"You're right, that's a good idea." Mason swirled the bed leg in his hand and flew out, tracing a beautiful arc through the air before landing on the cell door levers in the corner.
"Is that the first step you took to escape prison?" Jack exclaimed in amazement. After all these years, the old man's skills hadn't faded at all. He truly was a natural prison escape master.
Alcatraz's cell doors still used the old-fashioned lever mechanism: a row of levers at the end corners of the cells, each corresponding to a cell door. Pulling them open opened the door.
The bed leg, tied with a cloth rope, landed precisely on the first lever. Mason flicked his wrist, and the lever dropped, but it opened the door to the cell next to him.
"Forgive me, it's been over 20 years."
The old man shrugged, retracted the bed leg, and swung it out again, this time smoothly opening the cell door in front of them.
"I'll get us some weapons. You take the hostages to the bathroom and hide in the sewers." Jack disappeared down the hallway before he finished his words.
——
"We still have two missiles. One is on the launch pad and ready to go, General."
A square-jawed captain loudly reported from the makeshift command post.
General Hammer, his face gloomy, seemed oblivious to the captain's words. The captain then repeated them loudly.
"I heard you, Captain." Hammer, clearly upset, didn't pursue the captain's slightly offensive tone.
"It's time to give the orders, General." Another burly black captain's tone was devoid of any respect.
"I'm the one who decides the strategy!" Hammer acted not as if he were a general strategizing, but as if he were a gambler who had lost everything at the gambling table.
After hesitating for a long time, he ordered, "Major Buster, take the missiles and four hostages, including the FBI and the British guy, and get on the helicopter. I will stay and bear all the consequences."
"General!" The adjutant, shocked by this sentence, looked at his superior in disbelief, "We still have a chance. There are still 6 hours before the ultimatum."
"No, we have no chance anymore." Hammer looked dejected, "They saw through our bluff, the blackmail plan failed, and the mission is over."
"Over?" The black captain's eyes widened, "Then where is our money?"
"No money, the mission is over." Hammer looked at the black captain, "The important thing now is to save your lives. Major Buster will be responsible for handling my property, and the money will be divided equally among everyone."
"Don't try to fool us easily, General." The square-chinned captain's eyes became unfriendly.
"How much money do you have? We only followed you for over ten million, and now you're trying to get rid of us for a few tens of thousands?"
"Watch your manners, soldier! You're talking to a general!" Major Buster warned loudly.
"Soldier?" the black captain scoffed, refusing to budge. "I'm no longer a soldier. From the moment we took ordinary citizens hostage, we became mercenaries, and mercenaries only want money."
He approached General Hammer with a stern expression, his burly figure imposing. "We gave up everything, prepared to be wanted, just for the money, and now,"
he said word by word, "now, I want my damn money!"
It's unclear whether the square-jawed white captain had discussed this with the black captain beforehand; now, they were playing the good cop and the bad cop.
"We still have a chance, don't we? General, order a missile launch. Show the Pentagon our resolve, and they'll yield."
"I wouldn't order the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians. Do you think I'm crazy? Or maybe you're crazy?"
Hammer trembled with anger, his voice trembling slightly. "I repeat, mission over!
Major Baxter, tell the lighthouse personnel to dismantle the missile launchers. The rest of you, take the missiles and hostages to the helicopter and prepare to evacuate!"
In addition to the two remaining guards at the lighthouse and the soldier stationed at the door, there were six people in the command center. They were now clearly divided into two sides, with General Hammer making up exactly three on each side.
The atmosphere suddenly became tense, and everyone's hands involuntarily reached for their weapons.
Just then, a burst of intense gunfire erupted outside the window. Almost everyone instinctively looked towards the lighthouse nearby, just in time to see someone let out a long, painful scream and fall from the top of the tower.
"What happened?" Everyone in the command center was shocked.
The lighthouse was less than a hundred meters away from the guardhouse that served as the headquarters. Through the window, they could clearly see a group of people appearing in the isolated clifftop lighthouse and quickly taking up a defensive position facing them.
"Blackbird Two! Blackbird Two! Report!" Major Baxter desperately lunged for the radio, shouting.
Almost immediately, an alarm blared, again originating from the bathroom's motion sensor, but the command center was too busy to care.
"Check the cells! Those hostages!" Hammer was the first to react. The soldiers, interrupted by this unexpected development, temporarily set aside their arguments and rushed for the door.
But the moment the door opened, a body slumped limply inside.
"Sergeant Crisp!" The leading black captain was horrified. Someone had sneaked in without him realizing it.
He crouched down to check the sergeant's life or death, but just as he turned him over, he heard a sharp snapping sound that made his hair stand on end.
An M67 "Lemon" rifle, its safety pin removed, rolled from the sergeant's armpit and across the grimy floor toward the stunned General Hammer.
"General! Be careful!" Major Buster, who was still calling from the radio, was furious. He threw away the receiver, jumped out, pushed Hammer, who was still in a daze, and threw himself on the grenade.
"Bang!" Major Buster's body was lifted nearly half a meter from the floor by the shock wave. Amidst the smoke and dust, a blood mist mixed with fragments of internal organs spurted out.
"Tom (Buster)!" Hammer got up from the ground and rushed to his adjutant.
The ceramic plate on Major Buster's chest was completely shattered, emitting an unpleasant odor of burnt protein. The whole person was like a punctured bag, and blood quickly soaked his upper body.
"I am. very honored. to serve. with you. General." Leaving behind these last words, the loyal adjutant breathed his last.
"Ah!" Amidst Hammer's heartbreaking howls, the square-faced captain and the black captain exchanged a glance and hurried out of the guard room filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder.
(End of this chapter)