Empire of Shadows

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This wasn’t the first time Lance and the others had seen Golden Port City at past four in the morning. They had seen it before, even when they first arrived in the Federation.

But now, everyone’s mood was completely different from when they first arrived.

When they first arrived, they were lost and helpless, not knowing what to do or how to survive.

But now, they had found their direction, and a happy life was beckoning to them not far away.

Some were smoking and enjoying the breeze, while others were still savoring everything that had happened not long ago.

The wind blowing from the sea carried a chilling, killing intent. Lance parked all the cars at the entrance of the Lezhu Company’s yard.

After waiting for about a few minutes, the headlights of three cars approached from a distance and stopped not far from them.

Fordis was the first to get out of the car. Under the streetlight, Lance saw the pistol in his hand. He quickly greeted him, “I’m here.”

The wariness on Fordis’s face hadn’t completely disappeared. “I can’t see you.”Lance led the others to stand under the streetlight, which made Fordis lower his guard, but not entirely.

The others got out of the car. Two went to open the yard gate, while the others walked around the vicinity, making sure no one was there before Alberto got out of the car.

He embraced Lance with a smile, as if he hadn’t questioned anything. The close contact allowed him to smell the strong scent of gunpowder on Lance.

“Don’t tell me all those police cars were caused by you,” he said, somewhat incredulously, but also feeling it was quite reasonable, since Lance had just taken a lot of weapons from him.

Lance chuckled. “Possibly. If there wasn’t another gang shootout just now, then it was likely me.”

Alberto punched him on the shoulder, “Did you rob a bank, or assassinate the President? I had just gone to sleep and hadn’t fallen asleep yet, when I was woken up by a string of phone calls.”

“From my boss, from big shots, and from the police station. They were all asking me if I knew what had happened!”

Fordis also walked over and hugged Lance, “So?”

“I took down Will of the Camilla gang, on the street.”

Alberto whistled, “You picked a good time. A little money can keep this quiet,” he said, looking at the five cars parked by the roadside.

Many of the car windows were shattered, and there were bullet holes in the body. He realized Lance’s purpose in calling him, then told Fordis and his men to drive a few cars out.

These cars needed to be processed before they could be used again. Not only did the bullet holes need to be repaired, but the bullets inside the cars also needed to be found.

If the police considered Lance the prime suspect, they could apply for legal documents such as search warrants to impound these cars.

As long as they could find any bullet fired from a weapon at the scene of the shootout in these vehicles, they would have enough crucial and direct evidence to arrest them all.

There were indeed many scoundrels among the federal police, but you also had to admit that some of them were actually doing their jobs, and these people were very good at solving cases.

This was why Officer Lukar was so eager to find Lance. He didn’t believe Lance’s convoy hadn’t been hit.

As long as it was hit, there would definitely be bullet casings.

Some bullet casings might be more obvious, such as on the car floor, but some bullet casings are less obvious, for example, they might have shot into the car door, then hit a hard part, and didn’t pierce the car door, so they got stuck somewhere in the car’s plywood.

Such bullets cannot be removed in a short time without disassembling the car. The entire car must be disassembled and all of them found to ensure safety.

Some professional repair companies that handle such matters will dismantle the entire car into parts, find every bullet according to the number of bullet holes on the car, and then reassemble the car.

However, doing so is either because these cars are very expensive and have some commemorative significance, or because it is impossible to replace the car, for example, the whole world knows that this is your car, and replacing it would cause other unknown possibilities.

This is why many wealthy gangs, after a shootout, will try to destroy their cars, regardless of whether they can still drive them or not.

They were unwilling, and could not provide direct evidence to the police.

Alberto’s men drove Lance’s car into the garage, then drove out five more cars.

“I’ve handled all your cars for you, two or three hundred dollars a car, no need for repairs,” he said. The cars would be sent to the scrapyard by Alberto first thing tomorrow morning, then crushed into iron blocks, and then dumped into Angel Lake.

Well, another small secret about the constantly rising water level of Angel Lake has been uncovered, but only a very few people know about it.

Lance took the keys and nodded, “Thanks. I’ll have someone send the money over tomorrow. Most likely, I won’t be able to come myself.”

Alberto nodded, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“A lawyer, or someone capable, or something else?” He knew Lance wasn’t short on money, having just taken over four hundred thousand from him, plus his own ongoing businesses.

Lance wouldn’t be short on money, but he definitely lacked other things.

“Lance, you know, I always thought you could become a big shot. Give me a chance.”

Lance thought for a moment, “I have a few people injured on my side, and also, please introduce me to a suitable lawyer.”

