"The State Security Department (SSD) initially handled the case about that den with drugs and weapons. However, as soon as it was discovered what was happening there, it was immediately transferred to the Narcotics Control Department (NCD). They started spinning this case. And it would have been fine, but this was not their specialty, to be honest. They dealt with distribution, smuggling, and drug trade, while this was a dispute between criminal groups."

"Why didn't anyone immediately pass this case to the right people?"

"Money. The money allocated to fight all of this. If there's a drug boom in the country, more is given to the Narcotics Control Department. If there's a boom in terrorism, weapon smuggling, or the creation of anything dangerous for the state - the State Security Department gets the funds. So, if there's an opportunity to snatch a piece of the budget in a contentious situation, the case will float around for a while until it lands where it should be. In this case, it ended up at the Organized Crime Department."

"Have you ever thought that this might not be your area of expertise either?" the host asked provocatively.

"It's all very simple," he shrugged nonchalantly. "We already had basic information on both the Hassa clan and that gang. All we had to do was determine who was attacked and who benefited from it, and it would immediately become clear where to dig. The Narcotics Control Department didn't have this. They conduct cases against drug lords but not against clans. Considering the fact that the police held onto this case for a while, it significantly complicated our task. Time is crucial in such situations."

"How crucial?"

"Witnesses scatter or die, evidence is covered up or destroyed, traces of the crime are erased. The more time passes, the less chance there is of solving the crime. It's always easier to follow a hot trail."

"I see. Then, the next question: at that time, did you know who caused the explosion in the residential building?"

"No, at that point, we still didn't know. Only the suspected contractor was known. Everything else started to surface only after another high-profile case."

"We'll get to that," the host interrupted the detective with a soft but assertive voice. "Let's not rush things. Specifically, at that time, were there any suspicions about who did it?"

"Besides the contractor, no, there weren't."

"None at all?" It seemed as if the host was surprised, though in reality, it was just part of the act.

"Do you often hear about teenagers engaging in a shootout followed by an explosion?" He asked a counter-question. "If anyone had told me, I wouldn't have believed it. I didn't rule it out, of course, but such a thought would never come to anyone's mind. Indeed, juvenile crime is diverse - robbery, racketeering, theft, sometimes murder and rape, and even drug dealing. I knew of cases where kids between the ages of eleven to fifteen would gang up in almost groups of twenty to attack passersby, overwhelming them with their numbers."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why?"

"For fun. To feel powerful and cool. They all came from troubled families or those where the parents didn't care. I know another case where one kid brought his father's shotgun and killed two of his bullies who threw his sneakers into the trash. Sometimes, your blood runs cold when you find out what kids are capable of. But such scale, especially in a city that's always quiet..." He spread his hands. "Our suspicions about the contractors were correct, but we were looking for the perpetrators in completely the wrong place. You could say that group was the first of its kind. And the last so far, luckily for us."

"Did you connect that shootout and explosion in the residential building with the cash-in-transit robbery?"

"Partially. The thing is, while in the clash with that gang, the interest of the Hassa clan was clearly traced, the robbery could have also been beneficial to the Lakeside. But both denied their involvement with the latter case. And there was no evidence either. As it turned out, Hassa was even partially telling the truth."

"It made quite a stir at the time," the host reminded.

"Yes, it did. In Silverside, and in Chin-Zhuy, such incidents are quite common, but even there, fatalities are very rare. And here, such an event with a shootout and a fatal outcome. Two corpses. But again, it was done by teenagers while we were focusing on the Hassa people. The problem was that that group was not associated with the clan at all, making it impossible to figure out who was the executor then. Some didn't leave any evidence, and the others were clean at that moment."

"I'll remind our viewers of the topic of the conversation. We are talking about a cash-in-transit robbery during which two people died. One of them was a cash-in-transit officer, Vilen Alexandrovich Rangov, forty-three years old. He left behind a wife and two children. The other - a bank security officer, Bo Wei, twenty-seven years old. In addition, Carol Yasuda was also attacked. At that moment, she was supposed to drive her child to school, but under threat of death, she was forced to give up the keys to the car, which the criminals used to escape. Because of the previous and this event, which were only a month apart, the city was on edge then."

"Yes. After the explosion, the SSD was involved, as they thought it was a terrorist attack. But after the robbery, it became clear that it was a clash between gangs, which is why I was summoned there. But, unfortunately, a holiday season came, and then another case happened, which made headlines across the country. And starting with which, actually, we were able to subsequently build the whole chronology of events and identify all the participants. There are still gaps in this case, but what we have been able to achieve..."

"Many were shocked."

"Considering that even we were surprised - those who have dealt with many gangsters - you can imagine how others reacted. This story was beginning to accrue some rather unpleasant details."

"Like what?"

"In such cases, it's never simple. Some people use those close to them, others try to get away at someone else's expense, the third just try to survive. And all this ultimately leads to what it came to."