Chapter Twenty: The Mercenaries Arrive

  "Are you sure this is the mercenary you were talking about?"

  Suì cuī fàng xià shǒu zhōng de dà pái zi, yǒu diǎn er mō bù zháo tóu nǎo, tā chá yì de shuō: "wǒ jì dé wǒ gēn nǐ shuō guò zhè huà, gē gē, zán men jiù shì lái jiē rén de a?"

  Translation:

  Suui let go of the big sign in his hand, somewhat bewildered, he said: "I remember I told you this before, brother, we're just here to pick someone up, right?"

  Looking at the men who came out of the B1 terminal exit of the airport, waving at us with a big sign, I couldn't help but shrug my shoulders and say to Su Cui: "Brother, I really appreciate your 'honesty'. Is this what you call a big company's business? Which big company has its chairman and CEO personally pick up guests from the airport? Where are the people under you? And in Gaza, at least we had a group of old blacks as bodyguards, where are they? Are they all on vacation? Tell me."

  He immediately shook his head, waving his hand at the few people who had not yet walked over, and whispered to me in a very cautious tone: "That's right, you're the chairman, I'm the CEO. We did have some mercenaries from Somalia as our subordinates before, but wasn't that because of the danger in the Gaza Strip? Now we're in the Egyptian capital, what kind of danger could there be? Besides, brother, do you really think they don't want to open fire? When you took me away from the Gaza Strip, the business of the Jiaodong Mining Company was no longer related to us on the surface. Brother, our company's accounts are empty."

  "Hey, let's talk about the rest later, okay? Brother, we're business people, after all. This is a small matter, but even a tiny mosquito is still meat, right? Let's focus on closing the deal first! Besides, every top executive in our company is called 'Chairman', and we're just a small firm, we don't have much money to spare. We need to make some cash, haha! Brother!"

  He finished speaking and didn't even wait for me to respond, hastily welcoming me over. Looking at him, he was just short of wearing a little red hat and holding a small flag, with the appearance of a tour guide, which was really suffocating. However, thinking that it was indeed my own initiative to come see what kind of person a mercenary is, I couldn't say anything else, so I could only finish smoking the cigarette in my hand, flicking it away and following this embarrassing guy over. It's just that these few people were really far off from my concept of what a mercenary should look like.

  "Hey, buddy, have you eaten?" A few sturdy men rushed to a man with a clear Nordic appearance and a goatee, who was very enthusiastic and quickened his pace to grab the hand of the person being called, and greeted him with a Beijing accent.

  Shu Cui was very enthusiastic and warmly hugged the remaining few people one by one. He then lightly coughed and introduced to me, standing on the side: "This is Gao, that tall dark-haired guy is Lewis, this is Hansen, this is Doug, this is my boss, the mysterious and terrifying master, Wulisen Wang from the mysterious East."

  As I watched the four people who were introduced to me one by one and shook hands with me, I couldn't help but pretend to be a little excited, and quickly opened my mouth to say: "I'm very happy to meet everyone. In the next period of time, the two of us will accompany you all to Israel for a month-long training. Now please get on the bus first, we have booked rooms at the Desert Hotel near the airport, and you can rest first. Later in the evening, I will host a dinner party for you. The day after tomorrow, we will set off for Israel."

  I was embarrassed to see Shi Cui distribute his new business cards with the title "CEO" printed on them to everyone again, and then arranged for the four of us to get into a van that he had rented from who-knows-where. He plopped himself down in the passenger seat and was about to tell me to get in and start driving when I couldn't help but curse him silently - what kind of person is this guy, really?

  After sending everyone back to the hotel and settling down, I finally pulled aside Shu Cui outside the room: "Are you crazy? Where did you see that this is a mercenary troop from North Africa? There's only one black man who looks like an African American at first glance, what are you doing?"

  "Do you really think that native mercenaries from North Africa can afford my training?" Shui Cui glanced around before pulling me to one side, "These people are four instructors from a private special forces unit under a big warlord in Liberia. They were sent abroad for training just to avoid some unnecessary attention."

  This made me curious and I asked: "Why look for you and go to Israel?"

  "In other countries, such as the United States, there are many private training camps that provide military training to anyone who pays. Among them, the most famous and professional one is the training camp founded by Blackwater USA. However, Liberia has just ended its 14-year civil war, and currently, there are 10,186 UN peacekeeping troops deployed throughout the country, which has finally stabilized the security situation. At this time, do you think it's possible for Blackwater USA to train instructors for a private army of a big warlord in Liberia?"

  Suicide and I returned to my own room, only then did he tell the truth. I didn't actually understand this small country that I had never heard of before. After all, I'm not a football fan, and I don't have the tradition of knowing the world through national football teams. But his words, although reasonable, still made me feel very suspicious. Before I could continue asking questions, Suicide took a sip of last night's leftover wine and continued to speak in a sly tone.

  "Since the training camps of powerful countries like Blackwater are not the best choice, they certainly need to make a selection from other smaller options. It just so happens that I once provided weapons and ammunition for the troops under the warlord's command, and even transported soldiers to the enemy warlord's lair, which counts as knowing him and showing my strength, thus gaining this opportunity, you know that was a big order back then."

  "I'm going, I have things to do. You and your little friends can play now, I've decided not to go to Israel." Suddenly, I feel that this unjust civil war really doesn't make sense, secretly cultivating special forces for the civil war won't be a good thing either, such behavior is against my personal standards, so I'll just sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

  "Get out, brother, take care of your friends, I'm tired." I ignored the kid and turned around to leave the outer room, opened the floor-to-ceiling glass door of the balcony, walked over, looked at the two large sun loungers with umbrellas, glanced casually at the crowd playing by the swimming pool downstairs, but felt even more annoyed in my heart. I sat down on one of the two recliners, picked up the wine glass on the small table, and started drinking alone.