Chapter 1262: Ruthless
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The best-preserved building must have been a local bank in the past. The entrance door and the windows were all fortified and sealed tightly. There was a small quadrangle in front of the entrance with a flagpole erected on it.
The flag on the pole flapped in the wind. There were ten pair of hands painted on it with some Russian words written across the top. Li Du could not read Russian but could guess that the sigil was supposed to mean praying.
These were the headquarters of the Praying Gang.
Brother Wolf went forth to push the door open but the door had been locked from the inside. It was strong and did not give in an inch.
Right at that time, someone pushed open the windows on the second and third story. A few guns poked out from those windows.
“Hey, sissies, what do you guys want?” A big burly man put his head out of the window and shouted as he raised a rifle.
Li Du smiled. “I’m here to look for your boss, Black Snake, Jonas Malone.”
The big man said impatiently, “What boss? What Black Snake? You guys are at the wrong door. Get out of here, hurry! Otherwise, we will shoot. As you know, the police won’t care if we shoot people dead here!”
Li Du said, “This a country with laws. Won’t the police care?”
The man broke into laughter, “Hahaha, where did this little c.h.i.n.k come from? He is really naive.”
“Laws? Our guns are the law!”
“D*mn it, ask him to get out of here. It takes too much effort to speak Englis.h.!.+”
There were quite a few people inside the building. Li Du listened to them and could tell that a few of them who spoke English and some spoke Russian, which he did not understand.
Hearing their words, Li Du grinned and said, “Very well. Your words give me peace of mind.”
After saying that, he turned around to leave.
The people upstairs did not understand what he was trying to say. Seeing that Li Du was leaving with his people, they felt that he was very soft and easy to bully. All of them flipped the finger at Li Du from the window.
Li Du returned and asked Steve, “There’s some trouble here. You can fix it, right?”
Steve shrugged, “These are Russians. You can settle anything with money, so go ahead and do what you want.”
Li Du waved his hands and Brother Wolf whipped out a grenade. After pulling it apart and holding it in his hands for two seconds, Brother Wolf threw it at the entrance of the bank.
Clink-clank, clink-clank! The grenade rolled on the ground until it stopped in front of the tough metal door.
There was still someone eyeing them from the building, and after seeing the scene, the man was frightened. “G.o.d! A grenade!”
Bang!
A loud bang rang out and then there was smoke everywhere. The grenade had exploded and the tough steel door looked as though it had been trampled by a giant. The door had broken into two jagged halves.
As the impact from the explosion had been extremely powerful, the gla.s.s windows of the building were shattered and fell to the ground.
Firecracker laughed heartily. “That felt so good. Are we robbing a bank? Of course, this is just like robbing a bank. At least I’ve now attained one of my dreams.”
“Do we open fire?” Big Ivan rubbed his gun as he asked.
Li Du glanced at Brother Wolf. It was better to leave such to the professionals.
Brother Wolf shook his head and said, “No need for that. The people inside have been scared to death. They are not going to have the guts to withstand us.”
“What if they call the police?” Hawking asked, worried. He had not expected Li Du to deal with things in such a manner – did not think that he would turn straight to using a grenade before he tried anything else.
“Is there a signal here?” Brother Wolf asked.
The Nenets checked their phones and saw that there was none.
The small town used to rely on a landline to connect with the world outside. The landlines had long been disrupted and no mobile signal could be received in such a deserted area.
Indeed, after the short commotion, the people inside the building emerged with their hands in the air. There were between twenty and thirty of them.
Brother Wolf nodded and while they monitored the hostages, Madman and Vampire went forth to search on their bodies and confiscate their weapons. The men were pushed to the small quadrangle.
After that, Brother Wolf brought some people into the building to continue searching. They wanted to check if there was anyone else hiding inside.
Li Du walked to the small quadrangle and someone asked in fear, “What do you guys want? You guys dare to use a grenade? This place is still under Russian jurisdiction!”
“Anyway, the police don’t care about this place, isn’t that so?” Li Du shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
With Steve’s promise, Li Du was not afraid of anyone who would come knocking to make trouble.
The big burly men were speechless. They had used that same argument to mock Li Du previously.
Now, n.o.body dared to taunt Li Du anymore. These people were hunting for mammoth ivory in the deserted areas of Siberia. Their jobs were risky too and none of them was a scaredy-cat. However, Li Du’s group had used their grenade so easily and they were also accompanied by soldiers in full battle gear. That was quite shocking to the hunters.
The men had never met with such a situation in the past, nor with such a tough person. They cherished their lives and felt that since they were unable to resist Li Du, they could only surrender obediently.
Hence, it could be concluded that Li Du and his people would not hurt them. Otherwise, that would be a heinous crime. Even professional warriors would not dare to do that without very good reason.
Luo Qun walked over in quick steps, eyeing the row of people to look for any sign of Jonas Malone. However, she was disappointed. There were only two black men in the group and one glance was enough to conclude that neither of them was Malone.
Brother Wolf and the rest eventually brought out a few more men from the building. However, there were no more black men and no signs of Jonas Malone.
Li Du took out the photo of Malone for the men to look at and asked, “Where did this guy go?”
The row of men shook their heads and replied, “We don’t know who this man is.”
Li Du smiled and took the phones that Madmen had confiscated earlier to check the photo alb.u.ms in the men’s phones.
The functionality of video recordings was a favorite among people. In this place where there was no internet signal, the only difference between mobile phones and bricks was that mobiles had a series of entertaining functions like gaming and photographing.
Not long after, he found a photograph in one of the phones that captured Jonas Malone. Jonas was smiling widely with a lady in his arms.
Li Du showed the phone to Brother Wolf. It would be better to let the professionals handle such work.
Brother Wolf walked over and stood in front of the group. Wearing a blank face, he said, “Don’t force me to punish you guys. Get this clear, if we dared to bring guns and grenades here, it shows that we have already settled this with the government.”
“Hence, I will not kill all of you. That’s because the government won’t allow that. However, I can still teach you guys a lesson. Like cutting off one arm and one leg of yours. The government would not care about that.”
Big Ivan said with a cold face, “Why bother? Throw all of them to the police. I’d swallow this gun here if there’s even one of them who is innocent!”
The men were all standing together and stayed silent. None of them responded.
Brother Wolf nodded and said, “There are plenty of rooms there. Very well, we will bring them in in batches. Whoever tells us what we need, we will give him ten thousand US dollars and let him go. Otherwise, we will cut off their right index finger!”
That trick did it. Less than one minute after the big men were brought into the building, someone spilled the beans.
The Praying gang was indeed set up by Jonas Malone. He had been staying there in the past, but he was a very cautious man. After receiving a piece of news the day before, he had started his car and left, driving out into the wilderness.
As for where he was headed, none of the men knew. Jonas Malone’s tracks were hard to follow. He had always been very private. Of course, the rest of the people were also very conscious of protecting their own privacy.