It was December 21, the start of the year's last full working week, and the workday at Tai Kwun was drawing to a close.
The senior officers of the National Security Department had urgently gathered in the conference room.
"Ah Wah, brief us on the current situation!"
Seated at the head of the conference table, Zhou Quan looked composed as he called directly on Chan Kwok-wah, the head of the Intelligence Group.
"Yes, sir!"
Chan Kwok-wah rose and saluted, then walked to the multimedia workstation opposite his boss and projected the documents onto the screen.
"Boss, colleagues, at 1305 this afternoon, an escape from custody with an extremely damaging impact took place at Central Police Station."
At the same time, Chan Kwok-wah began briefing them on the entire sudden incident in a brisk, efficient manner.
"The suspect who escaped is one of our own officers."
"Zhuo Wenwei, Chief Inspector of the Wan Chai District Operations Department under Hong Kong Island Regional Headquarters, and also an elite member of Hong Kong Island Regional Headquarters' PNC."
PNC was the abbreviation for the Police Force Negotiation Team. In other words, Zhuo Wenwei was a highly professional police negotiator.
This department was a special unit within the Police Force's organizational structure.
Whenever they had no assignments, all its personnel worked in their original departments.
But whenever an emergency assignment arose, they would assemble temporarily.
Not only did they have to perform their special duties immediately, but those duties also took precedence.
The nature of this Police Force Negotiation Team was very similar to that of the T Group under Zhou Quan.
Both were assembled at critical moments, except that the T Group was a secret unit within the National Security Department's Criminal Operations Division, the sharpest sword at Zhou Quan's disposal.
The T Group