Chapter 263 Battle for The Cowl/5

A few minutes ago…

As the shutter door descended slowly, Feng Bujue rose from behind the counter. By this time, he had already set up the call transfer. Whenever Clapton called the phone at the bank counter again, it was transferred to the phone in his hand. Of course, the phone’s ringing mode has been set to vibrate, and he has confirmed that there are no bells attached to the number.

In the lobby of the bank, of course, the time could be seen. Feng Bujue glanced at the electronic clock on the wall and muttered: “It will take them at least seven or eight minutes to get the general information from the hostages…” He took the key and key card (which he had obtained from the manager) and went through the door behind the counter to the control room, and closed all the monitors.

In the few minutes before the police call, after the heads of the hostages had been put on, Feng Bujue took the opportunity to walk around the bank and get a rough idea of the structure of the building. He knew that there were only three ways out. First, the main door; Second, the ventilation duct; Third, the windows facing the street that watched by four or five officers.

Feng Bujue was unaware of the police presence outside and could only speculate.

First of all, there must be someone outside the front door, even if the impact of the cash cannon is still there, he could not go out quietly.

Next, windows facing the street were, in all probability, stared by the police. Even if the police were not as numerous as at the front door, he would have to break the guardrail outside the window with his pipe wrench to get out, which was difficult both on time and hidden.

Only the ventilation duct left.

Impervious to any luck factor, Feng Bujue firmly believes that according to his luck and the intelligence of the Gotham police, there must be people watching at the exit of the ventilation duct. After he climbs out, his result must be: First, caught by the surrounding ambush; Second, fall into the sight of a sniper or snipers in the distance.

“Upon inquiry, Clapton will know that I am alone in the bank and that there are no other hostages. He would either storm without warning. Or just call me and tell me to go out and surrender. It would have been easier to storm,” he thought. “If I could only use death poker and body-spiritual concentration technique, I could have escaped through the windows of the police officers who had entered by a slight maneuver with them.

But… Faced with only one person, he is obviously more likely to choose to deal with me. There was no reason for him to let his men take unnecessary risks and to further their material losses. If after communicating, I express to be able to resist with a last-ditch effort, then it’s reasonable to attack directly. At that time, he could also use the call to steady me and give his men access to manufacturing conditions.”

“So as long as I’m on the phone, the first officers who come in are going to pay their attention behind the counter.” Feng Bujue thought, “This makes it easy for me to trap them… “

He returned to the lobby and took off the mask of the submachine gun bandit. Then he jumped into the inside of the counter, put the relatively intact mask on the head of the money bandit whose face was broken and dragged the body of the money bandit all the way back to the monitoring room.

The monitoring room has two facilities necessary for Feng Bujue’s escape. First, the ventilation duct. It was in almost every room except the vault. But the second, which was only to be found at the counter and in the control room, was the switch of the metal shutter over the bank door.

Feng Bujue put the body on one office chair of the control room and began to decorate the trap…

He pushed the chair into a corner and backed it against the door. A second grenade was then taken from the [Endless Grenade Box], a wire (found in the warehouse) was attached to the ring and the grenade was stuffed into the breaking face of the corpse…

He could have set it somewhere else, but… He just wanted the wire to come out of the hole in the mask’s eye. It might have been some kind of unique sense of humour.

So the wire attached to the grenade’s zip, starting at the face of the corpse, went all the way down, through the torso, between the legs, and was finally attached to a pivot under the chair.

This is a good office chair, the back of a chair is quite tall, and it is adjustable. The rotary shaft below the seat plate also runs normally, which is able to turn without much strength, and the wheel on chassis also does not have the trend of jam.

Feng Bujue was quite sure, as long as someone from the back rotates or pulls this chair, four seconds later, there will be a few new bodies lying in this area of ten square meters.

When he had done this, he went to the wall, threw his hands up and jumped on top of a locker where the ventilation ducts opened. He took down the flapper, looked in, and saw that the ductwork was relatively spacious, he can squat in it quite free with his build.

At this time, the telephone of the counter rang. After two seconds, the cellphone in Feng Bujue’s pocket rang. He smiled: “Come at the right moment…” He jumped back to the ground, reached for the Bluetooth, and pressed the answer button. As he spoke, he carefully lowered the phone into the body’s coat pocket.

He walked over to the console, spoke to Clapton, and opened the door of the bank.

“Raise your hands and come out from behind the counter,” Clapton shouted from the other side of the line.

