Mercenaries, I Will Be King

Song Heping had never imagined that one day he would actually go bankrupt.

After all, he used to be part of the proletariat. Since he had no property, how the hell could he go bankrupt?

He had come to take advantage of the chaos in Illigo to make a quick buck off capitalism, but instead of profiting, he ended up like a weed.

That evening, after dealing with everything and returning to the Green Zone, Song Heping and Old Demon finally sat down at the table to have what felt like a post-disaster survival meal.

The food was not bad. A big pot of mutton, some Arabic flatbread, and a roast fish that Old Demon made himself, along with a bottle of foreign liquor. But the two sat in silence, the light in the room dim, air heavy with a sad aura.

"Eat up! We'll talk after you fill your belly."

In the end, Song Heping took it upon himself to break the silence.

He picked up the bottle and poured a drink for each of them, raising his glass.

"Let's have one."

Old Demon looked up at Song Heping across from him, then instinctively glanced to his left and right.

Normally, there would be four of them for a meal—Fat Tan and Ah Guan would sit on either side.

Now, out of the four, two were gone, leaving just the two of them.

He silently raised his glass and clinked it against Song Heping's.

Song Heping finished his drink in one gulp, as Old Demon hurriedly said to take it slow, the liquor was strong…

Grabbing a rib, Song Heping gnawed on it voraciously and asked with his mouth full, "Can the remaining three generators be fixed?"

"Yes," replied Old Demon promptly. He added, "Two of them can be fixed, but not here. We'd have to send them to Kuwait, and the repair costs would be more than buying new ones. The other one's cylinder is punctured through; it's a goner, only good for scrap."

The answer didn't surprise him; Song Heping had transported the generators himself and knew their condition well.

"If we sell all of them as scrap, how much can we get?"

Old Demon said, "In this godforsaken place, there's not even a scrap dealer. Illigo is littered with scrap everywhere, who would dare to take it?"

True enough, with ongoing battles in recent months, tanks abandoned by the National Guard were ubiquitous. If one really wanted scrap metal, it would be better to collect those things; each weighed dozens of tons.

"How much money do we have left?" Song Heping asked.

Old Demon replied, "Still got two thousand six hundred US dollars."

"Send two thousand back to Ah Guan and Fat Tan's families," Song Heping said. "Especially Ah Guan, he has a lot of kids, elderly to care for, and little ones to feed."

Old Demon appeared somewhat troubled, "Then we'll only have a little over six hundred left. What about us? That's not even enough for plane tickets back."

Song Heping asked, "Are you planning on going back?"

Old Demon hesitated, "What else can I do if I don't go back? This deal wiped out all my savings, and I was counting on it to make it big. Now the goods are gone, stuck with me. I don't even have the money to purchase new stock if I stay, just waiting to freeze here?"

Song Heping silently finished gnawing on the rib, tossed the bone onto the plate, took a paper napkin, and wiped his hands before saying, "I'm not going back. This time I took a loss, the goods are gone. In a few months I'll have to pay back the bank loan, not to mention the money borrowed from relatives and friends. If I go back to a regular job now, with just a salary of a few hundred a month, it would take an eternity to pay off the debt. My brother and sister are still counting on me for their living expenses."

Surprise flickered in Old Demon's eyes, "You still plan on making a fortune here?"

Song Heping said, "Wasn't it you who said that the more chaotic it is, the more opportunities there are? Wasn't it you who said to make a fortune, you have to not be afraid of dying?"

Old Demon's face immediately stretched two inches longer and he said, "It's true, to seek wealth you must take risks, but now we've lost all of our capital. War-torn regions are like huge casinos. Look at the whole of Illiguo—no, just take our current Baghdad. It's not just us doing business here, others are making money too, weren't we making money before? But making money also requires a bit of luck, doesn't it? We lost. Heping, we've even lost our underpants, what else do we have to gamble with?"

Song Heping picked up his glass again, gulped down the freshly poured drink, grabbed a lamb chop, and continued chewing while speaking, "Go find your cousin."

"My cousin?!"

Old Demon's face turned green.

"For what? He's such a miser. You think about borrowing money from him? You might as well ask a weasel to lend you chickens."

