103: Chapter 103 The Wolves of the North

The docks of the Red Hook District in Brooklyn were thick with the smell of diesel, the briny scent of the sea, and that persistent, inescapable metallic tang—the smell of blood.

A few incandescent lamps swayed under the canopy, stretching shadows long and short.

Richie crouched in the shadow of a shipping container, the cigar he usually held just for show long since sodden and ruined in the muddy water.

He clutched his now-cold coffee, his teeth chattering against the rim of the paper cup, creating an annoying "clack-clack" sound.

A black Ford pulled up outside the police tape.

The car door opened, and a foot clad in a Chelsea boot stepped into a puddle.

Chen Mo got out of the car, hung his police badge around his neck, and pulled up the collar of his trench coat.

He didn't use an umbrella; rain slid down the brim of his hat, dripping onto his perpetually expressionless face.

"Ol... Officer Robert." Richie, as if seeing a savior, threw away his coffee cup and started to rush over.

Chen Mo sidestepped, his black leather-gloved hand pushing Richie in the chest. The force wasn't great, but it was enough to send the newly ascended gang leader stumbling back against the wall of the shipping container.

"Stand straight." Chen Mo's voice blended into the sound of the rain, devoid of emotion. "Wipe the urine stains off your pants before you speak to me."

Richie flushed red, scrambling to brush off his pant legs.

Chen Mo ignored him and ducked under the yellow police tape.

The scene was quiet.

This was a cigarette smuggling transfer station that Richie had just taken over, usually guarded by twenty heavily armed gunmen.

Those men were tough characters who had survived street brawls, and they even had a few automatic rifles that had leaked from the National Guard.

But now, they were all lying on the ground.

The bodies weren't piled together but were scattered across the short fifty-meter stretch from the gate to the warehouse.

Chen Mo walked over to the first body and crouched down.

It was a sentry, dead in the guard post.

There was no sign of him drawing his gun. There was a clean gash across his neck, stretching from his left earlobe to his right collarbone, deep enough to expose the bone.

Arterial blood had sprayed onto the bulletproof glass, forming a fan shape.

"Killed with one strike." Chen Mo's gloved finger pressed against the edge of the wound.

The technique was too clean. So clean that it didn't seem like it was done just to kill, but rather to save time.

He stood up and continued walking forward.

The second, the third.

All shot between the eyebrows.

There were no burn marks around the bullet holes, indicating long-range shots.

Or perhaps they were shot at point-blank range with a silencer and subsonic ammunition.

There were very few casings on the ground. Chen Mo searched around and only found one deformed copper casing near a sewer drain.

9mm Parabellum.

Not a glock or Beretta that street thugs liked; the stamp on the base of this casing had been filed off.

"Three minutes." Chen Mo looked at his watch, calculating the time it took to walk from the gate to the center of the warehouse.

"Wh... what?" Richie, following behind, swallowed hard.

"From the moment the first sentry fell to the last person dying, it wouldn't have taken more than three minutes."

Chen Mo pointed at the distribution of the bodies. "They didn't even have a chance to organize a decent counterattack. This is a massacre, Richie, but not the kind gangs commit."

This is a military operation.

Even more professional than SWAT.

Tactical coordination, covering fire, silent advancement, and finally, follow-up shots to confirm kills.

Chen Mo walked to the center of the warehouse.

There was a chair there, and a person was sitting on it.

Or rather, a corpse.

It was the person in charge of this dock, and also Richie's trusted aide.

His hands were zip-tied behind the back of the chair, and his head was tilted to one side.

His mouth was propped open, stuffed with something.

Chen Mo reached out and pulled a roll of blood-soaked bills from the corpse's mouth.

One-hundred-dollar bills, with Franklin's stern face printed on them.

"Ugh..." Richie covered his mouth, turned, and started retching.

Chen Mo weighed the money in his hand and then went to unbutton the corpse's shirt.

There were no bullet holes on the chest, only dense, packed knife marks.

It wasn't random slashing; every cut was deep, slicing through the skin and flesh to reveal the ribs beneath.

The wounds formed a word.

М е с т ь .

Russian.

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.

He pulled out the photo that Nightingale had given him earlier.

The blurry tattoos on the backs of the porters' hands in the photo overlapped with the bloody word before him.

"I don't understand..." Richie finished retching and leaned over, his face pale. "We didn't provoke the Russians. Didn't that Ivanov run away long ago?"

"He ran." Chen Mo stuffed the roll of blood money into Richie's jacket pocket and patted his chest. "But the master behind him has arrived."

That was just a dog. When a dog is beaten away, the person who keeps the dog naturally comes to settle the score.

And this time, it's not the dog owner who came; it's a pack of wolves.

Wolves from Siberia, having smelled the scent of money and blood across the Atlantic.

"Clean this place up." Chen Mo took off his gloves and threw them into a nearby trash can. "Tell your men not to close their eyes when they sleep for a while."

"Then... what about this money?" Richie pointed at his pocket, trembling.

"Keep it." Chen Mo turned and walked toward his car. "That's your settlement fee, or a deposit for your coffin."

The rain fell harder.

Chen Mo sat in the car, not rushing to start it.

He looked at the rain-washed docks in the rearview mirror.

"Jack." Chen Mo dialed the number, his voice as cold as the rain outside the car window.

"Make that Russian restaurant owner keep her mouth shut. I want to know the movements of all Eastern Europeans in Brooklyn recently. Also, tell Nightingale to polish her sniper rifle."

"Boss, what happened?" The sound of typing came from the other end of the phone.

"Someone wants us to spit out the meat we just swallowed."

Chen Mo watched the windshield wipers clear the water from the glass, revealing the distorted streetscape. "Since they want to eat, let's cook them a good meal. Even if it's iron, they'll have to chew it to pieces and swallow it for me."

Hanging up the phone, Chen Mo started the car.

The roar of the engine tore through the curtain of rain.

He didn't feel fear.

On the contrary, he felt a long-lost excitement.

It was the thrill of meeting a worthy opponent, and the shiver a hunter feels when the prey bares its fangs.