John's judgment was correct. The attack at the front door was merely a feint. Gunfire raged, bullets flew, and two stun grenades were even fired from a grenade launcher, but no further action was taken. Instead, a dark shadow appeared outside the air vents in the holding area.
On the wall opposite the cell, about two meters above the ground, were several air vents for light. They were covered in thick glass on the outside, and iron bars, roughly the thickness of a child's arm, were arranged in a grid pattern on the inside.
Several prisoners watched in amazement as a dark figure fiddled with the windows for a moment. As alert as Bishop was, he had already taken cover behind the wall, just like Jack in the hallway.
With a resounding bang, the air vent glass and bars blew away, sending the remaining three prisoners waking up from their slumber. Terrified, they dropped to the ground, desperately trying to crawl under the cell windows and even under the table.
"Help! They've blown down the window!"
"They're coming in, someone help us!"
Several people howled, then immediately covered their mouths as a heavily armed figure, armed with an assault rifle, half-penetrated from the air vent.
The figure was clad in a heavy black police riot suit, the kind that looked like someone ready to engage in a friendly fistfight with pedestrians, shield in hand.
He wore a steel military helmet topped with a monocular night-vision goggle, his face completely obscured by a thick black velvet mask and goggles.
Jack had no idea what the Detroit SWAT team was equipped with, but judging by the discarded military gear the man before him wore, he assumed it was probably pretty close.
Clearly, the narrow air vent was a significant challenge for the heavily armed, corrupted cop. Hidden behind the passageway, Jack waited for a long time before he finally landed with the help of his teammates.
As he glanced around, about to lower his helmet's night vision monocular, Jack slipped silently into the passageway, his feet swiftly and silently edging towards the wall.
The candle Jack had lit in the detention area's passageway had long since gone out, making it much darker inside than outside. As the police officer lowered his night vision goggles and looked up, he saw a red figure silently approaching him.
He was horrified and instinctively raised his gun, but it was too late.
"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, and the police officer fell backwards, a bloody hole in his face. Jack kept moving, clinging to the brick wall.
"Watch out for the window, there's another one!" Bishop, who had been watching silently, finally couldn't help but poke his head from the cell wall to warn him.
His warning proved unnecessary. Jack didn't even glance at the fallen police officer; he had already slid sideways directly under the air vent, remaining completely out of sight of his partner, who was crouching at the window to provide cover.
"What the hell!"
The cop, crouching at the window, tried to peek in at his partner when he felt his gunhand arm being grabbed and dragged inside, leaving only a long trail in the snow.
If anyone outside had witnessed this, they'd likely have recalled a classic horror movie scene: the blasted air vent, like the maw of some monster, swallowing a person without a sound.
This time, Jack didn't even waste a bullet. He simply twisted the man's head 180 degrees, leaving the three prisoners sprawled on the ground stunned and terrified.
The drug addict swallowed uncontrollably, as if realizing his voice was a bit too loud, and glanced at Jack guiltily.
After quickly searching the corpses, Jack was instantly rich. He had two AR-15 rifles with six spare magazines, two Glock-17s with one spare each, and both equipped with red dot sights and laser designators.
However, he immediately removed the laser designators. Unlike his usual invisible laser designators, these ones, which emitted a single green beam, were essentially useless except for revealing his position.
Jack also discarded his crappy night vision monoculars. In such low-light conditions, they were completely useless. Night vision would have required a helmet, which would have hindered his performance.
He happily accepted two heavy bulletproof vests. These, with their bulletproof plates, could protect against 5.56 rifle rounds at close range, making them a valuable lifesaver.
There were also two stun grenades, a military-issue dagger, and two noise-canceling headphones.
However, the headphones were useless; Jack didn't need noise cancellation, and the surrounding radio channels were jammed, making them unusable for either party.
After waiting for a moment under the blown-out air vent, Jack saw that there was no movement outside. No one was looking in, and no one was throwing stun grenades or anything like that. Confirming that only the two had come, Jack shouldered his captured equipment and prepared to leave.
Only a fool would have peeked out; he hadn't forgotten the sniper.
The battle was raging at the front gate. If the enemy discovered their attempt to steal from the rear had failed, they might become so enraged that they launched a forced assault, regardless of casualties. Several windows facing the street were unbarred, making them relatively easy to breach.
"Wait, are you just going to abandon us?" Seeing Jack's gesture, the drug addict and Blackie in the cell threw themselves against the bars, wailing.
"Let us out, man! Smylie thinks this place is too dangerous, too scary. Smylie's scared to death!"
Jack said nothing, slapping his waist to indicate he didn't have a key either.
The drug addict suddenly became anxious, spitting as he spoke. "You can't do this, man! We're just sitting ducks here. Please, please."
"Smylie's already pissed himself off. Please, you can't just leave us here to die like animals."
The black girl in the cell next door remained silent, but she also looked at Jack with horror.
Jack ignored the drug addict, and even the black man with the habit of speaking. Instead, he looked at Bishop, who had been hiding behind the cell wall.
"Can you control them?"
"No problem, I promise." Big Black hid himself in the shadows. Thanks to his racial talent, even Jack couldn't see his expression, but his tone was confident.
Jack was unconvinced by his confidence. Aside from Bishop, the other four prisoners were petty thieves or street thugs dealing in stolen goods, their crimes not punishable by death.
If these guys hadn't been so confused about the situation and worried they'd all bolt like idiots if the cell door wasn't opened, Ronik would have been planning to release them to help.
"Wait, you have five minutes for these three to understand the situation," Jack declared, disappearing into the hallway.
A
bright flash of light, accompanied by a nauseating, chest-suffocating noise, made Alice scream, only to find she couldn't even hear her own scream.
She looked dazedly at John, who was hiding behind a pillar. The old man, who must have been handsome in his youth, was leaning against the pillar, covering his ears as he seemed to be shouting something at her, a look of dazed confusion on his face.
John realized his shouting was futile and fired a shotgun at the window directly across from Alice. He then grabbed her and ran away.
Just as the two ran a few steps, the window with the railings was blown to pieces by a small piece of plastic explosive, and then a stun grenade was thrown in.
After the flash, the door was directly broken open, and two black policemen appeared at the door one after the other with bulletproof shields on their heads. The old police officer Jasper stuck his head out from behind two file cabinets that had been knocked over and stacked up, and repeatedly pulled the trigger at the door.
The shotgun steel balls shot out a whole area of sparks on the shield, but did not cause any damage. Instead, the exposed position attracted the opponent's counterattack.
The black policeman hiding behind the shield man pulled the trigger directly at the old policeman, forcing him to hide behind the metal cabinet.
Seeing that the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse and the front hall of the police station was about to be breached, Sheriff Ronik rushed out of the corridor holding an AR15 and pulled the trigger directly in the direction of the door.
(End of this chapter)