Chapter 45

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Protagonist:

Milton

Mins

"To be honest, if it weren't for the 'Boss' connection, I wouldn't dare let border inspection people in."

"Ghost Wolf" sat behind the huge counter of the gun shop showroom, wearing a faded indigo denim shirt with the collar loosely open.

Milton glanced at the black-green tattoo on his chest, then swept his eyes over the goods in the showroom, and frowned: "Just these?"

The guns in the showroom looked intimidating, but in Milton's eyes they were basically a pile of broken copper and rotten iron.

There were some that looked like Glock 17s at first glance, but up close were clearly Carl P9 Lady models, noticeably smaller.

There was also a sawed-off Remington 870 with its choke device replaced by welded iron plates; Milton seriously suspected this thing would explode the barrel.

In the showroom under "Ghost Wolf" sat an AK-47 that looked decent, but on closer inspection, it was neither a milled receiver nor a stamped receiver, but a welded receiver; the feed port wasn't chamfered; the gunstock wood looked like it was sawed off old furniture.

This was clearly a knockoff handmade somewhere unknown.

The black market sells this kind of junk?

"Ghost Wolf" grinned, exhaling a foul smell: "You can speak louder; here even God can't hear who you want to kill... There's more than this stuff in the shop, but these sell best and make the most money, so I put them in the most prominent spot."

Milton asked with obvious disdain: "Someone buys this junk? Let me put it politely: at least 20% of these guns are hard to even fire."

"Of course someone buys them." Shop owner "Ghost Wolf" laughed heartily: "First, most people here buy a gun just for self-preservation, to scare people; if it can scare them off, it doesn't need to fire. Second, these guns are cheap... 'Hell Tax Collector' sir, do you know how wonderful and enticing the word 'cheap' is?"

Most people here earn only 12,000 Quetzal a year, equivalent to 1,500 US Dollars. With an income of four dollars a day, who has money to buy good guns?

Poor people have poor people's needs, and this place is full of poor people, so the gun shop owner naturally has to find ways to satisfy them.

Not only do people buy junk guns, quite a few people buy them.

Wealth is hard to imagine, but sometimes poverty is even harder to imagine than wealth.

Even though he had lived in this country for a while, Milton's mental inertia kept him from thinking along those lines for a moment.

Milton was stunned for a moment, and shook his head slightly: "You know, I can't possibly want these things. Bring out your real good stuff."

"Ghost Wolf" nodded: "Alright, then what do you want?"

"What do you have?"

"Ghost Wolf" sighed: "I can't exactly list my whole inventory for you, can I? Just tell me what you want, as long as it's not heavy weapons. Rocket launchers and recoilless guns are being restocked; anything else you name, even if I don't have it, I can probably get you something similar."

Oh ho, quite a big mouth?

Milton gave a cold smile, ready to give "Ghost Wolf" a taste of his own medicine: "Fine then. I want a night vision device, one M224 Mortar, 30 M720 High-Explosive Shells; one PKM General Purpose Machine Gun, five 100-round full ammunition belt boxes, with B-23 incendiary rounds; one M24 Sniper Rifle, any Leupold Mark4 Optic; as for the bipod and silencer, you decide."

"Ghost Wolf" was first stunned, then overjoyed, his voice even becoming a bit fawning: "Really?! Wait for me, I'll bring them over right now, guaranteed to be over eighty percent new!"

Milton was also stunned: "You really have them?"

"Of course I do. Although I don't have many big clients, I can't ignore their needs. It's just that goods worth this much piled in the warehouse really affect my cash flow." Shop owner "Ghost Wolf" said it as if it were perfectly natural: "Asking again, are you sure you want them?"

Milton took a deep breath: "Bring them out for me to see first."

"Sure! You sit here for a while, Danny, you come with me to move the goods, Ru'er, hurry and bring 'Hell Tax Collector' sir a cup of water, clean water!"

"Ghost Wolf" ran excitedly into the warehouse, and soon came out pushing a small cart with his assistant.

"They're all here, you check them?"

Milton suppressed the astonished expression on his face, briefly inspected the equipment, and they were actually quite new!

Especially that PKM, Milton could hardly bear to move his gaze away.

PKM, the best general purpose machine gun in the world, bar none!

The weight of a squad machine gun, the firepower of a company machine gun, extensively using stamped parts, simple structure and extremely reliable, usable in all kinds of extremely harsh environments, extremely low failure rate, versatility unmatched by any similar firearm.

It has a god-like feed mechanism; to a certain extent, even if the bullets aren't fully seated in the ammunition belt or the cartridge rims of the whole belt are uneven, as long as it's not too outrageous, there won't be a feed failure!

