Chapter 1912 - 1413: Morality and Money

The phone suddenly vibrated; it was a message from Samir: "The situation in Mosul is complex, storage space is insufficient, and political pressure is increasing. Return quickly for discussions."

Song Heping replied: "Returning tomorrow morning. Prepare the response plan."

He put away the phone and said to Jiang Feng, "Inform the brothers to rest well tonight. Tomorrow I'll take half the people back to Mosul; you stay here to continue supervising the inventory. Remember, if problems arise, concede first, record evidence, and handle it later. The most important thing now is to keep the process running."

"What if they keep pushing?" Jiang Feng asked.

"Then pay up. Issues that money can solve aren't problems; compared to the profits, these hundreds of thousands of US dollars are nothing," Song Heping said calmly. "In this system, money can solve ninety-nine percent of the problems. The remaining one percent requires more money."

Jiang Feng looked at him and suddenly asked: "Old squad leader, when did we become like this?"

Song Heping was taken aback: "Like what?"

"Paying corrupt officials, tacitly allowing equipment to be swapped, receiving mysterious sensitive weapons..." Jiang Feng's voice was very soft: "We weren't like this before."

The night wind blew, bringing the chill of the desert.

Song Heping was silent for a long time.

"Do you know when I first sold arms?" he finally said, "It was 2005, and the weapons were stolen by Yusuf from the former government army's remaining materials warehouse. A batch of AK rifles, the buyer was a representative of a South American drug dealer. After the transaction was complete, I asked him: What will these guns be used for? He laughed and said: Killing people, what else?"

"I couldn't sleep the whole night, feeling like I had become an accomplice to the executioner."

Song Heping looked at the distant lights and coldly laughed.

"But later I figured it out. If I don't sell, others will. Those guns, if not flowing out from Illiguo, would flow out from Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and other places. The violence in this world won't decrease a bit due to my moral purity."

Jiang Feng asked: "So, we just go with the flow?"

"No, we choose our own battlefield."

Song Heping sighed, unscrewed a bottle of mineral water, and took a sip.

"I refuse to sell weapons to factions using child soldiers. That's all I can do; as for the rest, I can't care that much."

Jiang Feng persisted: "What about now? Bribing corrupt US Army officers, is that also your principle?"

Song Heping's smile lost its warmth: "Now we are in a bigger game. This game is called national interest, geopolitical, war economy. Here, there are no absolute good or bad people, only interests and stances. Is the US Army corrupt? Yes. Not cruel? Cruel! How many innocent civilians did they kill a few years ago? But then again, isn't the 1515 Armed cruel and extreme, they directly behead. Wasn't Sadam back then corrupt, he used chemical weapons to massacre the Kurd people. On this Middle Eastern turf, count one as one, who is clean?"

He looked at Jiang Feng: "We are not saints. We are people making a living in the gray zones. Sometimes we have to dirty our hands to let more important things continue. How many people would die if this batch of arms falls into the hands of the 1515? If we don't take over, someone else will; can you guarantee that others taking over would be better than us?"

"So we are doing good deeds?" Jiang Feng sarcastically asked.

"We are doing necessary things," Song Heping corrected, "Necessary things aren't necessarily good things, but they are things that must be done. Now, go prepare the money. Tomorrow there will be tougher decisions to make."

Jiang Feng left, and his silhouette stretched long under the spotlight.

Song Heping stood alone outside the warehouse, looking at the military base beneath the starlit sky.

This massive machine built with American taxpayers' money was slowly disintegrating before him.

And he was the Cleaner, the Vulture, the decomposer within the ecosystem, converting the remnants of the dead war machine into new energy.

The phone vibrated again.

This time it was an unknown number.

"Mr. Song, this is Lieutenant Thompson." The voice on the other end was tense: "I have information for sale to you. About Major Walker and Lieutenant Colonel Swift's real plan. Fifty thousand dollars, cash, transaction tonight."

"How do I know the information is worth this price?"

"Because they don't intend to let you transport all the goods," Thompson said. "Thirty percent of the equipment on the list has been marked as 'to be destroyed,' but in reality, it will be moved to another location and sold to another buyer. You will only get the remaining seventy percent but pay one hundred percent of the money."

Song Heping's heart skipped a beat: "Evidence?"

"I have photos of the warehouse transfer records and email exchanges between Walker and another buyer. Fifty thousand dollars, I'll give you everything."

"Transaction location?"

"Abandoned helipad on the east side of the base, midnight at twelve. Come alone, bring cash."

The call was disconnected.

Song Heping looked at the phone, the screen slowly dimming.

He returned to the car, ruminating a few bundles of bills in the storage compartment.

For an arms dealer, a PMC boss, cash is essential.

Especially when traveling for trades, one doesn't feel at ease without bringing along hundreds of thousands of US dollars in cash.

Taking out five stacks of hundred-dollar bills, ten thousand each, wrapped in plastic.

Jiang Feng turned back after handling his tasks: "Whose call was it?"

"Lieutenant Thompson," Song Heping didn't hide it, "he wants to sell us information, about Walker and Swift's real plan."

"Is it credible? Could be a trap."

"Who cares?" Song Heping packed the cash into the backpack: "No rabbit, no hawk."