplice in the driver's seat slammed the door shut, seemingly trying to throw something out of the car to him.
Lynn fired the shot.
The bullet shattered the passenger-side rear window, the glass exploding. A low curse came from inside the car; it was clearly a woman.
"A woman?" Jason looked up.
"At least one." Lynn had already rushed towards the back of the car.
The man with the uneven left leg didn't get on the vehicle. Instead, he suddenly bent over and slapped his palm on a cracked section of cement at the edge of the platform. The movement seemed like a casual press, but the next second, the small section of ground between the platform and the repair truck suddenly seemed to "misalign." It wasn't cracked, but something that made you instinctively reluctant to step on it. It was as if the thickness of the cement beneath, the slope, and the feedback underfoot all went completely off track at once.
Jason cursed, "Someone like you will fall and die on your own sooner or later!"
The man finally turned around and looked at them for the first time.
Rain streaked across half his face. His hat was pulled low, and his mask covered most of his face. His jawline was thin, but his eyes were bright, not in a panic, but rather as if he were rapidly calculating who would get close first. There was an old, shallow scar on his left cheek near his ear, which flashed in the wet light.
"The Federation?" His voice wasn't loud, but it was surprisingly steady.
“Yes,” Lynn said. “You’ve reached the end of your road.”
A hint of disdain or regret flashed across the man's eyes: "That's not necessarily true."
The woman in the car whispered urgently, "Leon!"
The name was immediately established.
Jason's eyes narrowed: "What's your last name?"
The man didn't answer.
Lynn had already taken note of it.
The next second, the man stepped onto the "misaligned" ground, and surprisingly, he didn't sink or trip. He seemed to have glided across along a narrow path that no one could see. Lynn didn't chase after him, but instead suddenly fired a shot at the front of the repair truck.
The bullet grazed the hood, causing the woman in the driver's seat to instinctively flinch. The steering wheel swerved, and the front wheel of the repair truck slammed into a rusty railing beside the platform with a loud thud.
It was in that very moment.
Jason bypassed the displaced area from the right, rushing across the rain and scattered wooden crates, and pounced on the man, slamming him hard into the back. The two tumbled into the puddle beside the platform. The man reacted swiftly, elbowing Jason hard in the ribs, then slamming his hand into the ground, as if trying to use the structure for something else.
Lynn rushed over and pressed the muzzle of his gun against his wrist: "Don't move."
The man paused for half a second, his eyes still darting around.
“I bet I can flip over this floor before you fire,” he said.
“Then you made the wrong bet,” Lynn said.
The man's lips actually twitched slightly.
The next second, a thin metal sheet slid out from the cuff of his other sleeve and slashed towards Jason's neck. Jason grabbed his elbow and cursed, "Damn it, do you run a hardware store in your sleeve?"
Without the slightest hesitation, Lynn reversed the pistol, slamming the butt against the man's hand. The metal fragment fell to the ground. The man finally let out a muffled groan, twisting his shoulder as if trying to struggle.
Jason shoved his face into the puddle: "Behave yourself, Mr. Mole."
At the same time, the woman from the repair truck kicked open the door and rushed out. She wasn't tall, but her movements were quick and agile. Underneath her black short jacket was a close-fitting dark tool vest, and at her waist, instead of a gun, was a row of slender toolboxes. As soon as she got out of the truck, instead of running away, her first reaction was to raise her hand and flick—three tiny, needle-like metal objects shot straight at Lynn and Jason.
Lynn dodged to the side, two of the projectiles embedding themselves in the wooden crate behind him. The third grazed his sleeve, sending sparks flying from the fabric and the protective vest underneath. The object had an extremely thin head but a small groove at the tail, clearly indicating it wasn't an ordinary concealed weapon.
“The tailor,” Jason said through gritted teeth without even looking up.
The woman had already leaped to the right, her feet landing on the narrow railing at the edge of the platform, and her hand reached for her waist.
"Don't let her touch the bag!" Lynn shouted.
Jason suddenly flipped over and twisted, slamming the man's wrist behind his back, while yelling into the communicator, "Everyone, press on the right side! She has a precision piercing device!"
Two plainclothes officers finally emerged from the other side. Just as they raised their guns, the woman swung out an extremely thin steel wire. Not at anyone, but at the broken railing between them. She caught the wire, used it as leverage, and swung, seemingly sliding half a body length into the air, narrowly avoiding the onrushing arrest. Her movement was beautifully executed, almost cold-blooded.
