Shadow Empire

Chapter 307 The only one who can defeat you is yourself
Lance was not surprised that McCock recognized him at once.

Although he may still be a small character in the eyes of the big shots at the top, he is already a big shot in the eyes of ordinary people.

"If there is no second Lance family in Jingang City, then you must be talking about me."

The two men loosened their clasped hands, and Lance invited them to sit down. "I don't know what you like to eat, so I didn't order anything..." He snapped his fingers, and the waiter quickly came over from a distance holding a menu.

"Don't save for me, you know, I'm good at making money!"

McCock laughed and said, "Yes, I know. You are all good at making money."

"So today I will take advantage of you and eat something that I normally wouldn't eat?"

"Please!"

McCock didn't actually order anything outrageous, just a steak, a lamb chop, and some beef cubes.

All these things add up to about a dozen yuan.

Jack ordered similar priced items, not because he wanted to rip Lance off, but if he ordered something too cheap, it would make McCock's order look too expensive.

This would make McCock a little uncomfortable, so ordering the right amount of food was a science, and Lance wanted pretty much the same thing as them.

While waiting for the food to be served, they naturally started chatting, and Lance started by talking about his doubts about McCock's work.

"Our job is the same every day, patrolling on time and dealing with various boring tasks."

"If your ship loses power at sea and you have a radio, you can contact us and we will also be responsible for rescue."

"We also catch smuggling boats, but more often we help tow some boats at the dock."

"There are too many ships here. Without towing, there might be chaos. In short, I think we are not so much the Coast Guard, but more like ordinary dock workers!"

They are indeed responsible for a lot of things and it is not an easy job.

Lance handed him a cigarette, "Congress has recently strengthened the Coast Guard, so you should be able to work more comfortably."

McCock lit up a cigarette and leaned slightly. "What do you mean?"

“Our equipment is definitely better, but we can’t be lazy any more.”

"They asked us to increase patrols to curb the maritime smuggling routes."

"But Lance, you should understand that the coastline is so long that it is definitely not enough to patrol it only once. We can only patrol it continuously."

"In the past we could find some excuse not to do that, saying the patrol boats were not good enough or some other reason, but now we can't find any excuse at all."

He looked at the table, as if he wanted to get some wine, but seeing that there was only lemonade on the table, he put it down again.

At this time, the waiter came over with a tray, and Lance asked, "Do you have the wine I stored?"

The waiter nodded, "Of course, sir. I wonder what kind of wine you have in stock?"

"I have several bottles stored, pick out the strongest one!"

The waiter nodded slightly, but still reminded, "Sir, our service fee is very expensive."

Lance waved his hand, not really caring.

Although the Hazardous Materials Administration has been cracking down on bootleg liquor everywhere, there are still many restaurants that sell alcohol under the guise of “stockpiling alcohol”.

Because the profit margin of alcohol is too huge!

For a restaurant, a meal like the one Lance and his friends had that cost nearly fifty dollars would cost more than twenty dollars.

After deducting other expenses from the remaining thirty dollars in gross profit, the restaurant can make about fifteen dollars.

Seems like a lot?
But a bottle of mid- to high-end wine can bring so much profit to a restaurant!
A bottle of wine, taken out of its hiding place and placed on the dining table, is worth the profit of an entire table.

In addition, after Prohibition, people's desire for alcohol became even higher, and anyone who had money would want some!
They can't say no to this!

"Mr. Lance, everyone says you are very generous, and now it seems to be true!"

McCock seemed very happy. The waiter brought a bottle of wine and said, "Sir, is this the wine you stored here?"

There was also a piece of paper under the wine bottle with the number "one hundred" written in cursive on it.

It is advertised to the public that this is the storage number of the wine, but in fact this is the price of the wine.

This bottle of wine cost less than twenty bucks, but now it costs a hundred, that's why the restaurant can't refuse it!
"Yes, open it for me, thank you."

The waiter smiled and opened the wine, pouring it for the three of them. Soon someone brought a screen to block the view.

McCock took a sip, took a deep breath, and then exhaled heavily, the breath smelling of alcohol.

"Good wine!" In fact, he couldn't tell which wine was good or bad, but the one hundred yuan made him think that this was a bottle of good wine.

"I have a question, McCock, can I call you that?"

McCock nodded, "Of course, you bought me a drink, so we are friends!"

“That’s what my friends call me.”

"I'm honored that we can be friends, McCock."

"What do you do with the smuggled items you usually find?"

McCock was stunned for a moment. "Of course we will handle it according to the procedures. If they are willing to pay the fines and customs duties, we will give them to them."

"But most people don't want to, you know, the cost of smuggling is much less than the tax they have to pay."

"If one of the three trips comes in, there's money to be made, so most of the stuff will be stored in the warehouse and eventually destroyed and auctioned off according to regulations."

