Hollywood Hunter

Chapter 11.

That morning, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several other influential newspapers in the United States together reported in a major section on the assassination of Yev Serban, a Donetsk businessman and important figure in the Liberal Party of Ukraine, which took place on November 9, local time in Ukraine.

Different newspapers, while reporting on the incident from different angles and without naming names, have coincidentally criticized the deteriorating business environment and the increasingly extreme partisan struggle in Ukraine.

Immediately afterwards, at the White House press conference that morning, in response to reporters' questions, the White House spokesman similarly expressed concern about the incident and expressed concern about Ukraine's promotion of the democratization process and the degree of openness of the market economy. At the same time, considering that the large investment of international capital in Ukraine in recent years has not only boosted the country's economic development, but also brought millions of jobs to the region, the White House spokesman called on the Kiev authorities to take measures to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of overseas investors.

There's more to it than that.

On the same day, major Russian newspapers such as Kommersant, Pravda, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta similarly reported on the Sherban assassination, as well as the same concerns from the Kremlin.

The two big brothers speak out about one thing at the same time, and the assassination case, which was hopefully confined to Ukraine, is immediately known around the world. No one would be foolish enough to think that the US and Russia would speak out out of a sense of justice or for those apparently unpleasant reasons, so they followed up, plus the fact that the industrially developed and resource-rich Eastern Ukraine is a meat and potatoes region that many people are paying close attention to, and Donetsk immediately became the focus of close media attention.

Kiev, Ukraine.

The day after things began to fester, Pavlo Lazarenko, who had been up all night last night, was notified to rush to the presidential palace, and as soon as he entered the office, he was met with a pile of newspaper copies and the ranting that followed as Leon Kuchma split his head and threw them at him.

"Look what you've done, stupid, and now the whole world is watching us! A representative from the IMF just called me to say that they may be re-examining the loan funds given to us next year, and do you know what the ripple effect will be if this is not handled properly, you son of a bitch!"

Lazarenko failed to dodge, subconsciously shook his fist, saw Kuchma behind his desk staring at him fiercely, had to quickly adjust his mood and said, "Leon, I don't quite understand what you're saying ......"

A coffee cup had flown over again before the words were out of my mouth.

Lazarenko, barely dodging this time, still splashed with juice, wiped his lapels in a mess, and once again, pushing down his anger, finally said, "I mean, this is someone targeting me."

"Needless to say, a blind man can see that," Leon Kuchma's tone was still harsh, "I'm asking you now, how do you plan to end it?"

"I've ...... that one, and no one will find those killers anyway."

Kuchma grabbed another folder and threw it at him, cursing, "So you're the stupid one who can't find those killers and you're going to take the blame yourself?"

"I, Leon ......"

"I don't want to hear your bullshit, you have one week to finish this case. And no more reaching out to Donetsk, including that bitch next to you, all of you, or I'll have you out of the Prime Minister's chair."

"......"

"Dumbass, did you hear what I said?"

Lazarenko gritted his teeth and finally said, "I understand, Leon."

"Call me Mr. President from now on."

Lazarenko's heart ran cold, Kuchma was no longer taking him seriously, and after a moment's hesitation, he finally nodded, "Yes,

"Get out of here, and remember, you only have one week."

Lazarenko, however, didn't go away and couldn't resist in the end, asking, "Mr. President ......, I still want to know, who is targeting me?"

"Get out."

When Lazarenko left in ashes, an angry Leon Kuchma leaned back in his leather chair and took a while to calm down.

Still, I felt a headache thinking about the morning's continuous communication with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the IMF representative. Two years of labor, the domestic situation in Ukraine has finally stabilized, the economic decline is barely stopped, this time, the country, it is not able to withstand too much waves.

I did not expect that the right-hand man he once relied on would poke such a big basket case for himself.

Leon Kuchma actually knew exactly what Lazarenko and the woman beside him were eating, except that nowadays in Ukraine, frankly, big brother doesn't laugh at second brother, everyone does, and he didn't have the position to be too harsh about it. It's just that, after this incident, and looking at what Lazarenko has done in recent years, Kuchma gradually reacted to the fact that the former ally, both in terms of ambition and strength, is rapidly increasing.

If this continues, who can guarantee that Lazarenko will not repeat his 1994 operation of replacing the president with a prime minister in three years' time, given the perfect political and business combination of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko in this year's Russian elections?

Initially hesitant, this sudden event finally made Kuchma determined to take down Lazarenko.

However, since Lazarenko's foundation was established itself, the matter wasn't really easy.

Re-composing the thoughts in his mind, Kuchma pressed the call button on his desktop landline and asked his secretary to summon his son-in-law, and when Viktor Pinchuk entered, Kuchma said without much ado, "Viktor, go to Rivne immediately and test out what Simon Westeros wants to do."

