When they arrived at the office, they found Martin, a black man, sitting in his chair. He pulled three envelopes from his drawer and tossed them to Logan and his companions.
"Your reward, gentlemen: twenty thousand." Martin was concise, without a single unnecessary word.
Samuel and Josh took their envelopes, opened them, and excitedly counted their reward, their faces beaming with excitement, already planning where they would spend the night.
Logan, however, lacked such thoughts. After a quick glance at the thickness of the envelope, he slipped it into his pocket.
His mind was preoccupied with the Chitauri weapons.
If he remembered correctly, the weapons were temporarily stored in a logistics warehouse in this area, perhaps somewhere in the inner storage room.
If he could find a way to cause a disturbance, maybe he could leave with the Professor and Caliban tomorrow morning!
Thinking about this, Logan felt a surge of desire, but he didn't rush straight for the weapons. Instead, he followed Josh and Samuel out of the warehouse, and the three went to a nearby bar for a drink.
It was a bar open all night, with attractive dancers, loud music, and dazzling lights that kept the place in a constant frenzy. The three watched the beautiful women dancing, chugging beer, and venting the fatigue of their journey.
Almost an hour later, Samuel and Josh were slightly drunk, mumbling incoherently.
Taking advantage of this, Logan excused himself to go to the restroom and quickly slipped out of the bar, returning swiftly to the logistics warehouse.
This logistics warehouse was enormous, with surveillance cameras everywhere and armed guards patrolling regularly.
The Lawrence family had connections throughout the city of Santa Fe, connecting the legal and illegal worlds; their guards could shoot any stranger entering the warehouse with impunity.
Logan hid in the darkness, carefully avoiding the surveillance cameras and patrolling guards, clinging to the warehouse's outer wall, looking for a way to get in.
He wanted to provoke a conflict between the Lawrence family and S.H.I.E.L.D., but he didn't want Chris to discover his intention to flee before the two sides officially clashed.
"Damn it!" Logan cursed under his breath after circling the warehouse.
The front and back doors were locked and equipped with state-of-the-art alarm systems. Any attempt to force the locks or break in would trigger an alarm audible for miles, attracting all the guards.
Logan looked helplessly toward the ventilation shafts.
This was the only entrance he could use to get into the warehouse at that moment.
Extending his claws and inserting them into the cracks in the wall, Logan quickly climbed to the ventilation shafts on the top of the warehouse, cleared the exterior obstruction, and successfully entered, crouching as he slid through the narrow duct.
Through the ventilation openings, Logan could clearly see that the warehouse was brightly lit, with surveillance cameras scattered in every corner and guards patrolling regularly.
Taking advantage of a gap in the guards' movements, Logan opened a ventilation duct and slipped stealthily into the warehouse.
Carefully avoiding the guards and surveillance cameras, Logan finally found the BU-26 and BU-27 boxes stored in a corner of the warehouse.
Although he found his targets, Logan couldn't act rashly.
"This location is too complicated!" he muttered quietly.
The two boxes were surrounded by surveillance cameras, leaving no blind spots for him to approach.
Looking at the surveillance cameras surrounding the merchandise, Logan pondered for a moment, then turned to observe the monitoring room on the second floor of the warehouse.
He had been in this warehouse before, pretending to deliver merchandise to get inside, so he knew the environment well.
He crept up to the monitoring room door and cautiously opened it.
There was only one guard. Bored with the surveillance team's rounds, the guy was yawning nonstop, not even noticing Logan stealthily approaching from behind.
Logan reached out and, decisively, struck the guard on the back of the neck, rendering him unconscious. Then he put on the guard's jacket and started working on the computer.
After some adjustments, the surveillance recording was completely frozen, unable to record more real-time footage.
Once that was sorted, Logan slipped past the guards again and returned to the two boxes of merchandise.
Without the surveillance, Logan felt completely at ease. He naturally opened the BU-26 box, reached in to pull out the laser cannon, and couldn't help but examine it closely.
"This thing... how do I activate it?" he observed the advanced-technology laser cannon, momentarily puzzled.
The slender weapon appeared to be about 1.3 meters long, completely gold and silver, with no magazine. It had a muzzle at the front, with a close-combat blade attached underneath, but no safeties or loading mechanisms were visible. Logan felt it looked more like a trigger-operated close-combat weapon than a gun...
Just as Logan was carefully examining the weapon, a loud shout suddenly rang out behind him. "Who are you!"
A guard raised his gun at Logan's back, simultaneously pressing the alarm on his chest.
As the alarm sounded, dozens of guards rushed in from all directions, instantly surrounding Logan.
Dozens of pistols, their black muzzles fixed on him.
Logan looked at the guards and sighed helplessly.
"Gentlemen, calm down," Logan said, holding the laser cannon.
He only intended to fire the laser and be done with it, but now it seemed things wouldn't end so easily...
"Put that down!" a guard snapped at Logan, observing the laser cannon with apprehension.
Although he didn't understand what it was, its appearance filled him with a sense of danger...
"You mean this?"
Logan looked at the laser cannon, raised it, and pointed it at the guard, creating a standoff with dozens of pistols.
Seeing this, everyone instantly panicked, instinctively backing away.
"Put that down right now!" the guard roared, his pistol aimed at Logan's head, ready to fire at any moment.
"Fine," Logan shrugged, decisively pulling the trigger.
Click!
As the trigger clicked, all the guards' expressions changed drastically. Without the strength to resist, they threw themselves to the ground in terror, tightly gripping their heads.
Chris had told them more than once that the contents of that box were important and dangerous.
Buzz!
The laser cannon emitted a buzzing sound.
But it was only a buzz...
Logan stared blankly at the motionless laser cannon in his hand, completely stunned.
Damn it, failure!
Logan wasn't sure if it was a problem with the weapon or with himself; after all, he had only seen these things in movies and had no idea how to use them.
The guards lying on the ground, seeing no movement, also looked up.
Seeing that the laser cannon only buzzed but didn't fire, their fear instantly vanished.
"F*ck, kill him!"
A guard jumped to his feet, his face full of rage, feeling as if he had been tricked. Without hesitation, he raised his pistol to pull the trigger.
Boom!
But before he could fully pull the trigger, the laser cannon's buzzing suddenly stopped, and at the same time, a dazzling blue light suddenly appeared at the cannon's muzzle.
The sudden brightness was extremely blinding, impossible to look at directly; even with closed eyes, the blue light seemed capable of piercing eyelids and stabbing into the pupils!
The dimly lit warehouse was instantly enveloped in this blue light, as if the entire warehouse had turned blue.
Boom!
The dazzling blue beam erupted, striking the guard in front of him.
In a single shot, the guard's body exploded as if hit by artillery fire, splattering flesh and blood everywhere, and bones flying in all directions!