America: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 166 Bank Safes

Zhang Ailun got up, washed up, and checked his phone. He found a transfer of $8000 to his charity card. Matthew was a man of his word; it saved them the trouble of arguing with him.

Yesterday's expenses totaled $4220, including $2020 for beverages, Blitz's bonus, and at least $300 worth of ammunition. The Grand Master's current cash flow assets have reached $193919.

The funds from the bar and recycling center were not claimed, Tommy still owed him $50000 in profits, and the European guy owed him $2000 in can profits.

I glanced at the daily news after opening the app.

[Daily Intelligence: The Lamborghini Gallardo owner, acting on your intelligence, hired people to vandalize the Titan Arcade this evening, resulting in a shootout with a motorcycle gang. The police were notified and launched an investigation, arresting and detaining the violent members of the motorcycle gang. The Titan Arcade's mainframes were compromised by Blitzkrieg's hacking, causing the arcade a loss of $4 and forcing it to temporarily close.]

Good, good, good. The Grand Master really enjoys watching these electronic cricket fighting shows; it's a pity there wasn't a gunfight.

[Daily News: An anonymous merchant will be listing ten electronic treasure maps on Opportunity Network at 10:20 AM. One of the maps shows the location as a burned-down, abandoned building housing the JPMorgan Chase Bank on West Street, containing safes and combination lock drawers. Details: Drawer D-36 contains a set of 1986 Eagle Gold Coins; Drawer B-21 contains $5000; and Drawer C-96 contains the key to an unclaimed private warehouse at 356 Tianlong Avenue in the city center, containing a batch of custom BMW tires. Specialized cabinet-opening tools or the combination lock are required to unlock the treasure.]

Huh? An unclaimed private warehouse?

Isn't this what we've been waiting for, my good brother!

Did we stir up a hornet's nest?

Zhang Ailun immediately took out his phone and searched for the keyword "treasure map" on the Opportunity Network. He found that the sales of this shop were extremely poor, completely at rock bottom compared to other merchants.

The maps weren't expensive; one digital treasure map cost $6, and I ordered ten digital treasure maps for $60 with a single click.

The seller quickly shipped the item: Congratulations on successfully placing your order for the electronic treasure map, number B567. Please download it and use an unzipping tool to extract it. The extraction code is: G56R34B. Detailed instructions are as follows [Extraction Process].

After Zhang Ailun finished decompressing the file according to the procedure, he opened the treasure map of Morgan Bank on West Street.

The document contains detailed information about the building's construction, but it's now in ruins and much of it is no longer usable as a reference. However, it does include the bank's safe deposit box combination, although the combination isn't complete, it might save some time when unlocking the door.

I searched for the private warehouse at No. 356 Tianlong Avenue again and was immediately disappointed because it was an old, dilapidated, and poor street with a bad location. The warehouse was not big either. Looking at the photos on the real-time map, there was graffiti everywhere, so it should be a street area run by black people.

You never know, your good neighbor might have some heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, leaves, cocoa, or something like that in their warehouse.

Even so, the warehouse land there sells for over $100,000! The Grand Master used to own warehouse assets online, which he usually used to park vehicles and store goods.

It's worth doing! It'll be an asset, at least.

[Daily Intelligence: A black fugitive named Heesen, wanted across state lines with a $4000 bounty, has infiltrated the upscale apartment complex of your good friends, the sisters Polina and Sofia, and is staying at their home, preparing to begin his criminal activities that night. Details: The bounty hunter team is currently searching for information about his whereabouts in the vicinity.]

How did this black guy sneak into the apartment complex? And how come his friend can afford such a nice place?

Zhang Ailun thought for a moment, then took out his phone and sent a message to the Dongwu sisters, reminding them to lock their doors and windows at night and not to go out after dark.

But he didn't receive a reply from them, so he figured they must be busy and didn't think much of it, preparing to focus on his own career first.

[Daily News: Alfred's Scrap Yard will receive a recycling job this afternoon. The customer, a former NASA employee, is interested in selling a self-developed miniature rocket thrust launcher and an SGS2-33 two-seat glider. The transaction must be completed at a designated location in the suburbs.]

This thing can actually be sold as scrap?

Zhang Ailun suddenly began to question the meaning of life.

But I imagine that the things that can be recycled by a scrap metal recycling station are probably either defective or completely unusable, and the price is definitely not that outrageous. They're selling them as scrap metal, so what more could they want?

If it can be repaired after being taken back, it should be able to be sold for a high price!

Zhang Ailun said goodbye to the exhausted Jennifer and left the RV, but couldn't find his Wrangler. He figured Sieg must have driven it away.

I took out my phone and sent a message to the other party.

