The biggest issue now was the direction of the suspect's escape, at the border of New York State and Canada. Once it was confirmed that they had headed towards Canada, they had to consider notifying them.

Soon, Philicia's call came through on Mahong's phone, and he answered it, turning on the speakerphone.

Mahong, "Philicia, how's it going?"

Philicia, "I've got their current progress. Based on the K9 unit's scent tracking, it's almost certain the suspects left by car. Since they were in prison uniforms and the temperature is still very low, they probably didn't discard their uniforms after escaping. No traces of their uniforms or anything else have been found nearby.

The police station is now investigating the vehicles that were on this road last night, hoping to determine which vehicle they used to leave. There are no results yet."

Mahong, "What about their families?"

Philicia, "Unfortunately, neither of them is married, and there are no registered immediate family members in the system. However, Rob Reilly has an uncle currently living in Bronx, New York. I have applied to investigate him."

Mahong, "The other one, Cameron Brown, is a gang member, check his gang associates."

Philicia, "It's hard to determine; it might require contacting the local police station."

Mahong, "Then go ahead and do that, get their contact information as soon as possible and start the investigation. Also, inform the police station to issue a full-area alert, and inform us immediately if there are any leads."

Philicia, "Understood."

Mahong hung up the phone, pondered for a moment, and then dialed Hughes's phone, "Hughes, I need to notify the State Police and local police stations for a coordinated investigation, and also check the personnel at train stations, bus stations, and airports around the city."

This time Mahong did not use the speakerphone, so Jimmy couldn't hear what Hughes said, but knowing Hughes's style, he would likely leave Mahong to handle it.

Mahong, "I'm not familiar with this place, so it's better if you make the contacts there. Additionally, we might need the field office to dispatch more people if we find out which direction they fled. It's not easy for just the three of us to trace them."

Mahong, "Okay, then I'll wait for your message." After saying that, he hung up the phone.

Jimmy picked up the map, pointed to the position near the prison and said, "Mahong, I think we need to expand our search area. If they escaped at night, regardless of whether they hijacked a car or were taken by a kind-hearted person, the driving speed would have been fast. It's been half a day; they could have already left the nearby area."

Mahong nodded, "I understand. I'll wait for the news from Philicia. The local police are also investigating the vehicle information. Right now, the most important thing is to confirm the direction."

Such troublesome matters were truly frustrating. The biggest problem with prison escapes was precisely this: the absence of any clues made it difficult for anyone to handle.

Jimmy, "By the way, I forgot to tell Philicia earlier, the fastest way to confirm the car would be to have the police station check the vehicle owner's information directly. Contact them by phone, and if they cannot reach them, immediately track the location of the missing vehicle owners. The possibility that they were hijacked or killed by the two suspects is very high."

Mahong, who had been staring blankly at the ground next to him, turned his head to look at Jimmy after being reminded, then took out his phone and called Philicia, relaying Jimmy's plan.

It had been almost a day, and they might have to expand the search area further. Mahong's phone rang; it was probably Hughes. Mahong spoke briefly and then hung up, "The surrounding cities have all been notified, and news and radio broadcasts have already announced the prison break. We should receive news of any anomalies."

This issue was quite significant. Prison escapes were not uncommon in the United States, but most occurred in prisons lower than the state level. Federal prisons were relatively secure, with very few escape incidents. Moreover, most escapes happened from lower security level prisons. For medium security level prisons like this, or other high-security and supermax prisons, the number of prison guards was substantial, and internal management was relatively organized.

Federal Prison management is pretty strict in adhering to the Federal Prison Bureau's standards; internally, the management of prisoners and the handling of complaints have their respective processes, and generally speaking, it's relatively clean. State and lower level prisons, however, have less stringent controls, and to say they are rife with corruption is putting it mildly.

Due to budget issues, prisons have significantly cut back on correctional staff and maintenance of facilities also depends on the availability of funds. For prisoners, getting things done is simply a matter of money, creating a situation where gang dominance flourishes in prisons and goes unchecked.

Mahong and Jimmy waited in the parking lot for a while, but their patience wore thin, and they drove directly to the police station to meet up with Philicia.

The progress at the dispatch center was slow, they had to confirm with vehicle owners as many cars weren't driven by their owners, requiring further confirmations, and it was almost closing time without having identified the und contacted vehicles.

"Agent Mahong, the dispatch center confirmed that one vehicle lost contact. It was a private car that returned last night from New York JFK Airport and was supposed to reach home between 2 and 3 AM. The family noticed this morning he hadn't returned and couldn't reach him; they reported it to the police at noon. We investigated this vehicle and compared it with system records and confirmed it was this car," said the officer.

Mahong immediately perked up, "Bring me the details of the car."

The officer handed over an A4 sheet with information about the vehicle and the owner. Mahong continued to inquire, "Has this vehicle been spotted in any other surveillance footage?"

Officer: "Not yet, we still need to investigate further; this area is pretty remote, and we only accessed surveillance footage from a distant intersection along this road."

Mahong: "Keep investigating then."

Mahong looked through the documents in hand, walked to the fax machine, and sent the information back to the Manhattan office. He then made a call to Hughes, notifying other departments through him to investigate this vehicle and to confirm whether it had appeared within their jurisdiction.

This was more or less like looking for a needle in a haystack; after all, due to the lack of surveillance and the fact that the incident happened at night, there were simply no eyewitnesses. Jimmy listened to their conversations and he too felt a headache coming on; thankfully, with Mahong in charge, he no longer had to run around chasing clues like he used to.

Mahong contacted Hughes to arrange investigations in the surrounding cities, and now all he could do was wait here. This wasn't the time to be out searching as they could end up heading in the wrong direction, wasting even more time.

By evening, there was still no news, so the three of them found a nearby hotel to stay in.

The next morning, before heading to the police station, Mahong received a call from the officer, informing him that the missing car had been found not far from the Hudson River.

This was bad, at this location, if they really crossed the Hudson River or took a boat, it would be even harder to find them.

Mahong immediately called Jimmy and Philicia to set out for the location of the car. Upon arrival, the scene was already secured by the police. The car owner had only his underwear on him, with all other clothes taken, and the owner had also been murdered, with clear signs of strangulation on his neck, likely caused by someone choking him to death.

Another life lost; the fugitive murderers really did have no qualms.

Mahong asked the police to promptly collect fingerprints, and he put on gloves to start examining the car. There was nothing inside the car, but in the trunk, they found a hammer and a worn saw. The middle part of the saw's teeth had been worn flat and then reshaped, the width reduced significantly, turning from uniform thickness to concave in the middle.

This saw was probably the tool they used to open the sewage pipes, and the hammer was likely used to break walls. Additionally, according to the car owner's family, he should have had a suitcase, which was now missing from the car, supposedly taken by the jailbreakers.

This complicated matters. Mahong had Philicia contact the police to verify with the owner's family exactly what was inside his luggage, including whether there were any weapons or not.

Mahong, leading Jimmy, walked towards the Hudson River from the car, slowly observing and trying to find any traces on the ground. Their likely first choice of direction must have been towards the Hudson River; otherwise, they wouldn't have driven to this area.

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