Police in Los Angeles

Jack was driving one of the vehicles, with Jiejie in the passenger seat, holding his QBZ97 on alert. The other vehicle was driven by Xianluo, with Gaspare, who had gained everyone's trust, sitting in the passenger seat holding an AK. Although the two pickup trucks looked a bit run-down, they were sturdy and reliable. The passengers squeezed into the back, following Xianluo's example.

After the grueling trek through the jungle, everyone smelled terrible, so no one could complain about the cramped conditions. Having just witnessed a tragedy and a brief but bloody skirmish, the passengers, including the three flight attendants, were too unsettled to think about anything else.

Looking in the rearview mirror, Jack and Jiejie exchanged smiles as they saw everyone helping each other get into the vehicles. Some of the men even offered slightly more comfortable spots to the women, hanging themselves off the sides. This was the right way to use political correctness: experiencing a pressing threat firsthand and witnessing the leaders' abilities had solidified the group's unity and respect for authority.

Without much communication, Jack and Jiejie worked in tandem, one guiding from within and the other intimidating by demonstrating their strength, successfully fostering a sense of cohesion among the strangers. This could be considered a highly successful psychological case study. However, they hadn't anticipated the tragic fate of the couple from the offbeat sect and the bald old man.

Jack had returned with Gaspare to try to save them, thinking that even if they didn't deserve death, he could still find ways to deal with them later. Unfortunately, they were just too unlucky, running into a large group of armed militants with a machine gun. Even if Jack had been as invulnerable as the original Luke Cage, he would still have needed Captain America's vibranium shield to consider rescuing them.

It was just past noon, and under the scorching sun, the two pickups followed the rutted dirt road east, opposite the direction the "Abuzayev" guerrillas had gone. Luck aside, Xianluo was definitely a competent pilot; even in the critical moments of the emergency landing, he had observed the surroundings and spotted the distant abandoned mine.

However, as the saying goes, "what looks close to a mountain can still be far away," especially when seen from an airplane. The abandoned mine was at least twenty kilometers from the crash site. They couldn't drive directly into the mine, fearing they might alert any guards.

After half an hour of bumpy driving, everyone got out. Jack and Gaspare drove the vehicles forward for another ten minutes before hiding them in the roadside jungle and walking back.

This wasn't overkill. The "Abuzayev" organization wouldn't let it go after capturing only two hostages from an entire plane of foreign passengers. Though the bald old man's testimony had misled their search, the four missing militants would likely prompt a realization by tomorrow, leading to a massive search for the foreigners across the island.

Human efforts couldn't entirely erase the traces left by a dozen people in the jungle, but Jack remembered from geography class that Southeast Asia's tropical rainforests usually saw a heavy rainstorm every afternoon. So he urged the group to enter the jungle quickly, hoping the impending rain would help obscure their trail.

Thanks to nine years of compulsory education, Jack recognized the signs of an approaching rainstorm, which soon arrived as they neared the abandoned mine. Though everyone got soaked, seeing their tracks washed away brought a sense of relief and increased respect for the brave and "knowledgeable" Officer Jack.

Rain was the best cover, as even gunshots wouldn't carry far over the sound of the downpour. Jack and Gaspare planned to use the rain to launch a surprise attack on the mine, clearing out any enemies. Xianluo volunteered to join them, leaving Jiejie and another young man with a handgun to protect the group.

The mine covered a large area, with a separate working zone and a four-story building surrounded by a three-meter-high wire fence. It looked like a combined employee dormitory and office building. As the bandit named Ron had said, the place seemed recently abandoned. Most of the wire fence was rusty but intact, with only a few breaks.

Jack even found a simple trap at one of the breaks, with a transparent fishing line connected to a clockwork buzzer.

"Try not to make any noise. Don't shoot unless necessary; we don't know if that bastard lied about the number of guards."

Gaspare's stealth skills made him the obvious choice to scout ahead, moving so quickly that Jack nearly lost sight of him, not to mention the middle-aged and overweight Captain Torrance. When Gaspare signaled them to stop, Jack and Captain Torrance nodded, indicating they understood. They had passed through a hole in the fence and were now at the building's entrance.

The main door was gone, the cement walls riddled with bullet holes, and a few corroded shell casings lay in the corners. Most of the windows on the first and second floors were shattered, with only a few rooms on the third and fourth floors still intact.

They quickly cleared the first floor, finding it stripped clean except for a diesel generator in a room with boarded-up windows. The rest were rusted shelves. They cautiously ascended to the second floor, which only reeked of urine, finding nothing else of note.

As they reached the stairway to the third floor, they suddenly heard a garbled conversation from above. Gaspare stopped and signaled to Jack and Captain Torrance, who ducked into a room on the side of the hallway.

The voices grew louder, accompanied by heavy breathing. Jack remained motionless, watching Gaspare, who had ducked into a room opposite. Gaspare quickly peeked out and held up three fingers toward Jack.

"Three enemies?" Jack understood and drew a machete from his waist. Suddenly, Gaspare bent down one of his three raised fingers.

"What the heck, are you counting down?" Jack was stunned.

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