Chapter 386: The London Chase
On the floor above the CIA London Special Operations Station, Ron and Giuseppe, disguised as janitors, had infiltrated the area and successfully hacked into the CIA's internal surveillance network.
Through this network, they could not only observe every move within the CIA Special Operations Station via cameras, but also hear conversations inside.
"I thought it would be much more difficult, but it was so easy. Has the CIA become so complacent that they don't even bother to check their own vacant apartments?" Giuseppe complained while checking his equipment.
Ron sensed that Giuseppe's mental state was significantly better than when he left England; he had essentially recovered from his trauma.
Ron believed this was related to his marriage to his longtime companion and the recent reunion with his brother's son, all of which rekindled his hope for life.
"You know how incompetent the CIA is right now. They can't even find a decent operative, and they have to borrow a second-rate guy like Hobbs from the FBI to keep things running. That's why I think Eteon's crew of lunatics will definitely attack the CIA station and kidnap the female agent who was flirting with Hobbs yesterday."
Yesterday, Hobbs's operation to apprehend the female agent started as a normal confrontation, but as it went on, Ron realized something was off. The two of them were using all sorts of fancy positions, like something out of a new action thriller.
Ron was shocked. Doing this in broad daylight? Hobbs really knows how to live! So FBI style!
The older Giuseppe immediately covered his eyes: "Bah! Shameless! I only do that behind closed doors!"
"Speaking of which, I saw that female agent's file. Her name is Hattie Shaw. Could she be related to Deckard?" Giuseppe re-examined the photo in the file, and the more he looked, the more he felt she resembled his colleague.
"No doubt about it, she is Deckard's sister. By the way, speaking of relatives, what's your brother's son's name?"
"Jackie Lee," Giuseppe's face filled with a kind expression when he spoke of his nephew, "My older brother died early, so he took his mother's surname, Lee."
Ron's hand, which was checking the equipment, trembled, and he almost pulled out the grenade pin and dropped it.
"What?! Jackie Lee? Your nephew isn't some stuntman turned action star with a troubled kid, is he?"
"What are you talking about?" Giuseppe asked, puzzled. "He's just an antique dealer, making a living by trading artifacts. Wait, the audio's coming in." Giuseppe made a shushing gesture and turned the volume up.
Just in time for the most exciting part.
Hattie Shaw, taking advantage of Hobbs's phone call, suddenly attacked, snatching the gun from the rookie guarding her and pointing it at Hobbs's bald head. Hobbs, naturally, couldn't let a woman subdue him and immediately tried to take the gun back. While the two were struggling, Deckard Shaw suddenly burst in.
"Hobbs! Get your gorilla hands off her!" Deckard angrily pointed his gun at Hobbs's large hand that was trying to pry Hattie's leg off.
"What are you doing here?" Hattie was annoyed, releasing Hobbs and turning the gun on Deckard instead.
"Of course I'm here to rescue you."
"I don't need your help!"
"No, this is my jurisdiction. You and your girlfriend aren't going anywhere!" Hobbs finally had a chance to pull out his pistol, immediately aiming it at Hattie. In his eyes, the mission was still the most important thing.
Of course, how much jealousy was in his tone was hard to say.
"What girlfriend?" Fortunately, Deckard's next words dispelled all his jealousy: "This woman is my sister!"
Hobbs looked at Deckard's bald head on the left, then at Hattie's thick hair on the right, and shook his head firmly: "No, you can't possibly have a sister this beautiful!"
"Hahaha!" Ron almost laughed until tears streamed down his face, pointing at the screen: "Giuseppe, believe it or not, Hobbs definitely changed his mind! What he originally wanted to say was definitely: 'No, you can't possibly have a sister with such thick hair,' hahaha."
Giuseppe rested his chin on his hand and couldn't help but smile: "I think he's already accepted their relationship in his heart, BOSS. Do you think Hobbs might just happen to be interested in Deckard's sister? Since yesterday, I've felt that these two are acting strange. They don't seem like they're in a pursuit, and they don't seem like they're evading."
