Chapter 176: Double Kill and the Successful Arrest of Jorgen Landry

It was not long before Roan, Detective Walton, and several SWAT officers discovered the grey pickup truck.

The grey pickup truck had crashed into a tree, its front end deeply caved in and the windshield shattered into a mosaic of fragments.

Walton approached the vehicle cautiously in a tactical stance. Finding it empty, he muttered a few low curses under his breath.

On the other side, Roan thoroughly searched the interior of the pickup, his expression instantly turning grim.

He failed to find the rocket launcher tube inside.

"Attention all units!"

Roan pulled his communicator from his pocket and spoke with a grave expression, "The suspects have a rocket launcher tube. Exercise extreme caution!"

"Copy that!"

Hearing Roan's warning, every member of the search party in the woods felt their hearts skip a beat. Their focus sharpened, and the atmosphere grew even more tense.

The detective stepped past the pickup and walked a few paces further. Suddenly noticing that Roan hadn't followed, he turned back and asked in a low voice, "What is it, Roan? Did you find something?"

Roan looked from the pickup to the surrounding ground. After a moment of silence, he looked up and asked, "Walton, are you familiar with this forest? Are there any rivers or trails nearby?"

Walton's home wasn't far from here. Hearing the question, he thought for a moment and replied in a low voice, "Straight north of here, there is indeed a river that eventually empties into the Long Island Sound."

Frowning at Walton's description, Roan pulled out his communicator once more.

"Attention all units! The suspects are likely fleeing toward the river directly north. Search teams in the surrounding area, stay alert and proceed with extreme caution!"

"Understood!"

Receiving confirmation from the SWAT members, Roan put away his communicator, raised his rifle, and broke into a fast run toward the north.

Seeing this, Walton hurriedly raised his rifle to follow, though he remained puzzled by how Roan had reached such a conclusion.

Hearing Walton's inquiry, Roan raised an eyebrow as he moved swiftly forward.

Reason one: he had just noticed several broken branches and crushed leaves, and the trail they formed led directly north.

Reason two: the condition of the grey pickup after the crash did not add up. Judging by the marks on the ground, the vehicle had been traveling at a very high speed.

If a car crashed into a tree at that speed, the driver and passengers could not possibly emerge completely uninjured.

Yet there was not a single drop of blood inside the vehicle. The only explanation was that the four occupants had bailed out of the vehicle before impact.

"But after jumping out, the four of them packed up their belongings with incredible speed and headed straight north, which means they likely prepared for this in advance..."

Listening to Roan's deduction, Detective Walton stared at him with sheer disbelief.

Just as he was about to voice his doubts and counterarguments, the sound of gunfire echoed not far ahead.

"Quick! Let's move in to provide backup!"

The moment the gunshot rang out, Roan slammed his foot against the ground, his figure vanishing from Detective Walton's sight in an instant.

Detective Walton drew in a sharp breath, not only shocked by Roan's speed, but also because the gunfire was coming from the exact northern direction!

Catching out of the corner of his eye that Detective Walton was falling behind, Roan's eyes flicked over. He immediately activated the system, retrieved a vial of [Swiftness Potion], and downed it in one go.

The enemy possessed a rocket launcher, and Roan had no desire to be blown to pieces.

Within seconds of the [Swiftness Potion] taking effect, Roan's already astonishing speed soared to a whole new level.

While Walton had still been able to catch a glimpse of Roan's back a moment ago, a single blink later, Roan had vanished entirely from his field of vision.

"...Fu—k! Have FBI agents become this monstrous nowadays?"

Weaving through the woods at breakneck speed, Roan soon arrived at the scene of the firefight between SWAT and the suspects.

Bang, bang, bang—

Due to the lower elevation, three SWAT officers were currently pinned down by enemy suppressive fire.

However, SWAT had not come away empty-handed; they had already killed the long-haired white man from the four-man cell.

The corpse of the long-haired man was now being used as a shield by a bushy-browed white man, who allowed SWAT's bullets to strike the dead body indiscriminately.

Exchanging nods with the three SWAT officers, Roan gauged the distance between the two sides and immediately pulled his remaining four flashbangs from his pocket.

At the same time, another bearded white man drew a rocket launcher from his back, stood up from his position, and laughed wildly with a wide-open mouth.

"Trash, be cleansed by fire! Praise Jesus, see you in Sabbath!"

Boom!

Boom!

Before he could pull the trigger, two blinding flashes of light and deafening explosions suddenly detonated right in front of the bearded man and the bushy-browed man.

Seeing this, the three SWAT officers quickly rose and opened fire in counterattack.

Meanwhile, within a second of the flashbangs detonating, Roan had closed the distance to the enemies' flank with blinding speed.

"Damn it, I..."

Blinded and in severe pain from the harsh white light, the bearded man cursed furiously and desperately tried to pull the trigger again.

At that exact moment, he felt the military knife being pulled from his pocket, and a chilling, emotionless male voice rang out directly beside his ear:

"You certainly are damned."

Cold sweat instantly drenched the bearded man's back, and the expression on the bushy-browed man's face froze as if he had seen a ghost.

Bang, bang!

Bang!

Bang, bang!

Bang!

Six gunshots—two to the chest, one to the head—and the limbs of the bearded man and the bushy-browed man turned to jelly as they collapsed limply to the ground.

Until the moment they lost consciousness, the two men could not comprehend how the man who killed them had managed to close the distance so silently.

The instant the two bodies hit the ground, that familiar sensation of bodily discomfort—as if his backside were on fire—surged once more. Without hesitation, Roan threw himself flat beneath the bearded man's corpse.

Thud! Thud!

Two bullets struck the earth right beside Roan, spraying dirt all over his face.

"Jorgen Landry!"

Only one member of the four-man group remained. As the three SWAT officers rushed over to provide covering fire, Roan lunged forward like an enraged beast, sprinting rapidly toward the direction of the gunfire.

By this time, the three SWAT officers finally witnessed Roan's movement speed firsthand, leaving them staring blankly in sheer disbelief at the laws of physics being defied.

Bang, bang, bang—

Pistol bullets zipped out from behind a dirt mound ahead, but they struck either in front of or to the side of Roan's moving figure, with only a single round grazing his lower leg.

"Fu—k!"

Up the slope, Jorgen Landry's eyes were filled with shock and terror. Seeing Roan closing in fast and his magazine completely empty, he scrambled to his feet, intending to run toward the river below the slope.

The three men had staged the ambush against SWAT precisely to buy him time to prep the inflatable boat.

Now that his three accomplices were dead, Landry had no intention of acting as their funeral companion.

The moment Landry scrambled up, a brilliant flash of white light abruptly seared his vision.

Thud—

The next second, his pistol dropped to the ground as a searing pain shot through his right wrist. Looking down in agony, Landry saw that the bearded man's military knife had been driven deep into his wrist, pinning it firmly.

"Ah!"

Boom!

Before Landry's scream could fully leave his lips, Roan delivered a fierce knee strike that sent him crashing back to the ground.

With a case of this magnitude, the primary suspect Landry absolutely could not die here.

Yet staying alive did not mean he would walk into prison in one piece.

Using a rocket launcher against the NYPD and the FBI—such an incident hadn't occurred in New York for a very long time.

As Landry rolled down the slope toward the riverbank, Roan approached him and smoothly dislocated both of his arms with a sharp, practiced snap.

"Tell me."

Bending down to look into Landry's face, Roan touched the scar near his left eye and broke into a radiant, sunny smile:

"Who the hell are you?"