Ch.408Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

# On the Day of Resuming External Activities

“Who are those people?”

“They’re our guides and escorts.”

Several pickup trucks were parked in front of our lodging, carrying locals armed with bulletproof vests and automatic rifles. They were an armed escort dispatched by Warlord Hassan.

The warlord duo introduced them proudly:

“Al Bas tribe’s elite guard. Very skilled.”

Ignoring the smugly posturing warlord duo, I examined the tribal guards.

Their equipment, vehicles, health condition, and discipline—the elite guard’s quality was on a completely different level compared to bandits or checkpoint forces. Camilla, who was also evaluating the guards alongside me, began nodding with a satisfied look.

“This seems reassuring, doesn’t it?”

It certainly was.

I nodded in agreement.

“As reassuring as your belly fat.”

“W-what kind of comment is that…!”

It seems Hassan’s pride was badly hurt by the bandit attack. Sending his precious elite guards as escorts made that clear.

Though it was like closing the barn door after the horse had bolted, the fact that he sent his personal guards forced me to reassess Nayan. He was a cautious man with decisiveness, and he clearly considered me an important person.

A good sign.

Thanks to those bandits, I get to enjoy this luxury. I put on my sunglasses and smirked.

“I’m just joking. Hurry up and get in.”

“What kind of joke is that! You’re just making fun of me!”

“What’s wrong with gaining a little weight? It’s better than being a pig, right?”

“Gaaaah!”

Under the strict vigilance of the warlord’s armed escort, we headed toward the territory of the Al Bas tribe.

# Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

Among intelligence officers, informants are metaphorically referred to as “assets.”

Intelligence officers collect domestic and foreign intelligence, process it into information, and conduct intelligence operations based on that information. For them, intelligence is a source and asset that allows them to carry out their missions more effectively.

Therefore, it’s no exaggeration to say that informants are an intelligence officer’s most important assets.

Our venture outside was precisely to recruit such informants.

To be more precise, we went out to scout for potential informants.

“Recruiting informants is something all intelligence officers must do. But more important than recruiting informants is finding individuals with the qualities to become informants. We call this scouting.”

On the way to our destination.

I took advantage of the spare time to conduct a brief lecture. A one-on-one special class for an aspiring spy.

Camilla began listening to my explanation with serious eyes.

“First, I’ll explain the informant acquisition cycle in simple terms.”

The informant acquisition cycle refers to the general procedure used by intelligence agencies for recruiting and employing informants.

I explained this process by dividing it into five stages.

“The procedure for acquiring informants typically consists of five stages: target selection, assessment, recruitment, handling, and termination. Do you know what this means, Camilla?”

“Roughly, yes.”

“Good. That makes my explanation easier.”

The procedure for recruiting informants is broadly divided into five categories.

Target selection—identifying people who can access the information the intelligence officer needs—and assessment—determining if they can be employed as informants—are the starting points.

During the assessment stage, you need to find out what desires the target has and whether there’s a way to recruit them as an informant.

The most commonly used motivations in the assessment stage are money, power, and recognition. Going further, dissatisfaction, inferiority complexes, preferences, personal background, and upbringing also factor into the assessment.

The next stage is recruitment, which intelligence officers often euphemistically call “employment.”

“Recruitment is the second most difficult procedure in the informant acquisition process. Ideally, the potential informant shouldn’t know the intelligence officer’s identity, shouldn’t know about other informants, and the officer should complete as much investigation as possible about the informant before employment.”

“That’s a lot of hurdles. If that’s the second most difficult task, what’s the first?”

“That would obviously be handling.”

Handling is the stage after employment. It’s the process where the intelligence officer controls and manages the informant.

It’s the most time-consuming process. And requires just as much effort.

I added while turning the steering wheel:

“Usually, if something goes wrong while operating an informant, the problem occurs during the handling stage. Problems can arise during assessment and employment too, but when issues occur during handling, the intelligence officer is also at risk. In other words, it’s high-risk.”

Handling requires continuous monitoring, regular contact, and post-operation evaluation.

If an incident occurs at this point, or if the informant’s value begins to decline, the intelligence officer decides how to deal with the informant. That’s termination.

The finale that marks the end of the informant acquisition cycle.

“There are quite a few reasons to terminate an informant. Maybe the goal has been achieved and there’s no longer any reason to meet the informant, or perhaps the informant lost their job and can no longer access information. It also includes cases where the intelligence officer judges the informant to be untrustworthy, or when superiors order the informant to be cut loose.”

