Chapter 1057: Paltamo Refugee Camp
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rainystars
After he hesitated for a moment, Kutpov made the decision not to shoot.
Carmen was the number one target of the Ghost Agents, but not the number one target of the Russian Security Services.
His mission was to place beacons to guide air strikes instead of assassinating Freemasonry members. Compared to the Freemasonry, Arrow sending mercenaries to Ukraine gave them more of a headache.
Less than five hundred meters away, he had 100% confidence that he could use the sniper rifle behind his back to kill him. But if he shot, the mission would fail, and the entire Alpha team would also be killed.
He could only watch Carmen sit into the Hummer and entered the depths of the base.
Two minutes later, he was thankful for his decision.
The roar of the engine came not far away from them and homing noise even caused the snow to scatter down from treetops.
A Russian soldier behind Kutpov put his face on the ground and listened quietly for half a minute, then he whispered.
“One kilometer away, between 30 and 50 vehicles.”
“At least one brigade, maybe two, dammit… the intelligence is wrong.”
With a binocular in his hand, Kutpov observed the situation in the camp.
Carmen arrived at the military base next to Lake Inari, and Arrow suddenly sent two brigades to the area, all of which exceeded the expectations of the intelligence. At this time, it was obviously not a wise choice to sneak in. It was better to withdraw first and look for a high ground in the vicinity to observe the situation in the base before making further plans.
What’s more, there were still a lot of valuable intelligence to be reported.
Thinking of this, he made a decisive decision and made a gesture of retreat.
“The mission is cancelled, retreat to observation point B…”
The group of people silently moved back and just like when they came they left without a trace.
…
The Paltamo refugee camp, as its name suggested, was located on the frozen soil next to the town of Paltamo in northern Finland.
The employer of the refugee camp was the “Frankberg Humanitarian Foundation”, and the actual manager was Arrow, which accommodated nearly 400,000 refugees in the past two years and the number of refugees grew by 10,000 per month up till a month ago. Not only Muslims were sent here, but also illegal immigrants who refused to be repatriated for reasons other than war.
The entire refugee camp was semi-closed and aimed to provide refugees with a “New World” to guide them in reaching self-sufficiency through labor.
In addition to distributing a small amount of living necessities, many lucky winners also received the honor to enter the factories and farms invested by the foundation to produce bullets or potatoes. They were called lucky winners, because having a job here was considered extremely good. It meant that the family didn’t need to starve to survive.
Although the salary was meager, it was better than nothing.
In addition to working in factories or farms, another good option was to sign up to join the mercenary. If they could survive through the month of hellish training, they would become the humblest of Arrow mercenaries. Not only could they get rid of their refugee status, but their families could also leave the camp in the future.
Of course, joining the mercenaries as refugees meant they were often sent to the most dangerous battlefields after the end of training, and performed missions with the highest mortality rates, but at least there was hope, the hope to return to the civilized society with normal people.
However, job opportunities were limited, and only few stepped onto the battlefield. Most people relied on necessities.
Unemployment and poverty had always been the breeding ground for crime since ancient times. Fighting, robbery, and theft constantly happen there. Arrow obviously had no intention of establishing order. They only distributed bread and mineral water by number. As for these supplies getting robbed, as long as it didn’t happen in front of them, they didn’t care.
Many people missed their lives in Europe. Sleeping in a warm and comfortable welfare home, living the life provided by other people, and occasionally enjoying the pagans… Thinking back, those days were “heavenly.”
There were no fences and checkpoints at the entrance to the camp. Anyone could freely enter or leave.
Refugees who live here occasionally headed to the nearby towns to buy some necessities with salaries. Arrow was not concerned about refugees escaping. Without a passport or visa, only two possibilities exist for those who escaped, freezing to death on the road down south, or being captured by the police and sent back.
After Jiang Chen parked the off-road vehicle on the tundra outside the refugee camp, he persuaded Ayesha to wait for him, and then walked to the camp.
As he stepped into the camp, he immediately noticed that at least a few pairs of eyes focused on him. Although he didn’t know their intentions, he knew that one of their intentions was not friendliness.
