Chapter 428 - Danger and Trouble (22)

11 May, JL International Mall, City F

Meanwhile at the stage area, Mathew watched as Head Honcho arrived, being trailed by Inspector Long. He marched over to Matthew and said "What did I tell you…"

"Keep calm and not let things worry me. Do you think I am that stupid," came his angry response from Matthew. 

"At this moment, you are too emotional."

"Emotional, yes, but to the point it ruins my judgement? No. And you are the pot calling the kettle black, as apparently last night you wanted to make someone disappear for dating your daughter."

Head Honcho laughed. In that moment he knew that Matthew was right, yes, he was emotional, but he knew that there was a line and not to cross it. "I get it, now tell me the problem as you see it."

"Hear that," came Matthew's immediate response. He paused and they could hear people calling out for help and m.o.a.ns of pain. "That is the problem. The police investigators only want to gather evidence and that is leaving lives in the balance. Do not get me wrong, the investigation is important, more so to the police than us because we believe it is terrorism, and it needs to happen but that cannot be preferred to saving lives."

Inspector Long who had been listening, jumped in stating "It is too soon to jump to that conclusion; hence the investigation needs to be given priority."

Matthew snapped "Did you hear me say that the investigation is important, but there is a balance to be struck between that and the rescuing of people. Your subordinates are tilting that to one extreme…"

Inspector Long fired back "Unless there is an investigation how can this be prevented. If that means that people must wait until we gather evidence and ensure that it is safe to move them, then they have to wait."

"You want to risk lives…"

"No," snapped Inspector Long. "The rescuers as much as the victims need to be safe when moving them. You just want the glory for saving people, rather than the big picture, which always has to be to prevent this from happening again."

"As if an investigation will do that," retorted Matthew.

"It may not, we have already had to stop criminal gangs from entering the area with an intent to loot stores. What is not to say that one of them decided to stage the whole situation for their own advantage."

"Inspector," came the calming voice from Head Honcho, signalling to Matthew to be quiet. "General Rong is right to a point, we have to balance the two competing tasks. Your investigation and rescuing the victims…"

"Typical, military supporting the military, why would I expect anything different?"

Shaking his head, Head Honcho continued "You never let me finish, but you are also right in that you cannot jeopardise the rescuers to rescue the victims."

"And I have already made a professional judgement that the risks are minimal. If there were risks that we could not mitigate do you think I would risk soldiers. While that can be variations on our skills depending on what we specifically do, every soldier trains to act in environments where there are risks of chemical and biological weapons. You think we cannot act carefully when that has not been rule out."

"I have an obligation…"

"As do we," came a much calmer response from Matthew.

Head Honcho seeing tempers were calming down, he responded "There is a compromise. We have in place processes to film actions, that we can make available to your investigators as much as you make what you have available to us."

Matthew sensing that now he had his opportunity, added "And we will not move anything if we think it is critical to your investigation."

The two of them watched Inspector Long, who after a few seconds responded "Fine, but if you do not cooperate, I will ensure that this is taken to the top levels nationally." She then walked off towards the investigators.

Head Honcho, turned to Matthew and shook his head before saying, "Why am I not surprised."

"You taught me well. Sometimes to get what we know we need we need to play good cop, bad cop. That has gotten us exactly what we want, which is to get in there, bring out injured people and get a look of the area closest to the explosion but…"

"You suspect that there were people watching?"

"You agree with my view as to who is responsible?"

Nodding Head Honcho said "It makes sense, and if it was there will be a body somewhere that was the trigger person. That we need to find ASAP as we know the police will dismiss it because the connection will not be obvious. Where do you believe we need to look?"

Matthew lifted his head and looked up at the higher levels, pondering where they would find the person they were after. Eventually he said "Most likely level three. That would be the best balance spot. High enough to enable them to overview the whole area, far enough away from the blast to protect them from the shockwave, low enough for them to believe using stairwells that they could safely escape and isolated enough that the clean-up person could take them out and escape without being detected."

Head Honcho looked up at level three and added "Likely to the left of the glass lifts. If I recall from the information your brother provided me that I reviewed on the flight, most of that area is effectively closed off for renovations for new stores to open in a couple of months. We need to get somewhere up there? Aramis or Porthos as D'Artagain is busy here."

Before Matthew could respond, they both noticed Joseph moving quickly towards them, before saying "We found Lexi."

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