Chuck's voice came through with a "snap," as if he had slammed a pen down on the table, "Such people can't be investigated. If we continue to investigate, it might bring in the folks from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service."

Jimmy: "Yeah, it's troublesome. If you really want to find his service records, you'll definitely have to deal with those people."

Chuck: "Let's leave it at that for now, we'll investigate other leads. Thanks, Jimmy."

Jimmy: "No need to thank me."

After hanging up, Jimmy turned off the system and didn't continue. Although he was dealing with Navy personnel who had retired, in principle the military folks, who were difficult to deal with, still had jurisdiction. Getting involved with them could lead to endless issues. Since the case wasn't his own, helping this much was sufficient.

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After taking a two-day break, Mahong and Philicia returned to the office, both looking revived despite not catching anyone during this investigation. They at least had some leads, although currently those leads were interrupted, complicating matters as they had to wait for more clues to continue pursuing the escaped convict Brown.

The case's progress had also been synchronized with Hughes's side. Now it was about issuing a wanted order and requesting assistance everywhere. For such a case with no leads, they couldn't possibly keep tracking outside; the FBI didn't have such abundant manpower to waste.

Jimmy greeted Mahong and Philicia and took the opportunity to invite them for tea to discuss the investigation process. Of course, he also needed to update Mahong about his recent activities—though they weren't anything significant. As a subordinate, sharing some small, harmless personal matters wasn't really a problem and could even help to bridge the gap between them.

This was also normal social interaction; colleagues occasionally discussed personal matters, though they never went into too deep topics.

In the past few days, they hadn't seen Agent Riley Butler from Newark. He must have gone back already. Since 9/11, explosion cases had been a very high priority for police forces everywhere. Regardless of whether Riley could get any clues from El, they had to deal with this explosion case before anything else.

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After dealing with the mess at Mario's, Ruiz was finally ready to make a move on Azte. During the previous gang wars, Razor had vanished under a hidden identity. At that time, Azte had already crossed the line, but most of his people who came to New York were taken out by Jimmy, and the ones left had gotten the message and fled, causing his surveillance team to miss their target. Afterwards, it had been shelved.

Now, with concrete information that they had reappeared in New York, they couldn't be ignored. Other local gangs mostly adhered to rules; they could cause trouble, but not big trouble. However, those from Azte, perhaps because they had spent too much time at the borders, were overly bold, engaging in car chases and killings on the streets, which was not the usual style of gang operations.

Now they knew one more person was on the run. Based on the crime scene investigation, they had lifted a fingerprint from a cartridge case on the ground, confirming his identity—it was indeed another convict from a Californian prison.

Ruiz dispatched several surveillance teams to fully monitor Azte's associates in the Trinidad gang. After days of monitoring and tracking, the surveillance team had confirmed a hideout of Azte.

Ruiz was very cautious. Although he had discovered the hideout, he didn't act rashly. Instead, he was waiting to completely confirm the identities of those people, especially the one who attacked Mario. This perpetrator was his key to initiating the mission. If he couldn't manage it, there would be procedural flaws. As a veteran, he knew that avoiding such flaws was crucial to prevent being grasped at by others later.

Soon, the surveillance team confirmed those who entered and left Azte's hideout and that their target, the attacker of Mario, was among them. Though he hardly went out anymore, probably due to being exposed earlier. They were also surprised to discover some other gang members visiting. It seemed that Azte was not satisfied with just the Trinidad gang and hoped to enlist more to increase the speed of dispersing their goods.

Everything was ready, and Ruiz directly approached Hughes to approve a major operation planned to raid Azte's hideout. Such an operation needed to mobilize the SWAT team from the New York office, which required authorization. For urgent missions, calling up the SWAT team didn't need much procedure, but for a raid, the proper process still had to be followed.

Hughes, looking at the material submitted by Ruiz, "Your target?"

Ruiz: "Eliminate Azte's hideout here and cut off their transport routes."

Hughes: "Okay, go contact SWAT."

Ruiz nodded, preparing to leave, "Wait. I think you might need backup; call Jimmy during the operation."

This was a pleasant surprise. Ruiz hadn't planned on including Jimmy, as they were from different teams with different assignments. Since Hughes had proactively suggested it, it was naturally for the best.

Ruiz: "I understand. I'll arrange everything properly."

Ruiz left Hughes's office, needing to re-plan his strategy. Originally, he had planned to request two SWAT teams. Now, with Jimmy's formidable assistance, one team of six SWAT members plus Jimmy should theoretically be enough to handle the dozen people in Azte's crew. However, for safety's sake, he decided to stick with the original plan and have Jimmy enter from the back as a precaution.

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