Zuo Zhong walked along the corridor to the door of the safe house, looked at the messy house, and frowned at the door panel blown off by the shock wave. The dangerous goods used for the target were quite powerful.
Such a violent explosion, I don't know how much evidence can be left behind. It seems that they will stay here in the past few days to thoroughly screen the relics at the scene.
Moreover, there is a pungent smell of kerosene in the air, which proves that even without the use of dangerous goods, the target can still destroy evidence by simply setting fire, but he still did it. What does it mean?
It means that the other party is extremely aggressive, which is a danger signal. Pay special attention to this in future investigations and arrests, lest the target perish with them.
"Deputy Director, please see, this was found at the scene."
At this time, Wu Chunyang, who had entered first, came out wearing gloves and handed a tattered iron piece to Zuo Zhong.
Gu Qi on the side heard the words and came over to observe for a long time, and said with a somewhat uncertain tone.
"This seems to be the nameplate on the typewriter. Deputy Director, your guess is correct. The blurred "three" is indeed a trap left by Japanese spies."
"Don't rush to draw conclusions for the time being. Intelligence reconnaissance is most taboo. It's not too late to make inferences after all the physical evidence has been collected."
Zuo Zhong glanced at the parts and said something before continuing to walk into the house.
When he walked to the middle of the room, he looked around and found that the paint on the walls and the floor had turned into charcoal, and the furniture inside was also in pieces, with no trace of its original shape at all.
The hearts of those present sank. No matter how powerful the Secret Service was, it would be impossible to recover evidence from the ashes. There was little hope of finding out the true identity of the target.
It's all the fault of those losers at the secret service headquarters. If it weren't for them, the spy leader would have been sitting in the interrogation room. Everyone was getting more and more angry and wanted to take Xu Enzeng back and beat him up.
"Click."
Zuo Zhong walked around the room when he suddenly stepped on something and made a crisp sound. He took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around an object a few centimeters square. He held it in his hand and examined it carefully for a while, and found that it was a pottery shard.
Pottery, a kind of utensil made of clay or pottery clay that is kneaded into shape and then fired, has a long history, and can even be traced back to the Neolithic Age①.
Ancient people used them to hold water, stew food, store grain, and used them as practical utensils in daily life.
However, by the Republic of China, most of these functions were replaced by more sturdy and beautiful porcelain and ironware, and only a small number of utensils were still made of pottery.
The most common one is the brazier. You can buy one for two or three cents. It can be used for sacrifices, heating, weddings and funerals. It is basically available in every household.
Therefore, it is not surprising to find pottery pieces and even a brazier at the scene. Of course, the spy leader definitely did not use it to burn paper money for the locusts. It should be used as a tool to destroy paper documents.
Thinking of this, Zuo Zhong suddenly raised his head and said to everyone: "Immediately find a few pieces of oilcloth and seal all the doors and windows to prevent the strong wind from blowing away the ashes. There may be important evidence here.
In addition, send people to seal off the area of 100 meters, no, 300 meters, and conduct a thorough search. Roofs, trees, and every house will be searched, focusing on scraps of paper!
The shock wave and strong wind caused by the explosion may have blown them nearby, making the brothers' eyes widen. Do you understand that this is related to whether the spy leader can be caught. "
"yes!"
Everyone in the Secret Service shouted back the order, and then after discussing for a moment, they dispersed to carry out the order. After working together for so long, there was no need to stress who was going to do what.
Wu Chunyang, Shen Dongxin, and Wu Jingzhong, who are good at intelligence analysis, led the personnel in charge of the search. Gu Qi, who was a senior officer, accompanied the deputy director in the on-site investigation.
As for rough and dirty work such as laying out tarpaulins and sealing locks, Song Minghao and Gui Youguang consciously took over. The most important thing is to have self-knowledge. Instead of reluctantly making do, it is better to do what you are good at.
Soon, the originally chaotic scene was cleared, and several trucks dragged the dead and injured from the Secret Service and Secret Service headquarters to nearby hospitals.
Immediately after, more than half of the block was surrounded. Teams of agents squatted on the ground, climbed up trees on houses, or knocked on doors to enter, searching from the center of the explosion to the surrounding areas.
In the biting cold wind, many people's faces were black and blue from the cold, and some people had frostbite on their hands, but no one complained about being tired, and they were all focused on looking for evidence.
When encountering mud pits and ponds, in order not to miss any suspicious items, they took off their gloves and clothes and slowly groped with their hands, feet and bodies in the cold sewage.
In this case, even if the agents have undergone special training to withstand the cold, they will not be able to last long. They will fall into a state of hypothermia in seven or eight minutes at most, and they can only take turns to replace them.
Gu Qi, who had always been careful, was secretly worried when he saw this. He quickly sent people to collect a large amount of ginger and typhoid medicine from Hanyang's markets and pharmacies, and cooked several large pots of ginger soup and medicine on the roadside for the operators to keep warm.
As for Zuo Zhong, he has no mind to care about it now. He and a few small agents are collecting all the ashes together with small shovels. After separating the large fragments, they are sifting the ashes several times with the densest sieve.
This job requires patience and carefulness, because if you are not careful, you will miss important clues. Even Zuo Zhong did not dare to be careless, and endured the discomfort caused by the dust and burnt smell and immersed himself in the work.
The search continued until dark. After nightfall, support personnel came from Wuchang and brought high-wattage light bulbs and diesel generators, illuminating the surrounding area as if it were daytime.
