New Gods of North America.

Chapter 580 Intelligence
Shortly after Willie left, Doug and "Soften" arrived.
Once they were seated in the carriage, Wayne got straight to the point: "Willie and his team's investigation into that gang is nearing its end. I just agreed with him, and he will now cooperate with the Richmond prosecutor to bring charges against some of the gang members—I need you to keep an eye on things behind the scenes and protect them for me."

Doug nodded first. "Sir, what would you like us to do?"

“Doug, you’re the ‘butler’ at the detective agency, so I think you should be aware of this so you can coordinate and provide assistance when necessary. However, we might need to ‘soften’ their actual responsibility in this matter, since they are more familiar with the situation in Richmond.”

As Wayne spoke, his gaze shifted to the "softened" figure.

The indigenous man, whose appearance no longer resembled that of an "indigenous person," quickly nodded: "Whatever you command."

“Private investigators assist in the investigation, and prosecutors prosecute the criminals. Willie and his group are following a completely normal secular process. As I understand it, unless extraordinary forces are involved, the church and other powers will not interfere in these minor matters, and everything will be carried out in accordance with the law.”

Wayne paused slightly, "We don't break the rules intentionally, and we won't allow the people behind the other side to break the rules either. I want you to keep an eye on those people hiding behind the gangs. If anyone uses methods outside the rules, you need to be able to detect any signs of something amiss in time, and it would be best if you could also stop any sudden 'accidents' in an emergency."

The softened expression turned somewhat serious: "With just a few of us on the perimeter, we probably can't handle those big shots... nor can we monitor too many people..."

Wayne waved his hand. "I'm not asking you to confront them directly, nor do you need to do overly detailed surveillance. Your role is mainly to act as 'ears' and 'nose,' serving as the outermost early warning system. If you can hear some rumors or catch a whiff of something, that will be enough. After that, we'll have more focused follow-up. Can you manage that?"

"Um……"

"Soften" paused for a moment, then said, "If we don't need exact information, just a general understanding of the situation, perhaps we can manage. We know some familiar faces in Richmond and are familiar with their work habits. If someone is monitoring us, we should be able to detect it in time..."

"very good."

Wayne was fairly satisfied with the "softened" attitude. "You don't need to feel too much pressure. I plan to have you take the lead, and then provide some funding so you can recruit some informants. Lina will probably be involved too; I've seen her get to know quite a few street kids in Richmond recently. You can use a similar model to reduce the workload."

"Softening" seemed slightly relieved: "I understand."

Wayne went on to outline his work plan, "I hope your work can move in a 'systematic' direction. For example, roughly list the known gangs and the people who might be behind them, so that we can better understand the situation—we will need to investigate more than just this one gang in the future."

"The scattered intelligence we collect also needs to be organized and archived regularly. I just thought of this myself. Lina and the others might have more experience. You can try it out first, and we'll bring up any specific suggestions later."

"However, you can rest assured about one thing. Provided you don't betray us, the peripheral members are also members of our detective agency. As long as you do what you're supposed to do according to the rules, we won't leave you out to face risks alone, nor will we sever ties with the peripheral organizations like local intelligence agencies do."

It's unclear whether he truly took the "softening" advice to heart, but his response was quite straightforward: "Yes!"

……

About half an hour after Doug and the others left, Lina came over with a long face to give Wayne his winnings from gambling.

The little black girl was sensible enough not to try to escape. She simply took the food to the outside of one of the slaves' shacks, threw the food inside, and exchanged a few words with a female slave from a distance.

It wasn't that she didn't want to talk more, but the overseers had dogs tied up near the shack, and they would rush over whenever they heard a noise, so the little black girl had to hurry away. It's said that when she came back, she could barely climb over the fence, and Liam had been following her in his "Transparent" car the whole time. After helping to scare away the hunting dogs, he saw her still struggling in the same spot and almost wanted to help her up.

That bet wasn't a huge sum of money for Lina right now, but she'd still be annoyed when the time came.

After hearing Wayne mention the new plan, Lina's brows remained furrowed. "What brings you to this in the middle of the night? You can't possibly build an intelligence network just because one slave escaped, can you?"

“These two are not the same thing…” Wayne continued, asking for her opinion, “Do you think it’s feasible?”

"It's not difficult to gather some less confidential information; many of the Holy See's almshouses specialize in this kind of thing. Sometimes they can even piece together a lot of news from the city in advance."

Lina thought for a moment, "But Richmond has been developing for so many years, the business involving cargo transshipment and shipping must have been cleared out by the local bigwigs. Those small gangs can probably only pick up some businesses that no one cares about, and they don't make much money. I really don't know what fun it is for you to compete with them for the title of 'King of the Docklands'."

"For justice?" Wayne tried to come up with a seemingly righteous slogan.

Lina pursed her lips, ignoring the matter, and her thoughts immediately jumped to other things. "By the way, didn't they say the dock area was haunted? Has 'Soften' and the others investigated it thoroughly?"

"No. I just asked, and there hasn't been any follow-up since that uproar. The church thinks we did it, and they haven't followed up."

“If I’m free lately, I’ll work with ‘Soften’ and the others to investigate this. I’ll also help them streamline the workflow.” Lina said, a hint of complaint in her voice. “Are you really just going to ignore your murder case? Are you just waiting for the police to come up with results?”

"Pretty much. The police also told me not to leave Richmond for the time being, so I can stay here and keep an eye on the progress of the 'workshop'."

"Your schools in America are really free... No wonder even Ian Fisk was able to graduate from your college smoothly."

"My situation is different from his!"

"Indeed. You're a history major, have you thought about what you'd like to donate to the college?"

"I won't donate! I want to graduate based on my exam scores."

"But I heard that attendance at class is also part of the assessment... Are you sure you don't need to retake your courses this year?"

Well……

Wayne briefly recalled the collection in his basement… As a history major, donating some historical documents about the April Grass for academic research to fill certain gaps in history didn't seem like a bad idea…

At least Professor David Lee, who teaches the American history course, seems quite approachable.

(End of this chapter)