Hollywood Hunter

Chapter 58.

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Since getting this new job, former Stasi agent Ulrich Sandmann feels like he's been living more turbulent and adrift in recent years than he once was.

Ulrich had never met his new employer in person, but we all knew who the man was.

Because there had been no direct contact, if something went wrong, such as their arrest for murder, they would not implicate the big man in high places, just as long, long ago, if a Stasi agent failed in his mission, he would likewise not receive any public recognition from East Germany.

This is customary.

Ulrich Sandman is 43 years old, which is a bit old for an agent, especially a field agent, and when the country he once served collapsed, Ulrich considered retiring down the road and getting a mundane job.

Unfortunately, things never work out for people.

First of all, he's got a very dirty bottom.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the new German government never stopped investigating and pursuing former Stasi members, so much so that a large number of former Stasi members were arrested, many others were forced to flee, and countless assassinations were carried out without explanation.

Ulrich has been very lucky by comparison.

Secondly, even if he managed to avoid a reckoning, it won't be easy for Ulrich to smooth things out.

Because he had a lot of people to feed.

Not only his elderly parents, wife and four children, there is also a younger sister who is 21 years old, who is very good in her studies and never had a chance before.

It's still just family.

Ulrich also has six families of deceased comrades in need of help.

This, in turn, involves a series of unpleasantly old episodes.

Once he worked his way up the ladder, once reaching the rank of major, which is even a bit ridiculously sad, either because he had some kind of official addiction, or to get some more pay allowance, as well as to quietly use this position to earn some shady extra money, just to be able to help as many people around him as possible.

Therefore, it is not possible to turn to blandness by any means.

Now, with the exception of his little sister, who went to school in the United States, Ulrich's family lives in Australia, rich and stable, and even though he understands that his relatives are fundamentally being held hostage, Ulrich doesn't feel bad about it.

It's a matter of course.

If that behind-the-scenes boss didn't even have a similar defense against them all, he would be underestimated instead.

And as long as he doesn't betray, nothing will happen, even if he dies in the mission, Ulrich believes his loved ones will be well taken care of. After all, the last thing the young tycoon with trillions of dollars in assets needed was money, and all the other side wanted was his loyalty.

Once it was possible to be loyal to one's country, and now Ulrich could be loyal to someone.

Deep down, Ulrich understood that it was a very fair exchange, and that his life was even sold to the other side, because the man offered a much more generous salary than in East Germany, so much so that he even wondered if he was worth it, and in any case, not only did his family get the best settlement, but he could also help the families of his fallen comrades more generously.

Nothing bad.

Ulrich Sandmann is now holding an Australian passport at public level, and while the name remains the same, it's essentially the same as a new person under the operation of the Westeros system, and will not be subject to the same entanglements that he once had.

Presumably confirming his loyalty and reliability, Ulrich now also has five operational teams in his hands.

After several years of quiet observation, Ulrich understood that for the relatively flat structure of the interconnected private intelligence network of the Westeros family.

Ulrich was still a little lucky.

In recent years, you have led groups that may have killed people, but no one has died.

So there was no further increase in the debt.

And, this time, even if someone died, it would only be that person who needed to make amends, and he had nothing to do with it.

Once he was the equivalent of an officer, an officer commanding soldiers to charge into battle, as a matter of course, but he had never been used to commanding others to die, and he was even more willing to die himself. Perhaps the fact that he had been promoted to the rank of Major at a young age and had not been promoted again for many years afterwards was also because the Stasi brass had discovered his kind of womanhood.

Ulrich was equally personally involved in this mission.

It was a somewhat baffling mission to say the least, investigating smuggling routes around the world that pointed to France.

Perhaps it was the need to personally follow up on the snakehead group, which existed quite dangerous, that had moved them as a team.

There was nothing wrong with that.

Though bar, Ulrich wondered what the rich young man wanted to know about this doing, as in years past, they were always getting all sorts of seemingly unreasonable assignments, and one of Ulrich's subordinates had once laughed and pointed out that the big man probably just didn't want to keep them idle.