Zhang Ailun: Did you take my car to get it repaired?

Sig: Didn't you tell me to drive it to the repair shop today?

Zhang Ailun: Where did you take your car to get repaired? In the city or the suburbs?

Sig: No, I found a repair shop online in a small town in the countryside. I drove 50 kilometers to get my car repaired here, and I was able to get the original fenders and headlights of my Wrangler replaced for $160.

Zhang Ailun: ...You're really something, paying for maintenance and gas yourself based on mileage! Is car repair so cheap in a small town? Are you sure it's genuine headlight parts and fenders? Which website did you find it on?

Sig: It's a black auto repair shop, I found it on a black market app.

Zhang Ailun: That's alright then. I trust those people's skills; it's definitely original factory work, no doubt about it. Is the car fixed yet?

Sig: I'm on my way back.

Zhang Ailun: Bring back an electric drill as well, preferably an alloy drill bit that can drill through bank safes.

Sig: ? ? A bank vault? What are you going to do? Robbing a bank?

Zhang Ailun: You're overthinking it. I bought a few treasure maps on Opportunity Network and I'm going to open blind boxes at the old bank site in the abandoned building! There's definitely something good inside!

Sig: You actually believe this stuff?

Zhang Ailun: Think about how I got my car.

Sig: I think there's definitely something good in there!! I'll be right back!!

Zhang Ailun returned to the RV and waited for several tens of minutes. During this time, Jennifer got carried away again, took out a pink whip, and started acting as a female knight.

When Sieg drove back, he honked the horn twice outside. Zhang Ailun called out through the window to tell him to wait a few minutes. After the RV stopped shaking, he slowly put on his clothes and got out of the car.

Looking at his perfectly intact Wrangler, its paint gleaming and even waxed, Zhang Ailun asked him if he had brought his tools.

Sieg got out of the car and took out a green toolbox from the trunk. "High-powered electric drills are easy to buy; you can easily find them in roadside supermarkets. But drill bits that can drill through safes are harder to come by, and they are restricted from being purchased at construction sites. I searched all over the secondhand markets and hardware stores in that small town, and finally found an alloy drill bit at the home of an old farmer. I heard that it was originally used for mining gold at the construction site."

"What kind of construction site can you find gold in a mine?" Zhang Ailun couldn't help but complain. How could these country bumpkins be so uncivilized, digging holes everywhere and panning for gold?

But there's no other way; the west is a vast, sparsely populated region with abundant wilderness and mineral resources. If they don't engage in animal husbandry, their only options are gold and oil panning.

Sieg then pulled out two sets of mining equipment. "This was given to me by that old white man. I thought it might come in handy; it even has radiation-proof materials inside!"

Face mask, safety helmet, dust suit, pickaxe.

Zhang Ailun didn't pay attention to that. He simply took the toolbox, installed the alloy drill bit, started it, and pulled the trigger. A loud buzzing sound would definitely make most people's hands go numb. It was more than enough to drill open a safe!

"Okay. Get in!"

Zhang Ailun packed up his electric drill tools and got into the car. Sieg sat in the passenger seat, and after he fastened his seatbelt, he started the car and drove straight to the former site of the JPMorgan Chase Bank on West Street in the suburbs.

After passing through more than a dozen traffic lights and spending some time, we arrived at the unfinished building that had caught fire and parked the car next to it.

Sieg got out of the car and looked at the former site of JPMorgan Chase Bank. Many parts of the building had collapsed, and there were traces of fire soot in many places. The bank's logo was still on the pile of stones next to it, and there were signs and banners outside that said the building was dangerous.

They also questioned the leader's judgment, saying, "Boss, are you sure there's something good in here? It looks like an abandoned construction site no matter how you look at it."

Looking at the abandoned bank site, Zhang Ailun was already mentally prepared. He put on a safety helmet and gloves, thinking, "I didn't expect to be able to use mining equipment so soon."

After locking the car, the two stepped through the shattered glass door and entered the unfinished building.

From the outside, it looks like a dilapidated building on the verge of collapse, but inside it is a completely different world. Apart from being a bit dirty and messy in the corridor, the other facilities are well preserved.

Sofa, chairs, reception area, telephone, refrigerator, changing room.

The fire broke out in the manager's office area. The bank staff at the time simply fled, called the police to put out the fire, and later had a corner of the building demolished. They packed up all the valuables in the vault and took them away. As for the other things buried inside, they simply abandoned them. There must have been some that escaped.

Zhang Ailun shone a light as the two walked through the first-floor hallway. They saw signs of lock picking, which didn't seem to have been left after the fire; someone must have visited the place recently.

This is quite normal, after all, the old bank site would definitely attract a lot of homeless people or gold prospectors who would try to find treasure there.