Alberto looked at the few people standing in the distance, counted them, “Okay, let them go with my car.” Then he returned to his car, fiddled around for a while, and came back with a business card.

“Specializes in defending gangsters, with very rich defense experience. You can use him.”

Lance glanced at the business card, put it in his pocket, and the two hugged again. “See you later.”

“See you later!”

Lance had the others get into the car and drove back to the house in the West End. After entering the house, the group immediately took off their clothes, doused them with gasoline, and burned them to ashes.

They all returned to their rooms, took a shower, and then changed into new clothes.

About a few minutes later, three police cars appeared outside the house with wailing sirens. Officer Lukar angrily walked into the yard. Just as he was about to knock on the door, he was attracted by a pile of still-smoking ashes in the side yard.

By this time, it was already dawn. He walked to the pile of ashes. The flames had basically extinguished, but occasionally when a gust of wind blew, there would be some sparks in the seemingly extinguished pile.

He picked up a nearby branch and poked around; nothing was left.

“Shit!” He paced back and forth twice with his hands on his hips. At this moment, he was a hundred percent certain that Will was killed by Lance!

He walked back to the front door and knocked hard. “Open up, police.”

About twenty or thirty seconds later, Lance opened the door. “Officer Lukar, we meet again.”

Officer Lukar, who had been furious, calmed down the moment he saw Lance.

There was even a smile on his face!

He extended his hand, “Yes, we meet again.”

Lance glanced at his hand, and out of courtesy, shook it. But what he didn’t expect was that Officer Lukar suddenly grabbed his hand and brought it to his own nose.

His movements were fast, quick, and also unexpected by Lance, after all… many people were watching.

After the faint scent of soap, there was a very peculiar smell of gunpowder residue.

The look in his eyes towards Lance became peculiar, but he said nothing, just stared at Lance.

Lance pulled away, freeing his hand from the relaxed grip. “Your hobby is unique. Is this some special fetish?”

Officer Lukar was completely unaffected by his words. Instead, he stared at him with a half-smile, “May I come in and take a look?”

Lance shook his head, “Although I’d like to cooperate with you, do you have a search warrant?”

Officer Lukar was stunned for a moment, “Who told you we need that to enter your house?”

Lance leaned against the doorframe, “The Constitution.”

He looked at Officer Lukar, whose expression had changed slightly, and added, “The Constitution also grants me more rights. Want to hear them?”

“That’s bullshit!” Officer Lukar looked past Lance at the people coming out of various rooms and standing in the living room. A few people were missing.

“I remember you had a big guy. Where is he?”

Lance looked back, “He’s sleeping.”

“Can you call him out?”

“No,” Lance continued to shake his head, “unless you have a search warrant, or a letter from the court requiring my cooperation with your investigation, or something like that.” Officer Lukar became even more aware that the man in front of him was not like the criminals he had encountered before.

He was calmer, understood more social rules, and knew how to use those rules.

In fact, at this time, more than half of the people didn’t know that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protected them from illegal searches, arrests, and other forms of harassment.

In other words, to search and arrest them, either they had to be major suspects at the crime scene, or there had to be an arrest warrant or search warrant issued by the judicial department.

But many people didn’t know about this, nor how to fight back, and could only be foolishly led by the nose by these police officers.

Lance knew these things, and used them to protect himself, and remained so calm. Officer Lukar became somewhat interested in him.

It was like… a fisherman encountering a cunning fish. A game-like confrontation, a competition, began at this moment.

Officer Lukar took a step back, “Can you tell me where you were tonight?”

Lance asked, “Will these words be recorded in your police report, or used elsewhere?”

“If so, I’ll need to wait for my lawyer before speaking.”

Officer Lukar asked with a smile, “What if I told you it wouldn’t appear in any document or in court?”

Lance remained the same, “I was sleeping at home last night.”

The two continued to stare at each other. Officer Lukar wanted to put some pressure on Lance, but Lance didn’t seem to feel it.

He took another step back. “Sorry to disturb your rest.”

Lance extended his hand again. “Sounds like you’re leaving.”

The two shook hands again. Officer Lukar said, “We’ll meet again soon!”

After releasing his hand, he went directly to a roadside payphone and called the Assistant Chief.

The late-night shootout was not enough to wake the Chief, or rather, not serious enough. And the impact of this shootout was not very big, so he would be even less likely to wake up.

“I saw Lance. He smells of gunpowder. It must have been him.”

The Assistant Chief listened and then asked, “Then why didn’t you bring him back?”

“He returned to his home before we found him, changed his clothes, and demanded I show a search warrant. If I were to take him, he would definitely ask for an arrest warrant.”

