Chapter 40
February 10th, 3119, Pheonix Penal Colony, 19:59pm, Pollard walked into Unitis' office and poured himself a cup of coffee.
He saw Unitis' head laying on the desk.
"Reports getting you down again?", Pollard inquired taking in a sip.
"I should have stayed at Point 9," Unitis breathed.
Pollard sat down across from him.
"I hear Point 9 is one of the worst," he commented taking in another sip.
"That is why I left for this place, there were riots everywhere when I got here," Unitis told him.
"Where did you pick up Hatch?", Pollard asked.
Unitis got up from his chair and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee.
"They sent him here, from Taladaktaria," Unitis told him.
"They said that he was one of the best," Unitis continued.
"They weren't lying, he is a legend out there," Pollard replied.
"That was what I heard," Unitis replied.
Hong and Tran walked into the office.
"Palin escaped two days ago," Hong told them.
Pollard lept to his feet.
"Do you all have a line on him?", he asked.
"No, he has been dodging any one who tries to come for him," Tran added.
"What about the tracer that was placed inside him when became a Marshal?", Pollard rejoindered taking in a sip of coffee.
Chang joined them in the office.
"I have been trying to raise the Tracer, it is like it has switched off," she told them.
"You mean removed?", Brul added as he walked in.
"It does seem thatta way," Chang answered.
When Porter and Burns took office, Porter ordered that Tracers be implanted in any Marshal, regardless of how long they had been in service.
The only way to turn these Tracers off was to get them removed and destroyed.
It was something that Marshals hated, but it was a part of the job.
February 10th, 3119, 20:34pm, Chang continued to try to get a hold of the Tracer on Palin.
She couldn't get the Tracer to come online.
"This thing has to have been removed, it's like it is gone," she said.
"Wasn't it taken out when he arrested?", Unitis asked.
"No, we don't have the people here to do that," she answered.
Pollard glared at the screen.
"There are only a few Doctors who have the qualifications to do that," he read.
"That is correct, and two of them are dead now," Lee added as she walked in and read the list.
Pollard looked at her.
"You mean somebody is bumping them off?", he fired at her.
Lee tugged at her skirt.
"More like they are dying on their own, the two that died were quite up there in years," she replied.
Pollard glanced at the list.
"These two men are from The Ukraine," Pollard read.
"They helped develope the Tracers," Tran put in.
February 10th, 3119, 20:45pm, Unitis got a call on his Comlink, saying that a guard had been killed in E Block.
He told the caller that he was on his way and not to touch anything.
"Who was the guard that called in?", Pollard shot at Unitis.
"Gipson," Unitis breathed in return.
"Rookie I am guessing," Pollard shot back.
"Yeah," Unitis replied.
E Block was used as a Solitary Confinement Wing.
Prisoners were temporarily housed there, until they could be transported to a cell.
It was used to house the men that started fights and Riots.
Pollard and Unitis walked through the door of the wing.
Gipson and another guard met them at the door and walked them down to where the guard laid dead on the floor.
Unitis knealt beside the body and began scanning for Tod.
"What do we have?", Pollard asked glaring down at the battered, bloody body.
"Time of Death, was two hours ago, he's been badly beaten," Unitis answered.
"Beaten as maybe a fight?", Pollard asked.
"More of maybe a straight beating," Unitis answered.
Pollard started looking around the block.
Only one of the cells was open.
Pollard walked into the cell and looked down.
"We have another body!", he called out.
Unitis walked into the cell.
Pollard was checking the body.
"Do you have a Tod?", he asked.
"Looks like an hour ago," Pollard answered.
Unitis looked down at Pollard.
"Looks like he might have been poisoned, we won't know until MEC gets here," Pollard said.
Unitis nodded in reply.
Unitis walked over to the bunk, where a piece of paper laid next to it.
He picked it up and unfolded it, there was nothing but the symbol of Aces and 8's on it.
"What do you make of this?", Unitis asked hand the paper to Pollard.
"Aces and eights, The death hand," Pollard muttered.
"Very historic," Pollard continued.
Unitis looked at Pollard for a moment.
"What do you mean?", Unitis asked.
"That was the hand Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was killed," Pollard told him.
"Why use this?", Unitis inserted.
"The killer knew that one of us would know the history behind it, enough to know what it meant," Pollard answered.
Unitis looked at Pollard.
"You mean this was a warning?", Unitis asked.
"More of a symbol of who is behind this," Pollard replied standing up.
