War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1940 Continue the Trade
At four o'clock in the morning, Wei Ran completed the third round of interrogation of Yalf.

After these three rounds of interrogation, Alf's condition was not good, but out of some tacit understanding, neither he nor Thomas inflicted any serious wounds on him.

It was through these three rounds of interrogation that he, Thomas, and Dragan, who joined halfway through, gradually pieced together a relatively accurate set of intelligence.

Of course, while they were busy interrogating the children, Luna and the others had already arrived at the place under the cover of darkness and when it was quietest, and rescued the children who were imprisoned there.

At this moment, on the first floor of the building, behind a bar protected by layers of sandbags, Damir stood guard behind a machine gun, aiming at the door and ready for action.

Also on the first floor was Emil, who was carefully inspecting the various rooms while holding a Romanian-made AK rifle.

The second-floor space was left to a young man named Golan.

The third and fourth floors are not only empty, but their entrances and exits have also been locked.

On the seventh floor, where the generator was located, six prisoners, led by Alf, were held in separate rooms.

Wei Ran dislocated the joints of all six prisoners, gagged them with towels, smelly socks, or torn gloves, and handcuffed them to the heating pipes.

On the eighth floor, in the relatively nicer guest room area, the rescued girls and boys were being comforted and tallied by Luna and Zorana.

Klaus, or rather Mr. W, was also busy compiling statistics.

He was in charge of keeping track of all the supplies stored in the building, and of course, calculating commissions.

On the 16th floor of the building, Wei Ran, Dragan, and Thomas sat around two tables pushed together, assessing the current situation through several sniper rifles placed on the tables.

The situation is actually quite simple.

Wei Ran was the first to speak, summarizing, "First of all, Deyang is taking advantage of both sides. According to our interrogation, in addition to providing training and weapons smuggling to the Ke and Mu tribes, they are also assisting both sides in their battles."

“Mercenaries are the catalyst for war, and that’s absolutely true,” Thomas sighed.

Secondly

Wei Ran paused and continued, "It seems that Deyang is preparing to deal with some reporters or observers who know something, and there are intelligence personnel controlled by Deyang or his people in the Holiday Inn."

"You might as well just say the United States or NATO," Dragan snorted irritably.

"No matter who it is"

Wei Ran bluntly stated, "Deyang is preparing to deal with some people, and is preparing to make us, or more precisely, the two of you, take the blame."

"I have no special status."

Thomas stated, "I did retire from Hubert, but I didn't work for any person or organization; I simply accepted an invitation from an athlete."

"Come on, nobody cares whose invitation you accepted."

As Dragan spoke, he tossed a Marlboro to Thomas across from him and Wei Ran, who was sitting beside them, and said, "You come from Hubert, and no matter who you're for, Hubert will take the blame for you. It's like..."

"It's like mud falling into your crotch."

Wei Ran lit a cigarette and said, puffing out smoke, "If I said it was shit, nobody would disbelieve me."

"What a perfect metaphor!"

Dragan, who had also lit a cigarette, clapped and praised.

"It's your turn"

Thomas lit a cigarette, annoyed. "And what's wrong with you now? You KGB bastard?"

"The Stasi, the Stasi everywhere."

Dragan said nonchalantly, "This was no big deal in East Berlin a few years ago. Everyone was an IM. I just happened to be thrown into West Berlin through some means."

"Just a coincidence?"

"My good brother Klaus is also a Stasi IM."

Dragan fiddled with the silver Zippo lighter he'd pulled from the corpse. "That's all."

None of this matters.

Wei Ran tapped the table. "Someone wants you to take the blame, so nobody cares. Let's get back to the building."

After a brief pause, he continued, "This is also a safe house, a safe house in Deyang, a safe house for intelligence personnel, and a safe house for the so-called Serbian snipers and artillery observers."

"We need to keep this place running."

Thomas said, "This will give us a lot of intelligence, and as long as the various factions don't notice, this place is safe."

“So the key lies with Alf,” Dragan keenly sensed the crucial point.

"It was easy to persuade him."

Thomas said, "He's a mercenary, and he knows the rules of mercenaries. If this place is exposed, all he'll get is mortar bombardment; no one will come to rescue him."

"We still need to solve two problems."

Dragan added, "First, to keep this safe house running, we have to kill two journalists who seem to know something, as Deyang requested."

Secondly, Thomas, what's going on with your partner? And what are you and your friend investigating?
Third, there are plenty of supplies here, but there are too many children, and these children need to leave as soon as possible.

Finally, we need to take out the snipers and artillery observers in the daily newspaper building; we might even need to occupy that area.

