The somber atmosphere seed to dissipate instantly. Rossi smiled and said to the two, "Then hurry up and go. Rember to bring plenty of people. Even an abandoned old zoo isn't small."
Jack nodded and went back to the police station with Nolan to retrieve so equipnt. It was nearly 8 p.m. Although the police station didn't have the high-tech head-mounted night vision goggles of the SWAT team, they had enough extra powerful flashlights.
Tim and his team were still busy outside. They had found so clues and were preparing to arrest the head of the underground black market operating in the prison that night. The two could only call on Lucy, along with so officers who had been called back by Commander Grey to work overti.
The group of 12 people drove 6 police cars to the abandoned old zoo. A police helicopter would provide them with air support later.
The old zoo had been abandoned for more than half a century. The barbed wire fence was dilapidated, and the two gates were on the verge of collapse.
Fearing that making too much noise would disturb any suspects inside, the officers entered the zoo directly through a gap in the barbed wire fence.
It was pitch black all around, and the abandoned zoo was eerily silent, save for the faint calls of owls in the distant woods, which added to the sinister atmosphere.
"This place is too big, how are we going to find it?" Nolan asked in a low voice.
Jack thought for a mont, trying to use his extraordinary senses to scan the surroundings, but to no avail.
"Let's go in and check. If the suspect committed the murder here, it must have happened at least six months ago; there will definitely be so traces."
He paused, looking at the dilapidated facilities around him, and had an idea.
"There shouldn't be any electricity here, right?"
Nolan glanced back. "The transforr outside is long gone; even holess people wouldn't co here."
"So the suspect either used a car alternator for power or installed a small generator here. Both thods would produce considerable noise. He might be able to block out the light, but he couldn't block out the sound, right?"
The officers realized, and scattered to explore deeper into the area, searching for any structures emitting noise.
Soon, officers noticed sothing amiss. Lucy whispered on the radio, "Northwest, there's a reptile exhibit. I heard a generator running, and I can vaguely see lights inside."
The rest of the officers gathered around, half surrounding the exhibit to prevent anyone from escaping through the back door or broken windows, while the rest prepared to storm in through the front. Nolan got into position, about to kick the door, when Jack grabbed him.
He gently turned the rusty doorknob, and the dilapidated wooden door creaked open. Nolan tilted his head sheepishly; he was a little too tense, influenced by the atmosphere.
Jack, guns in both hands, led the way, trying to remain silent. The exhibit was divided into several sizable rooms, with various rusty small iron cages lining the walls.
The partitions between the rooms were rotten; soone had roughly cleaned the area, moving the rotten door panels aside and nailing a few soft plastic curtains to the doorway as a makeshift windbreak.
Jack carefully lifted the curtain, already sowhat certain that their guess was correct. Although the transparent curtains were stained and seed to have been hanging for so ti, there were no cobwebs, indicating that people were constantly coming and going.
The windows on the wall were covered with advertising paper and old newspapers, but the glass was intact. Holess people wouldn't do such pointless things; it seed they had most likely found the right place.
They walked into three or four more rooms, the faint stench of decay gradually intensifying. Dim light shone from the last room. Jack gently waved, and Lucy, understanding his gesture, tiptoed past him, pressed herself against the doorfra, and carefully pulled back the plastic curtain.
Standing in the doorway, Jack faced a pile of iron cages, but could vaguely see a tal bunk bed in the center of the room. A woman, naked from the waist up, lay on it, seemingly delirious, emitting low moans.
A man, his back to the door, squatted beside the bed, muttering incoherently, his head bowed, fiddling with sothing on the woman's body.
Jack aid his Glock pistol at the man, carefully moving forward until he felt the distance was right, then shouted, "LAPD, hands up!"
The man whirled around; in the dim light, he appeared to have a face without features.
"Bang!"
Although the abandoned zoo had a sinister and terrifying atmosphere at night, Jack wasn't too tense because he wasn't alone. However, the faceless man's sudden turn nearly scared him to death, and he instinctively pulled the trigger.
The man's brains splattered, and he fell to the ground without a doubt. Only then did Jack realize that the bastard had a sack over his face, with only two holes gouged out for his eyes.
Jack gently kicked the man, and his right hand opened, revealing a bloodstained tattoo gun lying on the floor. The woman lying on the bed had blood streaming down her abdon, with the letters "DOD" tattooed on it, the numbers not yet engraved.
Lucy quickly went over to check on the woman.
"Is she alright?" Jack asked.
"She's still alive. The bastard injected her with sothing, maybe a sedative or so kind of poison." Lucy flipped open the woman's eyelids and shone a flashlight on them to check the pupil response.
"7-A-26, ambulance needed, ergency. Sirens on, clear the way. Notify Commander Grey and FBI Agent David Rossi. A victim has been found, still alive. The suspect has been killed."
Jack scanned his surroundings and spotted the source of the stench. A large oil drum sat against the wall, its interior stained with bloody scratches, reminding him of the badly mangled fingernails of the two corpses found earlier.
"This must be the oil drum the killer used to suffocate the victims."
The patrol officers who followed Nolan inside were horrified by the stench emanating from the oil drum; it was an incredibly grueso scene.
So officers went forward and unceremoniously kicked the killer's body, turning it over to look for identification. The remaining officers continued searching inside and outside the building. The police helicopter had arrived and turned on its searchlights for illumination, as no one could be certain the killer was alone.
Shortly after, the ambulance arrived and took the semi-conscious female victim to the hospital. Lucy got in and went with them, while Jack and Nolan waited until the LAPD forensic team arrived and took over the scene before returning to the police station. Although it was already midnight, there were still many things to sort out.
When the two arrived, everyone was already in the briefing room. Rossi was in front of a large whiteboard covered with various photos and mind maps.
Seeing the two enter, Rossi gestured for them to sit down and continued the case analysis that had just begun.
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