Taxes are only within machine gun range!

Chapter 126 Dragnet
“That’s right, the priest at the Central Cathedral.” Flora took a sip of her non-iced Americano and continued, “Think back carefully, don’t you feel that this place… well, the frequency of events happening here is a bit too high? Ugh, the way Americans invented coffee is really disgusting.”

Milton fell silent, tapped the table, and began to recall the Central Church from the beginning.

He was a staunch atheist and held all churches in contempt, so after taking control of the town, he never attended a church service.

Out of basic respect for others, Milton did not demolish the church, and since he himself did not like it, he subconsciously ignored the church itself.

But upon closer reflection, Flora is right.

Indeed, from the Qing Teng Foundation to the shit-fried restaurant, to the rumors that the bureau chief and station chief liked to pray at church, to the "boss's" body being dug up, it seems that everything is related to the Central Church.

Of course, this could simply be because the church is located in the middle of the town, making it an important hub where many things are difficult to bypass, and it may not actually be a problem with the church itself.

So Flora simply thought it was a coincidence and just put Father Raymond George on the last page.

Ultimately, whether there are any problems or not depends on finding concrete evidence.

"So, boss, if you think this reason is too weak, I'll just cross the priest off the list?"

“I don’t think being a Catholic priest is a good profession in my mind; there’s too much negative information about him.” Milton shook his head. “Just based on his profession, I think he’s a suspect. Let’s add him to the list and investigate him thoroughly… Perfect, I haven’t been to a church to audit taxes yet.”

After all the names were selected, Milton waved his hand and said, "Alright, see you later. I'm going to take a nap..."

"I need to sleep now... Ah—do you think I should buy a house here?"

“You’re really bold.” Milton pushed open his room door. “I, for one, wouldn’t dare live in a place that’s easy to attack but hard to defend, or anywhere outside the fortifications.”

If Milton really wanted to live in a mansion, he could simply take over the villas that Valta Pedro and his adjutant owned in the suburbs.

But in the end, Milton chose to move all the valuables out of the house, and it was left abandoned.

"That's true... Let's wait until later, until you've taken over half the province."

“It won’t be that fast.” Milton shook his head. “We might have to move further north. The resistance is now just a small spark, so we have to protect it. The supplies in the two off-road vehicles I sent earlier are not enough to solve their immediate problem.”

Flora went downstairs with Milton and asked, "Once the airport is built, we can use air transport. Do you want to attack that area first? It seems like that area is all worthless land with no strategic value."

That may sound harsh, but it's not wrong.

Why were the rebels, who were severely outmatched in equipment and manpower, able to hold out in the provinces of Vevetenango and Quiche for so long without being wiped out?

Because both of these places are rotten land.

The terrain is rugged, consisting mainly of mountains, valleys, and volcanic plateaus, which makes transportation extremely inconvenient, agricultural development difficult, and mining impossible due to long-term wars.

They finally found a place with decent terrain, but the soil was very barren, with low fertility, resulting in low grain yields.

There are also many natural disasters and bad weather...

It borders other countries, but due to its terrain, there are not many stable trade routes.

Aside from being easy to defend and difficult to attack, it really has no strategic value.

Compared to the port city of Ciampellico, Quetzaltenango (the country's second-largest economy), and the relatively stable San Marcos province (which has mining opportunities and trade routes with Mexico), it is a complete wasteland.

“The land is rotten, but the people there are not,” Milton said. “What I lack now is people—labor, technicians, and soldiers. How am I going to recruit them? How am I going to recruit loyal and motivated soldiers?”

"Aren't there a whole bunch over there?"

"Moreover, everyone there has relatives or friends who have been killed by the government army, so their morale is naturally high during the battle."

"These past few decades have been tough. If we can improve their quality of life even slightly, they will work hard. That's my most stable source of tax revenue."

Flora was already very sleepy, but she still nodded emphatically: "Hmm...that makes sense."

“There’s also the issue of air transport.” Milton walked down to the first floor and continued, “First of all, we’re building a field airfield, which can only be used by light transport planes. Many supplies can’t be transported there, such as tanks.”

