Chapter 164 A Traitor Among Us
The dull sound of doors closing echoed down the corridor.
Lyon went downstairs along the same route, opened the door of the Ford Explorer, and got into the driver's seat.
He put the valuable First Future figurine into the glove compartment in the passenger seat. Although he didn't seem to take Kevin's words to heart, he figured he should still keep it safe.
Starting the car, Lyon took out his phone from his pocket and dialed Carlos's number.
The phone was answered after ringing three times.
"Boss?"
Carlos's voice sounded somewhat weak and cautious.
Since his knee was shattered after the Fifth Avenue girl kidnapping case, and after Leon exposed his secrets and forcibly recruited him as a double agent in the hospital, this Latino driver with a small mustache has completely lost his former cunning in front of Leon.
"How's your injury healing going?" Leon asked casually, one hand resting on the steering wheel.
"It's alright... The doctor said I'll have to stay in bed for at least a few more weeks."
Carlos chuckled. "Boss, what brings you here so late?"
"There is indeed work for you to do."
Lyon looked at the streetlights outside the windshield: "Go and contact your upline at the Sinaloa Group now."
Carlos on the other end of the phone visibly paused for a moment, his tone instantly becoming tense:
"Boss... I'm still in the hospital. Is it too much for me to contact them and confront them now...?"
"What are you thinking? Who told you to confront them?"
Leon interrupted him, letting out a cold snort:
"You are still their high-ranking informant planted within the police department."
"Give them a heads-up and tell them that you've obtained the latest top-secret internal intelligence from the Western District Police Department's ACU."
"Tell those Mexicans that Marcus, the boss of the Bloods, just paid a high price on the dark web to kill me, but I've buried all the assassins he sent in that abandoned building."
"Right now, I'm furious about the assassination attempt and I'm searching the whole city for Marcus to get revenge."
Upon hearing this, Carlos's mind instantly clicked:
"Boss, are you planning to use the Mexican intelligence network to find Marcus's whereabouts?"
"Otherwise what?"
Lyon leaned back in his seat, his eyes cold.
"Seattle is only so big. As one of the leaders of the Bloods, Marcus is definitely not going to sleep in his legal villa tonight after such a big incident. He'll probably be hiding in some safe house like a coward."
"The police system cannot detect these gray areas."
"But your Mexicans certainly know where he's hiding."
Lyon's fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel:
"Last time in the industrial area, what we seized was the stuff the Bloods had stolen from those Mexicans."
"They've never settled this messy account."
"You pass the message to them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I believe the Mexicans will be more than happy to provide a little bit of location service and, incidentally, sit back and watch the show for free."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.
Carlos swallowed hard on his hospital bed and immediately understood what he needed to do.
"I understand, boss."
Carlos's voice became more confident, "Wait a moment, I'll send the coordinates to your phone right away."
"Hurry. He won't live past tonight."
Lyon hung up the phone immediately.
……
South Seattle, a suburb of Tacoma.
A two-story house with dark beige exterior and a front yard overgrown with weeds quietly disappeared into the night.
Real gang safe houses are never the underground armored fortresses filled with infrared lasers and equipped with retinal locks depicted in Hollywood movies.
A true safe house is all about being absolutely mediocre.
These houses are usually rented in cash by a distant relative with no criminal record or someone trusted by the gang, and then put into use as needed.
There was no extra furniture in the room, and all the curtains were not only drawn tightly, but the edges were even firmly taped to the walls to ensure that not a single ray of light could be seen in the room, even at night.
The most crucial factor is geographical location.
It's less than two kilometers from the interstate highway ramp, and the backyard is directly connected to a public grove of trees without cameras.
If anything happens, grab some money and a gun, and you can disappear into traffic in three minutes.
At this moment, in the dimly lit living room on the first floor.
Marcus King was sitting on an old fabric sofa, his fingers uncontrollably pressing the cap of a solid gold windproof lighter.
"Click. Click."
The crisp metallic clanging sound was particularly irritating in the quiet room.
He was a Black man who looked to be in his thirties, of average build, neither muscular like other street thugs nor skinny.
He had a very short buzz cut and wore a dark gray cashmere sweater with no obvious logo but of excellent quality.
If he were walking down Wall Street or in an office building in Manhattan, he would look more like a tired mid-level finance manager, and no one would associate him with one of the leaders of the West Side Bloods.
If he were walking down Wall Street or in an office building in Manhattan, he would look more like a tired mid-level finance manager, and no one would associate him with one of the leaders of the West Side Bloods.
But he is in a very bad state right now.
His forehead was covered with a fine layer of sweat, and his usually cold and calculating eyes were now filled with undisguised anxiety.
On either side of the sofa stood two burly black men, each over 1.9 meters tall and weighing well over 270 pounds.
These two are Marcus's bodyguards. The one on the left is called "Pliers," and the one on the right is called "Bones."
They were all hardened criminals who fought in underground boxing matches in prison, and their necks were covered with tattoos representing their gang seniority.