“First of all, I’ve met those two reporters; they are indeed at the Holiday Inn,” Thomas said. “We can recruit them.”

“Your partner and friend,” Wei Ran began.

"My friends and I have been investigating arms smuggling."

Thomas admitted, "But I never expected that Deyang would be involved in this."

As for my partner, I don't believe he's been bribed.

“You’d better have solid evidence, instead of relying on your gut feeling like a woman,” Dragan said scathingly.

“My partner is my uncle, my mother’s younger brother,” Thomas retorted. “Is that reason enough?”

“That’s enough,” Dragan nodded; the reason was indeed sufficient.

"So we actually had a spy on the other side, and we managed to win at least one point."

Thomas paused for a moment and continued, "I'll try to find a way to get the children out of here, but I'm afraid I can't do anything about the Daily News building."

"What's your plan to get these children out of here?" Wei Ran pressed.

"Going out through the tunnel is the safest option."

Thomas said, "That tunnel was already being used to evacuate residents. I'll figure something out; the children can definitely get out through there. So the problem is..."

"No, there's still the issue of commission."

Before Thomas could finish speaking, Klaus had already walked up. "We killed and captured a total of 25 colleagues. According to the agreed double calculation, each of these lovely colleagues is worth $200."

In addition, we rescued a total of 39 children, paying them $500 each as agreed.

All of this adds up to $24500. Mr. Thomas, or Mr. S, or Mr. Executioner, whatever you may call me, please pay first.

"The rescue can only be considered complete once those children are removed from the war zone."

Despite his words, Thomas still pulled out a roll of US dollars from his pocket and placed it directly on the table. "This is ten thousand dollars, maybe a few more or a few less, just consider it ten thousand dollars."

I will pay the remaining balance once the children are safe.

"You actually carry so much cash with you?" Klaus exclaimed in surprise as he scooped up the roll of banknotes.

“Money is the most useless thing in Sarajevo,” Thomas said. “So, shall we continue the transaction?”

"Wait first"

As Klaus spoke, he untied the hemp rope binding the roll of US dollars and began counting them one by one, as if dealing cards.

"The war will be over once you finish counting."

As Wei Ran spoke, he picked up the banknotes on the table, took the other person's banknotes and put them together, then spat on his fingertips and began counting them skillfully.

$9700

Wei Ran soon gave a number that he had counted twice.

"Mr. T, were you a bank teller before?" Thomas asked, surprised. "I used to be a bank security guard."

Wei Ran casually made up a new identity, "Shouldn't we continue our previous topic?"

Seeing everyone looking at them, Klaus and Dragan exchanged a glance and nodded readily. "Deal! Let's continue the transaction."

“In that case, I’ll go talk to Mr. Alf now,” Thomas said, standing up. “What about the Daily News?”

“Leave it to us,” Dragan replied before the other party could finish speaking.

Watching the other person go downstairs and leave, Dragan gestured for Klaus to sit down and switched to German, saying, "The rest is between the three of us."

I know what you're going to say.

As Klaus roughly divided the $9700 into three parts, he said, "I think this deal is worth doing, and we really don't have a choice."

"That's right, we really have no other choice."

Dragan took his share of the banknotes without even counting them and stuffed them into his pocket. "Since we've already been made scapegoats and cannon fodder, there's no point in even thinking about leaving here through that tunnel."

"And we killed so many of our colleagues."

Klaus flicked his own stack of banknotes. "I think we should stage a fake death."

"Leave? From where do we leave?" Dragan asked with a smile, though he already had the answer.

"It seems we can only ask Mr. Yalf to take us away from here," Wei Ran said with a smile, picking up his own banknote.

"Now that we've reached a consensus, let's talk about the enemies we need to deal with."

"We'd better have those people die inside the daily newspaper building."

Klaus said, "It would be safer and easier to kill them when they get here, but it would likely expose the situation here."

"It's better to control them than to kill them," Wei Ran suggested.

We don't have enough manpower.

Dragan offered a realistic warning: they were indeed short-handed, and they couldn't count on the rescued children, nor could they count on Luna and the others.

"Hopefully Thomas can bring those two journalists and his friends in, and hopefully they can all be counted on."

Klaus said, "No, I'm satisfied as long as those people can be trusted."

"Klaus, you stay here and cover us."

Dragan made abrupt decision: "Let's head over there before dawn."

"Alright"

Klaus readily grabbed the M76 sniper rifle with its silencer on the table. "I'll cover you from here."

"Go, go."

As he spoke, Dragan stood up and picked up the silenced submachine gun that was on the table.

