A Dodge pickup roared up behind them along the road they had come down. A tripod had been welded into its bed, with a PKM General-Purpose Machine Gun mounted on top, and several gangsters carrying automatic weapons sat behind it. The instant the two sides spotted each other, bullets swept toward them like a torrential downpour.
"Run! Run!"
Most of them scrambled away on hands and knees. Li Jie grabbed Hargrove by the collar, intending to drag him deeper into the corridor. Despite his pants still being soaking wet, Hargrove rolled over, sprang up, and ran ahead of Li Jie.
"You mother****er!"
Li Jie cursed and charged inside in a crouch. Then someone brushed past him, running outside instead.
"Get back here! What are you doing?"
Coolidge said nothing. He waved the MP5 in his hand at Li Jie and tucked himself behind the wall at the corridor entrance.
"Fuck, you idio-"
Before Li Jie could finish cursing, the clanking of the gun's cycling mechanism and a barrage of cracking impacts filled the air. Bricks and mortar flew from the outer wall, and he dove to the floor. Fortunately, the PKM could not fire continuously for long. When he raised his head a few seconds later, he found Coolidge curled up behind the wall, covered in dust and twitching. Both hands clutched his neck. There was a hole in his windpipe, and thick, bubbling blood dripped from the corners of his open mouth.
No bullet had hit him directly. A flying chunk of brick had shattered his throat.
"Fuck, cop movies get people killed!" Li Jie punched the floor, patted himself down, and realized he had left his phone in the Chevrolet. He shouted at the gunman beside him, "Got a phone?"
Another burst of gunfire outside, sounding like cloth being ripped apart, drowned out his shout. The gunman lay on the floor, staring blankly at him for a moment. Only when Li Jie held a hand to his ear to mime a phone call did he understand and pull a Mobile Phone from inside his jacket.
"Call this number..." The machine gun's roar stopped just then, and he seized the chance to rattle off a phone number. "Call the Gotham Police Department and request backup."
"Huh? Call the cops?" The gunman stared at him in confusion. "We're... Mr. Falcone's..."
"Fuck Falcone! You're innocent civilians being attacked by gangsters," Li Jie snapped. "Tell them a group of gangsters with heavy firepower are suspected of stealing a large amount of cash. Get SWAT here!"
The gunman's mouth twitched. He nodded and huddled in a corner to make the call, while Li Jie breathed a small sigh of relief. As for what to do when SWAT discovered there was no cash and got furious?
Who gives a shit? I didn't make the call. Hell, it's not even my phone.
He grabbed his gun and turned to run upstairs. After several consecutive bursts, the heavy machine gun would need at least twenty seconds to cool down. He had to find a firing position and take out the PKM first. Never mind its killing power-its ability to demolish walls alone was unbearable. Just then, a police siren sounded along the road behind the Dodge.
Huh? Backup actually got here this fast?
His spirits rose, then immediately sank. There was only one police car. Its red and blue lights flashed as it charged into the muzzle flashes of the enemy's automatic weapons, swung its rear around, and began billowing smoke under the barrage. There was only one cop inside, too. He shoved the door open, rolled out in one smooth motion, ducked behind cover, and drew his gun to return fire.
"GCPD! Drop your weapons immediately!"
Holy shit, whose soldier is this? What a badass!
Li Jie cautiously peeked down from upstairs. Oh, James Gordon, Gotham's legendary king of one-on-one combat. That explained it.
Jokes aside, he was still a little moved. Gordon had no idea the will of the world favored him, but no matter how dangerous things got, he gritted his teeth and charged in anyway. The man might not be popular at the department, but when trouble came, he really did step up.
The men in the Dodge below kept shouting things like, "Take out that tail!" No one was watching above. Li Jie leaned slightly out over the windowsill and blew the machine gunner's head off with a single shot.
Mounting a PKM on a pickup looked impressive, with all that blazing firepower, but the operators' mortality rate was shockingly high. African warlords often used this setup because the expendables were cheap, and they probably did not even have to pay death benefits. For urban gangs, it only reached its full potential when other men were fighting alongside it.
If they had arrived a little earlier and blocked the escape route when the ambush began, everyone here would probably have been riddled with holes by now. But Gordon had kept them occupied along the way, delaying their arrival, and the situation had changed in an instant. The four men left in the truck still had considerable firepower, but now they were caught between enemies on both sides.
Still, they did not panic much. The two remaining gunmen in the bed immediately raised their AKMs and sprayed a burst upstairs. The 7.62 mm rounds sent concrete and splinters flying around the window, but Li Jie lived by the principle of shoot and scoot. He had already darted into another room.
A firefight broke out downstairs as well. The driver and the gunman in the passenger seat grabbed their weapons and rushed toward the corridor. In such narrow, close-range quarters, however, their weapons had little advantage over the MP5s, and both sides fought relatively cautiously. Figures darted through the building as gunfire erupted everywhere.
"Fuck!"
Li Jie's head was a jumble, too, and cursing seemed to be his only decent outlet. The fight had devolved into complete chaos. He ran from one room to another, taking hurried potshots at the pickup whenever he got an opening. But sticking his head out to aim carefully when men with automatic rifles were ready for him was far too dangerous. He had no desire to have his brains splattered all over the place for the Gotham Police Department.
He still had a Stun Grenade hanging at the small of his back, but there was no good opportunity to use it... Huh? What's this?
In a closet in the second-to-last room at the end of the third-floor corridor, he found a stack of about a dozen plates. Some were intact, and some were cracked, but what did that matter? Throwing weapons counted as cold weapons, right?