Perhaps that was a possibility.

But it would be great if it was true.

Ulrich, however, would not be so naive, just like two years ago, when they were involved in some trivial operation in southern Italy that seemed to make no sense at first either, however, one night later, a family of the Southern Italian Glorious Society was uprooted. Ulrich wondered how many people had been killed in total in the whole process.

It must have been quite a few.

That night in Reggio, a city in southern Italy just across the sea from Sicily, there were gunshots and explosions in many areas, even making people think there was a riot.

Based on the indications that followed, Ulrich also discovered that their boss behind the scenes had incidentally fostered a puppet family in the city of Reggio, and their investigation of this smuggling route had been quite helpful from that Glorious Society-affiliated Danelli family.

And then there was the thousands of kilometers of running around.

Ulrich led the group directly to a full complement of six, this time only two other members were selected, and the three first came to a small town on the northern border of Iraq.

There was a snakehead stronghold here that was responsible for recruiting clients.

Waiting patiently for a week, Ulrich's three left Iraq with a group of a total of 129 smugglers recruited by the snakehead team and entered Turkey, making an overnight trip to a small village on the south-central Turkish coast.

They lurked for a while.

It was another three days of waiting until late one night, when all the stowaways, who were a little depressed from their long journey and nervousness, were woken up and hurried to a dock by the sea to board a cargo ship for the most difficult part of the sea voyage.

The 129 stowaways, 93 men and 36 women, are all herded into the lowest cabin on the ship, where the Snakehead team, wearing masks the entire time, collects $1,000 in cash from each stowaway, half of which is collected upon arrival at their destination.

It's a rule of the more formal snakeheads' organization.

Or rather, a rule formed after a long run-in with the stowaways, because on the stowaway routes, there have been too many stowaways have been murdered and abandoned, the smarter stowaways will keep half of the funds, and pay when they arrive at their destination, and the regular snakeheads will not force them.

The regular snakeheads are a bit odd, to say the least.

But it's true.

The reason is that there are many unregulated and unprofessional snakeheads, as well as poor stowaways who don't know the rules and are cheated or even killed.

The three Ulrichs were disguised in a very elaborate way throughout the mission, including their new identities. After boarding the ship, because of prior arrangements, they were considered VIPs on the ship, and the snakeheads only wore masks when they came into contact with the stowaways.

Even taking pictures was no problem.

As long as sensitive information such as their faces were not taken, the three were free to do as they pleased.

Broadly speaking, it was a cargo ship registered in the Panamanian Islands.

A cargo ship sailing in the Mediterranean Sea is registered in Panama, in fact, is also a practice, and there are even many registered in the more unpopular African or South Asian ships, in the final analysis, is still convenient in the event of an accident to shirk responsibility.

The three people follow the snakehead organization, to be precise, also take care of smuggling work, from France to Greece, send a trip cargo, return, and then bring back a number of stowaways, both sides of the money.

The price per stowaway is $2,000, which is the current market price.

The cost of stowaways on the Mediterranean is basically the same, those unprofessional snakehead organizations may be cheaper, perhaps $1,000 will be enough, of course, they organize the stowaway scale will be small, or even some regular shipping company internal small team secretly earn extra money, by the way in the cabin hidden a few people kind of.

After all, although the work of seafarers is hard, the salary is not high.

Even if you smuggle ten or eight at a time, it's a considerable amount of extra money.

As for this regular snakehead organization, on top of the $2,000 smuggling fee, it could make more extra in the future.

Because upon arrival, there will be another group of people to arrange work for the smugglers, and then, the smugglers need to use the next few years of work in installments to pay another commission, the number varies, this time the public figure is equivalent to about $8,000. In other words, the overall cost of smuggling these stowaways is $10,000.

That may seem like a lot, but these smugglers are actually lucky.

Because for $10,000, they can get everything taken care of, unlike some amateur snakeheads who leave their people on shore and don't care. It's fine that the stowaways have some cast-offs, but if they're some hothead who thinks they'll get a good life by reaching the other side, they often end up very miserable.

