Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 2645 The Mastermind Revealed (First Update, Please Subscribe)
A nation has hope only when it has a group of people who look up at the stars.

Although some people in this world look up at the stars, the vast majority of people only look at what's in front of them. Even if they occasionally look up, their gaze is quickly pulled back by all sorts of unpleasant things on Earth.

this is the truth.

For most people in this world, their days are simply spent struggling to make a living.

Before the morning mist had completely dissipated in the port of Athens, a black minivan had already quietly stopped at the alleyway opposite the "MSC Shipping Company".

The sea breeze, carrying the smell of fish, crept into the carriage, and Andrei pointed his camera's telephoto lens at the shipping company.

At that moment, someone came out.

"Someone's out."

The middle-aged man who walked out of the building was Nikos, the shipping company manager they were targeting.

He was followed by a bodyguard and was walking towards the Mercedes parked on the side of the road.

"Target identified, prepare for action."

Hans's voice came through the communicator, and Langer spoke into the intercom on his collar.

"receive."

He and Nop disguised themselves as passing porters, pushing a handcart full of cardboard boxes and waiting at the alley entrance; Hans drove a modified van and parked it at the intersection where the target was bound to pass; Linowski hid in the back of the van, his silenced pistol already loaded.

Just as Nikos was about to open the car door, the handcart at the alley entrance suddenly "went out of control" and overturned, scattering cardboard boxes all over the ground.

His bodyguards instinctively stopped and looked warily at Langer and Nop.

"Sorry, sorry!"

Ranger feigned an apology, bent down to pick up the cardboard box, and in the instant the bodyguard's attention was diverted, he had already pulled the trigger, and the bullet was fired silently.

As the bodyguard groaned and fell to the ground, the driver in the passenger seat was also hit by a bullet. The whole process took less than three seconds.

Before Nikos could figure out what was going on, Linowski had already rushed out of the back of the truck and covered his mouth and nose with a towel soaked in ether.

Nikos, his struggles growing weaker and weaker under the anesthetic gas, finally collapsed to the ground. Then, the men swiftly lifted him into the van.

They didn't even clean up the scene; the bodies of the bodyguard and the driver were left there. Cardboard boxes and handcarts were carelessly discarded at the end of the alley, as if to tell everyone—this guy had been kidnapped.

The van and truck drove away from the city together, speeding towards the outpost on the outskirts of the city.

This is the safe house that Hans's team selected in advance; they had already prepared everything in the warehouse.

There are professional iron chairs for interrogation, as well as a set of professional torture instruments—an electric shock device with adjustable current, specially made steel needles, iron bars of varying thicknesses, and of course, needle-nose pliers.

Nikos was strapped to an iron chair, his hands and feet tightly bound with nylon cable ties. When he was awakened from his unconsciousness by being doused with cold water, he saw several strangers.

"What do you want? Do you want a ransom?"

He believed he had been kidnapped.

“We need to know how many merchant ships carrying large amounts of money have traveled to Beirut in the past two years.”

Hans's voice wasn't loud, but it made Nikos's expression change slightly when it reached his ears, though he still tried to remain calm:

"Carrying a large amount of cash? How is that possible? The cash carried on those ships is usually...it's all..."

Before he could finish speaking, Langer sneered and immediately turned on the power.

A buzzing sound of electricity rang out, and Nikos's body tensed instantly. His shrill scream echoed in the empty warehouse.

"You don't have to say it, but we have time for you to speak."

After the screams lasted for a few seconds, Langer released the switch.

Which ships were carrying large amounts of cash?

"No, not really."

Langer switched the power back on, this time with a stronger current.

Which ships were carrying large amounts of cash to Beirut?

When the other party still failed to provide a satisfactory answer, Langer simply took out pliers and, amidst screams of pain, pulled out Knicks' fingernails.

The interrogation continued.

Over the next few days, horrific screams echoed continuously from the warehouse.

Hans and his men interrogated Nikos in turn, using electric shocks, beatings, and even acupuncture to stimulate his nerves. All methods were used alternately, and each form of torture was kept within a non-lethal range, with the aim of forcing Nikos to talk.

Nikos was finally able to recall some things; after all, no one could endure such torment.

"...Captain Carlos Patos once brought $5 into Beirut and loaded 20 kilograms of heliotropium onto the ship, which was then transported to Italy..."

Although they were just some seemingly ordinary smuggled goods, Hans and his colleagues still recorded them truthfully, as they needed this information for comparison.

Over the past few weeks, they've killed several targets, and from those people, they've obtained some seemingly useless clues, but those clues seem to be making some progress. These clues will eventually connect to form a coherent whole.

