Aside from having nearby patrol officers keep an eye on Mario's location, Chuck's team brought along a few additional people and began tracking Mario. Based on surveillance and the gunfire heard earlier that day, they could surmise that the people pursuing Mario were two or three at most. Therefore, with so many detectives, as well as the surrounding patrol officers, there shouldn't be any problems.
After leaving his ex-wife's apartment, Mario didn't leave Brooklyn but instead hid in an underground motel. This kind of place didn't check their identity; they gave you a room for money, making it very popular among people like them.
However, Mario had underestimated the speed at which information traveled in the underworld. That very night, he encountered an attack in his room. Two people quietly unlocked the door, but he had placed objects behind it, which fell and woke him up as the door opened.
Mario hadn't completely let his guard down just because he was staying at an underground motel, so he didn't sleep on the bed but on the floor by the bed's edge, towards the inside of the room.
After waking up, Mario didn't sit up straight away but rolled on his side to look towards the doorway and immediately raised his gun to fire. The shots, fired blindly without aiming, had a predictably poor hit rate. The two people at the door had heard the noise as they were pushing it and knew something was wrong, so they rushed into the room—one aiming a gun at the bathroom and the other aiming at the bedroom—while simultaneously reaching to close the door.
As the layout of the motel rooms was more or less the same, with a small hallway at the entrance, the bathroom to the side, and the bedroom further in, they had just confirmed the bathroom was empty when Mario opened fire on them.
The two men leaned against the bathroom wall and also extended their hands from around the corner to fire back. With neither side aiming, a round of gunfire ensued, leaving no one injured.
The gunshots had already alarmed the neighboring guests and also Chuck's team, who were hiding outside. Chuck had arranged for shifts, and to crack this big case, they were determined, directly tracking and staking out the place.
Rousing the person dozing off in the car, Chuck's team quickly put on bullet-proof vests, bearing the NYPD detective badges, and rushed out of the car to knock on the underground motel's door, "NYPD, open up." "NYPD!"
Shouting and pounding on the door continued until someone from inside ran over and opened it, "Someone's shooting upstairs, I've already called the police. It's on the third floor."
The detectives didn't waste time talking with him. After shoving their way through, they charged up the stairs. On the second to the third-floor landing, they observed their surroundings with their guns drawn before proceeding to the upper floor. Chuck, being older, took Nia and followed at the rear, leaving the front for the younger ones.
"Clear!" Upon confirming the safety of the third-floor hallway, they started moving up in turn, their pistols always pointing at the hallway and various doors. "Bang Bang," the gunfire suddenly resumed, the detectives located the source and quickly moved towards it. Approaching Mario's room, the leading detective shouted, "NYPD, drop your weapon, put your hands up and surrender."
"Bang Bang," several shots were fired through the door. Fortunately, the experienced detectives had not stepped in front of the doorway when they called out; they all hid beside the walls. After the gunfire from inside, they fired back at the door without aiming, which, of course, was not expected to be very accurate—it was purely suppressive fire.
As the gunshots briefly paused, the detectives swiftly changed positions and fired several more shots at the door. Then two of them moved to the other side of the door. Inside, someone was changing magazines, and gunfire resumed. Shortly after, they heard the sound of glass shattering. The lead detective kicked the door and quickly ducked to the side. The following detectives, aiming slightly from the angle, entered.
A person lay at the entrance, and the opposite window had been shattered. They were on the third floor, and jumping from there was no simple matter. However, the detectives didn't head straight for the window but instead shouted, "NYPD," while checking the person on the floor. Others checked the bathroom, and the rest moved forward to the bedroom as cries of "Help, I've been shot," filled the air.
Mario was lucky; he had only been shot, not killed, and he could still cry out.
A detective aimed a gun at Mario while shining a flashlight on him and yelled, "Drop the gun, drop the gun, hands up high."
Mario's hand, which had been pressing on the wound, was immediately raised, then quickly lowered. The detective didn't fire because Mario had lowered his hand to cover the wound in his chest.
"Clear, no one below," one Detective said as he shone his flashlight out the window. There was no one on the ground; could this person have actually jumped from the third floor and still managed to escape? Was he Superman or something? He swung the flashlight around, then paused; there was a hole torn in the awning next to the window. He must have jumped onto that.
Chuck and Nia followed the person in front of them into the room. Chuck looked at the shot Mario and said, "Mario Cole? You're under arrest."
Mario nodded his head. Chuck told one of the detectives, "Call an ambulance."
The man at the door had already died. He was unlucky; a bullet had struck right at his heart. He wasn't wearing a bullet-proof vest and was beyond saving.
Chuck and Nia had basically done nothing more than make up the numbers, but since the case was Chuck's, he had to tie up the loose ends no matter what.
Jimmy didn't find out until the next morning when Nia called him that Chuck and the others had hit it big. Mario had been shot and taken to the hospital. The surgery was complete, and he was now under observation. He had already been arrested; with the severity of the high-speed chase and shooting incident, someone higher up was paying attention. As a party involved, Mario was also a target for the police, but of course, he wasn't Jimmy's target.
Upon learning that one of the gunmen was already dead, Jimmy thought it over and decided to inform Ruiz. He had originally planned to have him apprehend Mario and clear up the goods obtained from Azte on one go. Now it seemed there was a big problem.
The NYPD couldn't find any information on the deceased, and the body didn't carry any identification. It wasn't surprising; their system mostly checked for in-state information, and the crime databases were not yet fully shared.
Ruiz was speechless as well. He had planned to proceed normally, first investigating the information about Azte's warehouse and then taking down Mario and Azte's people. Now, the NYPD had completely disrupted his rhythm. He had no choice but to take two people to the forensic doctor's office, extract the dead gunman's fingerprints, and send them back to the FBI to identify him.
The FBI's system was comprehensive. They quickly matched the gunman's information. Although it was not certain that he was one of Azte's, he had indeed served time in a Texas prison for second-degree murder—an undoubtedly tough individual fresh out of a prison full of talents.
Besides personal information, his fingerprints were unexpectedly matched in those extracted from Azte's warehouse. There was no escaping it now; even if he wasn't one of Azte's people, he was at least related to that warehouse.
Ruiz went straight to the NYPD and took over Mario Cole in the name of the Organized Crime Unit. Chuck was almost in tears. Just as the case was half finished and he was about to claim the credit, the FBI swept in and took over, which seemed a bit much.
After much ado, Ruiz directly contacted the top brass at the precinct and forcefully took over the case. However, a substantial part of the high-speed chase and shooting case had been solved, and the detectives wouldn't miss out on the credit for that work.
Ruiz went directly to the hospital to take over Mario Cole. Mario had just finished a round of questioning by the NYPD after his surgery and was immediately subjected to an interrogation by the FBI, which left him somewhat confused.
How Ruiz went about it was not clear, but after spending more than a day and reaching an agreement with Mario, he did indeed dig out the goods Mario had hidden. These private deals were valid, not all empty talk. Mario gave up the goods he had stolen, the FBI didn't prosecute him for possession of a large quantity of drugs, and both sides got what they needed.
The quantity of drugs wasn't substantial; Mario had bad timing—Azte must have just made a delivery when he broke into the warehouse, managing to get only two bags. Last time, Razor had directly seized their whole shipment, giving Ruiz and his team a fruitful period.
Now with enough evidence in hand, Ruiz sorted through all the fingerprints extracted from the warehouse. Based on Mario's testimony and the physical evidence, Ruiz officially opened an investigation into Azte's warehouse. What followed were standard FBI procedures: investigate identities, track down the whereabouts of relevant individuals, and, if necessary, apply for a search warrant based on the existing evidence.
If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.