Moreover, it didn't seem to be a simple case of bulletproof windows. It appeared the entire body of the car was bulletproof, including the tires.
Clang, clang!
Clatter, clatter!
A dense hail of bullets pounded against the Audi R8, creating a remarkably crisp percussion performance. In a scene unnoticeable to anyone else, a faint golden light rippled across the entire chassis of the Audi R8, stripping away the kinetic energy of every single bullet that struck it.
"Fuck! Get out here, now!"
Boom!
Locke raised an eyebrow, watching two pickup trucks surge out from an alleyway on the right ahead. Through his rearview mirror, he eyed a man in black rising from the bed of a trailing truck, hoisting a rocket launcher once again.
"Locke..."
"Hold on tight!"
Locke glanced at Gwen in the passenger seat, who was clutching her phone and looking at him with immense worry. He smiled slightly and said,
"We'll be fine."
This wasn't raising a death flag. Locke spoke entirely from a position of absolute strength.
Click!
Bang!
Almost the exact instant Locke engaged the handbrake, a rocket trailing a long tail of fire erupted from the pickup truck behind that desperately failed to catch up to him.
But once again, it brushed past the drifting vehicle.
Gwen's eyes shrank as her mouth fell wide open, watching the rocket graze past her passenger door right before her eyes.
In the next second, boom!
A massive fireball erupted into the air ahead, blasting a huge crater into the road.
Thud!
The pickup truck charging from the front, attempting a pincer attack, nosedived straight into the crater. It launched into the air instantly and crashed onto the pavement with a violent crunch, sending parts flying everywhere.
The handbrake was released once more.
Vroom!
The Audi R8 accelerated again, shooting forward like a stray arrow.
Rolling down the window, Locke drew the Glock from his lower back, fixing his gaze on the left rearview mirror at the pickup truck where a man was cursing violently while quickly reloading, preparing to use a rocket launcher unfairly once more.
"Hurry up, hurry!"
"The police are coming, move!"
"Fuck, you think I don't want to?"
"Shit!"
The Black man standing unsteadily in the truck bed cursed loudly, clumsily sliding a fresh rocket into the tube and aiming at the rapidly fleeing Audi R8 ahead.
Right then, bang!
Bang!
"Huh?"
The moment the man squeezed the trigger, he suddenly felt as if the entire world had gone dead silent. Those two gunshots, however, were exceptionally distinct.
"What was that sound?"
Just then, two golden little darlings materialized in his field of vision.
"W—"
The man froze, and tracing the trajectory of those two golden bullets, his soul nearly leaped out of his body in sheer terror, "No—"
Before his words could fully form, clank!
One bullet scored a direct bullseye against the rocket that had just left the tube and hadn't even had time to fly yet. As the golden bullet shattered against the payload, it ignited the rocket instantly.
In the next second.
Boom!
The speeding pickup truck exploded violently, and a small mushroom cloud rose directly from the spot.
Locke holstered his gun.
Beside him, Gwen, who had turned her head to look back, had her mouth open in utter shock.
The phone in Gwen's hand remained connected.
George, who had already boarded a helicopter and was rushing to the scene, had his heart in his throat.
Especially after a succession of explosions followed by complete silence from Gwen.
"Gwen!"
"Gwen!"
"Gwen!"
Inside the car, Gwen snapped back to reality. Hearing George's voice crack with panic, she quickly picked up the phone, "Dad, I'm still here. We're fine."
George let out a massive sigh of relief, "The Hampton Bays police are heading your way. Hang in there."
Meanwhile, wee-woo, wee-woo!
Ahead, sirens wailed.
Screech!
Police cars quickly poured out from the Hampton Bays precinct, pulling directly across the highway to form a roadblock.
The officers looked at the lead Audi R8 tearing toward them like a wild horse, followed closely by three black pickup trucks driving like maniacs.
The attackers seemed utterly indifferent to the authority of the police, acting as if they would gladly go down in flames just to eliminate their target.
The officers piled out of their vehicles, racking their firearms and standing ready.
"The Audi R8 is one of ours."
"Understood."
Normally, without special notification, the police would treat everyone equally in a situation like this, opening fire indiscriminately.
After all, this was a country where soldiers carried automatic rifles instead of shovels to handle disaster relief.
Fortunately, George had contacted Hampton Bays ahead of time to give them Locke's license plate number.
Vroom!
Locke looked ahead at the gesture from the officer. Narrowing his eyes, he kept his foot pinned to the floor, flashing through the gap at a hundred miles per hour without slowing down a bit.
