Under Gordon and Bullock's planned rescue operation, all ten Bomb Buses were gathered in an underground parking garage, held off the ground by tow trucks. The three letters spray-painted on the buses had all been discovered, but the clues Joker had left were too abstract for anyone to decipher yet.
The gang members sat in a circle on the ground behind a concrete pillar not far from the Bomb Buses. This let them guard against surprise attacks from Dirty Cops at any moment while pooling their ideas to crack the code as Gordon defused the bombs.
Bullock sat right in the middle of the crowd.
During the earlier shootout at the crossroads, the older man had led the team that circled around to flank the enemy, hammering his former colleagues with a shotgun and ultimately taking the kill crown with a commanding tally of eleven.
In a one-on-one fight, Gordon was the undisputed king of the police force, but when it came to chaotic firefights, Bullock was the man.
The sight of him blasting away through the swirling snow with a cigarette in his mouth had left a deep impression on the gangsters. Though he had yet to shed his title as a cop, most of them already regarded him as the temporary commander of this cobbled-together team.
Bullock certainly did not stand on ceremony. He simply accepted the crown and put it on.
"Put those brains to work and think! E, T, M. What exactly do these three letters stand for? Whether I get that evidence back and whether you move up the ranks depends on this, so look alive!"
Despite what he said, Bullock did not hold out much hope. These guys looked vicious and bulged with muscle; their brains were probably clogged with protein powder and steroids.