Chapter 2516: Rustling Down (Part 11)

Gordon knew that this was the damn robber hinting to him that there might be bombs on the hostages he released. This experienced police detective knew that this was a common method used by robbers.

Many professional robbers usually don't take all the people in the bank as hostages at once, because there are too many people to manage, and more people are needed to watch them. The plot of dozens of people being tied up and sitting on the ground as expressed in movies is not realistic.

The number of hostages in reality is generally between 5 and 12. How many depends on the scale of the bank and the local police force. It mainly depends on the intensity of the local news media. If the intensity is relatively high, fewer can come. Anyway, they will also promote it as the disaster of five families to put pressure on the police.

If the police have pressure, they will cooperate more with their actions. Anyway, as long as the hostages are rescued in the end, their work reaches the passing line. Whether the money can be recovered is another matter, which increases the probability of robbers escaping.

And how to release those extra hostages who are not needed is also particular. These hostages can usually drag the police for a period of time. Robbers usually adopt the method of releasing one after a period of time.

For one thing, the police need to understand the situation in the police station through this person who was released. Interrogation is indispensable, which will divert their attention. For another, they don't fully trust this person who was released and must check whether there are dangerous items on him.

Because some robbers with relatively cruel means will let these people be human bombs. As long as this person explodes in the crowd, it will inevitably cause great chaos and pull the police's attention even more. It can be considered as achieving the robber's goal.

So Gordon's handling was very professional. He blocked the channel for releasing hostages for the first time and took the hostages who had already come out for isolated inspection. At the same time, he didn't tell others that the robbers said there might be bombs on the hostages, avoiding causing panic.

But this did cause some trouble for the police, because hostages who feel they have escaped death usually don't want to let the police search them. They feel that they are also victims, why should they be so guarded? Some even collapsed completely under high-risk and high-pressure environments. Once they make a fuss, the cameras of reporters will turn over, and the police will search with tied hands and feet.

Even in some relatively large bank robberies, the kidnappers will even mix in the hostages and come out. The police dare not search carefully, which naturally becomes a good escape route for the robbers.

Schiller had no time to install bombs on people. He did this just to keep the people on the second floor from running away. But to be honest, the second floor was so low, jumping down without an air cushion wouldn't kill them, at most sprain an ankle or something. Withdrawing the air cushion was not enough to completely block the hostages from jumping down. Next, it depends on how Gordon handles it.

Gordon took the megaphone and came to the balcony where the employees were. He chose to use words to appease the employees, and he didn't expect this move to really work.

Mainly because Gordon, as the police chief who has been insisting in Cat Getan, really led the people of Cat Getan to a new and better life. He has been conscientious in maintaining public security and has never made mistakes. The public's trust in him is surprisingly high, even completely detached from the trust that American people should have in American police, reaching the level of "police and people are one family."

Gordon said let them wait a while before jumping, and they really waited a while before jumping. Mainly because when Schiller broadcasted just now, they also heard it. If there really are bombs on people, jumping down and being taken to those people doesn't necessarily mean it's safe.

Most people returned to the room. Schiller started thinking about countermeasures. First of all, even if this group of robbers really has a pick-up car, it should be parked very far away. How to let them go there is a problem.

It is unrealistic to ask the police for a car like in movies. Schiller dared to bet that he dared to ask, and Gordon dared to install a row of bombs on it. By then, Gordon would let them drive to wherever they wanted, and they would have to drive to wherever they wanted. This city has always been treated specially in special situations. Reporters are used to this and have no public opinion pressure at all.

So running away directly doesn't work, or rather, slipping away from the bright side doesn't work. Schiller thought about it, and there is indeed a way to let them leave the bank, just a little troublesome.

Schiller mobilized the monitoring screen again and found that two robbers were planning to leave the underground vault. He estimated that they found movement upstairs and wanted to go up to check.

Really stupid to the extreme, Schiller thought. They didn't even know where the sniper was, and they dared to walk upstairs so openly. Going up is also the fate of being shot in the head. 【25

Truly stupid to the point of absurdity, Schiller thought. They don't even know the sniper's position, yet they dare to walk upstairs so brazenly; coming up is just a death sentence for a headshot.

Schiller left the surveillance room, walked quickly through the corridor, and waited at the stairwell leading from the basement to the first floor.

As two robbers wearing strange sacks on their heads just turned the corner, Schiller grabbed one of them by the neck, and the other, just as he wanted to draw his gun, was knocked down by the companion who had just been thrown over.

Schiller knocked both people lying on the ground unconscious. After looking at their builds and the tattoos on their bodies, he discovered that they were likely bottom-tier gang thugs from the start and basically couldn't be professional robbers.

Professional robbers have a few physical characteristics. First, they cannot be too strong, or rather, the team cannot consist entirely of extremely strong people. Having one or two to move heavy objects is enough; the rest still need to pick locks or engage in car chases. If they all look like Schwarzenegger, they won't be able to curl up their bodies to hide if they get shot while driving to escape, and they won't live very long.