Camilla, who had been listening to the explanation, suddenly asked:

“What about when an informant is arrested by a counterintelligence agency?”

“You cut them loose without looking back.”

If counterintelligence catches your trail, the intelligence officer must abort all operations and return. Following procedure, all equipment and documents are destroyed, and only essential information is salvaged as you escape.

During this process, all informants managed by the intelligence officer are terminated—even those not discovered by counterintelligence are often cut loose wholesale.

I omitted detailed explanations about the final termination stage. Not only would it be difficult for Camilla to understand, but I thought her sensibilities might struggle to accept it.

The brief lecture ended there. Instead, I changed the topic of conversation.

To something more productive and constructive.

“Now, here’s a quiz! If you were an intelligence officer, Camilla, who would you recruit today?”

Momentarily flustered by the sudden question, she stroked the corner of her lips with her slender finger before giving her answer.

“Well, since there are no informants in this region… Someone who can provide as much information as possible?”

“Be a bit more specific.”

“Hmm…”

The British intellectual fell into contemplation.

This question seemed challenging even for Camilla. The woes of someone lacking experience.

Still, her sharp mind didn’t fail her, and an answer soon emerged. It was close to what I had in mind.

“Civil servants…?”

I looked at Camilla with a slight smile.

“That’s a bit too broad a definition, but still correct. Congratulations, Camilla.”

“Yay! So what’s my reward? Do I get to recruit an informant too? Or will you take me on some secret operation?”

“……”

“Hello?”

Under Camilla’s piercing gaze urging an answer, I silently turned my head away.

Then, after clearing my throat, I spoke.

“I’ll buy you something delicious later.”

“Don’t try to bribe me with food! Am I some kind of animal?!”

*

As Camilla said, the informants I had my eye on were local civil servants.

I had no informants under my management in this country. The Mauritanian continent wasn’t my usual theater of operations.

So I couldn’t sit in an office and observe everything as I had at my previous post.

Therefore, I couldn’t access high-level information handled by government agencies like the host country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, or Ministry of Defense. Nor could I get local community news like who got divorced, whose child got married, or which household’s elder had fallen ill.

An intelligence officer who can’t collect information is like steamed buns without red bean paste, pizza without pineapple, or fish-shaped pastries without fish filling.

The absence of information leads directly to danger, and an intelligence officer without information is like being thrown naked into an uninhabited area teeming with monsters.

So I needed informants.

Informants who could collect all kinds of information, from trivial local community news to seemingly unimportant incidents and accidents, and various other miscellaneous intelligence.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go in.”

Thus, I began scouting for informants with Camilla.

The first places we visited were government offices within Al Bas territory—dens crawling with corrupt officials.

There was no special reason for visiting local district or city offices instead of important government departments like the Ministry of Defense or Foreign Affairs. I simply didn’t have the authority to access those government departments.

“Hello… I was just passing by and wondered if it would be alright to come in?”

With a thick-skinned smile, I greeted the civil servants with a goofy grin. The locals who had been scribbling documents at their desks began staring blankly at the sudden appearance of a foreigner.

Compared to the grand building, the government office in rebel-occupied territory was incredibly shabby, but I didn’t care about the size of the office or the attitude of civil servants who were just killing time without enthusiasm.

Collecting intelligence even from places like this is an intelligence officer’s role, isn’t it?

“You’re working hard. I need travel permit documents. Can I get them issued here?”

“This is the civil service reception desk. Go to the Transportation Department on the second floor.”

Through conversations with civil servants, I figured out the structure of the government office. Perhaps because it was an underdeveloped country, there wasn’t even a common building directory.

Transportation, Administration, Safety, Health, Welfare, Tourism, Autonomy, and so on. Even for a government office established in warlord territory, it had a decent range of departments. The problem was that it was all for show.

Camilla couldn’t contain her curiosity and asked me a question as we climbed the stairs. She looked at the yellowed, cracked stairs and cast a glance at me.

“What kind of information are you trying to get from here?”

The question implied: is there any information worth getting from a place like this?

I answered with a light smile.

“Anyone can collect information. City hall officials can collect information, corporate analysts, even supermarket employees and job seekers collect information. But why do you think countries spend taxpayer money to train intelligence officers?”