"No wonder the treasure map was sold so cheaply. It even came with a bank password. It must have been sold to someone else a long time ago. What a heartless merchant."

Zhang Ailun couldn't help but complain. He knew you get what you pay for, but those people probably didn't find anything valuable inside either. Only the daily intelligence information was reliable.

They found another bank vault, its door covered in graffiti and scribbling. Zhang Ailun tried entering the password, circling it three times to the left and three times to the right, but nothing happened.

Just as they were wondering whether to crawl through the door, Sig came out of the adjacent cubicle and greeted them. "Boss, there's a hole here that was deliberately blown open. The vault door is probably damaged and unusable. We can just go through the side door!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ailun immediately went over to take a look and was instantly shocked.

A hole had been chiseled into the entire wall, and there were fragments of detonators in the pile of rubble on the ground.

Why bother going through the main entrance?

The road to heaven!

"What kind of person would do something like this?"

The leader thought he had brought enough tools, including a power drill, but someone actually used detonators here? Are you really not afraid of blowing the building up?!

The two decided to crawl through the hole left by their predecessors. Pushing open a door, they found themselves in a room of about twenty square meters, filled with silver-white safes and half-open drawers—a hidden world indeed!

At this moment, Zhang Ailun was a little dazed, thinking that he had come to the Garden Bank and the Federal Bank.

"Boss, I think we can start drilling now!"

Sieg tried to open the unlocked drawer, but there wasn't a single thing inside. He then tried to open other closed cabinets, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't open them; they were quite sturdy!

Zhang Ailun pulled up his mask, took out an electric drill from his toolbox, turned it on, and it immediately started humming. "Get up! Let me see how hard it is!!"

He positioned himself at Sig's feet, aimed the drill at the keyhole, and rammed it in. A buzzing sound and a shower of sparks followed. The safe's security system was quickly compromised; the drill bit was pulled out and opened with a gentle pull.

I took a look, and there wasn't a single hair.

"Fxxk! What's the point of locking it if there's nothing inside?" Sig couldn't help but curse as he looked at the empty safe, utterly disappointed.

Zhang Ailun wasn't in a hurry. He indulged his passion for breaking into safes a few more times, prying open several safes in succession, but the total amount inside was at most $20.

"No matter what, at least we gained something!"

You really can't make money by luck alone.

Zhang Ailun took out his phone to check the intelligence, then headed straight for the corresponding D-36 safe. Finding it a bit high up and difficult to access, he simply had Sieg bring over a stool, stood on it, and rammed the electric drill into it, producing a buzzing sound and sparks flying everywhere.

With a click, the safe was opened as the drill bit was pulled out. Peeking inside, they found a black box.

He hung the electric drill beside him, took out the box, blew off the dust, and opened it to find a red interior containing gleaming gold coins wrapped in plastic film.

"What's this? There really are gold coins!?"

The Sig people were astonished.

I had given up all hope, but I didn't expect there would actually be something in this old safe!

"Didn't the people who came here before notice it? Those bank staff were so careless, they actually forgot such a good thing here!" Sieg exclaimed.

Zhang Ailun glanced at the surroundings and found that there were probably thousands of safe drawers of all sizes. If he were to drill them all open, he would need to use at least a dozen drill bits, and his arms would be worn out for two days.

Most people would open dozens of drawers and give up if they didn't find anything.

"I guess I'm just lucky! I found something really good right away." Zhang Ailun chuckled as he packed the Eagle Gold Coins into a box, took out his electric drill, and headed to the next safe.

Following the usual procedure, I tried to explore a few safe drawers that caught my eye, but to no avail.

Zhang Ailun, still somewhat skeptical, drilled a few more times until his hands were numb from the vibrations, but in the end, he believed it!

They went straight to the safe drawer of the B-21 mentioned in the intelligence report.

Ordinary people simply cannot find anything good here!

Zhang Ailun crawled into the safe drawer of B-21 and saw a neatly arranged stack of large US dollar bills, all $100 notes. He took them out and counted them; there were exactly $5000.

Sig leaned closer, utterly astonished. "There's so much cash in here!"

Zhang Ailun took out $500 and handed it to him. Everyone gets a share. Sieg happily accepted the dollars and showered the leader with praise.

"Boss, you must be exhausted from crawling into the safe. Want me to take over?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ailun immediately handed the electric drill to him and pointed to the row of C-series safes not far away, "Go, drill open this whole row."

"Alright." Sig took the drill and started working with all his might.

P.S.: Thank you to reader 20210301106480723122 for the 500 coin reward, and thank you to Xiaochanchan for the 500 coin reward.

(End of this chapter)