Old Demon's cousin Donald was a US-born person of Chinese descent, who emigrated before the economic reforms. At first, he had a terribly hard time in the United States, washing dishes in a restaurant and living in a basement. During his lowest points, he was helped out by Old Demon's parents.

However, after growing up, Donald turned out to be very promising. He got into a state military academy, and after graduating, he joined the National Guard as a reserve officer. With the war that the US Army launched in Illiguo, he was transferred to participate in logistics support work and is currently located in the Green Zone.

Old Demon was able to establish himself in the Green Zone precisely because of this relationship.

Song Heping said, "I heard that there are some humanitarian aid transportation tasks in the logistics of their US Army that are also subcontracted to contractors. Can't you ask if we can fix that Mercedes of ours, make it usable for some jobs? It's better than going back empty-handed and dispirited."

During these months in the Green Zone, to practice his spoken language, Song Heping often chatted with some of the US soldiers in the Green Zone.

The Green Zone is a very unique place—it could be seen as a safe area, the administrative center, or even a large military base. You could also say it is a hub for intelligence exchange.

It's frequented by military personnel, members of the Illigo Interim Government, intelligence officers, diplomats, businessmen, and also journalists.

Journalists come here looking for news and insights, intelligence officers come to exchange information, and most businessmen are from various financial conglomerates. After all, the former government of Illiguo has been overthrown, and the upcoming assisted new regime will inevitably be involved in reconstruction. Reconstruction is a massive project involving nearly a hundred billion US dollars. Moreover, since Illiguo is rich in oil, business opportunities are everywhere.

Any capable and ambitious person would want to get a piece of the action here.

Beyond these individuals, there's another group—private military contractors, or PMCs for short.

PMCs come in all sizes, ranging from large ones like Blackwater International to small groups consisting of just a few people, or perhaps a dozen members.

The US government can be seen as Party A, with many different kinds of projects on hand, including infrastructure, energy, military, and so on. PMCs, then, are the contractors of some of these projects, taking on tasks such as security, transportation, training, and even some sensitive military operations.

Since it involves projects, there naturally are differences in difficulty and importance. When large companies like Blackwater International secure a big deal with their substantial resources and connections, they divide the project into smaller, more specialized, and profitable tasks, which they mostly handle internally. As for the less significant, miscellaneous work within the projects, they look down upon using their own company staff for these tasks. Subcontracting them out allows for greater profit maximization and convenience.

This model is like real estate companies hiring construction teams to build skyscrapers: smaller projects like electrical installations or landscaping within the residential complexes are outsourced to smaller contractors for the sake of maximizing efficiency and profit.

What Song Heping had suggested Old Demon inquire about from his cousin was precisely these kinds of small projects. Even if only crumbs fell through the fingers of the large contractors, they would be enough to fill both his and Old Demon's bellies.

At this time, there were still many places in Illiguo where battles were ongoing, such as in the northern city of Mosul and Ramadi to the west of Baghdad. The US Army was still engaged in urban clearance operations there.

This resulted in the need to establish forward bases near these strategic locations, the so-called barracks, which were popping up everywhere and required a vast amount of logistical support. Many places had no airports, and air drops provided too little supply to meet the demands.

Currently, part of the US Army's weapons and supplies comes through Dakota's ports by sea, and part is flown to Baghdad Airport on C-17 transport planes, then trucked to US military camps in various parts of Illiguo.

The US Army has hundreds of various bases and camps inside Illiguo, and to depend on just military transport would not only be inefficient but also strain their manpower. This is one reason why units like Old Demon's cousin's National Guard reserves are called here—to handle simpler logistic support tasks such as transportation and guarding outposts.

The advantages of using PMCs go even further; compensations for a deceased US soldier are much higher than those for a deceased PMC member. The former requires the US government to provide funds, while for the latter, there's no need to assume any responsibility. In the event of any problems, they can even deny responsibility, making them more convenient than "temporary workers."

"Heping," after listening to Song Heping's plans, Old Demon looked troubled and after struggling for a long time to speak, finally said with difficulty, "I don't want to do this anymore, it's too dangerous here..."