“Because they need someone to analyze intelligence from raw data?”

“That’s right.”

“What does that have to do with my question?”

“I told you. Professional personnel are needed for information analysis.”

Anyone can collect raw intelligence. However, selecting important intelligence and processing it into information is the domain of intelligence officers.

In that context, government offices were suitable places for collecting intelligence.

“Census takers, traffic managers, tax collectors, welfare officials… These people know more about their region than anyone else. It’s their job.”

Let’s assume I recruit one civil servant.

That civil servant only handles information related to their job, so from an intelligence officer’s perspective, they’re not worth recruiting. What state secrets could you obtain by recruiting a welfare department official?

However, if a close friend or relative of a target with access to state secrets is receiving welfare benefits, the story changes. The welfare official can provide all sorts of information about people close to the target, and the intelligence officer can use this to find new ways to approach the target.

“That’s why we’re here. Because we never know when we might need civil servants’ help.”

I immediately went into action.

The first thing I did was establish rapport. Using document issuance as a pretext, I became acquainted with government office staff.

Giving a bribe equivalent to two months’ salary of the responsible official just to issue a travel permit might seem foolish to anyone watching, but the purpose of the bribe wasn’t simply to bypass complicated administrative procedures.

I contacted other civil servants through introductions from the transportation department official. Transportation, Administration, Budget, Welfare, Health, and so on. I gave them cigarettes as small bribes and exchanged casual conversation. All of this was part of the process of establishing rapport.

In psychology, this process is called rapport building. In other words, creating empathy.

After observing this process, Camilla posed a new question. She was asking why I was doing all this.

“If you need information, can’t you just go to someone high up and give them a bribe? They’re all corrupt officials anyway.”

“Every task has its procedure.”

I explained the nature of corrupt civil service to the aspiring intelligence officer.

“Even corrupt officials will refuse bribes if they’re suddenly offered without any reason. It’s a burden and a risk for them. So at first, you have to start with small bribes for trivial matters.”

All recruitment begins with small things—to reduce a five-week document processing time to three hours, to dismiss a traffic violation.

That’s how one cigarette becomes a dollar, and a dollar becomes a bag full of money. By that point, the civil servant might sense something wrong and try to back out, but the intelligence officer threatens them, saying if they don’t want to be fired for accepting bribes, they should shut up and comply.

“It’s just like boiling a frog in a pot. If you suddenly pour hot water in, the frog gets startled and tries to escape, but if you raise the temperature gradually, the frog stays put. People are the same.”

“That statement just now sounded very unethical for a civil servant. But I get your point.”

“Today we stopped at one cigarette, but tomorrow it will be cash. Not much, just a modest $50 or so? By next week, it’ll exceed $300.”

The civil servants who received bribes will brag about it to others. They’ll say they earned a month’s salary in a day by taking advantage of a foreign sucker.

The sardines that smell money will soon gather toward the food. Whether it’s bait or a fisherman’s lure, they’ll only find out later.

“Anyway, we’re done with the government office, so let’s move on.”

“Where to next?”

“Let’s crack the police first.”

After leaving the government office, I walked into the police station. It was a den of warlord collaborators filled only with Al Bas tribesmen.

On the surface, it looked like an ordinary police station, but to my eyes, it was nothing short of a den. Especially considering how they rushed at foreigners as soon as they spotted them.

The police officers, seeing a foreigner who had come of their own accord, demanded bribes out of habit.

“Did bad thing? No worry. We are kind people.”

At first, they mistook me for a criminal and demanded money, but once they realized I wasn’t a criminal, they were visibly disappointed.

The police officers, smoking cigarettes and lounging around, soon began making up strange charges like illegal vehicle modifications and threatening me with jail time.

The funny thing was that vehicle modifications weren’t illegal here. Of course, laws existed, but in a place that couldn’t even properly enforce traffic regulations, who would punish illegal modifications? Lax enforcement is the typical face of a corrupt society.

The police officers trying to extort the foreigner backed off only after a superior appeared. He was the head of the intelligence department, and he babbled that he had come to help because the foreigner seemed to be in trouble.

Of course, that was nonsense.

“Oh my, I’m sorry for the unintended trouble.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Do you smoke? Since we’ve met like this, let’s have a cigarette together.”

“Sure.”

I took the intelligence department head to the smoking area (which was just the alley behind the police station) and offered him a cigarette.

After some casual conversation, I brought up the main point.

