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墨書 Inktalez
It was normal to wear a mask in winter, but wearing a baseball cap felt a bit odd. This person's movements gave off an impression of being erratic, wandering back and forth at the entrance without actually coming inside, seemingly pretending to wait for someone. However, there were plenty of people withdrawing money at the time, so the security personnel did not notice anything unusual about this individual.
This person appeared to be the one stationed at the bank, and we were only viewing today's surveillance footage. If we had looked at footage from previous days, it was likely that this person had been loitering at the entrance for some time. Anyone who planned to rob a bank with a bomb must have been lurking for a long while, with meticulous arrangements; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to escape quickly after the robbery. Even now, the police had yet to catch up with these individuals.
Then, this person walked into the bank, took a number, and waited behind the crowd. They began to observe their surroundings and then lowered their head to play with their phone. From this action, it could be inferred that they were starting to contact their accomplices. Half an hour passed, and finally, it was this person's turn. They sat down in front of the teller and began to communicate with her, all while keeping their mask on.
However, there was no audio on the video, so we had no idea what they were discussing.
At that moment, Yuzelin pointed at the teller on the video who was conversing with the man in the baseball cap and said, "The only victim who died is this teller."
Upon hearing this, we all sighed. From the video, she appeared to be just a girl around twenty-two or twenty-three years old—fresh out of college and starting her real life. Who would have thought she would leave this world so soon? Sometimes life is that fleeting. We never know whether an accident or tomorrow will come first; thus, we should cherish the present.
We continued watching the video and saw the man in the baseball cap pull something out of his down jacket—a yellow package that looked square-shaped, resembling wrapped currency. The female teller seemed puzzled for a moment but did not react particularly.
The man in the baseball cap said something else; the teller nodded as if he had communicated something important. She then began to unwrap the package. Perhaps by this point, she believed it contained money. As she was unwrapping it, the man feigned tying his shoelaces and crouched down beneath the counter. At that moment, he pressed something against his chest, and then an explosion occurred.
The explosion was accompanied by thick black smoke that obscured half of the camera's view; fortunately, we could still see what was happening inside the bank.
In an instant, the camera shook violently from the force of the explosion. We then witnessed the girl who had been unwrapping the package become engulfed in blood—a gruesome sight as she was blown apart at ground zero of the blast. Her remains splattered against the ceiling, walls, and floor. At that moment, I turned back and saw blood still dripping from the ceiling—a haunting reminder of how a young girl had met such a horrific fate.
The man in the baseball cap was infuriating; knowing it was a bomb, he callously used it to kill her without any remorse. His actions were utterly heinous and made one wish for his swift demise. Meanwhile, the massive explosion caused even the bulletproof glass at the counter to shatter into pieces.
No one expected an explosion would occur inside a bank; in an instant, countless people were swept away by shockwaves or injured by flying glass shards. The man in the baseball cap had managed to hide beneath the marble counter—an area outside of the blast radius—so he only suffered minor injuries from falling glass fragments.
He quickly stood up and rolled over into the counter area. At that moment, we saw several masked individuals rushing out of an SUV; all of them were armed with handguns. There were four of them in total plus the one who had planted the bomb—five in total. Two were tasked with watching over those injured while three others rushed into the counter area to begin looting aggressively.
Seeing this, Dezi spoke up, "Aside from the real bomb, the handguns these people are holding are all fake."
From the video, I couldn't discern the authenticity of the guns, but Dezi was a firearms expert. If he said the guns were fake, then they must be. However, no one around dared to move; the earlier explosion had instilled fear in everyone. They all believed that anyone capable of making explosives would surely have real guns. Thus, under the threat of the two fake guns, everyone obediently lay on the ground without needing further instruction.
After all, with the body fragments of Teller flying out from the explosion and blood splattering everywhere, it was a stark reminder that these individuals were not just trying to intimidate; they were genuinely willing to kill.
In the video, they had already completed their robbery. Some of them even carried small safes, hastily running outside. The entire operation took barely two minutes before they burst out of the bank. They reached an SUV, which likely still had a driver inside. As soon as a few of them got into the vehicle, it sped off. At that moment, it wasn't rush hour, so there weren't many cars on the road.
Thus, this SUV vanished into the flow of traffic, and what happened next was beyond what the cameras in front of the bank could capture.
However, we could analyze several points from this forty-minute video. Judging by the baseball cap worn by one of them, it seemed that this group had been surveilling the bank for several days. Although it might not have always been this particular cap to avoid drawing attention, it indicated that they had been scouting for some time. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been so familiar with the external routes and bank conditions or how to evade the cameras inside.
Next, given that Killer was able to create such a sophisticated bomb with immense power, it was evident that someone in this team had expertise in chemistry and could accurately measure materials. The fact that such a small bomb could cause such destruction was impressive; even the bank's bulletproof glass failed to withstand it. This indicated that these bank robbers were not ordinary criminals but likely part of a well-organized group controlling this operation.
Finally, regarding their escape route, it was clear that everything had been meticulously planned. From the moment of the explosion to their boarding the SUV and fleeing took only one minute and thirty seconds. Moreover, they didn't even attempt to take any money they couldn't carry; they didn't even glance at it. For an average person, seeing such a large sum would make it hard not to notice.
Most importantly, these robbers did not engage with those withdrawing money inside; they didn't force anyone to hand over cash just taken out. Typically, regular robbers would do just that and end up entangled with civilians while being surrounded by arriving police officers, leading to a standoff for hostage exchange. Yet this group did none of that.
One couldn't help but acknowledge that within the profession of bank robbers, these individuals performed exceptionally well. Otherwise, they wouldn't have managed to escape by car before the police arrived. At this moment, a group of officers was pursuing in the direction taken by the SUV and had contacted police across the city; if they spotted this vehicle, they were instructed to intercept it.
I reminded Yuzelin that these individuals might switch license plates on their way. There are now specialized devices that can flip a plate at the push of a button to reveal another one. Yuzelin nodded and relayed specific details about the SUV through her phone to everyone.
While we were speaking, Juan Juan had been busy at the front desk all along. She then said to us, "The explosives were likely homemade and extremely unstable—not TNT. Under high temperatures, they can explode easily; thus winter is an ideal time for such actions. From what we found at the scene after the explosion—traces of Potassium Nitrate and Sulfide—it's commonly known as Black Powder."
When the explosion occurred earlier, it generated a thick cloud of black smoke, which is where the term "Black Powder" comes from. Tri-nitrotoluene, or TNT, is not easy to find, but the materials needed to make Black Powder are relatively simple to obtain. However, this means that a civilian chemist must assist them in completing this task. Unlike yellow gunpowder, Black Powder is structurally unstable; a single mistake could easily lead to an explosion due to this instability.
We had not heard of any incidents involving homemade explosives exploding, which indicates that these individuals have some experience with the formulation of gunpowder. With this thought in mind, I began to suspect that this situation might not be as simple as we imagined.
“How much money was lost?” I asked Yuzelin.
Yuzelin replied, “We haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s estimated to be around eight million.”
Eight million, I murmured to myself.
At that moment, we received news from the police that the SUV had been spotted on the road and was currently being pursued. Yuzelin said, “Leave some officers from the Police Department at the bank; we’re heading to the scene.”
I nodded; going to the front lines was always what our Special Investigation Team did. Once everything was arranged, we managed to escape from the reporters' pursuit and drove toward Shun Tai Road, where the SUV was reported to be fleeing wildly.
Now that we had located it, there was no way it could escape.
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