Chapter Seventy-One: The Special Task Force

The crisp clattering of keyboard keys echoed through the office, as Lin Heng sat before his computer like a headless fly trapped in a maze, troubled and restless. He stared at the screen, fingers drumming out sentence after sentence, yet inspiration eluded him entirely.

“No, that’s not right... that can’t be it...”
“But... could it be that way? No, impossible... The killer couldn’t have had the chance to cause such a massive explosion...”
“How on earth can I find the slightest trace of the culprit?”

Recalling the material related to the notorious August 12th case, Lin Heng couldn’t help but sigh once more.

On the night of August 12th, in a villa estate on the outskirts of Qingxia City, the police responded to a call from local residents who reported seeing a fire engulfing the property. Upon entering the vast estate—spanning over five thousand square meters—they discovered the charred corpse of Wang Changming, chairman of a renowned domestic gaming company.

As a nationally recognized entrepreneur whose company was valued in the hundreds of billions and whose personal fortune exceeded ten billion, contributing billions in taxes to the local economy annually, Wang Changming’s death—or even his life—was enough to cause ripples throughout the region.

Yet more horrifying discoveries awaited the police beyond Wang Changming’s remains: the bodies of over a dozen maids, butlers, and cooks employed by him, alongside the fully armed thirty-man security team he had hired for protection.

According to autopsy results, none of these bodies showed signs of smoke or burn damage to their airways or lungs—

In other words, the entire thirty-man security team employed by Wang Changming had been killed without a chance to resist!

From the moment the case was reported, it became the focal point of both the provincial and national police authorities.

It wasn’t just Wang Changming’s status that mattered; the brutality of the crime suggested the involvement of a large and coordinated criminal organization.

Ultimately, the nation’s highest police authorities dispatched special personnel to Jiangqing Province, overseeing the formation of a dedicated task force to investigate the case.

At first, every officer in the task force, from top to bottom, believed the truth behind the case would soon be revealed.

—Analysis of the scene indicated that the maids, household staff, and thirty security guards had all been slaughtered without resistance, suggesting the perpetrators numbered at least several dozen and were heavily armed.

—The condition of the bodies showed each victim was killed with a single, devastating blow, most left dismembered or decapitated, revealing the perpetrators to be both highly trained and psychologically dangerous, perhaps even deriving pleasure from such gruesome acts.

—All recovered shell casings and weapons at the scene belonged to the security team; no unusual ammunition or unfamiliar knives were found. This implied the criminal group was intimately familiar with the security team’s weapons, allowing them to leave no trace of foreign munitions or equipment.

—Forensics confirmed the fire that consumed the villa could not have been caused by any in-house device or machinery; the intensity and rapid spread of the flames suggested the use of incendiary bombs, thermite charges, or flamethrowers.

—On a road several hundred meters from the scene, police found a Maybach, also burned out, with the beheaded, charred corpse of the driver inside. Analysis revealed the fire originated outside the vehicle, further supporting the use of incendiary weapons.

—Most crucially, though all surveillance cameras within the villa were destroyed in the blaze—rendering their footage irretrievable, with no network backup due to Wang Changming’s preference for offline systems—surveillance on the roads outside the estate remained functional and unmolested.

However, the investigation of nearby road surveillance revealed the Maybach had been stopped precisely in the blind spot between two cameras, leaving no footage of the vehicle from the moment it stopped to when it was destroyed. The very absence of evidence was, in itself, evidence of the criminal group’s thorough knowledge of the local environment. Their awareness of every blind spot in the neighborhood’s surveillance suggested exhaustive premeditation and reconnaissance.

With all these facts, Lin Heng and the Behavioral Analysis Department joined the investigation, extracting several collective traits of the criminal organization:

1. The group likely numbered over fifty and operated with remarkable coordination. On the night of the crime, all security and household staff carried mobile phones or other communication devices, yet not a single call or message was recorded. This suggested the use of large-scale signal jammers or even EMP devices by the perpetrators.
2. The group was meticulously equipped and left scant traces behind. Despite the villa’s destruction, police could find no fingerprints, palm prints, footprints, or tire tracks on surrounding roads or mountain paths—nothing that might be linked to the criminal group.
3. The perpetrators were likely composed of former police, retired soldiers, or elite security professionals. Their audacity and precision hinted at the possible involvement of foreign bounty hunters or mercenary groups.
4. Since no clues appeared in surveillance footage from nearby roads, the group must have conducted extensive pre-crime reconnaissance, necessitating repeated visits to the villa’s vicinity. In such a remote suburb, unfamiliar faces would have aroused suspicion, implying that local informants were hired and that there was likely a mole inside the villa itself.

Armed with these deductions, the task force set about conducting interviews and gathering evidence, confident in their progress. They compiled a nationwide list of criminal groups and suspects matching the profile and capable of involvement in the August 12th massacre.

The number of qualifying suspects:

Zero.

(End of Chapter)