Beneath their oversized sports jackets, the outlines of bulletproof vests were clearly visible, and each of them held a short-barreled automatic rifle equipped with an extended magazine.
They weren't responsible for the gang's business operations; they only received top-tier security pay, and their sole task was to use their bulletproof vests and heavy firepower as human shields for Marcus.
Still no news?
Marcus stopped lighting his lighter and looked up at another person standing in the shadow of the floor lamp.
Upon hearing the question, the man in the shadows took a step forward.
His name was Trey, he was in his twenties, a thin, bright-eyed Black youth.
He was a trusted confidant whom Marcus had personally promoted from the lowest-level drug dealers on the corner of 12th Street. He was quick-witted and now specifically responsible for handling some shady dark web contacts and high-end money laundering for Marcus.
"Still no, boss."
Trey shook his head, clutching a tablet computer containing encrypted software tightly in his hand:
"Half an hour ago, I sent an urgent inquiry to the middleman through the proxy node again."
"The reply from the other side was the same as during the day: that mercenary squad has completely lost contact and has not triggered any safe return signal."
Marcus slammed the solid gold lighter in his hand onto the coffee table in front of him.
"Snapped!"
"That fart is out of contact!"
Marcus gritted his teeth, his face so dark it was almost dripping with malice.
"The West Precinct's press release from earlier today has been seen throughout Seattle!"
"An unfinished building in the suburbs was blasted to the ground, and an anti-materiel sniper rifle and C4 explosives were unearthed from it."
"This 'professional' team I hired from the dark web for over a million dollars couldn't even scratch that young cop. Instead, they were buried alive, gun and all, under a concrete slab!"
Marcus suddenly stood up and paced restlessly back and forth in the not-so-spacious living room.
Things have completely spiraled out of control ever since his idiot brother Darlis dropped out of the industrial zone and, incidentally, lost the shipment he'd stolen from the Mexicans.
He originally thought that by spending a lot of money to hire a professional hitman to take out Leon, this suddenly emerging troublesome police officer, he could not only avenge his brother but also keep the gang leaders below him in check who were starting to stir.
As a result, the assassins have all been wiped out.
Even a fool knows that a policeman who can bury an entire heavily armed mercenary unit alive on the spot is definitely not some rookie who can only issue tickets.
Even more critically, Marcus didn't know if the other party had dug out any clues from the dead body.
"Send a message to all the venues below: close down for the next few days, and have all core staff break up into smaller groups and go into hiding."
Marcus turned to Trey and gave the order:
"And you, Trey. Go keep an eye on the dark web. If anything changes with that middleman, report to me immediately. You'll be out there keeping watch for me for the next few days."
"Understood, boss. You are absolutely safe here."
Trey nodded solemnly, stuffed the tablet into his coat pocket, and turned to walk towards the back door of the safe house.
The two bodyguards looked away and continued to stare at the tightly closed curtains.
Trey pushed open the back door and walked into the dark backyard. He then skillfully climbed over a low wooden fence along the overgrown path.
He walked to a side road two blocks away from the house, and after confirming that there were no suspicious vehicles around, he opened the door of a dilapidated Honda sedan and got into the driver's seat.
The carriage was pitch black.
Instead of starting the car, Trey pulled out a cheap, disposable non-smartphone that could only be used to send text messages from under the seat.
The respect and solemnity he had shown towards Marcus in the safe house had completely vanished from his face.
Trey quickly dialed a number that wasn't saved in his contacts and sent a message.
[Tacoma, 7th Main Street side street, beige two-story house. I'm on the outside, three people inside, two automatic rifles.]
After sending the message, he immediately turned off his phone and put it back under his seat.
As one of Marcus's most trusted confidants, no one knew that Trey had actually been secretly turned by the local agent of the Sinaloa Group more than half a year ago.
At the time, several shipments of goods that had fallen into the hands of the Bloods gang from Mexico were running into problems, and they needed to keep an eye on this increasingly unruly local gang.
For Mexican drug lords, killing Marcus wouldn't be difficult; they might just need to arrange a dump truck at a certain intersection.
However, directly eliminating one of the gang leaders would immediately plunge his Blood Gang branch's vast territory and sales network into a frenzied power struggle among dozens of minor leaders.
This chaotic and disorderly situation can severely impact drug shipments.
This is why the Mexicans, despite having the capability to assassinate, have remained inactive.
Keeping Marcus alive and keeping Trey as a high-ranking mole who can provide intelligence at any time is the best course of action for the group.
But now the situation has changed.
The insane police officer named Leon has gone completely berserk because of the assassination attempt and is now searching the world for Marcus.
Using someone else to do the dirty work not only allows them to completely absolve the Mexicans of any responsibility at this critical juncture, but also, once Marcus is dead, Trey, who has the aura of being "one of the boss's most trusted men," will have a legitimate opportunity to take over the entire West Side Bloods gang with the Mexicans' massive financial and military support.
It's possible that the Blood Gang will be replaced before tomorrow even arrives.