The Assistant Chief didn’t react much after hearing this. “You’ll have to wait until dawn to get the relevant legal documents from the Judicial Bureau.”

“So I plan to wait here until dawn. Please have them send the documents over as early as possible.”

The Assistant Chief agreed, “No problem, I’ll arrange it.”

As he spoke, he asked about the scene. “How many people died?”

“Over thirty. Will, a high-ranking executive of the Camilla gang, also died, burned to ashes.”

“No useful clues were left at the scene. Lance handled it quickly. A few people around him are missing; they must have been injured.”

“If we can find the bullets they removed and the doctor who treated them, we can directly send them to court.”

The Assistant Chief considered for a moment, “Go ahead, I’ll support you.”

After hanging up the phone, he called other criminal investigation officers and told them to quickly find out if any major hospitals had treated gunshot wound patients in the middle of the night.

If so, find a way to retrieve the bullets.

Then he walked out of the phone booth and began to circle Lance’s house.

This was a very ordinary house, with only one garage, where a car was parked.

The other four cars were parked on the street, so Officer Lukar’s first thought was to inspect these vehicles.

Although he didn’t have a search warrant now, he could look through the car.

However, he was quickly disappointed. These cars were clearly new. In other words, he was now absolutely certain that Lance was most likely responsible for this case!

But he just had no evidence, and this was the most helpless point for him as a police officer.

You know someone is a criminal, but because you don’t have direct, effective evidence to charge them, you can only watch them go unpunished.

After a brief inspection of the vehicles, he was about to give up when he suddenly thought of something. He picked up a pen, copied down the license plates of these cars, and then made another call.

“Help me check who these cars are registered under,” he reported the license plates, but the other party said it might not be possible to get results until dawn.

This finally made him hit the phone booth, and the whole booth vibrated.

It was as if the whole world was helping Lance, which annoyed Officer Lukar. He didn’t like this feeling.

He walked out of the phone booth and unexpectedly saw Lance watching him from the second-story window. The two stared at each other across the street.

Officer Lukar lit a cigarette and made a shooting gesture towards Lance, while Lance simply maintained his smile.

An annoying smile!

The sky gradually began to lighten. The crackling gunfire of the previous night was nothing new to the residents of Golden Port City.

This was also the police’s attitude towards late-night shootouts: don’t let the citizens feel fear, and don’t have a shootout in the streets in broad daylight, and then their tolerance would be higher.

During the day, not many people even talked about these things. No one knew who fought whom yesterday, how many died, or who died.

These things were too far removed for ordinary people; they couldn’t reach such distant places.

Rather than caring about this, they cared more about what the weather would be like today, and about their lives and work.

At 7:25 AM, the person arranged by the Assistant Chief delivered the search warrant. The first thing they did after getting the search warrant was to block Lance’s front door.

Lance was having breakfast at this moment. He looked at Officer Lukar’s search warrant while holding a ham and egg sandwich, motioned for him to come in, “Want some?”

“No, I have no appetite!” Having been up all night, and only managing to get a little sleep at past five, he was now incredibly uncomfortable.

Lance reminded them, “You’d better wear gloves. Also, don’t mess up my house, or I’ll call and complain about you.”

Lukar paid no attention to his words. They began to search thoroughly, their target being weapons.

Many intact bullet casings were left at the scene yesterday, and these casings were one of the best pieces of evidence.

If they could find one of the guns that matched the bullet casings at the scene, then they could apply for an arrest warrant.

Your weapon participated in a gang shootout in another place in the middle of the night and killed people, and you say it has nothing to do with you, and you didn’t know?

Do you think the judge would believe that?

However, to their regret, they searched the entire house but couldn’t find any weapons. The place was so clean it looked like it had been specially tidied.

No weapons, no bullets, no dangerous items. Officer Lukar was at a loss for words.

As for those weapons, they must have been left for Alberto. Didn’t the bearded man say so?

60% buyback.

Weapons worth two thousand two hundred dollars, at 60% off, would be one thousand three hundred and twenty dollars, and it also solved these troubles.

“So, Officer Lukar, did you find what you were looking for?”

Officer Lukar turned back and looked at Lance. The two stared at each other for a while. He walked up to Lance, looked at him, and said, “I’ll find what I’m looking for one day.”

Lance was completely unaffected by his words, which carried a hint of threat and warning. “I don’t know if you can find it, but you’ll definitely get a complaint today.”

Officer Lukar gave him one last look, turned, and walked towards the door. “Let’s go.”

Watching them leave, Lance spread his hands to his brothers, a helpless smile on his face. “Federal police!”

Two seconds later, continuous laughter erupted from the house, lasting for a long time…

(End of this chapter)