He carried the plates back to the window nearest the Dodge pickup and settled into a corner. Setting down his semiautomatic rifle, he took the Remington off his back, then grabbed a plate and tossed it out the window.
Bang! Bang!
Crash!
The gunmen below reflexively fired several shots, blasting apart one side of the window frame. From the sound of it, the plate landed in the truck bed and shattered, followed by several loud curses. Huddled in the corner, Li Jie smiled. He waited a few seconds, grabbed a second plate, and threw it out. This time there was only a crash, with no gunfire from below. Then came the third plate, the fourth...
He varied the force slightly with each throw. Some plates hit the truck, others hit the ground, and one even landed on a gunman's head. Apart from a string of curses and an irritated burst of suppressive fire, they stopped wasting bullets, just as he had hoped. After throwing the ninth plate, he took out the Stun Grenade, pulled its safety ring, and tossed it through the window.
A Stun Grenade was not actually all that effective in the open, but the plates had helped him pinpoint the two men's positions, and All-Around Expert's throwing-weapon skill ensured that this one landed precisely above and to one side of their heads. Li Jie crouched low inside the room, opened his mouth, and clamped his hands over his ears. A sharp blast tore through the air outside, and daylight suddenly flared brighter, as though a tiny sun had risen from the ground.
It felt as though someone had beaten a war drum against his skull. His eardrums went numb from the shock, buzzing as if a hive of bees had been stuffed inside, but at least he was not dizzy. He immediately sprang up and lunged to the window. Below, the two gunmen had dropped their weapons and were curled up on the ground, clutching their eyes, writhing and rolling as they wailed.
Go down and cuff them according to procedure? He had no time for that. The Remington 1100 spat a curtain of lead, and shredded flesh and blood sprayed through the pale afterglow.
As he fired, Gordon was sprinting desperately toward them. To avoid being accused by the righteous cop of "using excessive force against suspects who could no longer resist," Li Jie decided against finishing the two gunmen off. They were already full of holes anyway. Whether they died now or a little later made little difference.
The gunfire downstairs had paused briefly, but now it started up again. The two gunmen attacking the corridor seemed rattled, though, and their shooting was less determined.
Li Jie turned and left the room. His ears felt as though they were submerged in water, and everything sounded muffled and indistinct. He knew this was TTS from the Stun Grenade. Although he would recover in a few hours, he was still deeply annoyed.
"Fuck, I come out here risking my neck, and end up temporarily disabled."
The fact that he had thrown the Stun Grenade himself left him with nowhere to vent his anger.
Faint popping sounds came from outside. Judging by the rhythm, they were probably pistol shots. Shouts rose and fell as well, but the voices seemed to drift unpredictably, and he could not make out a word.
Thinking that everyone downstairs was probably in much the same state made Li Jie feel considerably better. He cautiously peeked around the stairwell and discovered that the gunfire below had actually stopped.
"Anyone still alive?"
He slowly made his way downstairs, staying on guard and shouting as he went. Fortunately, his large frame gave him plenty of chest resonance and a powerful voice. After a few shouts, a head poked out of a nearby room. It belonged to one of Falcone's men.
Textbook way to get yourself killed. Fucking idiot.
He muttered inwardly, then shouted, "Where's the other one?"
Falcone's man came out carrying his gun and shouted, "Marco's dead." He pointed to the other side of the corridor. Li Jie stayed behind the wall and turned to look. A corpse lay in the doorway of a room, the blood beneath it not yet clotted. It looked as though a ricochet had hit him.
"Okay, go keep an eye on Hargrove, Antonio."
"My name isn't Antonio! I'm not even Italian. I'm Toy!" the gunman shouted. He stared blankly at Li Jie for a moment, then finally turned and headed deeper into the corridor.
"Whatever your name is."
Li Jie muttered under his breath. He did not know where the two pickup gunmen attacking from outside had gone, and that kept him uneasy. Just then, a familiar declaration came from outside the corridor.
"GCPD! Everyone inside, drop your weapons and surrender immediately!"
"Is that Commissioner Gordon? I'm Patrol Officer Li Jie from the Eastern District Precinct."
He shouted at the top of his lungs while slowly stepping outside, still on guard. James Gordon stood there with his gun aimed at the corridor entrance. A corpse lay beside him, along with a living prisoner secured with restraints.
Well, well. You can always count on the king of one-on-one combat to get things done.
Seeing his uniform, Gordon lowered his gun and rubbed his ears as he shouted, "Anyone else inside?"
"Two more inside, Falcone's men, but they're not enemies," Li Jie shouted back, lowering his own gun. "They're all yours."
"That's against procedure! They haven't been questioned or screened yet," Gordon shouted with all his might. "Fuck, which asshole suddenly threw that Stun Grenade?"
"The asshole standing right in front of you. Without him, you'd still be out there doing acrobatic rolls." Li Jie kept rubbing his ears as well, then turned and headed upstairs.
"Where are you going?"
"My gun's still upstairs. I need to get it back. Wait here." Li Jie looked back, pointed upstairs, and shouted, "It's new."
Before long, he ran back down with two guns slung over his back and shouted again, "Toy! Toy! It's safe now."
Two men slowly shuffled out from inside. Li Jie darted over and gestured for Toy to put away the MP5 pressed against Hargrove's back.
"These are concerned citizens who helped call the police. They're all yours." Li Jie pointed at the Chevrolet in the distance and shouted, "There's an injured fellow officer over there, too. I'm going to check on him."
Gordon knew the situation in front of him was a complete mess, and barring a surprise, he was about to be saddled with another disaster. But at the mention of an injured officer, he immediately nodded without hesitation and shouted, "No problem. Leave this to me. Go!"
Before you continue