And of course there is no binding agreement.

It's just that these people are tightly controlled by the snakeheads for years afterwards and are almost the equivalent of cheap labor or, to use another word, slaves.

In developed countries in the West, the average citizen is often unwilling to do certain jobs that are dirty, tiring and poorly paid, so these cheap, almost slave laborers are needed, as well as regular legal laborers, but there are actually more illegal laborers, and they are almost tacitly accepted by the authorities, who not only don't have to provide any benefits for these people, but also do their best to use them as mules and horses.

If someone is causing trouble, even simpler, deportation.

So, what appears to be a follow-up $8,000, which is only two or three months' wages for the average Western citizen, may take years for these smugglers to repay, and, because they are controlled by the snakeheads, say $8,000, how much the snakeheads actually get, perhaps the smugglers themselves don't even know.

In any case, for these stowaways, as long as they can reach Western Europe and settle down, it's probably worth paying any amount.

For example, at this time on this ship, Ulrich knows that the stowaways in the bottom bin are the Kurds in northern Iraq, the Kurds in the Middle East are like the gypsies in Europe, and the living conditions are even worse, even the most basic life is difficult to protect, especially in these years suffered from severe sanctions Iraq's economic situation worsened, the situation of the Kurds have become worse.

"It's actually not too good a route," on the night deck, Ulrich and the captain, who called himself Renault, smoking a cigarette together, because of the delivery from above, the ship's snakehead team for Ulrich a few people may be curious, but not too guarded, at this time instead of a little talk : "Since the end of the Cold War, stowaways have been a very hot business in recent years, it's just that the Middle East and France, one isn't the best starting point and the other isn't the best destination, John, do you know why?"

John was Ulrich's pseudonym code name for this operation. Shaking his head, Ulrich asked, "Why?

Captain Reynolds said, "This side of the Middle East, as I'm sure you're well aware, they're not exactly qualified laborers because of religious customs, and smuggling these people is often more than worth the effort."

Ulrich asked, "Then why do you still do it?"

With some shrewdness in his eyes, Captain Renault smiled, "Because we can make sure that they can't do whatever they want once they arrive at their destination, and if anyone is lazy, a leather whip would certainly be very useful." Saying so, without waiting for Ulrich to ask a follow-up question, Captain Renault added, "As for the French side, since it has been a right-wing rule for all these years, the crackdown on illegal immigrants is very strict, and smuggling is very difficult."

At this point, Captain Renault replaced a cigarette, lit it and took a deep drag, then said, "The best quality smuggling routes nowadays are actually from Eastern Europe to Western Europe, because of the similarity in skin color, Eastern Europeans are more easily integrated into Western Europe, and unlike these niggers in Africa and the Middle East, Eastern Europeans are also more competent, so much so that the governments of some countries such as Germany are almost tacitly accepting illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe Sneak into their countries, because they lack cheap labor. Also, heh, there is actually Asia, but the line is too far away and very difficult to make, but perhaps you know that Asians are very industrious, and I would actually prefer to make the Asian line if I didn't have no access to it."

Ulrich laughed, made a silent note of this, and after a little more conversation with Captain Renault, it was time for dinner, and we all went into the cabin to eat.

Then it was time to serve meals to the stowaways in the bottoms.

It was a job that many did not enjoy doing, and Ulrich and the two attendants volunteered to help, to the delight of the snakeheads.

Six or seven men arrived at the bilge with plastic buckets of rice and fresh water, and as soon as they entered, a disgusting, mixed and strange smell hit them.

The snake head organization member responsible for distributing food and fresh water knocked on the bucket in his hands, hailing many like ghosts in the dark cabin stowaways came up to collect food, not do not want to directly put down the food to leave, just, do so home, maybe someone will not get food, or even someone will die of hunger and thirst.

These are cheap laborers that will continue to provide profits for the organization in the future, and the Snakehead team on the ship can only do as much as they can without anyone dying.