New Gods of North America

After a few more tugs with Macken Reeves, the guy gradually turned into a dead dog, looking like he was saying, "I've said what I needed to say; you can figure it out yourselves."

Seeing that they couldn't get any more information out of him for the time being, the group temporarily left the ward and walked outside the building.

Once they were a little further away, Tom Hagen began giving orders to his men as they walked:

"Arrange for some people to be scattered around the city to set up surveillance; report any suspicious individuals immediately. This guy doesn't have many people he can use anymore. I'd guess the number is less than ten, roughly the size of a squad, but they might split up. These people should all be relatively loyal and core accomplices, so their average quality might not be low.

"Prepare what he asked for as soon as possible, and 'pre-process' the carriage in advance. The fact that he chose to negotiate means he can't escape imprisonment on his own, but we need to prevent potential losses from a 'violent rescue' and 'Fallen' going out of control.

"Arrange for someone to return to Richmond immediately and take preventative measures. The heretics of the Light have placed so many sealed artifacts in Georgeburg; Richmond and other cities may have them as well. This guy's actions could trigger a chain reaction from the heretics of the Light."

Tom Hagen was quite experienced in this area, and Wayne couldn't think of any better solutions for the time being.

Several attendants quickly went to relay the instructions. Wayne recalled the impact of the "tainted holy emblem" and the "ghost mirror" and tried to comfort Tom Hagen slightly:

"Think of it positively. The things the Church of Light has released before have mostly been the type that create chaos in secret. Judging from their motives, the proportion of those that cause a large number of casualties in a short period of time should not be high. We still have plenty of time."

To cause a large amount of direct damage these days, based on Wayne's current understanding, the most effective thing for civilians is still high explosives.

If you light a candle next to a bundle of high explosives, Wayne thinks that thing is probably more capable of quickly creating panic than the so-called "sealed artifacts."

The Church of Light's survival strategy currently seems to be mainly "parasitism." Simply creating large-scale riots is not very meaningful to them. Their more likely motive before might have been to secretly cause contamination, or to cause riots to "bring people down" and then insert their own people.

At least they are not the heretical organizations that are famous for harvesting or sacrificing lives.

Tom Hagen's expression did not relax:

"That's what makes it even more troublesome. If the threat is great enough, 'casualties' will no longer be the focus, given the premise of 'must eliminate the enemy'.

"Like that guy now, using the sealed artifacts of the Church of Light as bargaining chips is only a threat of level III to weak level IV at most. 'Ensuring the recovery of the sealed artifacts' and 'avoiding casualties' will become the key to evaluating the handling of the situation afterward, which are more troublesome to deal with."

Hmm...

That's not incomprehensible.

Just like when a small town encounters a large-scale gang attack, people will think that some losses during the resistance are inevitable.

But if only one or two fierce thugs attack, people will feel that any losses are the fault or dereliction of duty of the law enforcement officers.

...

Lena was forced to take people back to the detective agency to pick up the kids.

Willie is okay, but if Emma gets involved, I don't know if Damon McQueedy will throw a fit or quit.

And these people from the Church of Light seem to be mumbling and crazy. Wayne is actually worried about whether they will contaminate the two children or something.

But like in cop movies, sometimes in order to lure out other criminals, you always have to pretend to cooperate and act on the surface.

For example, even if you use newspapers to make fake ransom money or secretly install trackers, you still have to prepare money for the kidnappers.

Tom Hagen stayed here to try to delay time as much as possible, while Wayne and Inessa, like several exorcist priests, also led a team of people to investigate potentially problematic places separately.

After the tainted holy emblem incident, theoretically, the church should have conducted a post-event investigation of important locations in the city. If they really have been there all along and haven't been discovered, it means that before being "unsealed," they should look similar to ordinary objects.

In this sense, schools and hospitals should be more suspicious than bars.

After all, the former are public facilities in a sense, and the impact after an accident will be greater. Even if the latter explodes into a mushroom cloud, according to the public opinion atmosphere of this era, it will basically not be blamed on the church or law enforcement agencies.

So, from the perspective of "population density" and "risk consequences," Inessa is now going to the female dormitory that looks like a monastery in the college.

