"The suspected assailants adopted countermeasures," Miss Pao said, again 
using that deadpan tone. On the cine feed, the criminals were retreating. The 
cinestat followed them with a nice tracking shot. Judge Fang, who had watched 
thousands of hours of film of thugs departing from the scenes of their crimes, 
watched with a discriminating eye. Less sophisticated hoodlums would simply 
have run away in a panic, but this group was proceeding methodically, two to a 
bicycle, one person pedaling and steering while the other handled the 
countermeasures. Two of them were discharging fountains of material into the 
air from canisters on their bicycles' equipment racks, like fire extinguishers, 
waving the nozzles in all directions. "Following a pattern that has become 
familiar to law enforcement," Miss Pao said, "they dispersed adhesive foam 
that clogged the intakes of the stats' air turbines, rendering them 
inoperative."