Taking off the hood of one of them, Schiller took a look. It was just a brown paper grocery bag with a cross drawn on the surface, likely snatched from some breakfast shop.

Schiller originally wanted to put on the robber's hood, but he discovered that the eye holes of this DIY hood were completely misaligned. He could only take the gun from the robber and then wake one of them up.

"Now listen to me. See the second office in front? Go in and wander around by the window."

That person was a bit dazed, but looking at the pitch-black muzzle of the gun in Schiller's hand, he had no choice but to raise his hands and say, "Alright, don't shoot, I'll go right now."

That person pushed open the door to the second office. It was a very large office that looked like it should have had people inside, but because there was no balcony, those who wanted to jump down had all run to other offices.

The robber walked to the window, and Schiller stood at the doorway, gun raised, staring at him. The robber walked past several windows one by one, and just as he was about to reach the third window, Schiller called for him to stop.

Under Schiller's guidance, the robber just paced back and forth between the two leftmost windows.

"Is this okay?" the robber pleaded. "The sniper will blow my head off!"

"He won't, at least not right now," Schiller said. "Don't you even look out the window? How is the sniper supposed to aim at you?"

The robber turned his head to look. Outside the window was a huge sycamore tree. Although it was already autumn, the leaves hadn't completely fallen off yet. Sycamore leaves are naturally very dense, and the gardener hired by this bank maintained them very meticulously—accurately speaking, the one hired might have been Pamela—so this tree grew large and lush.

Although the robber was terrified, from the outside looking in, his silhouette was completely flickering in and out among the leaves. More importantly, because the leaves were too dense, it was impossible to see the situation of the hostages inside. If the shot went wide, it would be fine if it didn't kill the robber, but it would be troublesome if it hit a hostage.

The sniper order given by Gordon was very conservative; it wasn't to kill the robber at all costs, so the sniper didn't dare to act rashly. The moment he discovered the robber's silhouette, he reported it to Gordon.

Gordon went to the roof to check the situation and found that it was indeed as the sniper said: with that tree there, aiming was relatively difficult.

And those who had jumped down also began to describe the situation inside and summarize their information one after another. Added to the surveillance of the roads checked earlier, Gordon discovered that this robber group was unexpectedly large, possibly six to seven people.

General robbers usually keep their numbers under five because that's just enough to fit in one car. Once they exceed this number, they can't retreat in one vehicle. They also arrived with four people in a car and two to three people on foot.

However, according to the personnel who jumped down, they only saw one suspicious figure upstairs—actually, this suspicious figure was Schiller, but the employees didn't recognize Schiller and thought he was in cahoots with the robbers.

Moreover, Schiller moved very quickly. The employees didn't see clearly, only saying that the person was quite tall and moved nimbly.

And the robber Schiller was pointing his gun at happened to be about the same height as Schiller, both around 1.87 meters. As he wandered back and forth among the leaves, neither the sniper nor Gordon could see his specific build clearly.

Gordon knew that if the other party was using the most traditional cutting method to open the vault door, they must need quite a few people watching below.

Unlike directional blasting where you just press a button and rush in to grab the money, directional blasting has a long preparation phase and requires extremely professional technical means. Cutting, on the other hand, doesn't require much preparation beforehand, but the process during the actual work is quite long and requires operating many things.

Either the robbers had such talent among them, or they simply kidnapped a technician. Gordon speculated that this group was the latter; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many of them.

Moreover, from the images in the surveillance cameras, it could be seen that these people didn't look like professional technicians, but rather like gang thugs whose heads were hot for a moment, so it was even more likely they had kidnapped someone.

Besides needing to help with the operation, they also had to watch the hostages, which meant it would tie up most of them. The person watching the hostages on the second floor was very likely one or two people, or simply just one person.

If it were one person, things would be much easier. After killing the robber on the second floor through sniping, they could forcibly rush in and rescue all the hostages. Once this group of robbers was gone, the hostages certainly wouldn't be able to run away.

The problem now is that Gordon needs to determine if there is only one robber upstairs, because if he fires, he can only fire once. If he doesn't eliminate all the enemies after one shot, the remaining one will definitely take action against the hostages.

At this moment, Schiller's deliberately lowered voice sounded on the broadcast again. The gist was still demanding police cooperation, but Schiller himself was not there right now; this was a recording he had left behind earlier.

Gordon didn't know this point. He thought there was still one in the surveillance room, so now the other side only had five people left. Subtracting the kidnapped technician, there were still four people.

Either two were in the basement and two were on the second floor, or three were in the basement and one was on the second floor.

Gordon leaned more towards the latter because, calculating by time, they still hadn't retreated, which proved that the cutting machine they were using wasn't very advanced, so it required more manpower.

One watching the technician and two operating the machine was the correct way. If one watched the technician and one operated, the possibility of problems was very high, so there could only be one left upstairs.

Although he didn't have absolute certainty, Gordon didn't lack the decisiveness to take a gamble at a critical moment. He immediately ordered, "Cut down the tree blocking the view, and snipe the robber on the second floor!"