CHAPTER 404: CHAPTER 404: SUDDEN INCIDENT, ANTI-TANK MISSILE

Chenier looked at the corpse in the chair and pondered for a few seconds before approaching Luo An and whispering a guess of her own:

"Could it have been someone from the naval base?"

Luo An was silent for a few seconds, then slowly shook his head:

"There’s a possibility, but it’s unlikely."

If someone from the naval base had taken action, they had plenty of ways to make their moves more covert, there was no need to make such a spectacle.

"However, there’s definitely a connection between this case and the naval base."

Luo An stood upright, patted Chenier on the shoulder, and took out his phone to call the trace examination department to process the scene.

While waiting for the trace examination department to arrive, Luo An’s phone suddenly rang. He pressed the answer button and Reesi’s voice came through immediately:

"Luo An, something’s happened."

————

In the northwestern part of Los Angeles, a warehouse by a certain seaport.

After hanging up the phone, Luo An and Chenier didn’t take long to drive there, and as they stepped out of the SUV, they saw an ambulance speeding past them.

Luo An glanced at the bloodstains on the ground in front of the warehouse and reached out to shake hands with the crew-cut middle-aged Caucasian man who came up to him, introducing himself:

"Hello, Head of the FBI Special Investigation Team, Luo An Greenwood."

"Hello, just call me Elliot."

The crew-cut Caucasian’s face was very grim, but he managed to suppress his anger and shook hands with Luo An.

Luo An didn’t beat around the bush and directly asked:

"What happened?"

"40 minutes ago, a car stopped at the entrance, someone entered the code, and broke in through the gate."

Elliot explained that this was a temporary ammunition storage warehouse, and its defenses weren’t as tight as other military warehouses.

Elliot pointed at the several pools of blood on the ground and said:

"A few intruders armed with guns killed the four sentries guarding the warehouse, then used the code to directly enter the warehouse. The process was very quick. They found their target, took it, and left, all in less than ten minutes."

Luo An and Chenier exchanged looks, both guessing where the intruders had obtained the code.

Glancing at the warehouse a short distance away, busy with people going in and out, Luo An frowned and asked:

"What exactly is missing from the warehouse?"

"Don’t know, still checking."

Elliot shook his head; the weapons in this warehouse were intended to be shipped to a military base outside of the Federation but were temporarily stored here due to some issues. The weaponry was disorganized, and it would take some time to go through everything thoroughly.

Luo An and Chenier were speechless about this, although the management chaos within the federal army had been ongoing for more than just a day or two. The army was quite insular, and outsiders had never been able to get involved.

Luo An was deeply moved recalling how in his previous life, during wartime, the federal army spent 9 million US dollars for nine sheep, 2,800 dollars for a USB adapter, and 700 dollars for a coffee cup.

Indeed, to make money, look at the capitalist countries; he was still too young, unable to grasp many things.

Time ticked by, and after well over four hours, the inventory of missing items was finally drawn up. Winslow and Reesi also arrived at the scene.

The more common weapons and ammunition hadn’t suffered substantial losses, just 10 rifles, a few hundred bullets, some grenades, smoke bombs, and stun grenades were missing.

Neither Luo An nor Elliot dwelled on these items, as their attention was focused on another piece of missing weaponry:

FGM-148

"Damn it!"

"Son of a bitch!"

Seeing this string of English letters, Elliot’s face instantly became as dark as if it could drip water, Winslow and Chenier inhaled sharply, Luo An’s brow twitched, and he looked very upset.

Reesi, who was standing by the side and didn’t see clearly what the letters were, saw everyone had such ugly expressions and asked in a low voice:

"What was lost?"

Luo An rubbed his temples and said in a grave voice,

"We lost three anti-tank missiles."

FGM-148, also known as "Javelin," is a man-portable anti-tank missile developed by the Federation.

It is the world’s first portable anti-tank missile that uses focal plane array technology, boasting a long range and precise targeting, capable of effectively striking enemy armored targets.

Moreover, it is brainlessly easy to operate, as simple as using an item in a video game. After adjustments, only two steps are needed: aim and fire.

"Great crab!" (Note: The phrase "厚礼蟹" seems like an error. It could be a phonetic misspelling meant to represent "好厉害" or "Holy crap!", given the context.)

Hearing Luo An’s words, Reesi also gasped, and she quickly turned to Elliot, asking,

"Don’t you have surveillance here?"

"We do, but it was disabled by the intruders."

Elliot’s face was colored with an ugly grimace; he had learned about the Petduo Osan incident, and even though the man was now dead, the thought of killing him still surfaced in his mind.

As the person responsible for this temporary warehouse, the loss of three anti-tank missiles was enough to give Elliot a hard time. If the intruders used these missiles to kill a bunch of people, then he...

Thinking this, Elliot grabbed Luo An’s hand with an expression of utmost sincerity and pleaded with a tone of grave earnestness, hoping Luo An would definitely catch this group of people.

"O...K."

Luo An’s mouth twitched, forcefully pulling his hand away from the other man, then asked,

"UUnder normal circumstances military warehouses have backup surveillance recordings. I need you to retrieve the footage from before the intruders entered the warehouse and shut down the surveillance; there might be some clues in there."

"OK, no problem."

Elliot nodded, immediately leading Luo An and his team towards the surveillance room.

At five o’clock in the afternoon, Luo An and his team returned to the Special Investigation Team with the surveillance footage. While Mona was organizing the surveillance material, Luo An stood in front of the whiteboard with a folder in hand, consolidating the information gathered so far about the case.

"Last night at eleven o’clock, Petduo Osan got into a fight with Nate Norris outside the bar. Then, a van pulled up, and a group of people swiftly abducted him."

Luo An placed a photo of Petduo Osan in the center of the whiteboard and continued to summarize the information:

"These people drove Petduo Osan to a shuttered lumber factory, where they brutally interrogated him, extracted the warehouse password from him, and potentially learned the layout of the warehouse and the specific location of the anti-tank missiles."

Reesi walked up beside Luo An, adding a photo of the FGM-148 to the whiteboard, and said,

"Then this group broke into the warehouse this afternoon, killed the sentinel, turned off the surveillance, and stole a bunch of weapons, ammunition, and three anti-tank missiles before driving off, disappearing without a trace."

"Exactly."

Luo An wrote the last line on the whiteboard, tossed the marker to the side, and turned to look at Winslow, Chenier, Michelle, and Reesi, saying,

"To dare rob a military warehouse, these people must be very bold. The way they carried out the heist also proves their well-trained, agile, and possibly military background.

Our next objective is to urgently find these people, or uncover the reason they robbed the anti-tank missiles, and try to prevent these three anti-tank missiles from exploding."

Winslow and Chenier nodded repeatedly. They knew how dangerous anti-tank missiles were; it’s no exaggeration to say that three such missiles could level an entire street.

Luo An turned to Michelle and asked,

"How’s it going at Forensics?"

Michelle hurried over to the desk phone and said,

"I don’t know, I’ll call and ask right now."

"OK."

Luo An indicated that due to the urgency of the situation, Michelle could nudge Forensics a bit and then looked at Mona, asking,

"Any leads from the surveillance footage?"

Mona nodded firmly and leaned back to make space, pointing at the computer screen and said,

"Yes."