CHAPTER 98: CHAPTER 98 PERSUASION TO SURRENDER

"This is the place."

Li Ang and his party stood in the corridor on the tenth floor, examining the safe house Tama Riyadi had built for himself.

Tama Riyadi, with his numerous competitors and countless enemies, was terrified for his life. Consequently, he had established several safe houses in Malawi City and elsewhere in the Philippines.

All of these chambers were built to the standards of bank vaults. Ceilings, walls, and floors were made of reinforced concrete, all sandwiched with layers of homogeneous steel plates.

The door was made of high-strength alloy, 100mm thick, impervious to machine-gun fire; even with grenade blasts, it would take quite a while to breach.

An impregnable fortress.

The members of the temporary squad looked at the formidable alloy door, sharing knowing smiles.

Li Ang raised his SCAR-H rifle, aimed at the concrete wall above the alloy door, and pulled the trigger of the grenade launcher.

The grenade struck the concrete wall, exploding thunderously.

As the smoke cleared, the door stood unscathed. The concrete wall above it merely had a small hole chiseled into it, revealing the steel plate embedded within.

Inside the safe house, Tama Riyadi secretly let out a sigh of relief.

He, Santos, and a dozen of their subordinates were currently crammed into the back of the safe house.

Over eighty fully-armed gang members—enough to stir up waves even if you just tossed them into the water—were now completely incommunicado. Not a single response.

Tama Riyadi had made his subordinates consume a secondary product of Datura, ensuring they weren’t easily turned traitor. Otherwise, he might have almost believed all his underlings had been bought and flipped by his competitors.

"They can’t get in." Tama Riyadi, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, forced a smile. "It’s very safe here," he told Santos. "Just stall for another ten or twenty minutes, and my other subordinates in the city can reach us with reinforcements."

Reinforcements, my ass.

Santos Aquino wished he could take Tama Riyadi’s head off and kick it around like a ball.

If it hadn’t been for this fool’s hubris in attempting an assassination on the mayor of Malawi City, which exposed the "Datura" shipment, how could the rebels have launched such a hasty attack on Malawi City? And why would he be in this dangerous situation, shivering in a safe house with this bald uncle?

In his mind, Santos was cursing Tama Riyadi and his entire lineage for eighteen generations, but he still managed to squeeze out a faint smile on his face.

He stared at the alloy door. Hidden beneath his suit, his hand toyed with a glass vial filled with dark green liquid. It had better be... he muttered.

Outside the alloy door, Li Ang leaned on the door frame and, through his gloves, scraped off the pieces of stone still radiating heat.

After removing the fragments, a moderately sized crevice remained above the door.

Li Ang gestured in the crevice with his palm, jumped down from the door frame, and nodded to his companions.

To break through this door, S.W.A.T. had specifically brought along several ALSG814-type thermite incendiary hand grenades before departure.

Thermite is a compound made of aluminum powder and iron(III) oxide powder mixed in a specific ratio. Upon ignition with an oxidizer, it produces aluminum oxide and elemental iron.

In this process, the thermite reaction can release temperatures as high as 3000°C, capable of easily melting steel.

Li Ang took a grenade handed to him by Brother Shield, signaled his comrades to stay back, then stuffed the grenade into the crevice above the door frame and yanked the pin.

He quickly retreated more than a dozen steps.

Only a muffled HISS— was heard,

as the incendiary grenade blossomed instantly into millions of sparks, like the most splendid fireworks.

The temperature near the metal doorframe shot up in an instant. The air, stirred by wave after wave of heat, became hazy and unclear, and the metals near the thermite turned a glowing red. The reinforced concrete above the doorframe began to melt, dripping down like wax and adhering to the hand grenade.

Thermite has its own oxygen supply and doesn’t require an external air source. Therefore, even if buried under rubble, it wouldn’t be extinguished.

After more than forty seconds, the 615 grams of thermite inside the ALSG814 heavy-duty thermite-incendiary grenade finally burned out.

This left a cone-shaped breach in the wall, wider at the entry point and tapering inward, filled with blackened, solidified molten iron and stone.

The top of the alloy door had slumped, looking like a chunk had been scooped out of a cake.

Only when the temperature at the door had dropped slightly did Li Ang raise his phone over his head. He took several photos of the breach—without jumping up to look himself, for fear of being shot in the head through the opening by someone on the other side.

After taking the photos, Li Ang glanced at the phone screen, confirming that he could see part of the inside through the approximately 15-centimeter diameter breach.

The living room was eerily empty; no one was in sight. It seemed Tama Riyadi and his men had hidden in a side chamber of the safe house.

Li Ang thought for a moment, then shouted into the interior: "People inside, listen up! You’re surrounded. Stop your futile resistance, lay down your weapons, and surrender immediately!"

As expected, there was no response.

Of course, what if they came out only to be cut down by a volley of bullets?

After all, Tama Riyadi was known for ordering the elimination of numerous special operations team members.

Li Ang gave a sly smile and shouted loudly toward the breach, "Rest assured, Mr. Riyadi! Before coming here, my superiors told me something. They entrusted me to deliver a message to you: if you surrender, they guarantee a lifetime of wealth and glory, and stacks of gold!"

???

The other four S.W.A.T. operators exchanged baffled looks. Their raid on the apartment had been entirely their own initiative. Where was any ’superior’ coming from, let alone secret promises?

Inside, there was only silence. Li Ang stroked his chin and said softly, squinting his eyes, Tsk, they didn’t take the bait.

Who would fall for that, really? You’d have to be an idiot to believe it, the four S.W.A.T. operators thought cynically. But then they saw Li Ang rally himself and shout again:

"Hey, fellas in the room, hurry out and look! There’s a row of sows queuing up to jump into a ditch outside! This spectacle is too amazing to miss; you’ll regret it for a lifetime if you don’t see it!"

Still, silence reigned.

The four S.W.A.T. operators cringed inwardly, black lines of exasperation almost visibly forming on their foreheads.

Li Ang took a deep breath, his gaze intense, and shouted toward the breach, "If you don’t open this door, I’m going to resort to unconventional methods! Live or die, you’ll be responsible for the consequences!"

Having said that, Li Ang detached the grenade launcher from his rifle, aimed the launcher tube at the breach, and started a barrage at the side chamber’s door.

A few more grenades, and the side chamber’s slightly thinner metal door was also blasted out of shape.

Li Ang removed the grenade launcher and took out a homemade, high-pressure container filled with compressed chlorine gas from his backpack.

He inserted the plastic hose from the container’s nozzle into the breach above the doorframe,

and turned the container’s release valve.

Listening to the HISS HISS HISS of the releasing gas, Li Ang grinned, murmuring to himself, This Philippine chlorine gas really does a body good. Breathe deep, breathe deep.