Black Market Merchant

Chapter 7: Culprits

"How awful!" Joan said covering her mouth and tears started to show in her soft brown eyes.

Benny and Richard examined the bloodied bodies and found it was just as Hanna had described. Both were clearly killed by guns. They looked around the room, but there was nothing around that would seem like it would have been of any interest to the gangsters. The only proof that showed that the Mad Dogs gang had even been here, was that their symbol was painted over the Marshals remains on the wall.

"We can't let Hanna see them again like this." John said after a while. "Let's burry them outside."

They quietly moved the Marshals out of the building. Being careful not to damage the bodies any further out of respect. Joan opened the main door to keep it open as the men and Lisa carried the bodies. Then someone caught her eye as soon as she did. There was a man coming towards the station. Upon seeing that there were people leaving the building, he suddenly turned and started to run, like he knew what might have happened.

"Wait stop!" Joan yelled and the others noticed the man. They quickly, but gently put down the bodies.

"Quick, we need to catch him!" Benny said.

Lisa and John immediately started chasing the man, who had just rounded the fence around the parking lot.

"We'll take care of things here. Make sure you get him!" Richard called out before the two were too far.

John was huffing and puffing hard while chasing after the man, who already had a good head start. The man looked over his shoulder and saw that he was still being chased. He rounded a corner and headed north towards the dam. John took a glance at Lisa running next to him. He saw that even though she still had that bulky coffin on her back, it was barely causing her any trouble.

"We should follow him." Lisa said while they ran.

John could hardly speak while running after the guy, "Why?" He managed to blurt out.

"He's headed for the dam. What if he leads us to the gangsters that were responsible for the Marshals killing? They were looking for the dams blueprints. This is an opportunity." Lisa spoke as if she was just having a normal conversation, rather than running after a suspect.

John couldn't reply but nodded in agreement. After ten minutes both John and the suspect had slowed down considerably, but Lisa felt completely fine. Her robotic legs felt no stress at all. In fact, if she hadn't intended to simply follow the suspect, she could have captured him long ago.

The houses and businesses were far apart now as they reached the outskirts of town. The suspect had arrived at the foot of a steep hill that led up to the dam power station. Immediately the man stopped running and then with labored steps, started walking up it. Seeing this steep hill, John quit running and sat down panting heavily.

"Y-you can go a-ahead. I'll wait here." John finally said after Lisa turned back to check on him.

"Alright, I won't be long." Lisa said. "Here, will you keep an eye on this for me?" Lisa slipped of her coffin and leaned it up on a rusty van nearby. "I am counting on you to make sure nobody steals it."

John nodded and took out his gun from behind him to sit more comfortably. Lisa turned to run after the suspect before he got too far ahead. She saw that he was nearly at the top and she decided to run double time to catch up. John was super surprised when he saw Lisa sprinting at the speed of a horse up the hill. He even felt the wind from her speeding away when she took off.

"What kind of prosthetic surgery did she have to have such legs? Not to mention the cost!" John wondered to himself.

Lisa arrived at the top of the hill. Going inside the fenced in area, Lisa found it to be quite open. The suspect was now at a doorway that led to the main building and he was talking breathlessly to four armed guards. Lisa quickly ducked behind a shipping container before she was spotted. The suspect went inside with one of the guards, while the other three quickly ran towards the entrance to the dam.

Lisa slipped around to the other side of the container as the men passed by her location. She then jogged quickly towards the building, upon being sure that no one was still keeping watch. She came up to the door that the guards had been standing at and pressed her ear up to it. The muffled sounds of a conversation could be heard, and she decided it would be best if she went in another way.

Stepping back, she looked up at the green metal roof of the building. There were three levels of roofs and only the highest one had a large skylight at its center. She crouched low then jumped!

The height to the first roof was around three meters high, but she easily landed with both feet on top of it. When she landed on the metal roof, not a sound could barely be heard. If someone inside had heard it, they could easily mistake it as just the old building settling. The last two roofs were only a meter and a half higher and she could easily climb over them to get to the skylight.

She checked on the three guards below, to make sure they hadn't noticed her. Two were still at the entrance looking down the road for anyone. While the third was coming back to guard the door. If she had waited around for too long, she would have been spotted on the ground or making the jump. It seemed that she was in the clear for now. Then she took a peek down the skylight, through a broken portion of the glass in one corner.

Down below in the center of the room, several men were standing in two groups facing each other. On one side stood six gangsters. They were holding pistols or shot guns in their hands. Their leader was a man in a yellow shirt being flanked by a big man in a black shirt.

"Those have to be the two that killed Hanna's parents." Lisa thought to herself. "It's not like people in this kind of environment get to change cloths all too often."

On the other side were three men in uniform. Two guarding the man in the center were holding what looked like high-end military grade laser rifles. The man in the center had on an officer's styled uniform and carried only a military pistol in a holster that hung across his chest. Lisa squinted to see what the logo was on the patch that was on all three's shoulder pads. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion and contempt; it was the symbol of the American Fascist Regime!

Special Officer Daniel Hawkins was hating his new assignment. He had been transferred from working in the Intelligence Head Quarters to doing field work instead of pushing papers. He thought he had finally gotten an easy position only to be brought back out into active service. On top of that he was sent to this hellish zone far from any descent civilized cities.

Now he was dealing with this local gangster scum to try and get this rusting old dam to run again. His superiors had given him hardly any explanation as to why. All he knew was that there was the possibility of a rogue operative that had recently escaped from a raid in Salt Lake City area. He needed to get the power back on to gain access to the security cameras scattered all over town. This way he could monitor everything from the safety of the base he was assigned to and report his findings.

"We did what you asked." The yellow shirt gangster said with a growl. "Now hand over the money and we'll give you the blueprints."

"Very well." Hawkins said dismissively. "Let's verify to each other that both of the contents are legit."

Hawkins nodded to the guard on his left who immediately procured two scanners. He handed one to the gang leader. Then he pulled out a memory stick and slid it into the scanner. The gang leader did the same with his own memory stick. The scanners beeped, revealing their contents and each party confirmed that everything was in order.

"Excellent." Hawkins said taking the memory stick out of the gangster's scanner after it was handed to him. "By the way you did eliminate the witnesses, right?"

"Ya, the pig and his family are dead. I killed them myself. You got nothing to worry about." The gangster opened his arms wide and stepped backwards slowly. "Now if you're not needing us, we'll be on our way. Thanks for the business."

"So, he actually is the Marshals family killer after all." Lisa thought looking at the yellow shirted gangster.

The gangsters quickly left the building and headed off in the direction of the northern part of town. The military personnel went out of the opposite end of the building. Seeing this, Lisa followed them towards the back of the building. Despite the fact she was looking for the Marshals killers, the AFR soldiers were more important for her to worry about.

Parked at the back of the building was a large heavily armored military Hummer. Its engine was running and on top of it was an automated turret, which kept rotating around slowly guarding the perimeter. The three got into the vehicle and it started to turn slowly out of the parking lot. The vehicle was going to head for the road crossing over the river on top of the dam.

"I need to take those blueprints from them and find out what their up too." Lisa said to herself as she jumped like a cat down to the ground. "The gangsters can wait."

She quickly held up her right arm and pointed it at the Hummer that was just now pulling out onto the dam's road. Her arm suddenly mechanically unpacked itself and reviled a large gun like weapon inside. She smiled, almost evilly and fired!

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