Viktor Pinchuk sniffed, keenly connected to something: "Leon, are you saying that Westeros is the one pushing for the storm caused by that incident in Donetsk?"

Leon Kuchma nodded, and in his meeting with the American ambassador, he hadn't hidden the matter, but the deeper inner workings of the situation were unknown to that ambassador. Kuchma was initially aware of it, and was inevitably indignant, only to calm down and find that he still had to deal with it seriously.

After all, the power of Westeros is too huge, and the Rovno group, which is backed by the Westeros system, has also become powerful. Recently, with the completion of the Ukrainian parliamentary election bill, the Rovno group has also registered the Ukrainian Progressive Alliance Party, which aims to promote economic development and improve people's living standards.

Although the Rivne is clearly on his side and can be considered an ally, deep down, Kuchma is far more afraid of the Rivne than he is of them.

It was an instinctive thought for anyone, let alone the head of a nation, to sleep soundly on his or her side. What's more, the Westeros system was so strong that Kuchma was completely unsure if he would be able to fight if the other side went down on him.

Just like this time, it was a complete surprise attack, and even though he understood that it wasn't directed at him, Kuchma's scruples were inevitably a little bit more.

Unfortunately, Leon Kuchma knows that his position is not rock-solid, and that he is not only surrounded by potential rivals such as Lazarenko, who is obviously not interested, but also by the Donetsk gang, which is rapidly forming on the basis of its industrial roots and is also eyeing Kiev's power.

If you fall out with a strong supporter like Rovno, your opponents will probably wake up laughing in their sleep.

Since it was impossible to turn the tables on them, of course they would try to maintain that level of relations.

In Leon Kuchma's opinion, this is a good opportunity, Westeros is obviously not satisfied with Lazarenko, then, his own side to give another push, basically cutting off the possibility of Lazarenko competing with him in the future, and the Donetsk gang side, Kuchma feels that Simon Westeros made such a big noise, surely not just to knock Lazarenko.

Perhaps the other side was also interested in the industrial assets of the Donau region.

If he could stir up the conflict between the Rovno and Donetsk gangs through this, his side could just sit back and reap the benefits.

Following his own line of thinking, Kuchma gave his son-in-law some face-to-face advice, and Viktor Pinchuk hurriedly left Kiev for Rivne.

On the other hand, leaving the presidential palace, Lazarenko returned to the prime minister's residence, as a solid ally Tymoshenko is already waiting here, seeing Lazarenko's face full of almost indestructible anger, Tymoshenko did not have any nonsense, and directly talked about his own assumptions, although their side does not have Kuchma's direct connections to be bottomed out, but there are too many signs, in fact, it is easy to judge.

By the way, some time ago, Lazarenko wanted a piece of the $200 million Westeros resettlement community construction plan, so that a shell company controlled by Tymoshenko could get steel orders for the resettlement community, and ended up coming up empty-handed in a bid held by Aldec, and the resentful Lazarenko deliberately delayed the approval of the Rovno thermal power plant project despite Kuchma's greeting.

And that's just one of many.

Tymoshenko, who had hit a soft nail in several attempts to befriend the Westeros system, was also very unhappy with the Rovno gang, and as a local snake, and with the Prime Minister at his back, he wanted to give the Rovno gang an eye-dropper, which was really simple.

Now, a bucket of cold water poured over his head, instantly sobering.

The company's main business is to provide a wide range of services and products to the public.

In the long run, Tymoshenko also secretly departed from Kiev and rushed to Rivne.

When many people thought that the Donetsk clan would be completely lost in the fight against the Lazarenko clan, they didn't expect the turn of events to come so suddenly and violently, with two world class big brothers expressing their concern over the Sherban assassination and the Westeros system deliberately putting out the word, the Donetsk clan also reacted quickly.

And so, still on the same morning, the deputy governor of Donetsk named Viktor Yanukovych, as a representative of the Donetsk gang, went to Rivne to try to initiate contact with the Rivne gang.

The representatives of the three most important forces in Ukraine at this stage gathered in Rivne, and the nucleus of the Rovno gang could not deal with it at all, so they had to contact Simon himself.

Simon returned to the west coast of the United States on Monday, November 11, and received the news on Tuesday morning due to jet lag.

After listening to Celia Miller's report on the phone, even if you had thought about it in advance and didn't want to make too much noise, it turned out that it was a bit too hard.

Not too surprising, considering.

The truth is that Simon had underestimated the current power of the Westeros system and overestimated the ability of the various Ukrainian forces to withstand the pressure exerted by the two major powers.