Jiang Chen was not worried about being recognized. The button on his neck already used holographic imaging technology to “change” his face into a typical Central Asian. Other than his expression being too dull, there was almost no difference with a real face.
This button-sized device was a gadget designed by Yao Yao. The little girl’s hardware skill was not as superb as her expertise in software, but it was still excellent. Jiang Chen’s first drone was created by her.
He lowered the cap on his head. Pleased with his perfect camouflage, he stepped into the refugee camp.
From the image returned by the satellite, his was very close to Arrow’s military base. However, it would be too dumb to rush inside. Even a Gundam wouldn’t be able to survive through countless RPGs. He must gain some information before entering.
For example, how many people were there, how many tanks, and if an important person was paying a visit…
Jiang Chen ignored the unscrupulous gazes, before the refugees put “unfriendliness” into action, he turned into the side alley, released a drone and scanned the nearby map, and quickly walked into a house.
From the corner of eyes, he noticed several brawny men in down jackets run towards him as soon as he started moving faster.
“@#*!” The man with a red headscarf first ran to the alley and looked at the empty alleyway. “He ran away!”
“What should we do? Should we report him?” The brawny man behind the man foolishly asked.
“Are you a pig?” Harriet slapped his head in anger. “What did the boss tell us? Go and find him! If we can’t find him… Just pretend his never happened! You hear me!”
“Yes.” The people gathered around nodded and quickly ran into the alley.
Harriet hesitated as he watched the thugs go chasing in, he gritted, then quickly followed.
However, when they went into the alley, Jiang Chen already made many turns.
He easily left those people behind. After he confirmed with the drone that they couldn’t catch up, Jiang Chen stepped into a backstreet.
Just as he was about to open the holographic screen to confirm the map, a voice speaking broken-English came from the corner.
“Are you a reporter.”
Jiang Chen stopped and looked for the source of the voice.
A body with slightly dark skin was squatting over a ditch and washing his clothes. The large eyes were looking to him with curiosity and caution.
As if he had heard something interesting, Jiang Chen looked at the boy and pointed to his own face, “Do I look like a reporter?”
The little boy shrugged.
“I don’t know, but if you are a reporter, I advise you to be careful of those who wear gray down jackets. They are employees of Arrow. If they know a reporter has sneaked in, your best ending is getting your phone confiscated and then getting tossed into the nearest town after a beating.”
“There are a lot of people wearing grey down jackets. How can I distinguish them?”
“Use your eyes. There will be an arrow-shaped sign on their arms. Also, you have to be careful around the Sami Gang.”
“Sami Gang?” Jiang Chen frowned.
The boy did not speak, just blinked.
Jiang Chen smiled and put his hand into his pocket. With the cover of the clothes, he took out two “Franklins” from his storage dimension and stuffed it into the boy’s hand.
“Your tip.”
When the boy saw the two hundred-dollar bills, his eyes almost bulged out, but soon he used his innocent acting to take the huge sum of money and stuff the bills into his shoes.
“They are gangs in the refugee camp, because Sami is the head of the thugs, so they call themselves the Sami Gang. They were already gangs back in Syria and were sent here after being captured in Frankberg. Based on rumors, they are close with Arrow, so a few of Sami’s important thugs avoided military service. In short, they are the most difficult people here to deal with. If you don’t want to be miserable, it is better to stay away from those people.”
“I thought your boss was a person from Arrow.” Jiang Chen laughed.
“Arrow mercenaries don’t care about us. We are just bugs to them,” Without any fluctuation his emotions, the boy spoke indifferently. “This refugee camp is like a prison. Arrow mercenaries are the prison guards, we are prisoners, and Sami Gangs are the thugs. As long as not too many people die here at once, the production of the factories is unaffected… If you have a camera on you, can you hide my face? If my face appears on a news report—”
“Rest assured, I’m not a reporter.” Jiang Chen smiled. He was prepared to leave. “Thank you for your information. If someone asks if you have seen me…”
But he stopped mid-sentence.
Just now, he suddenly thought of a brilliant idea.
He didn’t need to send a brigade to Finland nor did he need to create something shocking to kick away the “turtle shell” on Carmen.
Jiang Chen then looked back at the boy, and asked, “Do you know where to find that Sami?”