Manard was hung up on the clock tower.
There was no need for the FBI agents to act; after Jack suggested the idea, Sheriff Carter and two of the young men with her eagerly took on the task themselves.
They even found a spotlight in a nearby store, shining it on the clock tower to make Manard, now hanging upside down, more visible in the night.
Alongside Manard, they hung several ogre corpses. It didn't take long for the remaining monsters in the east to become agitated.
While they were setting up, Jie Jie found Jack a clean T-shirt and even cleaned the bulletproof vest he had discarded due to the filth, forcing him to put it back on. She showed the care of a perfect partner.
Jack remained alone atop the clock tower, keeping watch, while the others took defensive positions using the parked Raptor F150 and nearby buildings for cover.
Jack glanced at his new truck, his face twitching slightly. Initially, only the windshield was damaged, along with a few dents from arrows. But now the front of the vehicle was nearly destroyed.
When Emily had driven the Raptor toward the police station, she had crashed straight through the barricades. Jack was just relieved that he hadn't driven his Firebird this time.
Manard's mouth wasn't gagged, nor had Jack bothered to reset his dislocated joints. Suspended outside the clock tower, Manard let out constant wails of agony.
Jack sat quietly, leaning against the wall, listening to Manard's cries while reloading the empty magazines of his Barrett MK22.
"Hodgner, I think we should request another Barrett M107. And maybe an NTW-20. I've heard that the East has even exported a grenade launcher with sniper precision, the LG5."
The Barrett MK22, using .338 Lapua Magnum rounds, had excellent accuracy, but in terms of raw power, it was far inferior to the .50 caliber M107, which also came with a variety of specialty rounds.
As the world around them grew more dangerous, even horror movie scenarios were mixing into the BAU's cases. Jack felt it was necessary to upgrade his gear.
What if, by chance, the world merged with Predator or Alien? Jack felt his firepower anxiety was getting worse.
"I'll file a report to request an M107," Hodgner replied.
As for the NTW-20, despite being classified as an anti-materiel rifle, its 20mm caliber fired German MG-151-20 anti-aircraft rounds. And the LG5 that Jack mentioned, which was exported to the Middle East, had a staggering 40mm caliber. Hodgner could only take Jack's remarks as a joke.
"They're coming," Jack said.
Through his night-vision scope, Jack saw several pickup trucks reversing toward the clock tower. He still didn't spot Jeremy, but it was clear that the ogres were acting under his command.
In the beds of those dilapidated trucks, several hostages were tied up, being used as human shields. The ogres had knives to their throats.
These creatures, compared to the beast-like monsters Jack had encountered before, were a bit smarter, but still limited in intelligence. Otherwise, they wouldn't have foolishly charged up the spiral staircase one by one earlier, only to be picked off.
"Shall we engage?" Jack asked, his crosshairs on the head of an ogre behind a hostage.
"Hold on. We haven't seen Jeremy yet," Hodgner replied.
The BAU team was still in position, waiting for the right moment. After seeing the earlier panicked reactions from the civilians, Rossi and Hodgner had confiscated their weapons and locked them in the police station's armory again.
Reid finally had his handgun back, and Emily swapped her weapon for a Remington M870 shotgun, which was far more useful in her hands than it would have been with the terrified civilians.
The two pickup trucks stopped about ten meters away from the Raptor blocking the road. An unarmed ogre, its long white hair hanging loosely over its face, staggered forward.
Under the dim streetlights, its appearance was almost indistinguishable from a ghost.
"Yeee-argh! Yeee-argh!" it screeched, pointing at Manard, who was no longer making a sound as he hung from the clock tower. It then gestured toward the hostages in the truck, its intentions clear despite the incomprehensible language.
"Strange, could Jeremy have run away?" Jack's crosshairs moved across the ogres' heads but found no sign of their leader.
It wasn't until he aimed at the hostages that he realized something.
"Found him. The bastard disguised himself as a hostage."
Manard had mentioned before that he and the ogres had a mutually beneficial relationship. When people fell into the monsters' hands, the men were killed immediately, and only the women had a chance to survive.
The attractive women were taken by Manard, tortured to death, and their bodies thrown to the ogres. The women who weren't chosen were sometimes violated by the ogres to breed offspring.
So, when Jack noticed a male among the hostages, he immediately sensed something was off.
The BAU team was surprised to find Jeremy here in Belle Lake, and Jeremy, in turn, couldn't have imagined running into the FBI tracking him down.
For Jeremy, Jack's earlier massacre of nearly half the ogres must have meant that a deadly sniper had appeared in town. So, he came up with the idea of posing as a hostage.
In his mind, if he could blend in with the others and create chaos, the ogres would swarm, rendering the sniper's position useless.
"Take the shot!" Hodgner shouted.
With Hodgner's command, several dark objects were tossed out of the windows of the buildings lining the street—courtesy of Reid and Rossi, who had been lying in ambush.
At the same time, Jack's Barrett MK22 roared to life once more. Jeremy, who had smeared himself with blood and had a knife pressed to his throat, had his head blown apart like a watermelon.
Before the other ogres could react, deafening explosions and blinding flashes erupted all around them.
The BAU didn't have grenades in their arsenal, but non-lethal weapons like tear gas and flashbangs were standard issue.
Although the effectiveness of flashbangs was significantly reduced in open spaces, the loud bangs and bright flashes were still as startling as fireworks to these sensitive creatures, who had spent their lives in the wilderness.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
After Jack fired the first shot, the gunfire never stopped, as he systematically picked off the ogres near the hostages. With modern advancements in night vision, Jack's scope wasn't easily disrupted by bright lights.
"Rat-a-tat-tat!" Hodgner and Jie Jie opened fire with their assault rifles, swiftly cutting down the remaining ogres. Emily's Remington M870 shotgun boomed intermittently, adding to the deadly symphony.
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