Lance also raised his glass and clinked it with him, "Where's the money from the auction?"

"Of course it's handed over to the Ministry of Finance!" McCock curled his lips, "They treat us as a revenue-generating department."

Currently, the Coast Guard is still under the management of the Federal Treasury Department, and the proceeds from the auction must be turned over, so they themselves do not actually get any benefits.

It's nothing more than secretly getting some things for your own use, or selling them, but you can't get too much.

There will also be people from the Ministry of Finance responsible for regular inspections, and once the money is put into storage, it basically cannot be moved.

Even if it can move, it is the result of those people turning a blind eye.

Lance seemed to sympathize with him after hearing this. "This job sounds very hard, and there's no good income, right?"

McCock curled his lips, "I'm sure I can't make as much money as you can."

“Who doesn’t want to be rich?”

"But we don't have any good solution..."

He fell silent as he spoke, "Lance, this is the first time we meet. Jack and I are friends. If you have anything to say, just say it directly."

"If you have something coming in, my advice is it's best to wait."

"The crackdown has been very strict recently. We are almost always on patrol and don't even have time to rest."

He also thought that Lance was going to smuggle something in, and with Jack as a guarantor, and Lance treating him to dinner and ordering a bottle of wine for a hundred dollars, he felt respected.

So he might as well make his words clearer, which might actually mean he is refusing.

I want to help, but I can’t now. I’ll wait and see.

Lance also heard it, but he didn't end it because he knew that McCock would definitely choose to stand on his side.

"What do you usually do when you find alcohol?" he asked a more specific question.

McCock poured himself another glass of wine. "If it's alcohol, this stuff will be turned over to the Hazardous Materials Administration and they will be destroyed publicly."

As he spoke, a smile appeared on his face. "But we can drink a little, just don't go too far."

Lance handed him a cigarette, "Have you ever considered disposing of the alcohol yourself?"

McCock realized what Lance meant, "Were you found to have alcohol?"

He thought for a moment, "Haven't heard of it in the past few days?"

"But even if we are really investigated, there is little room for maneuver. We have people watching us, and everyone hopes that some big case will come out."

He smiled and shook his head as he spoke, "How can there be so many big cases?"

Lance took a drag on his cigarette and slowly exhaled, "It will be available tomorrow."

McCock, who was eating, was stunned for a moment, "I don't quite understand, Lance."

"Six or seven hundred thousand dollars worth of wine is coming in."

"Yours?" McCock looked around, but because of the screen, what he could see was actually very limited. He lowered his voice and said, "Are you crazy?"

"With so much alcohol, if we get caught, we'll be finished!"

Lance said truthfully, "It's not mine, it's someone else's. This guy and I have some issues."

"I don't want him to make this deal." "Take this batch of wine and sell it to me."

"I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand in cash."

McCock's heart suddenly started beating uncontrollably. The number two hundred and fifty thousand scared him!

Not sure if it was because of these things or because of the two glasses of wine, he suddenly felt dry in the mouth.

Even though it was lemonade, which he didn't like, he took a big sip.

"Mr. Lance, don't...joke."

Lance shook his head and said, "I'm not kidding."

"You can think about it."

"No matter what decision you make, I will tell you the time and address to pick up the goods. You will definitely be able to find them and the goods."

"You can hand them over to the Hazardous Materials Administration, and they can then sell them secretly or destroy them publicly, and receive accolades from the Presidential Palace and Congress."

"Everyone can get a big bonus and use it as capital for promotion."

"But you guys will get nothing. There will be no bonus, no flash, no accolades, and maybe just a sentence or two in the news."

"There is another way. You sell these wines to me and no one knows except you and people you can trust!"

"The person who delivers the goods doesn't know, and the person who receives the goods doesn't know. Only you and I know."

"I can continue to sell my wine, and you can get 250,000 in cash."

"I don't care whether there are only a few of you or more than a dozen of you to share it."

"But my suggestion is that if you choose to sell the wine to me, I can arrange for my people to get on board, so that you can get more money."

"Think about it, McCock. I won't rush you into making a decision."

"Even if you decide not to cooperate with me, I will still give you the information. Like I said, I have a grudge against him."

"But I sincerely hope that you can consider the second option. After all, the results you gain from taking risks will only become the capital for others to reward and promote you."

"I feel sorry for you, my friend!"

Lance said, glancing at his watch, "I have something else to do this afternoon, so I'll leave first."

He waved his hand, counted out one hundred and eighty dollars and placed them on the tray, "No need to give me the change."

Then he looked at McCock and said, "You can have this kind of life every day, too!"

Jack next to him was also a little dazed. In fact, he was having a similar struggle in his heart, because someone also asked him to raise his hand and would give him a large sum of money.

The choices he faced were not much different from those faced by McCock.

Looking at the wine in the glass, McCock picked it up and drank it all. He glanced at Jack and said, "You have given me a difficult question to think about."

