Chapter 62: The New Territories Riots!

When Lin Tiansheng and Deng Gengyun returned to the police station, it was not yet ten o'clock. The corrupt cop squad had not yet set out, creating a perfect time gap right after receiving the kidnappers' call.

Zhang Jinrong hurried forward. "Boss, the Intelligence Unit has tracked the dial-up location to a public telephone booth in East Kowloon. The surveillance team, the nearest uniform branch, the Emergency Unit, and the Police Tactical Unit are all rushing over."

"What are the kidnappers' conditions?" Lin Tiansheng looked toward Li Zhongying, who was sitting in the lounge. Keeping him at the police station in the first place was done precisely to facilitate wiretapping the call.

Regardless of whether they wanted money, a truce, or specific terms, the kidnappers would eventually have to contact the family.

Zhang Jinrong replied, "The kidnappers want two million Hong Kong dollars and demand that Li Zhongying bring the money to Tsz Wan Shan."

"Tell Mr. Li to stall for a bit longer." Lin Tiansheng lowered his head to check his watch. Given the Intelligence Unit's tracking technology, combining line tracing with the surveillance team required at least a fifteen-minute response time. Seven minutes had already passed; the location had been successfully locked down, but the personnel had not yet arrived.

If they could pinpoint the person making the call, rescuing the hostage would become much simpler.

Zhang Jinrong added, "The people from the Intelligence Unit have already told him."

At that moment, the kidnappers hung up the phone. Li Zhongying reluctantly put down the brick-sized mobile phone. Surrounded by several intelligence officers, his face looked bewildered, and his complex emotions were difficult to conceal.

Zeng Chaoxiang, the head of the wiretapping team, picked up his logbook, handed it to Lin Tiansheng, and said, "Inspector Lin, the content of the call is right here."

"Thank you, Inspector Zeng."

The wiretapping team was a technical department, and its heads were all university graduates with corresponding skills. Recruited policemen who passed their qualifications were commissioned directly as probationary inspectors, making them stand out much more than the surveillance team.

Lin Tiansheng took the logbook, flipped through the dialogue record between the kidnappers and the victim, and walked over to Li Zhongying. "Mr. Li, set your mind at ease. I've won back two chips for you in advance. In this gambling game, the only winners will be us. If we lose, we go down together—understand?"

Li Zhongying caught the underlying meaning. His expression became much firmer, and he expressed his gratitude, saying, "Thank you, Inspector Lin. I know what to do in my heart."

As a big boss, having reached this point, there was nothing more to say. Naturally, he couldn't sacrifice the efforts of all the officers just for the sake of his white-glove agent's wife and daughter.

Deng Gengyun followed close behind the boss and whispered, "Brother Sheng, can Inspector Tian's crowd be trusted?"

A cop without a police uniform was no longer a cop, merely a gangster who had once worn a police uniform. Holding a cigarette, Lin Tiansheng stood by the window, gazing out at the moonlight, fully understanding Deng Gengyun's worries.

However, he knew that utilization was a two-way street. He was valuable to active corrupt cops, and he remained valuable to dismissed corrupt cops. He was the only one who could drag those bastards out of the mud and help them live like decent human beings again. Why bother caring about their ulterior motives? As long as they could be put to use, he would use them boldly. At worst, it would just be killing the donkey the moment it left the millstone. When all was said and done, it ultimately came down to whose fists were bigger and whose gun barrels were thicker!

Ten minutes later, Tan Jiaming from the surveillance team transmitted a message back: "Time ran out. We didn't find anyone."

After confirming that the missing persons case involving Li Zhongying's family had escalated into a kidnapping case, Zhong Zhihui no longer needed to avoid the conflict. She officially intervened in the investigation, arriving at the West Kowloon Major Crime Unit to take charge of the Intelligence Unit team. Holding the phone, she issued an order: "Pull back the team for now. When the money is handed over tomorrow, I'll dispatch two more groups. We must not lose track of them."

"Yes, Sir!"

In the conference room, Zhihui began planning tomorrow's operation. In the office area, Ma Delong and a few others slept in their clothes, and their snores gradually grew louder.

Just as Lin Tiansheng and Zhang Jinrong were chatting, the office alarm suddenly blared again, startling Ma Delong, Gao Zicong, and the other two so violently that they instantly sprang to their feet. "What's the situation?"