"No doubt about it, they definitely have chemistry. Maybe after this crisis is over, we'll all need to buy wedding gifts." Ron nodded and gossiped, "But, whether we send the gift to the groom's side or the bride's side is a question. FUCK, do you think these two guys planned this beforehand, teaming up to pull this stunt just to scam me out of a gift?"
Giuseppe rolled his eyes and didn't say anything, thinking to himself: You're so wealthy, yet you still care about one wedding gift? Are all rich people this cheap?
However, just as Ron and Giuseppe were gossiping about what it would be like for Hobbs and Deckard Shaw to become in-laws, a sudden change occurred.
A flash-bang suddenly fell from above, exploding precisely on the floor of the CIA station, shattering their exterior glass into pieces. Three fully armed attackers, secured by three rappelling lines, were lowered from the roof.
"Contact! Ron, you guessed right, what do we do now?" Giuseppe's ears were ringing, but he still shouted loudly, forcing himself to endure the nausea.
"FUCK! Execute the plan!" Ron painfully picked at his ears, picked up a sledgehammer from the ground, and smashed it against the exterior glass: "Eighty! Eighty! Eighty! Breach!"
The glass shattered. Giuseppe took a step forward and handed Ron a pair of bolt cutters, then took one himself and went to the window. At this moment, the masked attackers below had already hoisted Hattie onto their shoulders and started to rappel rapidly.
Ron and Giuseppe exchanged a glance, and simultaneously cut the ropes of the other two attackers.
"Ahhhhh!" Two long screams rang out as the two attackers, now unprotected by their lines, plummeted to the ground below, smashing into bloody pulps. By this time, Hobbs and Deckard had reacted.
One of them slid down the ropes, while the other took the elevator down to give chase.
"Should we go help?" Giuseppe looked down and asked worriedly.
"Of course," Ron said, putting on his skull mask, "but with your old bones, don't bother going down there. Just provide overwatch."
With that, Ron hooked the rope to a nearby pipe and rappelled down the wall.
"Bastards! Your Punisher Uncle's here!" A muffled voice, altered by the voice changer, emanated from the mask, and simultaneously, Ron's SCAR assault rifle spat fire as he descended.
"Brrrrt..." Fearing friendly fire, Ron quickly dispatched the two attackers on the ground with a burst of bullets. He didn't stop, instead loading a grenade into the launcher mounted on the tactical rail.
"How's this taste?" Ron aimed at the vehicle and fired.
"BOOM!" The explosion flipped the attackers' car. Ron had just landed on the ground when he quickly surveyed the situation.
Hobbs was facing off against a massive black man, seemingly about to fight. Just as Deckard Shaw had said, he was a brainless muscleman. Couldn't he just grab a gun and shoot him in the head?
Deckard Shaw wasn't much smarter either. He was fighting several attackers, and finally, in one exchange, he grabbed a weapon from one of them and opened fire on the surrounding attackers, instantly dropping a bunch of them.
After doing this, Deckard's eyes met Ron's. A special tactical understanding passed between them, and the two shamelessly opened fire on the large black man who was squaring up with Hobbs.
"Brrrrt..." "Brrrrt..."
Although the black man had his back to them, he ducked and rolled the moment the two fired. The bullets from the rifles and submachine guns sparked on the black man's back, but couldn't penetrate in the slightest.
The black man turned around and grinned maliciously.
"FUCK!" Ron threw the empty magazine at the black man's face, then slipped behind a column to reload a fresh magazine and chamber a grenade.
Just as the black man turned around, Hobbs seized the opportunity, leaping forward and delivering a devastating punch to his head.
THUD!
The black man staggered forward two steps, quickly regaining his footing and turning around.
"Come on, you son of a bitch!" Hobbs waved smugly, then threw another heavy punch.