Jack also sighed, "Who says it's not?"

He didn't finish all the wine. He asked the restaurant to put it in a brown paper bag and put it in his arms.

After returning to the coast patrol, he was going out to sea for patrol in the afternoon. While sitting boringly on the sea, he couldn't help but take out the wine and take a sip.

The whole person felt relaxed in an instant.

There is a huge difference between good wine and bad wine!

The sea breeze is blowing, which is sometimes mixed with salt crystals. Coupled with the scorching sun, the whole person turns red and black!
He remembered when he was young and had just joined the Coast Patrol, he would get sunburned every day!
It's not a comfortable job, being at sea during the hottest part of the summer and the coldest part of the winter.

Even though we have replaced the armed ships, we still have to stand guard.

The next morning, he finished his work, returned to the ground, and drove home.

As soon as I entered the house, my wife couldn't help nagging, "The billing day is coming soon. If you don't want to be knocked on the door like last time, you'd better prepare in advance."

"I've already told you that we shouldn't change cars at this particular time!"

"There were two other children whose teachers called me and said they both had the opportunity to go to college and asked if we would consider it."

"If we hope that they can go to college, the teacher is willing to write a recommendation letter for them..."

She talked a lot of things, and almost none of her words mentioned money, but every word was inextricably linked to money!

He sat on the shabby sofa he bought when he got married, staring at the bright sky outside the window in a daze.

His wife's words in his ears were like a spell that made his head go blank!
He has never really enjoyed himself in his life. Even when eating out or having dinner together, he has to calculate his expenses in advance so as not to overspend.

He was always careful with his money in everything he did, but thinking of Lance, he casually gave him one hundred and eighty dollars.

The money on the plate is still vivid in his memory!
Whether it's work or life, he feels...it's actually quite pathetic.

He slowly turned to look at his wife and asked hesitantly, his eyes somewhat confused, "If... let them go to college, will they have a bright future?"

His wife said as she was ironing clothes, "Of course, they can go to big companies after graduation and earn 70, 80, or even 100 or 200 yuan a month, unlike us!"

“Buy discounted clothes, buy discounted food, live in discounted houses, drive discounted cars…”

“How much does it cost to go to college?”

Without even looking up, she said absentmindedly, "If both of them want to go, it will cost about seven hundred to eight hundred dollars a year."

"one person."

"least."

McCock sat there for a while, then suddenly stood up. His wife asked, "Aren't you taking a day off today?"

McCock shook his head and drove back. He found the captain on duty today and talked about the shift change.

"I might have to go out in a few days. Can I switch shifts with you?"

"I'll be on duty tonight. Can you help me out in a few days?"

This kind of thing is very normal for colleagues who have worked together for decades.

Who doesn’t have a problem?
The other party quickly agreed. McCock returned to the office and dialed the number Lance left for him...

Half an hour later, McCock's confidants arrived.

There were more people than Lance had imagined, a total of eleven.

When they found out that there were some strangers going out to sea with them, they all looked a little confused, but because of their trust in McCock, they didn't say anything.

Some colleagues didn’t come, and there were some new people here, so there were definitely some changes.

When the ship left the coast, McCock called them all together and briefly explained the situation.

"We just need to intercept the boat, and then... they will do the killing."

"The ship and the cargo will come with us, and they will be separated and picked up when we get close to the coastline."

"We will continue our patrols, and they promised to give us two hundred thousand when this is over."

For a moment, everyone gasped.

He observed these people, and except for a few of them, everyone else had surprise in their eyes!
One of the guys who had followed him the longest couldn't help but ask, "How do we divide the money?"

McCock pursed his lips and said, "I'll take 40,000, and you guys rate the rest."

They were not good at math, and after writing and drawing for a while, they came to the conclusion that each person could get more than 14,000 yuan.

Many people immediately expressed their opinions, “Let’s do it!”

Not to mention more than ten thousand yuan, a few hundred or a few thousand yuan would be enough to hire a third-rate killer to kill someone.

Not to mention that it was more than ten thousand dollars, and they didn't need to do the dirty work themselves, they just had to intercept the ship and then assist Lance's people in dealing with the smugglers.

It’s such a simple thing, and a large sum of money can be deposited into the account. Who wouldn’t be tempted?
But some people also asked, "Will there be any trouble?"

"After all, there is so much wine and so much money!"

McCock's eyes flickered. "We have been drifting on the sea for almost our entire lives. I don't owe this country anything. It owes me!"

This sentence made everyone silent again. It was a case not long ago, and so many people died, but it was still reported.

In fact, people die on the Coast Guard every year, and many times they are not even reported, they just die quietly.

The sea is scary, even near the coast there are risks!

They could sense McCock's determination, so they stopped trying to persuade him.

Some were excited, while others were calm.

Everyone has different ideas, attitudes...

(End of this chapter)