There was a group of men who called themselves The Aces and Eight's, they were a Vigilante group.
The group came to light in the summer of 2184, with the killing of a corrupt Marshal.
They had been dormant for the past nine years.
They finished going over everything and went back to the office, to wait for results from Mec.
"How did it go?", Le asked as they came in.
"Aces and eights," Pollard replied.
Tran glared at Pollard for a moment, knowing what he meant.
"They have returned?", she fired at him.
"They have," Pollard softly replied.
"Oh no," she said back.
Tran had come across them in China in 2054, but had never caught any of them.
They had the nasty habit of never being caught.
This was probably why they were called in on this one.
February 10th, 3119, 20:54pm, Tran walked into her and Pollard's quarters and laid down on the couch.
She hope that she would never run into Aces and Eights again, but this was a part of her career choice unfortunately.
She thought about the last time she had come in contact with them in 2054, the replay was still fresh in her mind.
It had produced nightmares since then.
Pollard walked in at 21:15pm and watched as she slept.
He has a smile on his face, as he walked toward the bathroom to take a shower.
The warm water felt so nice on his aching muscle's.
Tran slipped out of her clothe's and stepped in with him.
She slowly hugged him from behind.
Pollard turned to face her.
"I am sorry if I am disturbing you," she said kissing him.
"No not at all, I was just thinking about the last time I encountered this group," he told her.
"When was that?", she asked.
"2038," Pollard answered kissing her back.
Chapter 41
February 10th, 3119, 21:35pm, They got out of the shower and sat down on the couch.
"What happened in your encounter, did you catch any of them?", she asked.
"No, but I did become a target," Pollard replied.
"How can you be sure they haven't forgotten about your escape?", she persisted her hand on his leg.
"That is what I am depending on baby," he answered.
Pollard got dressed and stepped out on the landing.
The winds were blowing and swirling over the land as he looked over the facility.
He had almost gotten used to the weather in this place.
Tran got dressed, made two cups of tea, and stepped out to join him.
"I hope that they don't kill you," she said as she handed him a cup.
"They didn't succeed before, and they won't now," he assured her.
Their conversation was cut short by the doorbell.
It was Chang and Hong.
Pollard invited them into the room.
Tran offered them some tea and they accepted.
They sat down in two chairs adjacent to the couch.
Pollard glared at them as he sat down across from them.
"We are sorry for disturbing your offtime, but we found some stuff on the group you named," Chang began.
"What did you get on them?", Pollard cut in taking a drink.
Chang cleared her throat and brought everything up on the screen.
"They have been around since June of 2184," Chang began.
Pollard sat up in his seat.
"That was only when the first of them was caught," Pollard told them.
"What do you mean?", Chang asked.
"I came across them in Spring 2038," he replied taking another drink.
"He even became their target," Tran added.
Chang looked at Pollard.
"Did you ever find out who hired them to kill you?", she asked.
"I set myelf up to be a target for them, do we have any of them in jail here?", Pollard fired back.
"I haven't checked records yet, you think our deadman might have been a member?", Hong put in.
"It is possible," Pollard told her.
February 10th, 3119, 21:54pm, They walked down to the office.
Chang and Hong had begun to go through Prisoner records to see if any one in the group had been brought into serve time.
Chang had found three of them.
She quickly brought what she had found to Pollard's office and put it up on the screen.
Pollard gazed up at the screen and leaned forward in his chair.
"These men are only suspected to have ties with them, haven't you found anything else?", Pollard asked pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"This group covers their track's quite well," she began.
"Don't they have their own membership list?", Tran added.
Pollard looked at her.
"These are Hitmen we are talking about, they won't exactly keep a list," Pollard laughed taking a drink.
"That would seem right," she replied.
"I have been trying to see about where they would keep a list," Chang said.
Pollard slid his chair back.
'What have you found?", he asked.
"They must have coding specialists, I can't find anything on this," she told them.
"Their people sound like they might have you a little jealous," Pollard joked putting his cup on his desk.
"Just a little," chang replied with a smile.
Pollard watched the screen.
"I know what is going on here," he said looking up at the messages.
"They are sending coded messages to each other to throw you all off," he told them taking another drink.
"I am having trouble with the Binary on these messages, I have never seen anything like this," Chang replied.
Tran looked at the messgaes on the screen.
"The person who did this is an expert at Binary," she noticed.
"How do you figure?", Chang asked.
"Only an expert could do constantly changing Binary like this," Tran replied scanning it.
Hong looked at Tran for a moment.