When she landed, her profile was partially obscured by rain and stray hairs, revealing only her pale chin and a pair of cold eyes. Her age was hard to determine, but she was around thirty, or perhaps younger. She wore a black half-finger glove on her right hand, while her left hand was covered with a full-length cut-resistant glove.
Lynn raised his gun: "Halt!"
The woman didn't even look at the muzzle of the gun; with a flick of her finger, another object flew out, hitting Lynn right at his feet.
"Down!"
Lynn and the plainclothes officer beside him retreated simultaneously. The thing landed but didn't explode, only making a very soft "ding." Then, the rainwater and oil film within half a meter around it seemed to be sliced by something at a high frequency, splashing up an astonishingly fine ring of water. A shallow white mark was even etched into the concrete surface of the platform.
Jason yelled from behind, "You lunatic, using this in the city?"
The woman finally spoke, her voice even colder than her actions: "It's better than being taken away by you."
After saying that, she turned around and rushed towards the fire ladder on the side of the platform.
Lynn fired a shot into the ladder railing beside her. A spark flew, and the woman instinctively flinched, but didn't stop. But in that instant, a faster shadow swooped down from above the platform. It was a federal agent who had been waiting on the rooftop, using his superior position to smash directly into her shoulder and back. The woman staggered from the impact, dropping the second cutting piece she was holding, which rolled into the puddle.
"Hands!" the agent roared.
The woman reached behind her back for her last tool. Lynn pounced, kicking her wrist away. The tool flew out, hit the wall, and cracked open with a "crack," revealing a ring of extremely thin, folded metal petals inside.
"Don't touch that!" Jason yelled again.
The woman was still struggling. Unlike the man with the left leg, she wasn't adept at using the terrain, but she was ruthless in close combat, using elbows, knees, and the heels of her hands—aiming for the most vulnerable spots. The agent pinning her down almost suffered a moment of weakness. Lynn grabbed her shoulder joint and thrust down hard. The woman groaned, finally being pressed into the cold, wet concrete.
“You’ve mistaken me for someone else,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Then tell me your name,” Lynn said.
The woman remained silent.
Jason had already handcuffed the man, his knee still pressed against his back. He took a breath and said, "She just called you Leon. Surely she wasn't admitting she was wrong?"
The man's face was pressed against the ground, rain streaming down his cheekbones. He stopped struggling, only tilting his head to look at the woman being held down: "Aida."
Another name.
The woman's expression changed instantly: "Shut up."
“It’s too late,” Jason said.
The sound of police sirens finally drew closer at the alley entrance. Blake's men and reinforcements rushed to the loading platform, gun barrels and flashlights raised simultaneously, illuminating the area even whiter than the second basement level of the bank. The repair truck's engine was still running, emitting a little steam, and broken glass and rainwater flowed together into the platform's gutters. The old iron railing beside the platform, jagged and knocked over earlier, was now bent at an unsightly angle.
Blake arrived last, and upon seeing the scene before him, he cursed first, then looked at the two men on the ground: "These are your mole and seamstress?"
Jason grimaced, his side still visibly sore: "Pretty much. Be polite, the one over there with the uneven left leg is Leon."
“And your last name?” Blake asked. The man didn’t answer.
Lynn looked at him: "It's okay if you don't tell me. The fingerprints will tell you."
The woman said coldly, "You'd better hope you've actually caught the right person today."
“People usually only say this when they’ve hit the nail on the head,” Jason replied.
Blake had already ordered people to control the vehicle and collect the tools from the ground. The evidence bags were unfolded layer by layer, and the camera shutters clicked incessantly. After the door of the white-gray repair truck was fully opened, the contents were gradually revealed: a fake municipal worker's badge, two sets of dusty work clothes, a printed diagram of the old building's structure, a portable energy dispersive spectrometer, a long box wrapped in shock-absorbing cotton, and three disposable mobile phones of different models.
"Damn," Blake muttered, "those two are really bringing their entire fortune to work."
Lynn walked over and glanced at the long box: "Don't open it, scan it first."
The technician immediately squatted down.
Jason dragged Leon up from the ground and leaned close to his ear, his voice not loud but cold: "What did you take from the gray box last night?"
Leon looked up, rain streaming down his brow. The old scar was more prominent up close, as if it had been grazed by some sharp object long ago. His lip was slightly cut, but he didn't look disheveled, simply saying, "Tell me first, did you find the cap inside?"
