Translator: _Min_ Editor: Yukira_
Barbed wire fences, concrete watchtowers, and buildings—these structures greatly resembled a small military base.
“What do you think?” Robert turned around and smiled proudly.
“Not bad.” There was also a satisfied expression on Jiang Chen’s face.
Very neat.
The three Hummers stopped at the checkpoint at the entrance. The patrolling soldiers wearing dark sunglasses approached the car, and after verifying Robert’s information, they performed a simple military salute and then released the checkpoint post.
The soldiers patrolling here were mercenaries hired from a security company in South Africa. With Jiang Chen’s arrival, 20 people in a camouflage combat uniform wielding M-series automatic rifles quickly assembled in a neat formation in the center of the base.
These people only knew how to follow money and would not ask any questions. Their price was entirely based on the degree of danger of the mission, and Robert was able to negotiate with them for the price of $70,000 USD.
As the situation in the region escalated, Jiang Chen made some adjustments to the refugee’s recruitment plan after deliberating it with Robert. The original plan was to hijack refugee ships, and then forcibly transfer them to the military base here. It was later changed to heading directly to the Syria border and masquerading as UA troops responsible for escorting the refugees, and tricking them to getting on the vehicle that would originally lead them to Europe.
As for tricking them, the answer was quite simple.
A flyer and a poster.
<European Labor Migration Program:
Any male between 18-25 may register here. You can bring your spouse with you.
Those who are interested may register here. The agency will arrange jobs for you.
Required: 100.>
Seeing that not only you could bring your spouse and there was also a guaranteed work to boot, and not to mention these people were equipped with UA weapons, the registration turned out to be popular.
After those who managed to qualify got into the vehicle, it didn’t take long for them to realize that something was amiss.
Upon confirming that they were heading in the wrong direction, the refugees began panicking and frantically scampered to get off the truck, but the mercenaries, who were merely doing their responsibility to complete their mission, remained unperturbed, and they forcefully dragged all the refugees back inside.
After completing their “escort” duty, their mission was changed into guarding the refugees and preventing any attacks from extremist organizations or any other unforeseen situations.
According to the contract, as soon as Jiang Chen’s group arrived, they would immediately hand over the control of the base and depart. For them, this was probably the easiest task they ever had, even though the pay wasn’t much.
Seeing the retreating figures of the mercenaries, Jiang Chen gestured for the ten Kane veterans to line up behind him and signaled Robert to turn on the speaker and gather the refugees to the square.
The refugees were already converging in that direction.
After witnessing the mercenaries, who had turned over the control of the base to Jiang Chen, drove away, they felt an amalgam of complex and confusing emotions.
They previously thought those people were UA soldiers, who would take them to a safe location or at least a refugee camp near the border of a European country, but they didn’t expect to be taken to a completely opposite direction and deep into the desert.
At first, they thought it was the base of an extremist group, but it did not look quite like it in all respects. Other than preventing them from leaving, they didn’t make many forceful demands. The soldiers put a number on them and even arranged rooms for them that were much more spacious than those from a refugee camp.
And even if no one stopped them from leaving, there was nowhere they could go.
This place was in the middle of the Sahara desert. Without any means of transportation and sufficient supply, how far would their feet be able to take them? They would surely die if they met a sandstorm or if they got lost in the desert.
After going through the initial phase of restlessness, they chose to wait and observe. At least these people didn’t torture them, and there were not many restrictions on food and water. One could even say that life here was better than any refugee camps.
Perhaps this place was the new refugee camp planned by the United Nations. After all, Europeans didn’t want them to migrate to their country, so they funded the construction of facilities in the depths of the desert…there were a number of people with this kind of naive thinking.
However, they were doomed to be gravely disappointed by Jiang Chen.
Any gain had a price to it.
…
Looking at the refugees standing all over the place, Jiang Chen tilted his head slightly and asked Ivan, who was standing on the side, “What do you think about these people? Do you have the confidence in training them?”
Upon hearing this, a glimpse of pride flashed on Ivan’s face.
There was a time when he thought that he would only serve under a president, who was not worthy of his allegiance, and serve as a cannon fodder for the sake of ideals that were not worth sacrificing for. However, as he stood there looking at the advanced training facility, and receiving the promised high salary, and when the boss asked him: “Are you confident…”
The answer was a no-brainer.
“That would depend on what the boss wants,” Ivan raised his head and replied firmly, as though he had just regained his pride as a soldier.