But this time, he wasn't so lucky. His fist was only halfway through its trajectory when the large black man caught it, yanked it back, and delivered another powerful punch to Hobbs' stomach. The force sent him flying backward, crashing into a car on the side of the road before coming to a stop.
"FUCK! FUCK! What the hell is that thing?" Ron, who had just peeked out, witnessed this scene and was horrified.
Given that Hobbs weighs approximately 260 pounds, and that Hobbs was thrown back about twelve feet, how much force did the black man generate?
For some reason, this question flashed through Ron's mind.
He didn't know the answer, and even if he did, he wouldn't bother calculating it, but he knew this black man was definitely not human!
"FUCK!" Ron cursed inwardly, "What kind of weird movie is this? When did Dwayne Johnson star in such a sci-fi film?!"
Ron felt the world was slipping further and further out of his control.
"Giuseppe, where's your support fire?" Ron shouted at Giuseppe, ducking back behind the column.
But the radio only picked up Giuseppe's voice, along with bursts of gunfire: "I'm being engaged by the CIA, trying to break contact. They seem to think I'm with the attackers."
"These useless idiots!" Ron angrily stowed the radio, "They can't even distinguish friend from foe!"
What could he do without Giuseppe's fire support? Ron had no choice but to emerge from behind the column again.
This time, Deckard Shaw engaged the massive black man, while Hobbs, after struggling to his feet, thankfully didn't charge in head-on. He picked up a tactical vest belonging to a killed attacker, pulled the pins on three grenades, and threw it, along with the vest, under the car next to the black man.
"BOOM!" The shockwave from the explosion flipped the car over, pinning the black man down. The agile Deckard immediately seized the opportunity to start the vehicle and drive to his sister.
"Get in!"
Hattie and Hobbs jumped into the car and sped away.
"Two idiots, couldn't anyone finish him off?" Ron smirked. "Since they forgot, I'll finish him off."
With that, a grenade flew from the barrel, embedding itself under the car with a "boom," flipping it over again and blowing off the black man's arm.
"Holy shit! Is that a cyborg?!" Ron's jaw dropped in astonishment. He saw that only a tiny bit of blood was flowing from the black man's severed arm, and what was exposed beneath the flesh at the cut wasn't bone, but something resembling a metal prosthetic limb.
"Damn it, you dare to damage my body! I'll kill you, you pathetic insect!" The black man charged at Ron furiously.
"So what if you're enhanced? Die!" Ron had never been underestimated like this since his debut. With a squeeze of the trigger, a tongue of fire erupted from the muzzle of his gun.
The black man, halfway through his charge, saw the danger and quickly dove behind a car.
Ron's astonishment deepened. This man's reflexes were unbelievable, and his ability to predict bullet trajectories was phenomenal—it was like he had superhuman abilities.
"Vroom~ Vroom~"
Ron was about to fire again when he suddenly heard the roar of motorcycles behind him. His sense of danger intensified, and he quickly rolled to the side.
He had barely left when a hail of bullets raked the spot where he had just stood. Ron looked back and saw two motorcyclists with submachine guns speeding towards him. Between them was a motorcycle that moved on its own, unmanned.
Well, after seeing so many strange and advanced technologies, Ron was already numb to a self-driving motorcycle.
The two riders stopped, and another volley of bullets pinned Ron down, while the massive black man glared hatefully at Ron's hiding place. Under pressure from the mission, he mounted his motorcycle and chased after Hobbs and his group.
Just as Ron was getting anxious, Giuseppe's voice came through the radio: "BOSS, I've broken contact. Where are you? I'll drive to extract you."
"Main entrance of the building, hurry!"
In less than a minute, an SUV pulled up in front of Ron. It was Giuseppe.
"BOSS, should we pursue them now?" Giuseppe asked as soon as Ron got in the car and started driving.
However, Ron didn't reply immediately this time. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "No, I believe they can escape with their driving skills. Let's head to the safe house in the suburbs."
(End of Chapter)
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