Jason laughed: "You're in a more hurry than I thought."
Leon's expression remained unchanged, but his pupils contracted very slightly.
Lynn walked back and saw this scene: "He wasn't the one in the most hurry."
Leon looked up at him.
“The people in the most urgent situation won’t come to confirm the news themselves,” Lynn said. “You’re here to silence someone or to cover up a leak.”
The woman, Aida, was lifted up by two agents, her arms twisted behind her back. She tossed her wet hair aside and said coldly, "You have a good imagination."
“Thank you,” Lynn said. “After you got the items last night, you didn’t deliver them immediately. Because someone suspected you had a tail, or suspected the items were incomplete, so someone had to come back today to keep watch. In your division of labor, Leon was responsible for close-range confirmation, and you were responsible for receiving the supplies and cleaning up. Right?”
Aida did not answer.
Jason, however, had already discerned something from her earlier gaze: "So it really isn't in your hands anymore."
This time, what flashed in Aida's eyes was even more obvious.
Lynn looked at her: "Who took it?"
“You’ve asked the wrong person,” Aida said.
“Then let me rephrase the question,” Lynn said in a flat tone, “Who inspects the goods?”
The woman's jaw tightened, and she didn't respond for even half a second.
Leon suddenly laughed, coughing up a little blood: "You people from the Federation are so annoying."
“That’s what everyone’s saying today.” Jason pressed him toward the car. “Get in.”
Just then, the communication from the temporary command area came in again. Samantha's voice came through the headset, so fast it was almost slurred: "Lynn, just three minutes after Helen ended her call, Michael Dean, the bank's security director, left the scene, saying he was going to head office to get some materials. We followed him. He didn't go to head office; his car just turned onto the Upper East Side."
Lynn's eyes darkened: "The exact location."
"It's still moving, heading east to 70th Street."
"He's alone?"
“The driver added him. There was a gray sedan behind us with the license plate that had been there since near the bank, but it wasn’t ours; it was a fake.”
Jason tossed Leon to the agent next to him: "There's still a tail."
“Yes.” Lynn looked at Blake. “Take these two back and separate them. Especially make sure they don’t see what was found in the car.”
Blake immediately understood: "You're going after the director?"
“Not the director,” Lynn said, “someone who follows the director.”
Just before Leon was being forced into the car, he suddenly said, "It's too late for you to go now."
Lynn turned to look at him.
The smile on Leon's face was so faint it was almost an illusion: "Those who inspect goods never wait for a second time."
Jason's eyes turned cold, and he slammed his fist on the car door: "Address!"
Leon looked at him but said nothing.
Aida suddenly spoke softly from the other side: "What he said is true."
Everyone turned to look at her.
The woman stood in the rain, handcuffed behind her back, her eyelashes wet, her face as white as if she'd just been taken out of a freezer, but her eyes remained hard. She stared at Lynn and said, "If you go now, you'll at most find an empty room."
“Where?” Lynn asked.
Aida did not answer.
Lynn looked at her for two seconds, then suddenly said, "You didn't come here to save him."
The woman's eyes flickered.
“You’re here to keep an eye on him,” Lynn said. “If Leon exposes himself, or says something he shouldn’t, you’ll kill him in the car or on the platform.”
Leon turned sharply to look at her.
Aida said coldly, "Don't try to sow discord."
“It’s not about provocation,” Lynn said. “You’re carrying cutting tools, not heavy firepower; you didn’t pull anyone out of the vehicle right away, you just wanted to throw something to him; you rushed to the right side of the platform, which wasn’t the shortest escape route, but the best vantage point. You’re more like a finisher than a partner.”
Jason clicked his tongue: "So your partnership isn't that strong after all."
For the first time, Leon's face showed a different expression, as if an answer he had known for a long time but had never wanted to hear had been forcibly revealed. He stared at Aida: "Did he send you?"
Aida didn't look at him, but stared at Lynn: "If you want to find the place, I'll lead you."
The people around paused for a moment.
Jason's first reaction was to frown: "This is too sudden."
“Because she now knows you can get hold of Michael,” Lynn said.
Aida finally turned her head and glanced at him: "Because you're right. I didn't come here to save him."
Leon gritted his teeth, the blood at the corner of his mouth washed away by the rain, turning it a pale red: "You fucking—"
"Shut up," Aida said. "You shouldn't have kept a backup plan last night." (End of Chapter)