Jimmy was out to catch some unlucky drivers this time, and he maintained the old rule of driving at 45mph, waiting for anyone surpassing the police car to be stopped.
Before Jimmy could catch the first unlucky driver, his own police car tire burst. He pulled over to the side of the road, where a piece of angle iron had lodged itself in the front right tire. With no choice, Jimmy took the spare tire from the trunk, spent some time replacing it, and then got back on the road.
Unfortunate incidents usually come one after another. As Jimmy returned to the highway and drove for a while, another tire was punctured—the rear right this time. Jimmy pulled over, only to find that it was again a piece of angle iron lodged in the tire, which was suspicious.
Jimmy immediately contacted the dispatch center and reported the situation, only to discover that the center had already received multiple reports of punctured tires, all occurring on the same road.
Jimmy called for a tow truck to take the police car back, then he phoned Cage, needing him to pick him up and to figure out whether someone was maliciously throwing angle iron on the road or if it was accidentally falling off a truck.
The dispatch center also started an investigation, tracing back from the first reported case. However, there wasn't much useful information; traffic cameras were only present at some intersections. Now close to Christmas, with many people driving trucks full of goods, monitoring only the intersections made it impossible to determine from whose vehicle the angle irons had fallen.
Jimmy sat in Cage's car, slowly driving forward alongside the road to continue the search. A few hundred meters later, they found another vehicle parked on the roadside, also suffering a flat tire and lacking a spare to change.
After learning that the driver had already called for a tow truck, Jimmy continued further in Cage's car to search.
The road was already very clean, seemingly all the angle irons that had been on the ground were now picked up by passing tires. Reaching the location of the last reported tire explosion notified by the dispatch center, Jimmy looked around. This area was still within a residential district, not in the middle of nowhere, making it overly difficult to find any suspects.
Luckily, no more tire explosion incidents were reported, and Cage decided to give up. He drove Jimmy back to the headquarters and then continued his patrol in the Northwest Division.
Jimmy felt like bad luck was clinging to him; he barely got a long vacation, which coincidentally fell near exam time, and now that he was back at work, his patrol was interrupted by two flat tires, and he and Cage couldn't even find the culprit.
"Jimmy, there's an operation tomorrow, come to the precinct early." Deputy Chief Martin at the county police briefed Jimmy. Martin had been previously handling affairs in another office, but after institutional reforms, he had returned to the headquarters.
Jimmy was revitalized; operations that needed advanced notification were usually significant, and for the County Sheriff's office, such grand operations were rare; at least in the past year, Jimmy hadn't encountered any.
Typical cases were either emergency incidents or notifications from the dispatch center, but this time Deputy Chief Martin individually notifying of tomorrow's duty meant that it wouldn't be a minor case.
"Yes, Deputy Chief. What is the case about?"
"You'll find out tomorrow." Martin said, then turned and went back to his office.
Full of hope, Jimmy arrived at the precinct the next day to find more people than usual at the headquarters, with representatives from various divisions attending the morning case briefing.
"OK, everyone's here, let's get started." Deputy Chief Martin stood in front of the conference room's whiteboard and affixed several photos onto it with magnets.
"These are our targets, Farrek Bain and Franz Beins, two brothers who own three residential properties linked together in the John Barrow Region, all under their names. Here's the map."
Chief Martin pointed to a printed map, already marked with three houses on a street corner.
"The Beins brothers belong to a local small gang, whose main income comes from a few bars and nightclubs near John Barrow."
"Their previous supply chain had been taken down by the DEA, and the Beins brothers had previously been arrested in Texas for growing marijuana on a remote farm.
After being released from prison a few years ago, they returned to their hometown in John Barrow Region and joined the local gang."
According to the informant, the Beins brothers had resumed their old business of growing marijuana in Little Rock. Until now, the location of the plantation had not been confirmed, but now there was precise information, and their farm had been located.
Director Martin handed two documents to Cage and Ali.
"What we need to do this time is to clear out their plantation and arrest the Beins brothers. Cage, you take a team to raid the farm; Ali, you will be responsible for arresting them at their home, but wait for Cage to make his move first before proceeding with the arrest,"
"Yes, Sir." x2
"Choose your teams."
Cage immediately pulled Jimmy into his team, and Ali, a bit slow in his response, had no choice. However, Ali's task wasn't difficult; the personnel from the North District alone were sufficient to arrest the two brothers.
Cage set out with people from both the Northwest Division and the Southern Division, heading for a forest in the western part of Chicot, south of Little Rock.
The marijuana farm wasn't a conventional outdoor farm; it was actually an indoor plantation augmented by fluorescent lamps and an irrigation system. Indoor-grown marijuana could mature faster than those cultivated outdoors; the only issue was that the constant need for lights typically meant high electricity consumption.
In the United States, identifying marijuana plantations through abnormal electricity consumption is a common practice. Hence, various methods are employed to mask this consumption, such as family constant temperature swimming pools, disguising farms inside factory buildings, and in extreme cases, using solar panels or diesel generators for power.
Jimmy had never seen marijuana before; he hadn't had the opportunity in his past life, and in this life, he had no interest in interacting with such substances. Seeing the farm this time was quite an eye-opener for him.
About one kilometer from the target site, Cage stopped everyone, re-emphasized the map locations and everyone's roles, then set off again, this time with sirens blaring, rushing straight to the farm's building.
The people inside the house, startled by the sound of the sirens, were thrown into chaos. Some rushed to the doors, while others moved towards the cultivation racks, intending to destroy the evidence.
Cage and his team smashed through the door and rushed inside. With a large number of county police officers present, everyone quickly identified their targets and pursued them, and after about fifteen minutes, they managed to capture everyone working there.
Jimmy looked dazed at the farm before him; he had expected to see marijuana planted directly into the ground in rows, topped with sprinklers and lights. Instead, he found a setup similar to the vegetable greenhouses he had seen before, where marijuana was planted in pots, placed on high racks with three layers from the floor to the top, each layer equipped with separate lamps and drippers. The marijuana had already grown to about 60 to 70 centimeters tall; unfamiliar with it, he didn't know if it had reached maturity.
While Jimmy was lost in thought, Cage and the others were busy. They handcuffed everyone, lined them up against the wall, and police officers began checking through the building's contents in groups of two or three.
"Jimmy, come here," Cage called out to Jimmy, who walked over.
"Jimmy, keep an eye on these two. I'm going to notify Ali to stand down."
"Huh? What's going on? Why stand down?" Jimmy asked, puzzled.
"Hahaha, we're in luck, take a look at these two," Cage pulled out the documents provided by Director Martin. Oh, good luck, both the Beins brothers were here, just happened to visit the farm and got caught in one fell swoop.
Cage moved a little farther away and first called Deputy Director Martin to inform him that the Beins brothers had been captured at the farm. Then, Martin informed Ali to cancel their operation, just to surround the area and wait for further instructions.
Cage, while tallying the haul, Deputy Director Martin directly contacted the district judge, requesting a search warrant. It was three hours later when Deputy Director Martin obtained the search warrant.
With the warrant in hand, Ali went to search the Beins brothers' home, while Cage had finished tallying everything and arranged for three trucks to come, taking the people, goods, and confiscated funds and weapons back to the police station.