"Light transport planes fly slowly, and the enemy already knows we have aircraft. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the SAM-7 isn't exactly hard to get, what if it gets shot down? A pilot is worth a lot."

"Air transport is the most expensive mode of transportation. It's fine for tactical airlifts and emergency situations, but if you want long-term strategic airlifts, you'll just have to wait to go broke."

Flora nodded: "Okay, I'll do as you say..."

"..."

The two went into their own rooms and fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.

After a long while, around noon, Milton woke up with a yawn—to avoid disrupting his biological clock, this nap would just be to relieve his drowsiness.

Milton pushed open the door, intending to rinse his mouth, have lunch, and then check the high-suspect targets on the list.

Then, as soon as he pushed open the door, he saw a police officer standing guard at the door.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Godfather!"

"What's wrong?" Milton walked out, strolled to the bathroom, and rinsed his mouth. "Just report whatever it is."

"There are..."

"Boss! Boss!" Before the officer could finish speaking, Brandon's excited voice suddenly came from upstairs, "Come quick, there's important news!"

Milton glanced at the officer and asked, "Is your matter urgent?"

The officer scratched his head awkwardly: "Uh, it's not an emergency."

“Alright, I’ll report back after I’m done.” Milton waved his hand. “If anyone is waiting for me, let them go home first and come back tomorrow.”

"Yes."

Milton took a sip of water, turned off the tap, and went upstairs, asking, "What's the big deal?"

"After Olya's message was released, our scouts reported that the Lyman checkpoint did indeed take immediate action, which is enough to prove that there is indeed a spy in our town, and not for any other reason."

Milton nodded: "That's good. Otherwise, if it really was a problem on the rebel side, we would have been fighting against thin air for the past two days."

"Make sure our scouts are on high alert, see exactly when they received the message... And what about the listening devices? Have they found anything? Since Lyman has already received the message, it means the spy has already passed it on."

Brandon immediately said, "Boss, wait a moment, I'll go ask."

Soon, "Poison" gave a definite answer.

No relevant information was detected.

At this moment, Flora also came up from downstairs. She said, "'Poison' is good at this. As long as the enemy doesn't use a professional anti-eavesdropping system, they definitely won't escape his ears."

Milton walked into the conference room, closed the door, and said, "We have information about the listening devices, which should be top secret and has not been exposed so far... It is almost impossible to obtain professional anti-eavesdropping equipment here. I don't think they can smuggle another set in under my nose in just over a month after I confiscated one set."

Moreover, Milton's panel did not contain any similar smuggling warnings.

Brandon concluded, "So, we should use the phone, or even just walk out to make contact." Milton nodded, "We can remove those people from the list who have never left town and don't have a phone at home."

The scope of suspicion has been narrowed once again.

Furthermore, since telephones are still not widely available in the town, a large number of names were removed from the list.

Now, all that's left is to confirm when Lyman will receive it, and the workload will be minimal.

The identity of the spy in town will be revealed in three days at most, and one day at the shortest!
“Brandon, remember to seal off the town for the time being,” Milton said. “Anyone on the list who tries to leave the town must be detained.”

"The spies must have realized that after revealing this information, exposure was inevitable, so they would definitely start preparing to escape."

"Absolutely, absolutely we can't let him escape."

"I have a lot of unused ideas in my head, waiting to be used on this spy who is so well hidden."

For example, the ability to create clones was invented more than two thousand years ago.

Inventor: Shang Yang.

Upon hearing the word "creativity," Brandon and Flora's expressions turned somewhat strange.

"Roger that... Uh, boss, won't doing this alert that spy?"

“It’s no use for him to be vigilant now; it’s only a matter of time before he gets caught,” Milton said, shaking his head. “Brandon, immediately issue the order to temporarily shut down all civilian telephone service in the entire town, citing the impending outbreak of war.”

"The town has entered a phase of full control."

Brandon immediately left the meeting room and gave the relevant orders to all the officers at the police station. Soon, several police cars sped away.

When Brandon returned, Milton slowly spoke: "I'm going to make a big fuss about it. I'm going to make that person live in fear for the rest of the time—I'm going to tell him that you've been discovered."

