"Since you're treating this like a vacation, I'll go to Detroit with you. I still have a few days of vacation left." Jack's words immediately drew the attention of the others.
"Really?" John's expression was overjoyed, but then he realized what was happening and quickly shook his head. "Forget it. Don't let a little thing like mine keep you from going back to New York to celebrate New Year's with your friends."
"Our New Year's Eve celebration is canceled. Hannah plans to stay home and play games all week. Someone (Jiejie) is going to spend New Year's with her parents, and everyone else has their own plans,"
Jack said helplessly, spreading his hands. "So I'm free now and I'm looking for somewhere to spend a couple of days." He then briefly recounted the unfortunate case the Most Wanted squad had just encountered.
"That sounds really upsetting and frustrating," Nyla Harper wiped a tear from her eye, picked up her glass, and gestured to the juice in it as Jack stared at her in surprise.
"It's all pregnancy hormones. I've been feeling this way lately."
Jack followed her gaze downward, noticing the slight bulge in her belly. "Aha, congratulations on becoming a mother again."
After this interruption, everyone burst into laughter again, and John, after Tim's whispered explanation, gave up trying to dissuade Jack from going with him.
After all, this was Detroit, a city even Robocop couldn't contain. Although after decades of decline and eventual bankruptcy, the area was reportedly recovering,
this recovery was limited to the surrounding satellite towns. Aside from a small area in the heart of downtown, within half a mile of the General Motors Center, one could see overgrown weeds and abandoned buildings. It
was obvious that a certain union president wouldn't be so kind as to assign John to such a safe area.
"So, which precinct is John going to?" Lucy asked curiously, opening the map on her phone.
"Precinct 13, one of Detroit's oldest police stations, is currently planning a relocation. They'll be moving to a new location after the New Year. Some veteran officers are retiring, and some have already been transferred to other precincts, so they're a bit shorthanded."
Gray had clearly done his research the moment he received the application.
"Precinct 13?" Lucy quickly found the location on the map and checked it out on Google Street View. "It looks like a factory area around here?"
Angela leaned over to take a look and frowned. "Damn, this place looks like a complete mess."
"That's why they're going to the new station. The factory area there is completely dilapidated, and it's close to Detroit's most dangerous East Side. But the good news is that it's so dilapidated that it's not that dangerous. There's even talk of coyotes being spotted nearby."
Gray's words left everyone looking at each other in surprise. Looking at the map, this place looked like an urban area, but to see large wild animals there was a clear sign of the city's desolation.
"
I really think we should bring more guns." Jack showed an FN57 to the airport security officer. After he confirmed the bullets were separated, he put it back into its designated case and locked it with a combination lock.
For the umpteenth time, he'd been anticipating the private jet Rossi had promised the Most Wanted team. The process for bringing a gun on a domestic flight was incredibly cumbersome, even for a federal agent like him, carrying a spare was incredibly cumbersome.
John, a civilian outside of Los Angeles, had an even more cumbersome process than a federal agent, filling out multiple forms. He looked up and complained, "I really don't understand why you insist on me bringing my regular gun."
"Because someone told me never trust a weapon you haven't personally fired. Of course, if your marksmanship is as good as your driving, then you can ignore what I said."
Jack was quite impressed with John's driving skills, as he rarely used them, and his large vehicle driving skills were still at a beginner level.
The extra Belgian FN57 Jack was carrying, nicknamed "Cop Killer," came from Chris's collection, having been scavenged specifically for this trip to Detroit from the secret arsenal beneath the Wolf Brothers' farm.
Tim had helped him find a backdoor, entering the gun serial number into the system an hour before they arrived at the airport. Otherwise, even if Jack had revealed his FBI credentials, he wouldn't have been able to bring a concealed gun on board.
This semi-automatic pistol chambered for the unusual 5.7×28mm caliber, with a 20-round magazine capacity, has a seemingly contradictory low recoil and excellent armor-piercing performance.
In reality, the FN57's performance with the standard civilian 5.7mm pistol round is comparable to the 9mm Parabellum, perhaps even slightly inferior due to its lighter weight.
However, aside from the Europeans boasting about it, the military-grade SS190 ammunition, whether used in the FN57 or its larger sibling, the P90 submachine gun, is capable of penetrating police soft body armor at effective range and inflicting considerable aftereffect damage.
This is the origin of the FN57's nickname, "Cop Killer," and the reason Jack insists on his team members exercising regularly and not bothering to install additional front and rear armor plates during missions.
While guns are plentiful in the US, with a working piece of scrap metal easily available for just a hundred bucks on the black market, the bullets used in civilian models are generally lackluster, at least in terms of armor penetration.
LAPD patrol officers like John routinely wear standard soft body armor on patrol; no one would deliberately sit in a police car all day with two plates inserted front and back; that would literally give them a heat rash.
But for a wanted criminal squad, who routinely deals with gangs of ruthless criminals, soft body armor is no different from paper when exposed to ammunition, whether it's rifle ammunition for a long gun or specially coated military steel-core pistol ammunition.
Although his sidearm is a more powerful SIG Sauer P320-XTen, chambered in 10mm NATO, Jack, considering he's traveling to dangerous Detroit with John, a troublemaker no less than himself
, decided to get a backup gun just in case.
There was silence all the way. After a four-hour flight, Jack and John pulled out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport in a rented Subaru SUV to a blanket of snow.
"It seems your union president really went to great lengths. Not only is he incredibly efficient, he even picked a good day," Jack quipped as he checked the navigation system.
Tomorrow was New Year's Day. Having been driven from warm Los Angeles before New Year's Eve to this icy Detroit of minus 10 degrees Celsius, even the usually optimistic John couldn't help but grimace, waving his phone in front of Jack.
"The forecast says there's a snowstorm tonight."
"Don't bother. I already regret making this trip with you."
Jack braked slightly, slowed down slightly, and read the road signs. Then, carefully turning the steering wheel, they took the final turn. A scene resembling the end of the world unfolded before them.
Through the swirling snow, they could see towering high-voltage pylons in the distance, and an equally astonishing number of tall chimneys in the near distance.
But the high-voltage wires on the towers had long since drooped to the ground, and there was no trace of smoke rising from the tops of the tall chimneys. With Jack's extraordinary vision, he could clearly see the dilapidated factory buildings and twisted railroad tracks beneath the chimneys.
Fortunately, their destination was within sight. Passing by an abandoned chapel that had fallen into disrepair and not even a single stained glass window remained intact, the Subaru stopped beside a flagpole with a faded American flag hanging on it.
"The last time I saw such a quiet and snowy world was in damned Wyoming." Jack looked at the rather old brownstone building in front of him, and felt a sense of the old 1950s.
"Is this the 13th Police Station?"
(End of this chapter)