“Ha-ha… Nope, I refuse.” Feng Bujue was wearing Bluetooth and his movement was not influenced at all. He jumped onto the locker and entered the ventilation ducts.

Haven’t you play enough? I don’t want to see another death today.” Clapton added. At the same time, several police officers rushed into the bank and, as expected, surrounded the counter in the lobby.

Slowly, Feng Bujue picked up the fender from the top of the locker, put it in its place, and began to move back, deliberately talking to Clapton about the call transfer.

Clapton thought for a dozen seconds, then suddenly turned his head and ran to the hostages. He yelled to a bold man seriously, “Hey! Where can I control those metal doors?”

The bank manager stunned for a moment and he answered: “Be… Behind the counter in the lobby.”

“Where else has a switch?” Clapton asked.

“Er… In the… In the control room.” The bank manager replied, “Go in behind the counter. There’s the staff area on the door, which can lead you to the toilet and… “

Before he had finished, Clapton picked up the intercom on his shoulder and shouted, “Get it?”

“Yes, Sir, we’re going in.” One of the officers replied, exchanging glances with three of his colleagues who had rushed in with him and moving closer to the door.

When he realized that the door lock required a key and a key card to be opened, the officer shot the lock decisively and kicked the door. They were also resourceful, leaving one man to remain in the lobby while the other three pushed in under each other’s cover.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s over.” Clapton picked up the phone again. “I know you’re in the control room. My advice is you should lay down your arms and put your hands on head to find somewhere and prepare to surrender or my man will not shoot you.”

“Ha-ha… It’s your business of what do you think. I can tell you for sure, I’m not in that building anymore.” Feng Bujue laughed, “I think if your reasoning is all right, you’ll realize that I went out the vent during the last closing and opening.”

“Hum… Isn’t it? You sly liar… Can you explain how you got out of a roof that didn’t even have fire stairs? Until then, how’d you got out of the vent under my sniper’s eyes? ?” Clapton sneered.

After Feng Bujue heard these words he smiled in his heart. He replied: “Of course I have my own way. You can ask the hostage how I killed the robber with a submachine gun. Then you may understand.” He then added, “Well, please end this nonsense talk, sergeant. I know someone might be recording our conversation, so take note of this — six supercriminals from another world, about to give Gotham a few gifts, and that multi-million-dollar shower is just the beginning.” Then, Feng Bujue ended the call and smashed the Bluetooth into pieces by his pipe wrench.

Normally, the distance between Bluetooth and mobile phone should be within 10 meters. If there is a barrier, it may be less than 10 meters. Therefore, Feng Bujue hasn’t climbed very far. At his distance, the explosion should be dinky.

It took the three officers a little while to get to the control room because there were several other rooms along the way, they had to quickly check behind the doors before moving on.

The door to the monitoring room was unlocked, and as officers pushed in, they all looked in the same direction.

In the farthest corner of the wall from the door was a high office chair with its back turned up, and on it sat a man whose head was above the back of the chair, and who seemed to be wearing a black mask over his head. His hands placed neatly on the arms of the chair, remained motionless.

The three men shouted, “Don’t move! We are Gotham policemen, hands up!” “Hands up! Turn around! Now!” “Turn round quickly! Show me your hands!”

There was no response.

After brief eye contact, one of the three experienced officers stood at the door, continuing to aim his gun at the chair, while the other two moved forward, left and right.

The monitoring room was not that big, and the office chair was in the corner, and they had to turn or pull the chair to see the face of the person sitting on it, so…

……

A minute after the blast, Clapton himself and eight police officers stormed the bank, leaving the rest on the streets to maintain order and hold their positions.

He stationed two people at the bank’s entrance, two people standing on two corridors connected to the lobby of the bank, the remaining four and himself rushed into the staff area behind the counter.

When he reached the control room, Clapton saw the fourth officer who had been left behind at the counter. He was the first person to rush in after hearing the explosion. At this time, he’s kneeling on the ground with a dying companion in his arms, he roared, “God! Lester… No… “

Lester, the wounded man with one breath left, was the policeman closest to the door at the time of the explosion, his face was covered in blood, moaning in pain.

As for the other two, they had both fell down in the control room and were instantly dead.

“Call the doctor! Quick!” Clapton shouted at one of his men, “Quick! Go down the street and have them bring the stretcher in… “

He shouted excitedly, but he knew Lester would not make it, not even to the ambulance. By the way… The situation on the streets is so chaotic that ambulances can’t get out at all.