Flora wasn't so afraid of Milton anymore. She sighed and teased, "Our boss is still too vengeful."

“I’m really curious, who could it be…” Brandon rubbed his chin. “Actually, the jerks I used to know are all pretty well-behaved now.”

As a police officer, Brandon has dealt with plenty of difficult people.

They were all hostile, quick to make sarcastic remarks, and had been arrested countless times.

But once the town started to develop, for some reason, they suddenly became very obedient.

Milton raised his arm and glanced at his watch: "We might not get results today. Let's leave on time and talk about it tomorrow."

After waiting for four or five hours, and with afternoon approaching, Milton stood up: "It seems it won't be that quick. Let's eat first and talk about it tomorrow."

Just then, a sheriff hurried over and knocked on the door.

The three of them were immediately invigorated.

"'Godfather,' Mr. Director!"

"report!"

“Yes!” the sheriff said. “The scouts have reported that the Lyman checkpoint is desperately mobilizing all sorts of people, including the town’s police officers and Mexican gangs, to fill the defensive positions. They have also observed that Lyman is distributing a strange drug to his men.”

"Perhaps it's a stimulant?"

"Most suspiciously, Lyman hastily and seemingly hysterically mobilized almost all his men without any rest. Everyone seemed to be fully focused on preparing for battle, as if the enemy was about to appear."

"The scouts believed that the message received at the Lyman checkpoint was most likely 'tomorrow'."

"They believe the enemy could appear at any time tomorrow, which is why everyone is so focused and hasn't rested for so long. They even prepared stimulants to be in the best condition for 24-hour defense!"

Milton looked at Flora and asked, "Tomorrow... who on the list received this information?"

Flora remained silent for a long while, then roughly drew a circle in the middle of the town map.

"How many suspicious individuals are there in this circle, and how many are highly suspected?"

“According to the list, there are a total of 15 suspicious persons,” Flora said, “and one highly suspicious person.”

Milton leaned back and said calmly, "Who is it?"

“The priest of the Central Church,” Flora sighed, “Raymond George.”

Thanks to Milton's meticulous and professional investigation, the spy was exposed once his existence was discovered!
Milton stood up: "Brandon, take the men and let's go. I'll wait for you outside the police station... When we attack, be careful of any traps he might have set, don't be careless."

"Yes!"

"..."

Milton put on his gear and walked to the police station entrance... Then he saw a girl standing outside, looking flustered and very uneasy as she looked at the officer next to her.

Isn't this the same officer who just said he had something trivial to report?
"What's going on? Didn't I tell them to go home first and come back tomorrow?"

The officer said helplessly, "'Godfather'... she didn't want to go back, and she wouldn't tell me what it was about. After I ruled out any danger, I had no choice but to stand here with her."

Milton glanced at the time, looked at the girl, and asked briefly, "You wanted to see me? What's up?"

The girl looked tired and pale: "'Godfather', I have something very important to tell you. I've discovered bad guys... but I, no, I don't dare trust anyone else. I'm sorry."

"tell me your name."

"My name is Ariana."

Milton's pupils contracted slightly—wasn't this the pharmacy owner's only surviving daughter?
Flora had previously put her on the high suspect list.

"What bad guy did you find? Where is he? What bad thing did he do?"

“In the church… I often go there to pray after my father and mother died, but… I feel that the priest’s attitude is getting stranger and stranger, especially today. It feels like he wants to do to me, like those people did to my mother. I’m scared and I want to call the police.”

"But before your reign, the priest seemed to have a good relationship with some police officers. I... I dared not say anything out of line, so I only dared to come to you... I'm sorry, 'Godfather,' have I bothered you?"

By this time, the officers had assembled, and the girl could tell that Milton had something urgent to do.

Milton was silent for a while, then patted her head and said, "You are a taxpayer, and calling the police is your legal right."

"The information you provided is very useful... Stay at the police station, don't worry, you will receive your reward when I return."

“Brandon, ‘Bottle’…Let’s go.”

My friend's book combines Chinese folklore, Japanese ghost stories, and Japanese mythology. Those interested can check it out.

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(End of this chapter)