“Actually, I’m a journalist.”

“A journalist? Foreign journalists are rare. I suppose you’re here to cover the warlords.”

“Just trying to make a living. Well, it’s barely enough to get by.”

At the mention of being a journalist, the intelligence department head’s eyes began to shine. He smelled money.

I smoked my cigarette and gently scratched at his inner thoughts.

“I can’t seem to find any good stories. Maybe it’s because I’m an outsider, but everyone seems wary.”

“Few people are kind to foreigners. Oh, except me, of course. Haha.”

“So I was wondering if you could help me a bit.”

I opened my pocket and carefully clenched my fist. It was a hand with neatly folded cash.

“I haven’t been here long, you see. Just help me this once. We’re all just trying to make a living.”

“Hmm, well…”

The intelligence department head looked down at the cash with a pretend uncomfortable expression. Then, after nervously looking around, he opened his pocket.

I put the cash into the police officer’s upper pocket. After eagerly puffing on his cigarette for a while, he remained silent, then threw the cigarette butt on the ground and muttered in a small voice.

“I heard Sanya and Hassan had an incident at the western border a few days ago… What was it again? Something about a dispute over mining shares?”

This was new information.

The intelligence department head pretended not to, but he was providing a source to the war correspondent. I thanked him and said I would visit again soon.

That’s how I succeeded in recruiting informants from the government office and the police station.

The government office only had candidates so far, but I had a collaborator at the police station. If managed well, I could keep him as an informant for several months.

Good news. When I shared this happy news, Camilla was as excited as if it were her own achievement and congratulated me.

“That’s great! Although they’re just collaborators now so we can’t expect too much, if you maintain regular contact, good results might come out.”

“Why are you so happy about my work?”

“Why be so particular? It’s good when things go well! So what’s your plan going forward? Have you set the next appointment?”

Seeing Camilla’s excited expression as she asked about how to operate the informants, I smiled slightly.

As they say, even a dog that’s been in a school for three years can recite poetry. Camilla is starting to act like an intelligence officer.

“That’s something I’ll have to think about gradually. There’s no benefit in handling informants hastily. That’s just human psychology.”

“Handle informants gently. Okay. I understand. But what if the target refuses recruitment?”

I didn’t bother answering that question. Camilla stared at me for a moment before casually asking another question.

“Where are we going next?”

I answered while shifting gears.

“The military.”

Time to recruit a soldier.

*

The process of planting an informant in the military is much more difficult than penetrating a government office or police station.

With martial law being discussed, military personnel would not welcome a foreign journalist.

The military is fundamentally sensitive about security and doesn’t allow foreigners to freely enter and exit military facilities. Even their own civilians can’t enter without permission, let alone foreigners.

Therefore, the work of recruiting a soldier was carried out entirely outside the base. I arranged meetings with several local defense unit officers through the elderly doctor who had been bribed by the warlord duo.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Asud.”

Military unit officers make fairly good informants. They’re worth recruiting. If done well, they could provide information on military unit movements and even military secrets of the local government forces.

I called officers worth recruiting as informants to a restaurant in town. I had bribed the owner to close the shop for the day, so only the officer and I were inside the establishment.

The officers I had shortlisted as informant candidates were as diverse as their ranks. From junior lieutenants and sergeants to administrative supply officers and company commanders, to staff officers of captain to major rank working at battalion headquarters.

Among them, the one who caught my eye was a captain with plenty of experience.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Asud.”

“Ah, the honor is mine. Please, sit comfortably.”

The local in his early 30s was a staff officer working in the provinces. There was a rational reason why I marked him as a strong candidate.

He was facing a promotion review but had neither a good personnel record nor a distinguished background. He had to compete for the major rank insignia against captains from the military academy, but he had neither skill nor connections.

Was his family well-off then? Not at all.

“I’ve heard a lot about you. I hear you had your third child?”

“Ah, yes… well… that’s right.”

The staff officer’s wife had given birth to a child this year. But raising three children costs no small amount of money.

A soldier’s salary wasn’t enough to support three children, so his wife had entered the workforce. They couldn’t ask their parents for help.

I was well aware of how difficult an environment they were raising their children in. I had received information from government officials I visited in the morning that allowed me to infer their family situation.

“I’ll smoke for a moment.”

I put a cigarette in my mouth, already having smoked more than twenty today. I didn’t ask for his permission during this process.