If you compare Ukraine to a company, it is estimated that this year's gdp volume of about $45 billion is only a little stronger than the revenue of a Daenerys Entertainment Group in Westeros, and if you talk about surplus capacity, Daenerys Entertainment just last fiscal year more than $5 billion in net profit size, and even more burst the Ukraine can only live on debt.

So in terms of pure economic strength, Ukraine is not even as good as a Daenerys Entertainment.

So whether it's the Rivneo gang, which Simon is fostering, or the Petrovsk gang, which controls the Kiev regime, or the Donetsk gang, which is the industrial powerhouse of Eastern Ukraine, they're all just moving around in a system that's not as economically powerful as a super media and entertainment giant in Simon's hands.

To put it bluntly, for Simon, all the parties to the dispute within Ukraine are nothing more than vegetable chickens pecking each other.

When two onlookers, manipulated by the Westeros system, don't even try to hit each other, they just slap each other, and the chickens who are pecking at each other scatter in fear, because they don't know if the giant is really going to hit them or not, and with the power of the giant's strike, if it really hits them, it's a matter of minutes before they end up dead.

Celia Miller rushed to the Ukraine with her own boss's instructions, and the private jet arrived over the Rovno region, overlooking the land through the porthole, where the first snow of winter had fallen and many areas were covered in white snow. But Rivne, the capital of Rivne Oblast, which at first glance had a certain liveliness, was different from the quiet and even silent villages and towns and forested wildernesses in the white snow.

In the clear daylight skies, the private plane lowered its altitude over Rivne, and it was clear that many construction sites were still in full swing throughout the city, while the settlement community with dozens of apartment buildings on the banks of the Ustia River in the northeast of the city looked even more striking.

Sergei Komorov and Vladimir Korkosko arrived to meet the plane.

Celia stepped off the plane, felt the cold wind blowing around her, cringed, and asked the welcoming Sergei in Russian, a Russian language she had grown more proficient at over the past two years of practice, "I saw a lot of construction still going on on the plane, it's already snowing, is it okay to do that?"

Wearing a black trench coat, Sergei said, "The temperature is still above freezing during the day, the construction is not a big problem, when the temperature is below zero 24 hours a day in December, most of the work will have to stop, there is a small amount of continuation, just have to take insulation measures and replace the anti-freeze material, the cost will be much higher, at least the resettlement community side will not do so. "

Celia nodded, took a pair of gloves from her assistant Emily and put them on, and the group headed for the motorcade parked beside the runway.

At Celia's seeming lack of urgency, Vladimir, however, couldn't help it and asked, "Ms. Miller, with Pinchuk, Tymoshenko, and that deputy governor from Donetsk waiting in town, what is Simon's plan?"

Instead of answering directly, Celia said, "Follow the schedule I passed along ahead of time, is the dinner ready for later?"

"Sure, but is it just Pinchuk who's being entertained?"

Celia nodded, "This is Simon's arrangement, we and Kuchma have always been allies, that will not change, and of course allies have to play nice with each other. That is, of course, if our ally is in the victorious position. Also, I will talk to that Yanukovych tomorrow morning, Sergei, Vladimir, you will be involved in this meeting tomorrow, and to ensure the development of the Rovno region, we need to have some control over the coal resources in Donetsk. The last Tymoshenko, the boss's exact words are, "Ignore her."

For all sides on the Ukrainian side, Simon's core strategy is really quite simple: grasp the main conflict.

Leon Kuchma is that main contradiction.

As for the others, such as the Lazarenko line, Simon would let them bounce around, and as long as the other side didn't mess with him, he was happy to watch the show. Simon also believed that after this storm of public opinion, all parties would be cautious when they wanted to reach out to Rovno State again.

Said already came to the side of the convoy.

Celia paused to finish with Sergei and the two men and finally said, "I will go to the south of the city villa to rest and will be on time for the dinner in the evening, so you can go about your own business."

The two nodded, and Sergei added, "Celia, the batch of villas we built on the shores of Lake Baskerville have been completed, and there's one for you, aren't you going to go over there and try to live there?"

Celia laughed and shook her head, "No, I'm staying at the villa south of the city tonight, and tomorrow night I'm going to the manor north of the city, which was arranged by the boss."

Both of them smiled and expressed their understanding.

It was their own boss who wanted Celia to see if a group of girls were restless.

By the way, for those girls, not to mention Vladimir Korkosko who had his own daughter among them, the other cores of the Westeros system on this side of Rovno State were incredibly attentive. Of course, definitely not with certain thoughts of being attentive, but to avoid as much as possible the coveted attention of those girls, so as not to drag them into encountering the wrath of their own bosses.

After all, with their gang's current status, there was no shortage of women, and securing their wealth and power was the first priority. And all of this came from a certain young man behind a group of girls.