Jiang Chen raised his eyebrows, his chin pointed toward the doorway, “Similar to the group of people that had just left.”
“Yes, boss!” Ivan shouted vehemently, “But, boss, I have a problem!”
“Oh? Say it,” Jiang Chen nodded, pleased with his determination.
“I might go overboard,” The soldier’s eyes were burning with a fierce fighting spirit.
Hearing that, Jiang Chen paused and then unexpectedly laughed.
“If you go above and beyond, I’ll be sure to give you a bonus.”
Jiang Chen patted his shoulder quite vigorously and stood on the podium while smiling in front of the refugees.
Sensing that an authoritative figure had stood up, the refugees mustered their courage to voice their doubts.
“Who in the world are you?”
“Why did you take us here? We want to go to Europe!”
“I heard Frankberg provided refugee camp. Why didn’t you send us there?”
“…”
Jiang Chen ignored these questions, and continued fiddling with the microphone and turned on its switch.
Buzz—!
The deafening static blared through the four corners of the square, and aside from Jiang Chen and the ten instructors, almost everyone covered their ears while ducking down.
“Ahem, seems like the mic is now working. You all can understand English, right? Then I’ll start.”
He ignored the pairs of frightened, angry, confused, and helpless eyes. He paused while renewing the feeling from the wasteland.
“You might think that you’ve been deceived. Why didn’t you disembark in Greece but had been taken to Central Africa instead?” Glancing around the crowd, Jiang Chen laughed and continued, “That’s right, I did trick you.”
The crowd instantly erupted.
“This is unlawful!”
“Are you not afraid of being prosecuted by International Court of Justice? This is is against the law…”
“Send us back…”
“Send you back? Sorry, I’m not obliged to do so. But if any of you wants to leave, you can go right ahead, the door is open,” Jiang Chen said with a smile as he spread out his hands.
Nobody spoke. Everyone knew that it would be stupid to cross the desert without any means of transportation.
“Warm shelter, delicious food, and clean water, you can’t deny that your life here is much better than your refugee camps on the Syria border.”
“But at least we would still have our freedom,” someone muttered in the crowd.
“Ah, freedom. You’re so poor, you only have your freedom and that’s why you got on the truck, right? If you have money, you definitely could afford the ticket, isn’t that right?” Jiang Chen smiled as he stared at the young man who interrupted him.
The young man didn’t expect to be stared at by the person on the podium, he swallowed and shrank back a little.
But Jiang Chen did not seem to be looking at him and instead raised his hand and continued, “If you go to Europe, what then? You’ll hole up in a government-provided shelter while spectating someone else’s happiness? Quit your delusions. That place doesn’t belong to you. You are but a refugee to them. Oh, you might say that you’ll work hard, but when their natives are still unemployed, what kind of competitive edge do you think you’ll have?”
Hearing this, a lot of people lowered their head. They had given this problem some thought, but they never dared to think that far ahead. If one dwelled too much on misery, the courage to continue to move forward would become even slimmer, and not to mention the possibility of finding happiness in the future.
“Receiving donation, eating relief food and becoming the type of person, who people would find suspicious wherever you go. I’ll take the responsibility of telling you that indeed, you’ll be able to survive, but you’ll also stay in the shelter for the rest of your life. One day when your child wants to go to an amusement park, but because you have no money, you can only rack your brains on how to persuade your child that it’s not a fun place. I don’t know how would you then feel about it.
“Do you still want to go to Europe so bad after hearing all that?”Jiang Chen looked at the audience whose eyes had lost their vigor due to his momentum. Seeing this, he could not help the touch of smug smile slipped through his face.
“Where else can we go if we don’t go to Europe?” A young man could not help but voice it out.
“Even if I did trick you, it’s not exactly a lie.” Jiang Chen ignored his question and opened his arms and said while smiling, “Work, I’ve already arranged it for you. If you work for me, I’ll provide you a stable living environment and a salary of $200 USD a month. Your salary will increase gradually depending on your performance.”
“The contract period is 3 years, and after 3 years, you can then decide whether to leave and take your savings to any other country in the world or stay. But trust me, in less a year, you won’t be thinking about that dumb thought.”
“If you don’t tell us the nature of work, how are we supposed to believe you?” There was another jarring question from the crowd again.
“Nature of work? Isn’t that obvious?”
Jiang Chen acted like he was surprised and made a show of looking around for a moment before continuing, “This is a military base, other than soldiers, what else would it need?”