Meanwhile, in Athens, the investigation into Nix's kidnapping was still ongoing, with news reports of his bodyguards and driver being killed and his wife pleading with the kidnappers to release her husband.

Meanwhile, the interrogation was still ongoing.

On the third day of the interrogation, thick smoke billowed from near the port – the headquarters of Mediterranean Shipping Company was engulfed in flames!

Listening to the report from the other end, when Hans looked up, a glint of wild joy flashed in his eyes:
"The fish is hooked!"

Hans's lips curled into a rare smile; the long-standing stalemate had finally been broken, and all his frustration vanished.

"Sure enough, someone couldn't sit still any longer, and they set the fire at this time to destroy the evidence."

He immediately pulled out his radio from his waist, pressed the call button, and spoke in a hurried yet steady tone:
"Linowski, this is Hans. The shipping company is on fire. Follow the arsonists immediately, keep a close watch on them, and don't expose yourselves!"

A clear response came from the radio station:
"Received, tracking them. The target is two men on a motorcycle, fleeing towards the outskirts of the city."

Hans hung up the radio and instructed Nop:

"Nop, go and reinforce Linnosky immediately."

Then he turned to Langer and said:
"Tell Nikos what's in his company that's worth setting fire to. Tell him that if he doesn't talk, even if we let him go, someone else will kill him!"

Andrei, standing to the side, then said:

"What if he doesn't know?"

He didn't say he wouldn't confess, but rather that he didn't know, because a few days of memory recovery techniques would be enough to make anyone remember everything.

But like everyone else, he was still completely unaware, even though he had confessed everything.

"That's not important. What's important is that we found the right spot, and some people are getting restless! They've started making their move!"

Hans said excitedly:

"This is the most important!"

Then he said:
"Now we wait for news from Linowski!"

On the other side, Linowski was driving a Volkswagen sedan, closely following behind the motorcycle.

For the past few days, he had been following Hans's instructions to impersonate a private investigator and monitor the area around the shipping company—because Nikos's wife had offered a reward, and there were quite a few private investigators investigating the kidnapping.

The moment the fire broke out, he spotted the two figures who had slipped away through the company's back door in the chaos. The motorcycle sped through the streets of Athens, quickly leaving the city and turning onto a highway leading to the countryside.

The country road is lined with trees on both sides, and visibility is poor at night. At midnight, the road is deserted and there is no one in sight.

Linnowski, following behind the motorcycle, slowed down to maintain a safe following distance. Just as the motorcycle was about to enter a bend, a loud "bang" suddenly came from ahead, followed by the sound of metal colliding.

Hearing the sounds ahead, Linowski sped through the bend, and the sight before him made his hair stand on end—two men on motorcycles lay in the middle of the road, their motorcycles overturned, and their heads were severed from their bodies, their blood staining the road.

Linnowski quickly stopped the car, drew his pistol, and cautiously scanned the surroundings. Only after confirming that there was no danger did he get out of the car to check.

He carefully examined the decapitated corpse.

"Damn it, that's why they were lured here!"

On the tree trunks on both sides of the road, there was a wire tied to them, with bloodstains and bits of flesh still on it.

Clearly, someone had set up an ambush here beforehand. The speeding motorcycle crashed into the wire, and the wire in the middle of the road instantly turned into a deadly blade, severing the heads of both men.

During wartime, both guerrillas and armies frequently did this. Of course, they did it themselves.

I never expected that someone would use the same method to kill and silence witnesses.

"They should have left already."

After confirming that no one was nearby, Linowski crouched down and carefully searched the clothes of the two deceased. Apart from some banknotes and dozens of bonds of considerable value, he found no identification, communication devices or suspicious documents.

He picked up the bond, glanced at it (it had no special markings), then took a picture of the scene with his camera. After taking the bond away, he reported to Hans via radio:
"Boss, the target has been silenced. The driver died in a barbed wire trap. Only some valuables were found at the scene, with no other clues. This must have been a trap deliberately set by the other party to eliminate him."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the radio, then Hans's order came through:
"I understand. Evacuate immediately, leave no trace, and regroup at the safe house. Be careful and don't let anyone target you; this could be a trap they've set for us."

"receive."

Linnowski responded and quickly left the scene.

As he left the scene, Nop became his tail, following behind him.

To avoid being followed, they also harbored a glimmer of hope—that if the mastermind also sent people to follow them, their identities would naturally be exposed.

This is exactly what the task force was hoping for, or rather, the fundamental reason why they had been stirring up trouble there all along.

Because they didn't know who the mastermind was, or whether there were snakes lurking in the grass, they approached step by step, using one person after another as bait.

Now the bait has finally worked, which means the fish has taken the bait.

But will they follow suit?
(End of this chapter)