It was a subtle indication that I held the initiative.

Sure enough, the staff officer, who had been looking around nervously, began to speak with a tense face.

“Um… I received an explanation from my uncle. You said you had business with me…”

“To be precise, I arranged this meeting because I need help.”

“Help?”

“Yes. Help.”

I offered him a cigarette. He took it with a bewildered expression.

“When you say help, what exactly… are you referring to?”

“It’s nothing that would burden you, sir. I just have some business with the military base here.”

After lighting the cigarette, I continued. I spoke directly.

“I need information.”

A more detailed explanation followed.

“Documents produced by the unit where you work, news from surrounding units, trends in your jurisdiction, official documents that have come down from higher units—that kind of information.”

“May I ask why you need such information…?”

I answered honestly.

“Because I make my living off such information.”

The staff officer seemed flustered by the sudden request. Fidgeting like someone sitting on pins and needles, he eventually tried to leave, using the bathroom as an excuse.

“I need to use the restroom for a moment.”

“Ah, go ahead. You have to take care of business.”

He hastily rose from his chair. I muttered casually to the back of his head as he was about to open the door and leave.

“I wonder if I can find baby formula at the market today.”

Thud. The staff officer who was turning the doorknob hesitated. Ignoring this, I continued talking.

“It can’t be easy walking around the market with a baby on your back. It’s not good for a mother to leave her children at home and wander around.”

It wasn’t just idle talk.

By now, his wife would be at the market shopping with their third child wrapped in a bundle. The first and second children would be at home doing overdue school homework.

“……”

I silently pointed to the opposite chair with my cigarette. After standing in an awkward position and struggling with internal conflict, the staff officer carefully returned to his seat.

I exhaled smoke in front of the local who was silently avoiding my gaze.

After a moment of silence, he seemed to have found the will to talk and asked a question.

“…You said you needed information.”

I quietly took out my lighter. As the flame rose, the informant put the cigarette that had been left on the table in his mouth and lit it.

Ting!

I closed the lighter with an audible sound and grinned.

“You’ve made a wise decision.”

*

Seven government office civil servants. One police station department head. One military staff officer.

That was my harvest for the day.

“Eight local collaborators and one informant. I’ll contact the remaining candidates in the near future to decide whether to employ them.”

I reported the list to Leonie.

After receiving the encrypted report at military intelligence headquarters, Leonie reviewed the documents and provided immediate feedback.

-‘The ranks of your informants are generally low. Is there no way to recruit someone from the upper echelons?’

“Recruiting high-ranking officials carries a high risk. I judged that the priority now is to build an information network by recruiting low-ranking, entry-level informants.”

-‘How do you plan to manage the informants?’

“For now, I plan to regularly pay bribes to the soldier I’ve recruited and the police officer who has a high possibility of developing into an informant. As for the city hall, as you suggested, I’ll look for individuals among the superiors who are worth recruiting.”

In intelligence agencies, people who receive compensation like day laborers on a per-case basis are classified as collaborators, while those who receive regular financial support are classified as informants.

In other words, I was saying I would keep the staff officer and intelligence department head as informants, while leaving the rest of the government office civil servants as collaborators.

It didn’t take much effort for Leonie to understand my meaning. He was my superior and a former Rezident (a term referring to a senior intelligence agency officer among intelligence officers working in a specific region) who had once served as an overseas branch chief. If you gathered all the informants Leonie had handled in the field, you could probably form a battalion.

-‘Good scenario. Continue as planned.’

Leonie said it was fine to continue with the operation.

-‘I’m sure you’ll manage the informants well, but be especially careful with the military guy. If things go wrong, prevent betrayal at all costs, even if it means taking his family hostage. If you’re careful about that, you should be able to return safely. As long as you don’t get caught by counterintelligence.’

“Speaking of which, please send me the counterintelligence agency trend report from here.”

-‘I’ve sent the data, so check it.’

I ended the communication and checked the data sent by military intelligence. A trend report containing information obtained by turning a local counterintelligence employee dispatched to Abas into a double agent appeared on the screen.

The department that prepared the document was the Counterintelligence Division. The very place commanded by Clevins.

The investigator’s experience really shows. I inwardly admired as I read through the material.

At that moment, Camilla appeared.

“Om nom nom.”

Making a strange sound, Camilla was holding a plate full of fruit. Considering the local circumstances where even groceries were hard to come by, it was an oddly abundant assortment.

