Since getting his new job, former Stasi agent Ulrich Sandmann has felt that his recent years have been more turbulent and adrift than ever.
Ulrich had never met his new employer in person, but everyone knew who he was.
Because there has been no direct contact, once a problem arises, for example, they are arrested for murder and other crimes, the high-ranking big shot will not be involved. Just like a long time ago, if the Stasi agent failed to perform the mission, he would not be involved. Any public recognition by East Germany.
This is customary.
Ulrich Sandmann is 43 years old this year, which is a bit old for an agent, especially a field agent. When the country he once served collapsed, Ulrich also considered retiring and finding a dull job. work.
It's a pity that things are never left to one's own control.
First of all, his background is very dirty.
Even if you want to escape unscathed, it depends on whether the post-merger German government is willing to let it go. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the new German government never stopped investigating and pursuing former Stasi members, so that a large number of Former Stasi members were arrested, many were forced to flee, and countless others were assassinated and died in mysterious circumstances.
In comparison, Ulrich was very lucky.
Secondly, even if he escaped liquidation by luck, it would not be easy for Ulrich to stabilize.
Because he has a lot of people to feed.
Not only his elderly parents, wife and four children, but also a sister who is 21 years younger than him. She has good academic performance and had no chance before. Now, she is about to graduate from Columbia University in the United States and plans to study in the next four years. After getting a doctorate, if he had turned to mediocrity, he would not have been able to pay for his sister's tuition, not to mention his own growing children.
These are just relatives.
Ulrich also has six families of fallen comrades who need help.
This involves a series of unbearable past events.
He once worked hard to climb up the ranks and once reached the level of major. It was even a bit ridiculous and sad to say that he was either addicted to officialdom or just to get more salary subsidies and secretly use this status to make some shady extra money, just to Be able to help as many people around you as possible.
Therefore, it is impossible to turn to mediocrity in any case.
Now, except for his younger sister who is studying in the United States, Ulrich's family members all live in Australia, and their lives are prosperous and stable. Even though he understands that his relatives are basically being used as hostages, Ulrich does not feel inappropriate.
This is a given.
If the boss behind the scenes didn't even take similar precautions against people like them, he would look down upon him.
Moreover, as long as he does not betray, nothing will happen. Even if he dies during the mission, Ulrich believes that his relatives will be well taken care of. After all, what the young rich man with trillions of dollars in assets needs most is money, and what the other party wants is his loyalty.
Once it was possible to be loyal to one's country, now Ulrich could also be loyal to a certain person.
Deep down in his heart, Ulrich understood that this was a fair exchange. Even if he sold his life to the other party, the salary offered by that person was much richer than during the East German period. It was so much that he even doubted himself. Is it worth it? In any case, not only does his family get the best settlement, but he can also help the families of those who lost his comrades more generously.
Nothing wrong with that.
Ulrich Sandmann currently holds an Australian passport at a public level. Although his name has not changed, under the operation of the Westeros system, he is basically a different person and will no longer be affected by the past. The entanglement of the past.
Probably to confirm his loyalty and reliability, Ulrich now still controls five action groups.
After several years of quiet observation, Ulrich understood that for the private intelligence network of the Westeros family, which has a relatively flat structure and is not interconnected with each other, this is already a very high level and a considerable level of trust.
Ulrich was a little lucky.
In recent years, the group he led may have killed people, but no one died.
Therefore, the debt will no longer increase.
Moreover, this time, even if someone dies, it will only be that person who needs to make amends, and it has nothing to do with him.
He used to be equivalent to an officer. It was natural for an officer to command soldiers to charge into battle, but he had never been used to commanding others to die. He even preferred to die himself. Perhaps he was promoted to the rank of major at a young age and then was not promoted again for many years because the Stasi senior officials discovered his kindness to a woman.
Ulrich also handled this task personally.
It is also a somewhat inexplicable mission to investigate smuggling routes around the world leading to France.
Perhaps it was necessary to follow up with the smuggler organization personally, and there was considerable danger, so their team was used.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Although, Ulrich couldn't figure out what the young rich man wanted to know about this. Just like in the past few years, they had always received various seemingly unreasonable tasks. One of Ulrich's subordinates once Laughing, he pointed out that the big shot probably just didn't want to leave them idle.
