203: Chapter Two Hundred and One: The Benefits of an Agent 203: Chapter Two Hundred and One: The Benefits of an Agent Yelena, in the end, was just a girl.
After rebuking Cui Bo with fierce momentum, she eventually returned to her bedroom, her face flushed.
As soon as Yelena left, Cui Bo immediately waggled his eyebrows smugly and whispered in Chinese, “Successfully diverted the topic, thank me, Brother Yang.”
Gao Yang gave Cui Bo a thumbs up and then whispered, “Well done.”
Li Jinfang said with a puzzled face, “What?
Wasn’t it just Rabbit acting dumb again?”
Cui Bo said with disdain, “Am I that stupid?
It was obviously me saving the scene for Brother Yang.
Can’t you tell?
No rapport.”
Glolov frowned and said angrily, “What are you few talking about?
Bastards, don’t you know that’s very impolite?”
“Just now on the phone, Morgan said he was going to introduce us to a broker.
Glolov, you’ve been in the business for many years; do you know what a mercenary broker does?”
Having heard Gao Yang’s explanation, Glolov replied with skepticism, “Broker?
What broker?
Why haven’t I heard of it?”
Gao Yang furrowed his brows, surprised that Glolov, who had been a mercenary for many years, did not know what a broker does.
After briefly explaining broker’s role based on what he had learned from Morgan, Gao Yang said in a deep voice, “What do you think, should I meet with this broker or not?”
Glolov immediately said, “Of course, it sounds good.
The reason I haven’t heard of this profession is just that I haven’t been mixed up at a high enough level.
I think you should have a good talk with that broker.”
Gao Yang nodded and said, “Right now we can only rely on acquaintances to introduce business.
We can only wait for a chance to get any tasks, and getting paid is a hassle, reaching the task location is a hassle, even returning to base after completing the task is troublesome.
We always need to find someone to help out.
If we could just pay a sum of money and have someone take care of these specifics for us, that would indeed be very suitable.”
Cui Bo immediately said, “Let’s meet and see.
As long as the price they ask for isn’t too outrageous, we can agree to it.”
After a moment of silence, Glolov said in a deep voice, “You’re the leader, it’s all up to you.
Listen to me, Gao, before you and Yelena get married, you are not allowed—absolutely not allowed to do that.
Do you understand?”
Glolov finally brought the topic back to Yelena.
Fortunately, by this time, his expression wasn’t as grim.
Gao Yang promptly nodded, but tactfully said nothing.
Natalia, however, immediately said coldly, “Yuri, we need to talk privately.”
After taking Glolov to her bedroom, Natalia stood at the doorway and said, “Sorry, this will be quick.”
Waiting for Natalia to close the bedroom door with a thud, Cui Bo immediately snuck up close to Gao Yang and whispered, “Brother Yang, it’s tough to make a move when you’re too familiar, see?
This is what comes from hitting on your brother’s girl, you can look but can’t touch, it’s killing you!”
Anger rose in Gao Yang’s heart, and after giving Cui Bo a hard knock on the head, he whispered, “Shut your damn beak, you jerk.”
Cui Bo grimaced while rubbing his head, a schadenfreude expression on his face, “Struck a nerve, did I?
Serves you right, ha-ha, while your brother is off having a ball, you, on the other hand, hmph, hmph.”
Cui Bo touched a sore spot for Gao Yang, who wanted to retort but found himself at a loss for words.
Meanwhile, Bob also moved close to Gao Yang, with a solemn expression he said, “You can’t betray family, nor can you be unfaithful to your girlfriend, that’s immoral, and I, for one, am a person with morals.
So, we definitely can’t include you when we go out to have fun.
Take heart in your loss, and by the way, your girlfriend is really something, they are all jealous of you.”
Just then, Natalia came out of the bedroom, but Glolov stayed inside.
After Natalia emerged, she said with a smile, “Everyone’s been waiting, right?
I’ll cook lunch for you now, authentic Russian cuisine.
Gao, you don’t need to stay for lunch.
Yelena doesn’t get to go out often.
Go take a walk outside with her and have lunch together.
Don’t hurry back tonight either, go on.”
Gao Yang stood up, glanced disdainfully at Cui Bo, then went to knock on Yelena’s bedroom door.
After gently calling out to her and saying goodbye to Natalia, the two left hand in hand.
Just like any normal couple, Gao Yang and Yelena strolled hand in hand through the streets of Manhattan, New York, buying little things they liked, watching movies, and having a romantic dinner.
But not long after dark, Gao Yang had already taken Yelena back home.
On the way to dropping off Yelena, Gao Yang was nearly driven to despair by her resentful gaze.
But what Cui Bo said was indeed true; being too familiar made it difficult to make a move.
Gao Yang had the support of his future mother-in-law, but the problem was, his future father-in-law was his comrade-in-arms, and he had spent more time with Glolov than with Yelena and Natalia.
Remembering the fiery gaze in Glolov’s eyes, Gao Yang still managed to control himself.
The apartment where Yelena and her daughter lived was very small, with only two bedrooms and a small living room.
Gao Yang had neither the intention nor the courage to stay in Yelena’s room.