The whole gun has coordinated, beautiful proportions, with a kind of Soviet aesthetic.

The 7.62x54R ammunition it uses is also more powerful than 7.62x51mm NATO bullets.

Three tiers better than industrial junk like the M60, which simultaneously has the two major defects of not firing when the trigger is pulled and not stopping when the trigger is released.

And once there's a real machine gun, the standard FNFAL in his own hands can be freed up to be used as a designated marksman rifle.

Milton pretended to be reluctantly making do, and spoke unwillingly: "Not bad. Give me a quote."

"AN/PVS-4 Night Vision Device, twenty thousand each, I mean US Dollars. I have two in total; if you take them as a package, I'll give you a slight discount, and throw in a pair of helmet mounts and ten batteries. This is good stuff left over from the Gulf War, worth the price!"

Milton checked with the panel; unsurprisingly it was smuggled goods, but similar accessories were only considered second-tier smuggled goods...

On the panel, the price of this night vision device was displayed as twelve thousand US Dollars—the panel doesn't show military procurement prices but nearby market prices, so this is the normal black market selling price.

You damn profiteer, gouging that hard?

"This kind of single-tube night vision device, at most twelve thousand dollars each." Milton said without thinking, "Don't try to fool me; I know you can still make a profit selling at ten thousand."

The smile on "Ghost Wolf"'s face froze—uh oh, ran into someone who knows the trade.

The other party cut straight to the market price in one sentence, showing he definitely knew the prices.

He coughed awkwardly, and continued enthusiastically introducing the other goods: "PKM General Purpose Machine Gun and ammunition, take a look at this Soviet girl's legs... uh, the gun is good. But the incendiary rounds you want aren't cheap, twelve dollars a round, the ammunition belt boxes are on me, adding up to sixteen thousand dollars in total."

Milton sneered: "Go rob someone, this stuff didn't come through legal import channels, how could Soviet weapons be so expensive? At most eight dollars a round for the bullets, fourteen thousand for the whole package at most. Or you can keep selling at this price, and let the bullets rot in the warehouse."

"... How do I feel like you're a bit like a Chinese person I met?" This price "Ghost Wolf" could indeed profit from, he just didn't expect Milton to bargain so precisely, "Every time you bargain, you hit exactly my bottom line? Okay okay."

Seeing that Milton really knew his stuff, "Ghost Wolf"'s subsequent quotes no longer tried to gouge him.

"M24 is new stuff, has to be smuggled from a US military base, eighteen thousand each, including two magazines, this really can't be any cheaper. Including accessories, twenty-three thousand dollars in total."

"As for the M224 Mortar, you know, this is a company-level support weapon, hard to get. Twenty-eight thousand dollars each, M720 High-Explosive Shells four hundred dollars a round, the gun and shells together forty thousand, including three copies of original US military firing tables."

"If you want two night vision devices, all these things as a package would be... uh, how much was it? Let me calculate..."

Milton instinctively spoke up: "100,000 and 1,000 US Dollars."

The Gun Shop owner finished pressing the calculator, looking somewhat surprised: "Huh? Really 101,000 US Dollars... Is the Tax Officer's math that good? Well, forget about that 1,000 US Dollars, a total of 100,000, you take them all, how about it? Can you accept?"

100,000... Milton only had over 80,000 in funds he could mobilize, unless he squeezed dry the costs of maintaining the Underground Fortress and the emergency funds, otherwise there was still a gap of 20,000.

But exchanging with Red Points was also a loss, for example this Mortar actually required 150,000 points!

Points couldn't be spent recklessly, he was still waiting to redeem armored vehicles later!

Milton was indeed very envious, but poor, no way.

Forget it... anyway he couldn't use the cannon right now.

"I don't have so much money, I don't want the cannon, take out the rest for me."

"Alright..." Ghost Wolf was a bit regretful, but a single order of 60,000 US Dollars wasn't bad either, "I'll have someone deliver them to you..."

"Wait!" Brandon standing behind him saw that Milton actually really wanted the Mortar, he stretched out his hand to grab Milton, looked up and said to Ghost Wolf, "We want that cannon and cannon shells."

Milton hurriedly made this rumor-mongering guy shut up: "Don't talk nonsense, we can only take out 80,000 now, the remaining 20,000 needs to be saved."

"I still have over 20,000 on hand, Boss, did you forget?" Brandon endured the pain, revealed a smile, patted Milton's Shoulder, "These Weapons were originally for our lives anyway, how can we let you pay alone?"