Maybe it's possible.
It would be great if it was true, though.
Ulrich would not be so naive. Just like two years ago, some trivial actions they participated in in southern Italy seemed unreasonable at first. However, after one night, a family of the 'Ndrangheta in southern Italy was uprooted. . Ulrich didn't know how many people were killed in the entire process.
Certainly a lot.
That night, in the city of Regio, across the sea from Sicily in southern Italy, there were gunfire and explosions in many areas, which even made people think that a riot had occurred.
According to various subsequent signs, Ulrich also discovered that their boss behind the scenes had also established a puppet family in Regio City. During their investigation of the smuggling route, the Danieli family, a subordinate of the 'Ndrangheta, provided Was quite helpful.
Then there are thousands of kilometers of travel.
The team directly led by Ulrich was fully composed of six people. This time only two other members were selected. The three first came to a small town on the northern border of Iraq.
There is a smuggler stronghold here, responsible for recruiting customers.
After waiting patiently for a week, the three Ulrichs left Iraq with a group of 129 stowaways recruited by the smuggler team, entered Turkey, and ran through the night to a small village on the seaside in central and southern Turkey.
Hidden for now.
This was another three days of waiting, until late one night, all the stowaways, who were a little depressed due to the long journey and mental stress, were woken up and hurried to a dock on the seaside, boarded a cargo ship, and entered the most difficult journey. A sea voyage.
The 129 stowaways, 93 men and 36 women, were all herded into the lowest cabin after boarding the ship. The smuggler team members wore masks the whole time and collected US$1,000 in cash from each stowaway after entering the cabin. This is only half, the other half will be collected after arriving at the destination.
This is a rule of the more formal snakehead organizations.
In other words, it is a rule formed after working with stowaways for a long time, because there have been too many bad incidents of stowaways being murdered and abandoned on the stowaway routes. Smarter stowaways will keep half of their funds and return it when they arrive at their destination. If you pay, formal smugglers will not forcefully ask for it.
A formal smuggler organization sounds a bit weird.
But it's true.
Because there are many informal and unprofessional smuggler organizations, as well as poor stowaways who do not understand the rules and are deceived or even killed.
The three Ulrichs made quite elaborate disguises during the entire mission, including new identities. After boarding the ship, because they had made arrangements in advance, they were considered VIPs on the ship. The members of the smuggler organization only came into contact with the stowaways. Wearing a mask, I didn't have any defense against them, because I heard from above that I would have big business with these people in the future, and they cooperated proactively to give the three of them the information they needed.
Even taking photos is no problem.
The mission of the three people requires photo data. As long as they do not take photos of sensitive information such as faces, the three of them can do whatever they want.
Roughly speaking, this is a cargo ship registered in the Panama Islands.
It is actually a common practice for cargo ships sailing on the Mediterranean to be registered in Panama. There are even many ships registered in less popular Africa or South Asia. In the final analysis, it is convenient to shirk responsibility in case of an accident.
To be precise, the smuggler organization that the three of them followed was also involved in smuggling work. They would deliver goods from France to Greece and then bring back a group of stowaways when they returned, making money on both sides.
The price of each stowaway is US$2,000, which is also the current market price.
The cost of smuggling in the Mediterranean is basically the same. Those unprofessional smuggler organizations may be cheaper, maybe 1,000 US dollars is enough. Of course, the scale of smuggling organized by them will be small, and it may even be small teams within some regular shipping companies to secretly earn extra money. Just hide a few people in the cabin.
After all, although the work of seafarers is hard, the salary is not high.
Even if ten or eight people are smuggled in at one time, it is still a considerable amount of extra money.
As for this formal smuggler organization, in addition to the US$2,000 smuggling fee, it can also earn more in the future.
Because after arrival, there will be another group of people to arrange work for these stowaways. Then, the stowaways need to use their work in the next few years to pay another commission in batches. The amount is uncertain. The public figure this time is equivalent to about 8,000 US dollars. . In other words, the overall cost of smuggling these immigrants is US$10,000.
It may seem high, but these stowaways are actually lucky.