Looking at the dazzling lights outside the window, the residents in the closed circle dared not speak out. They did not understand or know how important this matter was, so they had no choice but to close the curtains, cover their heads with quilts, and curse softly in bed.
Early the next morning.
The first round of searches came to an end. In the previous command post, the tired people held a meeting to summarize the clues in their hands and provide a basis for the next action.
"Report, we found fragments of a timer for a mechanical alarm clock on a telephone pole 25 meters away from the scene, which may be the remnants of the time bomb.
No fingerprints were found on it. I plan to have people compare all the alarm clocks on the market in Changcheng, find out the specific brands, and find the target from the purchase route.
In addition, the brothers also found a large number of paper fragments. They were unable to determine whether they were related to the case and required technical personnel to conduct detailed inspections. "
Wu Chunyang was the first to speak, and after that he sat back. It wasn't that he didn't respect his superior, but he was just too tired. He relied on his willpower to stay awake.
Shen Dongxin followed closely and reported the search results. Their harvest was even less than Wu Chunyang. They only found hundreds of large and small paper fragments, most of which were found from the latrines.
Whether it was dirty or not, the possibility of the physical evidence flying into the latrine from the explosion site was almost zero, which meant that the more than ten hours of work were in vain.
But this is the normal state of intelligence investigation. Not all efforts are rewarded. Sometimes it depends on luck. Obviously, the Secret Service's luck was not very good this time.
Just as he was talking, Gu Qi led people to bring in more than a dozen soldiers with lunch boxes, and said in his mouth: "Sharpening the knife will not delay the chopping of firewood. Let's eat first. We have been busy for so long and it is not good for our bodies to be starved."
"Well, Lao Gu is right."
Zuo Zhong was happy when he heard his old partner's words. He stretched out his hand to open a lunch box and saw beef with soy sauce and stir-fried pork with cabbage inside. He nodded with a smile.
"Oh, the quality of the food is good. Let's talk while eating. What kind of breakfast parties are popular in European and American countries? Let's follow the trend today."
As a joke, he quickly picked up the chopsticks and took a few bites. After finishing the hot meal, his tired spirit was suddenly refreshed, and his body that was shivering from the cold slowly regained a little warmth.
When everyone saw that the deputy director had eaten, they were not polite. They rushed to grab the lunch box, as if they had starved to death and were reincarnated, and they ate happily.
Wu Jingzhong, one of the three people in charge of the search, rested his stomach a little. Seeing that Zuo Zhong and everyone were enjoying their meal, he didn't know whether he should speak or not.
However, thinking of the other party's vigorous and resolute work style in the past, I hesitated for a moment before putting down my lunch box and said something unusual.
"Deputy Director, someone under my command found a photo in the bushes. It was sprinkled with kerosene and had high-temperature burn marks. I think it may be related to the case."
"Oh? Tell me about the situation."
Zuo Zhong picked up a piece of meat and nodded, then motioned for him to continue eating. It is a requirement for a gentleman to eat and sleep without speaking. There is no need for these spies to adhere to such rules.
Upon hearing this, Wu Jingzhong picked up the lunch box again but did not eat. He held up his chopsticks and replied: "It is not accurate to say it is a photo, it is only one half at most, and there are several holes burned on the surface by the fire.
The spy leader should have set the fire first to destroy the evidence. As a result, when the photo burned, the flames were blown out by air waves and carried outside the window, and were blown by the strong wind to the bushes dozens of meters away.
If my guess is correct, it can only be said that the sky has eyes. If the target hadn't set up the bomb in a superfluous manner, this evidence would have been turned into ashes like other evidence. You see. "
After roughly talking about the situation, he gently placed a small piece of "photo" on the table, carefully observed Zuo Zhong's actions, and was ready to answer the other party's questions at any time.
Zuo Zhong raised his head and ate the last bite of his meal. His eyes glanced across the table. There was very little content on the photo fragment. All he could see was a Buick car driving, and the trees on both sides of the road were lush.
This is neither an image of a person nor a scenic spot. Who would take such a photo and what is the purpose? It cannot be done by a car enthusiast, and the angle of the photo is wrong.
From the composition analysis, the photographer was not far behind the car and pressed the shutter with a low posture. It looked like a candid shot. Could it be that this was a photo taken by a Japanese spy during an intelligence investigation?
A guess flashed through his mind, he picked up the teacup and covered his hands, and began to consider whether he could find out the target through this clue, but he had to solve two problems first.
– that’s where the photo was taken and where the car belongs.
The first point is difficult to achieve. This is not an electronic photo from later generations. There are various camera information and shooting data in the file, which can be easily retrieved through civilian software.
If you want to guess where the photo was taken from old photos, you can either rely on landmark buildings, pedestrians' clothing, or look at place name signs. None of this information is available in the photos.
The second point was originally very simple, but unfortunately there was a hole in the license plate, leaving only a "6". Even the style could not be seen clearly, and the background color of the license plate could not be seen in the black and white photo.
Otherwise, things would be simple. The styles, colors, and patterns of license plates in every city in the Republic of China were different. The Secret Service had samples, and you could tell where the license plates were with a little comparison.
The case seems to have reached a dead end here. Is there really no way to figure out these two problems? Zuo Zhong frowned, with a thoughtful look on his face.
①The name Neolithic Age was first proposed by the British archaeologist Lubbock in the mid-19th century.
(End of chapter)