"I forgot to ask, has that girl named Sophia been found?" Wei Ran asked as he picked up his gun and followed.

"found it"

Klaus, carrying a sniper rifle, walked towards the room facing the Daily News building and replied, "She's lucky; she was just sold here and hasn't had a chance to be violated yet."

"Serbs?" Dragan asked instinctively.

"What stupid question did you ask?"

Klaus quipped, "The difference between them is smaller than the difference between East Berliners and West Berliners."

"That's definitely a stupid question."

As Dragan spoke, he stepped down the ladder that was set up in the elevator shaft.

"Mr. T, do you think it's alright and nothing to worry about?"

“Dragan was an internationalist fighter,” Wei Ran replied with a smile.

"yes."

Dragan paused for a moment, then a smile appeared on his face.

"So you have the answer?"

“Let’s be Walter for a bit,” Dragan said with great interest.

Let's talk about Klaus.

Wei Ran asked, "Can he also be a sniper?"

"No problem at all"

Dragan gave a firm affirmative answer, but offered no further explanation.

Seeing that the other party clearly did not want to elaborate, Wei Ran stopped asking and went downstairs with the other party. Before dawn, the two of them used the shadows of the buildings to sneak to the foot of the Daily News building.

This building is in much worse condition than the one they occupied. Not to mention, a considerable part of this building has been burned down to a bare, unfinished state with no shelter on any side.

I climbed the dilapidated stairs, littered with corpses, all the way up to the 6th floor. The stairs leading up to the top had been destroyed by the bomb.

Thanks to their experience in another building, the two searched this floor and finally found the blown-through ceiling in an inconspicuous spot.

However, the damage to the ceiling was completely concealed by what appeared to be an office desk upstairs.

"Climb up the stairwell"

Wei Ran made a decisive judgment: "There's a 90% chance that there's a warning mine in the table blocking the hole and in the elevator shaft."

"Let me do it"

As Dragan spoke, he approached the stairwell where the stairs had been blown up. After observing the area, he secured himself with a rope, stepped on Wei Ran's shoulders, and climbed up the wall, then swung the rope down shortly afterward.

With a tug on the rope, Wei Ran slung his weapon over his shoulder and climbed to the seventh floor, then inspected the table that was covering the hole in the floor.

Sure enough, on the upside-down table was a grenade with the pin pulled, encased in a glass.

What's particularly problematic is that the glass was placed on top of two pencils.

In other words, if the table is moved, the cup will tip over, and the grenade will fall out of the cup and explode.

They exchanged a glance, and Dragan pointed to the rope hanging down from the broken ceiling not far away. Then he pointed upstairs from a different angle. After Wei Ran nodded, the two of them once again avoided the broken ceiling and the rope that tempted them, and together they climbed up to the 8th floor.

This time, they quickly noticed that in a relatively intact office not far from them, a faint crimson light was shining through the gap in the curtain.

Moreover, this floor also contained some supplies, and they even saw a hand-cranked crane and a wooden crate attached to it.

Wei Ran cautiously walked to the door of the office and gently lifted the edge of the cotton curtain to peek inside.

The office was quite spacious, with two desks pushed together against each wall to form a single bed.

On each of the two beds lay a person hiding in an American-style sleeping bag, while on a table between them, several sniper rifles were laid out like a stall.

After taking one last look at the British-style oil stove with a heater in the middle of the room, Wei Ran and Dragan held up a 3, 2, 1 sign with their hands outside the door. Then, in perfect unison, they lifted the cotton curtain hanging with many cans and rushed into the office. Each of them ran to a bed and swung their submachine guns, giving each of them a hard whack behind the ear.

After knocking out the two awakened enemies, Wei Ran and Dragan quickly unzipped their sleeping bags.

Thanks to their lack of greed and their quick action, both men were now holding pistols, one of which had even had the safety off.

After disarming them, Wei Ran had Dragan help them cover their mouths, pry open their joints, and then gag them again. Only then did the two begin to consider another problem—where was the artillery observer?

They will provide the answer.

As Wei Ran spoke, he pulled one of the prisoners to his feet. "I'll go outside and ask."

“Leave this one to me,” Dragan said, already pulling the other one up.

To their surprise, the two so-called Serbian snipers sent from outside the encirclement were quite tough. They did not surrender as easily as the snipers like Yarf, and even planned to call for help.

To avoid alerting the two prisoners, Wei Ran and his companion had to cut their throats before they made too much of a commotion.

Just then, good fortune unexpectedly arrived—the obstruction covering the hole in the ceiling not far away was removed from upstairs.