In the next second, the officers roared at the three black pickup trucks charging ahead.
"Fire!"
Bang, bang, bang!
Rat-tat-tat!
The driver of the lead truck was instantly turned into a pincushion, blood spilling from the corners of his mouth. Yet even in death, his foot remained heavy on the pedal.
With a violent crash, the police cars lined up as a barricade were smashed aside by the truck, ripping open a gap.
"Oh my god."
Gwen, still looking out the back window, felt sick to her stomach watching the suicidal tactics of these criminals.
"Who are they?"
Are they insane?
Why would people attack a person as kind-hearted as Locke so brutally?
Gwen couldn't wrap her head around it.
Locke opened his mouth, preparing to stop hiding it and tell Gwen the truth, when his six senses flared.
Then...
Locke shifted his gaze upward, spotting a helicopter suddenly rising from the beach on the right. Peering into the cabin of the chopper, which was disguised as a news helicopter, he saw a man hoisting a man-portable surface-to-air tracking missile launcher. His eyelids twitched.
Fantastic.
ICA!
If you bastards live to see Christmas, I'll write my last name backward, or hell, I'll even take your damn name.
"Get down!"
"..."
Gwen saw Locke draw his gun with his right hand and shout at her. She instinctively ducked, followed immediately by two sharp cracks.
Two more bullets left the barrel.
One went wide, but the other scored a direct bullseye once again.
Boom!
"Oh holy shit!"
"Hurry, hurry!"
"Go, go, go!"
Inside the NYPD helicopter rushing over from the city, George stared at the brilliant orange fireball erupting in the sky not too far away. Hearing the explosion through his phone as well, his face was a mix of shock and profound relief.
Thank goodness he had taught that wild boar how to shoot.
Boom!
A black pickup truck roared forward, perhaps illegally using a nitrous boost, charging like a raging bull to slam its front end directly into Locke's R8.
Thud, thud, thud!
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
A torrential rain of bullets poured down upon the R8 at point-blank range.
But the R8 remained unyielding. Its armor plating couldn't just be called top-tier; it was downright magical.
Hearing the relentless, deafening impacts, Gwen's scalp went numb.
"Locke!"
Locke glanced at the bullets continuously striking his left side mirror, his mind spinning at lightning speed.
In the next second.
Locke cranked the wheel, yanked the handbrake, and as the car went into a stationary drift to the left, a golden light rippled across the chassis.
Crash!
The truck that had used nitrous to catch up blew out two tires instantly with a loud pop. The chassis groaned before launching into the air and turning over, flipping violently under its own immense kinetic energy.
Thud!
The rolling truck flipped clean over and slammed down hard onto the rear section of the Audi R8.
Bang!
The Audi R8 sagged under the weight, leaving behind a mass of deep scrapes, but it suffered no critical damage.
Locke stomped on the gas, accelerating hard once more as he sped toward New York City. At the very least, he needed to reach the SWAT units deployed in force from the city.
Hampton Bays was just a minor precinct. Locke hadn't expected much from them anyway; buying him a little time was good enough.
Right now, the last black pickup truck was still hot on their heels.
But the three men inside, looking up at the three NYPD helicopters flying in from the direction of the city, realized one thing.
The mission had failed.
Damn it, nobody had informed them that this guy's Audi R8 was entirely bulletproof.
And how could the target's marksmanship be so terrifying?
This completely contradicted their intelligence.
The white man behind the wheel wore a grim expression. He pulled a phone from his jacket and dialed.
The call connected instantly.
"Speak!"
"The NYPD has arrived."
"You know what to do."
"Yes."
The man, speaking with a faint London accent, looked grim. But thinking of his wife and child, he knew that if he fled now, none of them would survive.
But if he stayed and died a brutal death on the spot, his family might still stand a chance.
So.
The man lowered the phone and took a deep breath.
In the next second, he drew his gun.
Bang!
"Ah!"
Bang, bang!
He fired cleanly, sending his panicked accomplices, who were screaming at him to step on the gas, straight to the afterlife. Then he threw a phone out the window that was set to detonate in five seconds. He slammed his foot on the accelerator with absolute resolve, charging forward one last time.
"Fire!"
"Fire!"
Rat-tat-tat!
Bang, bang, bang!
The newly arrived SWAT team piled out of their vehicles. Facing the black pickup truck barreling toward them like an untamed beast, they unleashed a brilliant storm of muzzle flashes upon the vehicle.
Large-caliber rounds, far superior to anything the Hampton Bays precinct possessed, shredded the vehicle in a single instant.
Boom!
A fiery explosion erupted once more!