Ronik glanced at the spot where the matchbox had disappeared with a look of loss, then whispered to the black state trooper, "I'm sorry about your partner. We've temporarily placed him in the office next door."
"Why don't you even have an alarm at the back door?" the black state trooper named Jeffrey complained. The medication hadn't even started to take effect yet, but he was already feeling groggy from the excessive blood loss.
"It's been broken for two months. You know this place is going to be abandoned soon," the old trooper Jasper retorted in a grumble, leaning over to the window and peering out.
"It looks like there's a car parked in the direction of the woods. It hasn't left, and people got out. At least six of them, and they're dispersing!"
"You'd better stay away from the window. Jack said there's a sniper outside," John warned, still maintaining his guarded stance against the wall by the door.
"The visibility in this awful weather is so bad that even a sniper wouldn't be able to hit it." The old man said this, but he moved his head further away from the window.
"The phone isn't working. Maybe the line was cut by the snowstorm?" Alex, on the other side, put down the receiver and approached Jack with a pair of tweezers she'd found somewhere.
"This might be useful."
"I thought you were just a psychiatrist," Alice said, watching her expertly disinfect the tweezers with alcohol.
"I'm a forensic psychologist for NCIS. I've been to Syria and Afghanistan. I'm not very skilled with a gun, but I have first aid training."
Alex smoothed her hair and smiled wryly as she watched Jack cut through the wound without hesitation, his fingers reaching in to search for the bullet. "But I'm clearly no better than him."
Meanwhile, Ronik was frantically spinning around. "This isn't good. They shouldn't be here unless they're sure we won't have reinforcements. The line must be down."
"The radio's been jammed too. Apparently, Bishop has professionals on his staff. I'm sure the cell phone signal is the same," veteran officer Jasper said dejectedly.
Unfortunately, his words were spot on. Alice and John both tried to dial out on their phones, but despite having a full signal, they couldn't get through. The same thing happened with the internet.
"Tell me what happened," Jack said calmly, taking the sterilized tweezers from Alex. The black state trooper, Jeffrey, was already half-conscious.
Jeffrey tried to focus, but he didn't realize his voice was a dream. "I don't know. When I got in behind, Baker was already lying on the ground. There were two guys in ski masks facing him."
"I heard you shoot. You missed at such close range. You must be a terrible shot," Jack said, goading him.
"Fuck you, bastard! They had two of them firing at me. I was trying to return fire. They must have been wearing body armor. I got at least one bullet, I swear!"
Jeffrey was so excited that he almost forgot that a foreign object was darting beneath his skin, searching for the bullet.
"They actually hurt my partner. I was so angry, so angry, that I chased them straight out. But those two guys were good, absolutely good.
They didn't forget to take turns covering each other when they retreated, just like the formation our instructors taught us in the police academy. But my shooting skills are definitely not bad. I beat them away and made them run for cover. I don't know how I got shot. It's so strange."
The black state trooper's voice became smaller and smaller until it could no longer be heard.
"He," Alice asked with wide eyes at the side, "is he dead?"
Alex, who was squatting beside Jack and helping him, was so scared that she quickly reached out to feel the state trooper's breath, then rolled her eyes at her, "It's just the effect of the drug. He fell asleep."
At this moment, there was a sudden sound of breaking glass, which scared everyone, but Jack seemed to have heard nothing, and his hands didn't even shake.
"Bang, bang, bang!" Gunfire rang out. Veteran Sergeant Jasper drew his sidearm and fired wildly through the shattered window.
"Hold on! Hold on! It's not a bullet!" John picked up a half-blocked brick from the ground and saw Bishop's name etched on it.
Unlike the chaos here, on the other side of the room, as if impervious to any disturbance, Jack remained completely absorbed in his surgery.
The two attractive women acting as makeshift nurses seemed to be infected by his composure. Alex even shifted her position to shield herself from the chill wind pouring in through the broken window.
"He was shot by a sniper." Jack retrieved a complete bullet and examined it carefully under the light for a moment. Confirming it was intact, he breathed a sigh of relief.
It was a 7.62mm rifle bullet that had broken a rib in the state trooper's body before redirecting and becoming lodged in his body.
The bullet was only slightly deformed, not shattered. This was a blessing in disguise. In these crude surgical conditions, Jack's ability to extract the bullet and perform simple hemostasis was already the best he could do.
If the fragments had left multiple wound cavities in the body, and Jack had managed to save the patient, he would have to explain to the doctor what a medical miracle it was.
Meanwhile, across the room, two men were arguing.
"I told you, these are Bishop's men out there. They're here to rescue their boss, and they won't stop until they get what they want," veteran officer Jasper said firmly.
"Okay, everyone, listen up. They're not coming for us. If we give them what they want, hand Bishop over to them, everything will be over. No one will get hurt!"
John, standing beside him, widened his eyes. But before he could say anything, the veteran officer's proposal was strongly opposed by Sheriff Roenicke.
"No, we can't let that bastard, a cop killer, leave my station like that. Absolutely not!"
Veteran Inspector Jasper's voice rose, pointing toward the sofa where everyone was gathered. "This is the only way to get out of this predicament. There's a wounded officer lying there!"
"Well, he should be alright for now." Jack took a glass and the blood-stained bullet landed in it with a crisp clang.
"I told you, there's a sniper out there, maybe more than one." He placed the glass in front of Ronnick, confident that he could tell the difference between rifle ammunition and ordinary pistol ammunition.
"You agree to hand him over too?" Ronnick's voice rose immediately.
Jack still had that calm expression. Even the current situation couldn't make him nervous. "I'm just telling you the current situation. We're surrounded. They're well prepared.
They've already deployed snipers outside, which means they've already prepared a backup plan. Sneaking in was just their first step. After realizing something was wrong, they immediately cut off our communications with the outside world to prevent reinforcements.
If I were their commander, the next step would be to cut off the power supply here."
Before he finished speaking, the surroundings fell into darkness, and everyone couldn't help but stir again.
"OK, I guess this old police station doesn't have a backup generator, right?" John took off the tactical flashlight hanging from his pistol and turned it on. Although he still spoke in a light-hearted and joking tone, there was still a hint of nervousness.
(End of this chapter)