Julie was still dazed. Jack knew what she was thinking from her expression. "Not Tarzan, not King Kong."
"Okay, I'm not a blonde either." Julie shook her damp, shoulder-length hair. The heroines in the two old movies Jack mentioned were the usual Hollywood blondes, whose screams set the tone.
"So what are you going to do with them?" She walked over to the two assassins and watched as Jack used tourniquets to stop their bleeding.
Both had been shot in the palm of their right hands, a 10mm AUTO bullet leaving a large hole in their palms. This meant they would have to learn to use their left hands like the third brother did.
"Of course, we'll get them to reveal their accomplices. There's a good interrogation spot on the way here." Jack ripped two vines from a tree, wrapped them around his arms to test their strength, and smiled with satisfaction.
Ten minutes later, the two assassins awoke from their comas, horrified to find themselves suspended upside down in mid-air, their bodies dangling. The girl they were hunting was tying the vines that bound them by a nearby tree.
"Are you awake?" Jack crouched before them, playing with two small wooden sticks in his hands, smiling at them. "I have a few questions. First, how many of you were sent to Hawaii?"
The two assassins, hanging upside down, exchanged a glance, neither saying a word.
Jack, unsurprised, poked a small mound of earth beneath their heads with his stick. "It seems you haven't quite grasped the situation you're in."
He pushed the mound back, and a dense mass of fiery red ants emerged. By the time Jack retracted the stick, more than a dozen had already swarmed on top.
"Hawaii was once a paradise, the closest thing to the Garden of Eden the world has ever known. Its fertile soil, formed from volcanic ash, offered no mosquitoes or flies, no poisonous snakes or insects, and even rarer plants with stings or poison.
But the arrival of the colonists changed everything. All the creatures you see here today are introduced, including the flowers and plants the natives used to make leis."
Jack, mimicking the voice of a certain Mr. Zhao, whose reputation had fallen in his later years, began to offer a science lesson.
The two assassins struggled to move their necks, staring at each other, unsure of Jack's point. He then held a small wooden stick before them, revealing tiny red ants waving their antennae in search of the culprit who had destroyed their nest.
"Do you recognize this?" Jack smiled innocently. "Red fire ants, the smallest and most formidable invasive species on this island. They have stingers on their abdomens connected to venom-filled sacs."
Upon hearing the ants' venom, the two assassins almost simultaneously tilted their heads back, trying to keep their noses away from the stick.
Jack chuckled, shook the stick in his hand, and evenly distributed several fire ants on it to each of the assassins.
The aggressive little ants, upon contacting the two assassins' faces, clamped their jaws tightly around them, then bent over and began stabbing with the tiny needles on their buttocks.
Unlike bees with barbed stingers, whose stings become stuck, killing both the attacker and the enemy, fire ants attack continuously, releasing venom from their sacs with each sting until the venom is depleted.
The burning pain quickly spread across the two assassins' faces, oblivious to the excruciating pain in their injured right hands.
In reality, fire ants are not the bullet ants of the South American jungles; the stings of just a few of them are not unbearable.
But who could blame someone for being so good at bluffing? Technically, Jack's statement was correct. Red fire ants are indeed a formidable invasive species, but that was only in terms of the overall ecosystem.
Their venom isn't particularly toxic; only a very small number of people are allergic to the toxic proteins in their venom, leading to anaphylactic shock.
But the threat was real, for directly beneath the heads of the two assassins, hung upside down, lay a massive ant nest.
As they struggled desperately, the vines binding their feet loosened slightly, causing them to sink downward, their heads barely inches from the nest.
This scene startled Jack. A few stings from a few red ants wouldn't be fatal, but a head injury would be far more serious. An ant nest could contain tens of thousands of red fire ants, and even if they didn't die, they would still leave a person bruised and battered.
The dramatic effect was incredibly effective. The two assassins, frightened, squint their eyes, straining their heads back to stare at the tiny ants waving their antennae at them, screaming uncontrollably.
"Three of us, there are three of us in total! Put us down!"
"Wouldn't it be easier if you told us earlier? We're in a hurry. Tell us where you're from and what identities you're using?"
Jack kindly used a stick to help them flatten the ant nest a little more, so that their heads were a little further away from the scary little creatures. However, as the ant nest was further destroyed, more red fire ants poured out like a tide, making people's scalps numb.
"San Jose, Costa Rica, we took yesterday's flight! Help! Don't do this to me!"
-
"Just be quiet and stop struggling. These vines should be able to hold on until someone comes to rescue you."
After saying that, Jack ignored the two killers who were still wailing, took out his satellite phone and called Kono, first reporting his GPS coordinates, and asked her to notify Danny and Cheng Hao to send someone to deal with the two hanged men in front of them.
Then he reported the intelligence he had just asked about and asked her to check the flights from Costa Rica. "They explained that in addition to the three of them, there is a contact, a white woman, probably in her thirties, whose identity is unknown."
"That's a scavenger. According to the information sent by your colleague Alice from New York, the killer teams hired by the Baha drug cartel are usually composed of four people.
Three gunmen plus a scavenger. The scavenger is responsible for finishing the work, but if the three gunmen fail to complete the job, the scavenger will take over and complete the task."
Kono continued, "I will check the surveillance based on the flight information. As long as the scavenger appears, I can find her appearance and then use the facial recognition program to identify her identity."
Jack checked the time and warned, "Give priority to comparing with people who will appear in the court. That should be their last chance."
After hanging up the phone, he called Danny and Cheng Hao and asked them to drive to the nearest highway and wait.
(End of this chapter)