“Where did you get the fruit?”

“The warlord gentlemen gave it as a gift. Wow, this is really delicious. Try some.”

I put a piece of tropical fruit she had peeled into my mouth. As soon as my teeth sank into the flesh, juice burst out, indicating it was fruit of quite good quality.

“It’s delicious.”

“Mm. Did the communication with the company go well?”

“Yes.”

Camilla sauntered over and began reading the intelligence report I had written. She had assisted me all day as we went around outside. So I could tolerate her reading a report that wasn’t even that important.

Of course, the company wouldn’t tolerate it, but still.

After reading the report, Camilla shared her thoughts while peeling an orange.

“Is recruiting two informants and gathering seven collaborators in one day considered good?”

“It’s a fairly decent achievement.”

“Did the conversations with the informants go well?”

“Of course.”

I promised generous treatment to both the intelligence department head and the staff officer.

To the police intelligence department head, I offered regular funding equivalent to twice his salary plus performance bonuses. Since he was a person who valued money, it made sense to offer money as compensation.

Similarly, I offered regular funding and performance bonuses to the staff officer, but I also proposed other forms of compensation.

Since he was someone who valued his family, to form a more solid relationship, I needed to offer compensation related to his family.

Childcare products needed for raising a third child, school supplies that would help his children’s education, and even medical support services. I also said that if things went well later, I would send all his children abroad to study. Of course, such study abroad programs would require approval from military intelligence, but still.

In any case, both the staff officer and the intelligence department head seemed satisfied with the compensation package. That was fortunate at least.

But Camilla’s thoughts seemed slightly different.

“But will it be okay?”

She expressed concern as she chewed on the peeled orange.

“You practically threatened the last person into recruitment.”

Camilla was asking me if it was okay to use the staff officer as an informant. She already knew that I had threatened the staff officer using his family’s safety as leverage.

That’s a natural fact. After all, it was Camilla who had found the family’s location on my behalf.

At first, she opposed the decision to threaten using the staff officer’s family as hostages, but only after extracting a promise from me that I wouldn’t actually take the family hostage did she confirm their location.

I twirled a pen.

I avoided answering to prevent causing her concern, but Camilla persistently demanded an answer. In the end, I had to raise my hands and tell the truth.

“To be honest, I’m uneasy. It’s true that relationships formed through threats don’t last long.”

An informant recruited through threats is like a bomb that could betray you at any moment. That’s because they were threatened by an intelligence officer from the very beginning.

Therefore, the informant and intelligence officer cannot trust each other, and maintaining an unstable relationship for a long time is difficult for both parties.

But I have a plan.

“That’s why I presented a compensation package that can help his family. The informant desperately wants a stable home.”

“So you’re saying you exploited the feelings of a desperate person.”

I shrugged.

This is just what intelligence agencies do.

“This is mild compared to what CIA guys do. If you saw what they do, Camilla, you’d be absolutely appalled.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious.”

Camilla told me not to joke and placed an orange in front of me. It was an orange she had peeled herself.

While eating that orange, I organized my materials. After gathering paper and household waste in one place and burning them, I went to find the Al Bas tribe’s armed escort to inform them about tomorrow’s schedule.

The elite guard assigned by Nayan was a reassuring presence, as Camilla had said. During normal times, they displayed their force to keep bandits away, but when important moments came where I needed to meet informants, they tactfully stepped aside.

“Tomorrow I plan to visit checkpoints near the border. Please be aware of this.”

“Understood, Mr. Asud.”

There were soldiers at the border checkpoints who had received bribes from me, so that was the best place to look for new informants.

Monitoring highways and national roads, they were human early warning systems who could immediately relay news of suspicious individuals or military unit movements.

After returning to our lodging, I spent time with Camilla.

Although we couldn’t have a proper conversation because I was organizing materials until late at night, she steadfastly chattered beside me, helping me stay awake.

It was during this time.

In the deep night, someone knocked on the door of our lodging.

“Who is it?”

“Asud. It’s me.”

It was the warlord duo.

“What’s going on? Suddenly coming in the middle of the night.”

“Message from Hassan. Very urgent message.”

“What kind of message?”

I asked the question with a sleepy expression. The warlord duo answered with a solemn face.

“Sheikh. Calling. You.”

It was news that the leader of Warlord Hassan was looking for me.