Zhang Jinrong had just picked up the emergency phone before he could even speak when the police siren mounted on the wall was triggered. Every office in the entire West Kowloon police station began flashing lights and wailing sirens. The duty officers from various departments and squads—totaling over seventy people—woke up from their drowsiness, opened their eyes in disbelief, and rushed in a panic toward the armory.

According to the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, only when the police force entered a state of emergency or a regional police station came under attack would the internal siren be triggered.

Even the lowest tier, a Level Three state of emergency, required the Governor's signature. In the middle of the night, what kind of situation would cause the Governor to sign? One had to know that once the Governor signed, all police officers would have their leaves canceled, and all uniformed personnel would unconditionally gain the right to carry firearms. The very first task upon reporting for duty would be to draw their guns.

The police force's strength would rapidly swell, becoming the premier armed force surpassing the British Garrison in Hong Kong, and the power of the Commissioner of Police would exceed that of the Governor during the state of emergency.

It was tantamount to a mobilization order!

After listening to the report center's message, Zhang Jinrong hung up the phone, turned to look at Lin Tiansheng's puzzled expression, and muttered, "A large-scale gathering has broken out in Ping Shan Tsuen, New Territories. The crowd exceeds five hundred, equipped with weapons. They have sealed off the roads, set up blockades, and are suspected of an armed riot."

The expressions of Lin Tiansheng, Zhong Zhihui, and the others instantly turned extraordinarily dramatic.

No wonder the Governor couldn't even sleep and had to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to sign.

It turned out that yet another "riot" had broken out in the New Territories.

Under the framework of rural gentry autonomy, whenever the New Territories gentry had political demands, they were accustomed to achieving them by mobilizing villagers, gathering to set up roadblocks, sealing off land ports, cutting off land transport between China and Hong Kong, and calling upon societies and civic organizations to assemble.

Examples included the Double Tenth Incident, the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist Riots, the Star Ferry Fare Increase Riots, and so on...

Small riots occurred every five years, and large-scale riots every ten years. While securing immense united front value, this also gave the colonial government PTSD.

Almost never had the New Territories villagers lost!

Yet this time, Uncle Deng had no idea there was a mole within his clan; the police force and the ICAC had already secured a considerable amount of evidence, simply waiting for witnesses to speak up.

Don't be fooled by the mere five hundred armed people currently in Ping Shan. By tomorrow morning, purely based on Uncle Deng's position as the Chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk, patriarchs from all major clans would send people to participate in the assembly, and gathering a scale of a thousand armed people in the short term would be no problem at all.

As long as it continued to ferment for a bit longer, societies connected with the New Territories gentry would all make their appearance, and within a few days, it might develop into a massive gathering of tens of thousands of people.

As far as the Hong Kong government was concerned, they naturally needed to quell the incident as quickly as possible, prepare for appeasement, and ready their military might.

Deng Gengyun's face flickered between red and blue under the flashing lights of the police siren. Stunned, he asked, "Is—is it really necessary to make such a big fuss?"

Zhong Zhihui took a deep breath. After calming her emotions, she became extremely invigorated. "The bigger the fuss, the better. The more people dragged into this, the less it becomes my individual problem, and the more it concerns the stability of the Hong Kong government."

"The Big Boss probably won't have a good night's sleep either; he'll have to rush back to headquarters for overtime."

During this period, the Sino-British negotiations had just begun, and the Hong Kong government placed extreme importance on social stability.

*Bang.* A loud slap on the table echoed through the office.

Lin Tiansheng commanded, "Go draw your gear."

"Understood!"

The entire squad responded in unison, sprinting toward the armory to collect body armor, rifles, and grenades, locking and loading while standing by for orders. Uncle Deng had truly blown things out of proportion. Unfortunately, he relied too heavily on past templates; such tactics weren't effective every single time.

The curtain of the stage had drawn open. Next, if he could handle Uncle Deng, the report could be submitted directly to the Big Boss.

Lin Tiansheng was like an awl in a pocket—its sharp point naturally protruding.

No matter whether it was a superintendent or a senior superintendent, the remnants of the old guard would all have to lower their heads and take orders from him!

If he failed to suppress Uncle Deng, perhaps a single order from the Commissioner of Police would strip him of his rank and handle him through disciplinary dismissal to appease public anger, ultimately reducing him to just another dismembered corpse scattered across Hong Kong.

"Damn it, this is thrilling." Lin Tiansheng cursed under his breath, his hands trembling with excitement. Disregarding all etiquette, he dialed Huang Qixian's phone in the middle of the night.