Wayne chose a public hospital in the city in the opposite direction of the college. While there is still time, he will first guess the worst about the other party, prevent the other party from deliberately causing trouble on both sides, and avoid being forced to run back and forth.

Even if the sealed artifact looks no different before being unsealed, considering the time node of "before midnight," if the corresponding thing is the type that "takes effect immediately after being unsealed," then there should be "suspicious people" preparing to act near the thing at this time.

And if the corresponding thing needs to "take effect slowly after being unsealed for a while," then it will probably be relatively easy to be discovered at this time.

Perhaps due to a combination of consideration for urban land prices and the fact that ordinary people are unlikely to have private transportation, the location of that public hospital is roughly in the so-called "edge of the downtown area."

It's not particularly remote, but it's also a bit far from the relatively lively commercial area, which can be regarded as the suburbs of the city.

The carriage traveled to about the right place. About seventy or eighty percent of the journey had been completed, and the street scene was no longer prosperous.

Wayne saw the sign of a private clinic on the side of the road, glanced at it, and noticed that the curtains were drawn and the lights were on on the second floor. So, after driving a little further past the next intersection, he asked Sanders to stop the carriage.

"What's wrong?" The accompanying exorcist quickly came over and asked about the situation.

Wayne was actually having a paranoid episode:

"That killer named Anton Chigurh should still be injured when he was rescued, right?

"This place is not far from the potentially problematic location, and the location is not too lively. I think the criminals may first look for a place for emergency treatment and recuperation, and then act according to the planned plan when the time is right. That private clinic just now looks very suspicious."

This team is currently under Wayne's command. The reasons Wayne said are not a big problem. Looking back at this time, it is still "on the way."

So, the exorcists quickly cooperated to turn around. In order to avoid alerting the enemy, they also consciously arranged for several people to return separately, and also took a slight detour just in case.

Because they didn't leave far, everyone quickly returned to their positions.

Wayne led one or two people to ring the doorbell of the private clinic in the open, and prepared to pretend to be looking for emergency treatment.

Considering the characteristics of this era, some private doctors actually live in the clinic, and work and life are at the same address, so that patients can find them easily. It is not particularly strange to have the lights on at night.

It is also explainable that the first floor is dark but the second floor is lit, after all, kerosene and candles are money. Even if private doctors have a decent income, it is not a bad thing to save money if they can.

But suspicion is like cockroaches in the house. Since I feel there may be a problem, Wayne is still not at ease if he doesn't take a look.

The main reason is also because the layout here does not seem suitable for the daily life of the middle class. People with decent and practical occupations like private doctors are very welcome "good neighbors" in many communities these days. Some landlords may even reduce rent for this reason.

Americans still pursue "work is work, life is life." For example, the mayor of Black Stone Town is not surprised to appear in the farmland chatting with the townspeople and getting close to each other during the day, but if he suddenly plans to live in the dilapidated wooden house on the farm at night, it is very worthy of attention.

Like the voice of a middle-aged man came from behind the door, saying that the doctor was out and could not see a doctor for the time being.

And a person from the local exorcism department in the dark instantly turned from a relaxed state to vigilance, and seemed to think that the voice was wrong.

Unexpectedly, it seems to be really rewarding.

Seeing him shaking his head slightly at himself, Wayne continued to knock on the door, shamelessly saying that his stomach was really hurting and he could just take some painkillers.

The person inside the door prevaricated twice, and Wayne's appearance became more and more like a thug, cursing and kicking the door twice.

Seeing Wayne making more and more noise, the voice inside the door gradually walked behind the door.

The double door with a door chain was opened, and one of them was opened.

Half a face was exposed in the crack of the door, inside was a mushroom head with a mouth curved like parentheses when smiling.

The other party didn't seem to recognize that Wayne was the one who had chased him before, but Wayne had seen what this guy looked like after being knocked unconscious by the carriage in the church hospital.

So Wayne kicked him over, and the pistol that had been secretly prepared was fired at the same time.

"Bang!"

The gunshot and the sound of kicking the door sounded at the same time, and a beam of light "biu" came out of the crack of the door.

Wayne dodged reflexively, and his face was scratched.

Damn, this guy is really poisonous, is chili pepper quenched on the "bullets"?