Because after paying 10,000 US dollars, everything for them can be settled quite properly, unlike some amateur smugglers who just throw people on the shore and ignore them. It's good that the stowaways have defected, but if they are some hot-headed stowaways who think they can live a good life on the other side, they often end up very miserable.
Of course there is no binding agreement.
However, these people will be tightly controlled by smuggler organizations in the following years, almost equivalent to cheap labor, or, to use another word, slaves.
In developed countries in the West, ordinary citizens are often unwilling to do certain jobs that are dirty, tiring and low-paying, so they need these cheap laborers who are almost slaves. Of course, there are also regular legal workers. There are actually more illegal workers, and they are almost The authorities acquiesce, because the authorities not only do not need to provide any benefits to these people, but can also try their best to do their best like mules and horses.
If someone causes trouble, it's even simpler, deport them.
Therefore, it seems that the subsequent $8,000 is only two or three months' salary for ordinary Western citizens. For these stowaways, it may take several years to repay it. Moreover, because it is controlled by the smuggler organization, it is said to be $8,000. Perhaps the stowaways themselves don't even know how much the smugglers have gotten.
In any case, for these stowaways, as long as they can reach Western Europe and settle down, no matter how much they pay, it is probably worth it.
For example, on this ship at this time, Ulrich knew that the stowaways in the bottom warehouse were all Kurds from northern Iraq. The Kurds in the Middle East were like the Gypsies in Europe, and their living conditions were even worse, and even the most basic life was in danger. It is difficult to obtain guarantees, especially as the economic situation in Iraq, which has suffered severe sanctions in recent years, has deteriorated, and the situation of the Kurds has become worse.
"Actually, this is not a very good route." On the deck in the night, Ulrich was smoking a cigarette with the captain who claimed to be named Renault. Because of the explanation above, the smuggler team on the ship had little regard for Ulrich. People may be curious, but they are not too wary. At this time, they are talking eloquently: "Since the end of the Cold War, smuggling has been a very popular business in recent years. However, the Middle East and France are not the best starting points, and neither is the best starting point." Not the best destination, John, and you know why?”
John was Ulrich's pseudonym for this operation. Shaking his head, Ulrich asked: "Why
Captain Renault said: "Here in the Middle East, I think you must know very well that due to religious habits, they are not very qualified workers. Smuggling these people is often not worth the gain."
Ulrich asked: "Then why are you still doing it?"
Captain Reno flashed some shrewdness in his eyes and smiled: "Because we can guarantee that after they arrive at their destination, they can't do whatever they want. If someone is lazy, the whip will definitely be very useful." With that said, without waiting for Ur Rishi asked, and Captain Renault added: "As for the French side, because the right-wing has been in power over the years, the crackdown on illegal immigrants is very strict, and it is very difficult to smuggle people across."
Having said this, Captain Renault changed a cigarette, lit it, took a deep breath, and continued: "The best smuggling route now is actually from Eastern Europe to Western Europe. Because the skin color is similar, it is easier for Eastern Europeans to integrate into Western Europe. Moreover, Unlike black ghosts in Africa and those in the Middle East, Eastern Europeans are more capable, so much so that the governments of some countries such as Germany almost acquiesce in illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe sneaking into their countries because these countries lack cheap labor. In addition, huh, actually There is also Asia, but this route is too far away and is very difficult to do. However, as you may also know, Asians are very hard-working. If it were not for the lack of opportunities, I would actually prefer to do this route in Asia."
Ulrich smiled, silently noted this, and chatted with Captain Renault for a while. When it was dinner time, everyone entered the cabin to eat together.
Then there is the meal delivery to the stowaways in the bottom warehouse.
This is a job that many people don't like to do. Ulrich and his two followers took the initiative to help, which the smugglers liked to hear.
Six or seven people carried plastic buckets containing rice and fresh water to the bottom of the cabin. As soon as they entered, a disgusting mixed smell hit their faces.
The members of the smuggler organization responsible for distributing food and fresh water knocked on the buckets in their hands, and many ghost-like stowaways huddled in the dark cabin came up to receive the food. It was not that they did not want to put down the food and leave, but there might be someone who did this. There will be no food, and some may even die of hunger and thirst.
These are cheap labor that can continue to provide profits for the organization in the future. The smuggler team on the ship does not want anyone to die, so they can only do it as much as possible.