“Lester! Lester!” The policeman who was holding him shouted twice and then burst into tears. “For God’s sake… Why is this happening… “

“God d*mn it!” Clapton gave the wall a hard kick. “That son of a bi*ch!” He rushed into the control room and ran toward the point of the explosion. His eyes were going to burn, “What’s all this??”

The officers’ speakers were on all the time, so Clapton could hear them as they moved. He knew that the three had seen the target and were in control of the situation a few seconds before the explosion. But he has no idea what happened next…

“Did this bastard pull the bomb on himself…” Clapton squatted down and looked at the blackened body. “No… The clothes on the dead man are not right!” He stood up, frowning. “He made explosive traps for other people’s bodies? Where did he go then?”

In fact, during Clapton’s first talk with the hostage, some people have said the so-called “strange golden light” and Feng Bujue could take things from the air, but Clapton focused on other information and did not pay much attention to these “nonsense talk”.

Before the explosion, he again asked the details of the submachine gun bandits killed under the instruction of Feng Bujue, and he found that things seem not so simple.

“Is this ‘Anonymous guy’ the latest supercriminal popped up?” Clapton, clutching his thin hair in one hand, gritted his teeth. “Is he really escaped?” With that in mind, he picked up the intercom and said to the sniper who was watching the roof of the building, “Newman, are you sure no one came out of the vent?”

“Er… Yes, Sir.”

“I mean, are you 100 percent sure you never looked away from that vent?”

The other person thought for a few seconds. “Well… Sir, I can’t keep my eyes in the same place every second. Maybe there will be a few ten-second intervals when I aim at the street and the gate.”

“Damn it!” Clapton let out an expletive, then gasped and adjusted his tone. “Now come down, Newman,” Then He adjusted the frequency. “Team two, team three, leave three of you on the back street, and everyone else comes to the bank door to help.”

Clapton, after all, was the supreme commander on the scene, and even though he was more miserable and frustrated than anyone else, he still had to do his job, dispatching his men to pick up the pieces: “Tell our boss to send a logistics team to the scene to collect evidence. The others, with me, will search every room and nook of this place for any other bandits or hostages.” As he spoke into the intercom, he walked back into the hallway.

At this point, Clapton can make a bet that he had met a “supercriminal.”

A series of things that Feng Bujue did previously, coupled with his apparent ease, showed that this “Anonymous” was not ordinary. His behaviour is both erratic and unpredictable. He killed the robbers; He took hostages; Fooled the police; Shot millions of dollars on the streets; Released all hostages; Killed three policemen…

Hero? Outlaw? Robin Hood? Terrorist? Humanitarian? Killer?

He is like a metronome, swinging back and forth between good and evil, exuding the breath of madness, but also has a careful thinking and outstanding actionability. Clapton would have thought of some lunatic in Arkham if he had not heard the hostages describing him.

“Maybe he’s still hiding in the vent, Sir?” Asked a young policeman in the corridor.

“That’s right. You’ll be responsible for checking it.” Clapton replied with a wry smile, and it seemed to him that Feng Bujue must have escaped. But he has no idea that actually Feng Bujue was a few meters away from him…

“Er… Am I alone? Where shall I begin?” The young officer asked.

“Ah… Listen, newbie, when you’ve been in Gotham long enough, you’ll understand that there are criminals out there that you can’t deal with in the usual way,” With a few seconds of silence, Clapton said with a teaching tone, “They can slip through the sniper’s sight and disappear forever. Some of these guys can climb walls, some can release nerve gas from their bodies, and some can bite you in the middle. Do you think Joker gonna hide in the ventilator? Two-faced, Riddler, will they hide in the ventilator duct?” Clapton shook his head. “I’ve seen too many things like this today… If you want to check it, go ahead. Anyone else, follow me.”

Clapton’s thinking mirrors what most Gotham policemen’s idea. Even Gordon can’t deny that the only person who can save the city from those supercriminals is Batman, and the job of the police is to clean up the battlefield for him.

The young officer adjusted his hat and replied earnestly, “Yes, Sir.” He looked around a few times and his eyes soon stopped at the vent in the control room.

The entrance to the ventilation ducts is at the highest point of the wall, close to the ceiling. Although the explosion deformed the locker, it did not prevent the officer from climbing up.

He supported himself and moved his upper body on the top of the cabinet. Then he followed by lifting his legs. Then, he reached the baffle of the vent…