After lunch, Cui Bo and the others had gone off to seek pleasure, so Gao Yang had no choice but to find the hotel that Bob had booked for him.
He lay alone in bed and drifted early into sleep.
He slept until almost noon the next day.
When Gao Yang woke up and realized it was already eleven o’clock, he quickly got up, washed up, and hurried to the place Morgan had told him about for the appointment.
As Gao Yang hastily got ready, the moment he stepped out of the hotel room, he saw Cui Bo and the other four men reeking of alcohol, their steps unsteady and their faces carrying lascivious smiles, swaggering in the corridor.
Seeing Gao Yang, Bob called out loudly, “Hey, Gao, heading out so early?
It’s a real shame you didn’t come with us, it was truly awesome, blew our minds, I’ve never been so happy in my life.”
Bob hadn’t fully recovered from his hangover, his steps swaying with each one he took.
Gao Yang remembered he had to leave and had no time to deal with the drunkards and womanizers.
However, just as he really planned to leave, he noticed that Li Jinfang’s steps were particularly unsteady, as if he were stepping on cotton, yet Li Jinfang clearly wasn’t drunk, he was just weak at the knees.
It’s not strange for anyone else to be weak at the knees, but Li Jinfang had practiced Tan Leg his entire life; his legs were supposed to be as steady as if rooted to the ground.
Seeing his cotton-like footsteps, Gao Yang curiously asked, “What on earth did you guys do last night?”
Bob shouted, “Alcohol, beauties, a party, we threw a party to commemorate Li’s last night as a virgin.”
Gao Yang looked at Li Jinfang and said, “I asked you to keep an eye on Rabbit.
How come you’ve turned into a jelly-legged shrimp too?
What exactly did you all do?”
Li Jinfang shook his head repeatedly, saying, “No, no, everything’s fine.
With me watching, how could we do anything too outrageous?
It’s nothing, Brother Yang, go on, you’re busy.”
Cui Bo gave a sly smile and said, “I’m fine, but I can’t say the same for Jinfang.
You can tell his legs are weak, right?
Jinfang called eight of them for himself last night, all sorts of skin colors, all sorts of ages.
After going at it all night, his legs are all jelly today.
Hey, this is what you call a dark horse.”
Gao Yang looked at Li Jinfang in surprise and commented, “Who would have thought, the young fellow’s quite fierce.”
Li Jinfang, with an embarrassed face, said, “I drank too much, that’s all.
Besides, it was more than twenty years of pent-up energy.
Anyway, Brother Yang, don’t you have something to do?
Hurry along.”
Gao Yang sighed and said, “I’m telling you guys, don’t lose your minds just because you have a bit of bad money.
Anyway, I’ve got to go.
I’ll talk to you guys later.”
With that, Gao Yang quickly left the hotel.
He had agreed to meet someone at one forty-five in the afternoon, and the meeting place was in a building in Queens County.
Now, with only a little over two hours left, considering New York’s terrible traffic, this was not a lot of time.
It wasn’t easy for Morgan to secure a meeting opportunity as the person Gao Yang was meeting was described by Morgan as a big shot in the circle of mercenaries and private security contractors.
In the United States, private security contractors are legal, so many large private military companies operate there, such as Blackwater Company, Deyang Group, and MPRI Company, which are world-renowned big companies.
Among them, Blackwater is much smaller in scale and strength compared to the other two.
Blackwater is notorious mainly because it frequently appears in the media.
Large private military companies mainly work on government contracts.
For instance, Deyang Group is the largest logistical contractor for the US military, responsible for maintaining and transporting US military aircraft.
MPRI is contracted to conduct simulation combat training for the US military and even undertakes security missions around the world for international organizations like the United Nations.
Compared to these two private military companies, Blackwater is rather modest.
While large companies mainly get their business from the government and the military, those legal small-scale private security contractors and the mercenary groups that exist solely in the dark can’t land big governmental or military contracts.
To secure profitable jobs, they rely on brokers to provide information and build connections between employers and mercenaries, allowing those who can’t get big contracts to have their ways of making money.
Hence, getting a top broker’s help also means getting more mission assignments.
Of course, brokers are very selective too.
Without sufficient strength, one simply cannot catch a broker’s eye, as brokers earn their keep from the mercenary groups.
Insufficient strength means settling for limited daily wages like Gao Yang and his team on the Libyan battlefield.
But if strong enough to complete an employer’s specified tasks, the commission isn’t calculated daily but is offered as a lump sum for the mercenary group to evaluate whether to take on the mission.
When taking on missions, mercenary groups often have an advantage over private security contractors because mercenaries will do anything for money, whereas legal private security contractors can only take up security and defense tasks.
They aren’t as aggressive as the unrestrained mercenaries.
Although private security contractors also engage in shady dealings, for the most part, they won’t take tasks with too great a moral risk.
The strength of a mercenary group isn’t determined by numbers.
In Africa, there are plenty of large groups with hundreds of soldiers, but they’re at a very low level, incapable of accessing the truly lucrative missions.
Although Gao Yang’s team is only five members strong, they could take on tasks like rescuing Bob, which, though risky, offer returns that those penny-a-day mercenary groups can’t match.
(To be continued.
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