latelenovela Chapter 988 Zhao Hu is arrested; the case is nearing its end!
Chapter 988 Zhao Hu is arrested; the case is nearing its end!
The iron railings on the second floor were suddenly pushed open, and flames from a homemade flamethrower swept in. The heatwave forced the assault team back, and gasoline drums on the shelves were ignited, the violent explosions shaking the ground. "Electromagnetic interference failed!" Xiao Sun shouted, his instrument emitting a piercing alarm. "He installed an anti-interference device!"
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zhao Hu escaped through the secret passage, brandishing a modified shotgun. Bullets struck the containers, sending sparks flying, as Xiao Wang and his team weaved and dodged between the containers. "Southeast corner!" Xiao Zhou suddenly pointed to a shadowy spot where Zhao Hu was trying to climb onto a modified SUV. A sniper's bullet grazed his scalp and shattered the car window.
A frantic car chase unfolded through the alleyways of the industrial zone. Zhao Hu's SUV crashed into a roadside trash can, sending metal fragments flying like raindrops. As he attempted to cross a precarious bridge, Li Ming's police car suddenly veered out from the side, the violent impact causing both vehicles to lose control simultaneously. Zhao Hu, his face covered in blood, crawled out of the car window, clutching a serrated knife with undried engine oil still clinging to the blade.
"Drop your weapons!" Li Ming, brandishing a stun gun, approached step by step. Zhao Hu suddenly held a knife to his own neck, grinning maliciously as he backed away: "You can't catch me! Brother Chen won't let this go..." Before he could finish speaking, Xiao Zhou swung a police lasso from behind, precisely looping it around Zhao Hu's ankle. Zhao Hu fell heavily to the ground, and the SWAT officers swarmed in, quickly subduing him as he struggled to reach for the grenade at his waist.
The makeshift interrogation point was set up in an abandoned guardhouse next to the industrial zone. The military blankets haphazardly spread on the iron bunk bed still reeked of gunpowder. Zhao Hu was handcuffed to a rusty radiator, his face stained with blood and coal dust, his left eye swollen shut, yet he still scanned the police officers in the room with a sinister gaze. When Li Ming pushed the tape recorder in front of him, the clanging of metal was particularly jarring in the deathly silence.
“On the evening of June 15th, when Song Houdong drove his truck into the warehouse, he even greeted me.” Zhao Hu suddenly spoke, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath his purplish-blue bruises. “Little did he know, that would be the last time he would see the sun alive.” He leaned to one side, deliberately rubbing his handcuffed hand against the wound on the corner of his mouth, blood dripping down his chin onto his camouflage pants.
Before being arrested, Zhao Hu acted very loyal and seemed to be ready to die for his cause. However, after being arrested, he was like a toothless tiger with a sick cat. When faced with a surprise interrogation, he confessed everything he had done.
Li Ming pressed the record button, the pen tip hovering above the notebook: "Tell me the details."
“Brother Chen had already instructed us that Song Houdong was disobedient and we needed to teach him a lesson,” Zhao Hu licked his dry lips. “I hid behind the container and waited until he parked his truck and checked the tarpaulin, then pressed a stun gun against his lower back. The bastard peed his pants from the shock, convulsing on the ground, foaming at the mouth.” He suddenly laughed, his laughter a metallic, hoarse sound. “You know what? The smell of his urine mixed with gasoline was simply…”
“Go on.” Xiao Zhou slammed the crime scene photos onto the table; the charred corpses were twisted and deformed under the light. Zhao Hu’s laughter stopped abruptly as he stared at the charred fingers in the photos, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently.
“I dragged him to a corner of the warehouse and chained him to a steel frame.” Zhao Hu’s eyes became vacant, as if he were back on that rainy night. “When he woke up, he started begging for mercy, saying he was willing to hand over all the steel he had embezzled. But Brother Chen said that keeping someone like that, who betrays his own people, alive is just a ticking time bomb.” He suddenly rubbed the scab on his forehead with his shoulder. “When I pulled out the dagger, he was still shouting that he had a wife and children at home, begging me to give him a chance.”
The air in the interrogation room seemed to freeze. Xiao Wang clenched his fists, his nails almost digging into his palms. Zhao Hu suddenly leaned forward, the handcuffs clanging against the radiator: "Guess what I did? I first slashed his stomach three times, watching his intestines slowly spill out. He was in so much pain he kept hitting the steel frame, blood splattering all over my face." He closed his eyes, taking a deep, almost ecstatic breath, "The smell of blood was stronger than that of pigs in a slaughterhouse."
"And then?" Li Ming's voice was as cold as ice.
"And then?" Zhao Hu opened his eyes, a hint of madness flashing in them. "I dragged him into the truck bed and poured half a can of gasoline on him. He wasn't dead yet; when the flames reached his legs, he could still scream." He suddenly pressed his knee against his chest, mimicking the convulsions of someone on the verge of death. "The fire grew bigger and bigger; his hair and skin were sizzling, and finally his whole body curled up into a ball, like a charred toad."
Xiao Zhou slammed his hand on the table: "Shut up!" Zhao Hu, however, became even more aggressive, deliberately dragging out his words: "I drove the car to the back of the farm and set it on fire again. The body you found had actually been burned a second time." He suddenly tilted his head and stared at Li Ming, "Do you know what's the most interesting thing? His wife, Li Mei, came to the warehouse later and cried at the place where he was burned, her face covered in snot and tears."
Li Mingqiang suppressed his anger and continued to press, "What roles did Chen Liqiang and Sun Wenbin play in all of this?"
Zhao Hu's expression instantly turned wary, and he licked his lips without saying a word. Xiao Zhou slammed a stack of transfer records in front of him: "This is your bank card statement. You receive large remittances after each crime." He pointed to one of the records, 200,000 yuan, "The 16th, which was exactly the day after Song Houdong died."
"They are the masterminds, I'm just a worker!" Zhao Hu suddenly roared. "Chen Liqiang planned everything, Sun Wenbin handled the money and the disposal of stolen goods, and I was only responsible for carrying out the work!" His body shook violently, and the handcuffs sparked against the radiator. "Song Houdong is too greedy. He not only embezzled the steel, but also wanted to run away with the evidence. Chen Liqiang said that only the dead can keep secrets."
The interrogation lasted until dawn, and Zhao Hu finally confessed to all the details of the crime.
Furthermore, Zhao Hu provided three possible hiding places for Chen Liqiang.
As the morning light pierced the iron bars of the interrogation room, Zhao Hu hastily signed his name at the end of his confession. Three addresses, like venomous snakes, coiled at the end of his statement: "Chen Liqiang is a suspicious man, most likely hiding in these three places—the unfinished Emerald Apartments in the west of the city, the abandoned cold storage plant in the eastern suburbs, and the private club in the southern suburbs." Li Ming stared at the paper where the handwriting was gradually drying and noticed that the strokes of the three characters for "cold storage plant" were significantly heavier than the other two.
The task force quickly split into three groups, with drones hovering over the three locations. Surveillance footage from the Emerald Apartments showed that only scavengers had been coming and going in the past week; the South Suburb Clubhouse was brightly lit, but its accounts showed that it had been operating normally recently; only the satellite images of the East Suburb Cold Storage Plant revealed something strange—the refrigeration equipment, which should have been shut down, would regularly light up a dim red indicator light late at night.