"Do you think you can help us break it?", she inquired.
"It will take a couple of days, but yes," Tran replied with a smile.
The three walked back to their office.
Tran glared at the codes on the screen.
She watched as the codes constantly swapped in and out on a dime.
"I have an idea," Tran stated with a grin.
Tran slowly began to throw codes at the other codes in different, constantly changing variations.
"How did you do that?", Hong questioned of her sister.
Tran looked up at her.
"The more these codes change, the more of a trail they leave," Tran began.
"You mean they aren't covering their track's," Chang put in.
"They can't, because they are constantly exchanging codes with other coders," Tran told them.
Chang glanced at the screen.
"So, they continue to do the one thing that they were hoping not to do," she said.
"What is that?", Hong added.
"Leave us breadcrumbs," Chang replied.
Chang quickly began to piece the trail together with Tran's help.
Flaws walked in, sat down and began to help them.
They were done in four hours.
They called Pollard and Unitis into their office and showed them the messages.
"The trail that they left us to follow caused their own computers to backlog, I bet," Flaws said.
"Sounds thatta way," Pollard replied.
Pollard looked at them.
"Where are they located?", he asked.
"An office building in Oro Valley," Chang answered.
"That is only a few miles away from here," Unitis put in.
February 10th, 3119, Nation Warehouse, Oro Valley, 22:15pm, A man walked into the mainroom.
He watched as the men doing the coding madly tried to figure out what was going on with their code's.
"What is going here Click?", the man asked.
"I am not sure yet, I am unable to get any messgaes through to any of our contact's," Click replied.
"Why?", the man questioned.
"The Marshals have picked up our trail," Click answered.
The man glared at Click.
"Dammit, you told me that your plan was fullproof!", he raged.
"I was wrong sir," Click replied.
"You had better figure something out soon, or it's your head on the block!", he roared.
"Ye yes sir," Click stammered.
Click began to work faster now, his finger's clicked the keys wildly.
He hadn't worked this fast before.
Nothing seemed to work at all.
February 10th, 3119, Nation Warehouse, 22:25pm, The man walked into his office and poured himself some coffee.
His mind and heart raced at the thought of his newest job going down the crapper.
His contact's at Pheonix Penal Colony couldn't get any messages through, as long as The Marshals had caught on to what they were doing.
He breathed a slow deep breath.
They were supposed to provide more security for the shipments.
The Merc groups had been torn down now, and it seemed like their job had been killed.
No payments had come to them in months.
It was very depressing.
February 10th, 3119, Pheonix Penal Colony, 22:45pm, Tran and the others continued to work on the codes.
Flaws watched as more codes came in and she was able to trace them to the colony.
"Son of bitch, we've got them!", she called out.
Pollard ran down the corridor.
"What do you have?", Pollard asked.
"They have two contact's within this colony," she told him.
Pollard looked at Flaws.
"Who are they?", he asked.
"Guards in E Block," she replied.
"Do you have names?", he shot back.
"Gipson and Pender," she read back.
Pollard walked into Unitis' office.
"Get Gipson and Pender in here now," he ordered.
"What's going on?", Unitis shot back.
"They have been sending messages to Aces and Eights," Pollard replied handing him evidence.
Unitis quickly called for them to come to his office.
Gipson and Pender walked into his office.
Unitis stood to his feet.
"You all have been busy sending these messages to hitmen," Unitis said handing them the paperwork.
"We had no idea they were a Hit group," Gipson replied.
Pollard stared down at the men.
"That is a bloody lie," Pollard growled at them.
"How much were you being paid for this?", Unitis added.
"$30,000 credits per message," Gipson fired back.
"Who was the person paying you?", Pollard rejoindered.
Gipson eased forward in his chair.
"Who was it?!", Pollard overflowed pounding his fist's on the desk.
"We never saw them, the money was always put in our account's," Pender added in.
"That means we are going to have to trace their account's," Unitis said softly.
Pollard had Tran and the others start working on tracing their account's.
The tracing took four hours to make.
Flaws walked in as the two guards were being lead to E Block for processing.
"The money was sent by a man named Coal Pender," she began.
"Our guard's brother?", Pollard fired back.
"One in the same," Flaws replied with a smile.
"Where is he housed?", Pollard asked.
"At Nation Warehouse in Oro Valley," Flaws answered.
Pollard got a hold of the Marshals in Oro Valley and had them bust the warehouse.
By the time they got to the warehouse, the men were gone, and the place ransacked.
This lead them down another dead end road.