by <unknown>
Chapter 75: Deal With The Devil |
"Spill it. Since you went through all the effort of taking me here, what do you want from me? Is it money? Or is it something else?"
"You'll know soon enough."
The young man smiled and gestured for Dlamini to follow him. "Sir, your children are waiting for you. Please come with me —"
Dlamini got up with a drab expression on his face. The moment he tried to take a step, he felt his legs going limp for a split second and nearly fell onto the floor on all fours.
"It's alright, it's just the side effect of the stun grenade and anesthetics. It'll pass in a few days."
The young man remarked without the slightest intention of helping Dlamini up.
Dlamini clenched his teeth bitterly and forced his stony body to get up. He used the wall for support as he headed outside.
It was only until Dlamini walked out when he realized the room that he was in was the bedroom of a suite. He had now walked into the living room of the suite.
"Godfather!"
"Lord Godfather!"
In the living room, two young men immediately greeted Dlamini when they saw him and helped him get seated on the couch.
In that instant, Dlamini felt mildly touched. He shook his head to let them know that he was fine.
"Clap!"
"Clap!"
"Clap!"
Upon witnessing the scene before him, Chen Chen could not stop himself from breaking out into a smile full of mockery. He applauded slowly and said, "What a heartwarming picture displaying the love between father and son… There's a saying in Italy that went like this —
"The Italians think that the world is far too dangerous a place for young children in the midst of their development. To better cultivate their young, they need to have two fatherly figures in their lives. And that was how the term godfather came to be. I wonder if you guys share the same ideal?"
"That's right." Dlamini looked up upon hearing Chen Chen's remark. "Jack and Ryan are both children of my loyal brothers who have died for my cause. I brought them up with my own two hands. They are my dearest family and assistant."
"I see..."
The mockery hanging by the corner of the young man's lips grew ever wider. He turned to the two men and asked while making exaggerated gestures with his hands, "What do you guys think? Is Mr. Dlamini here your dearest family?"
The young men named Jack and Ryan felt a shiver creeping down their spines and immediately turned their heads to the ground.
"What do you mean?" Dlamini asked, frowning.
"Here are some recordings we obtained recently." The young man retrieved a recording pen from his pocket and presented it in front of him. He turned it on.
The recording pen immediately played back a previous conversation. In the recording, the young man asked the questions while the other two answered them accordingly. The answers they provided consisted of all sorts of secrets concerning Dlamini.
"You two…" A flash of anger appeared in Dlamini's eyes just after listening to a small part of the recording. He wanted to scream bloody murder but when he thought about his current circumstances, the only thing that came out was a bitter smile before he slumped back into the couch.
This time around, he hardly had the strength left to sit upright.
"There's still a chance for you guys to come out of this alive," the young man announced suddenly.
The three of them raised their heads in unison.
The young man smirked before revealing a Glock 18C from behind his back. He held the gun by its barrel and presented it before the three men.
The three of them were slightly taken aback by the sudden development.
"Can it be any more obvious?"
The young man held the gun even closer to them and spoke in a grumbling, hypnotizing tone, "All you guys have to do is take this gun and point to my head — Bang. Just like that, you're free!"
Jake and Ryan exchanged a glance with each other. They had trouble grasping the young man's true intentions.
"What is it, too afraid to do it? What are you, afraid of the people backing me?" The young man made a show of turning around to look at his subordinate standing guard in the corner. "Cheng Cao, why don't you head out first and don't come back unless I ordered you to."
"Yes, Boss." The man called Cheng Cao promptly opened the door and walked out of the room without the slightest bit of hesitation.
"Look. Nobody is watching you now."
The young man turned around and held the gun closer. It was almost hovering right in front of one of the man's faces now. "Take it, hurry up. Be a man."
The man named Jack took the gun hesitantly.
"Alright. Next, take off the safety and aim it between my eyes."
The young man grabbed the gun still held by Jack and directed it between his eyes. He then proceeded to raise his hands and wiggle his fingers to show that he was left completely unguarded.
Jack blinked uncontrollably and seemed to be hesitating.
"Shoot?"
The young man made a show of laughing in their faces, his eyes were like the mouths leading to a depthless abyss. "Don't tell me you don't have the guts to pull the trigger? You call yourselves the mafia and when you don't even have what it takes to pull a trigger?"
In this split instant, there was an abrupt change in Jack's eyes. In a swift motion, he rapidly took the gun off its safety and pulled the trigger with all the force he could muster!
All of his previous hesitations were merely an act!
However, something bizarre occurred!
In the very instant he pulled the trigger to kill the strange young man before him, he was taken unaware by a strange sensation that felt like he had lost control over his right arm.
"What, what's going on?"
Jack looked at his right hand in astonishment as he saw his fingers slowly releasing the trigger. At the same time, he felt a numbing sensation in his elbow while his arm seemed to move with a conscience of its own.
"Jack, what are you doing?" Ryan cried out beside him.
"I, I don't know?"
Jack was almost bawling at this point. He quickly tried to pin down his right arm with his left arm, but the moment he tried to raise his left arm, it disobediently slumped down yet again.
He had lost control of his left arm as well!
What happened next was an image that Dlamini and Ryan would never be able to forget for the rest of their lives – What they witnessed was Jack's arm bending in an unsettling angle, his wrists seemed to violently twist themselves around and pointed the Glock right at his head!
"Stop this right now, Jack!" Ryan exclaimed.
"I can't stop, help me!"
Jack's face was painted with horror. He kept trying to crane his waist and neck in a feeble attempt to dodge the gun pointed at him. Immediately afterward, he lost complete control over every part of his body!
In the end, Jack, with his eyes swarmed with horror, beheld the pitch-black barrel pointed directly at him…
Following the sound of a gunshot, a bullet-shaped tunnel was carved between both ends of Jack's temples.
Witnessing the freakish occurrence, Ryan, who was standing beside him, let loose a horrific scream. After that, something stranger happened – despite having his brain matter blended into a mixture of paste by the bullet, Jack's body remained standing in place!
As if that was not enough, he extended his arm and presented the gun in front of Ryan.
"You're the devil!" Ryan screeched in horror. He snatched the gun faster than he could blink and shot at the young man!
The very next second, he realized his body was frozen as well…
"Bang!"
Another gunshot. Ryan's head slumped down meekly. A bullet hole the size of a fist appeared on his forehead. Similarly, his arm popped forward freakishly to present the gun in front of Dlamini.
It was like some sort of relay race of death…
"Witchery? Or is this
the work of some form of advanced technology?"
Dlamini's eyes were wide open as he stared at the gun passed to him in disbelief. He could not help but form the connection with the wound on the back of Indell's and his neck.
He glanced at the back of Jack and Ryan's neck who remained standing. On the back of their necks was a similar-sized tiny wound.
As expected…
Sadly, it was too late finding out now.
At this moment, Dlamini realized he had completely lost control of his body. It was as if his body was possessed by another soul and he could only helplessly watch as the spirit controlled his body. He watched himself take the gun that had already claimed two victims. He watched as he aimed it at his head.
With death approaching closer, Dlamini slowly shut his eyes.
"Click!"
Dlamini felt himself trembling.
Unexpectedly, death did not claim him. As it turned out, there was no third bullet.
"A mistake? No, he never planned to kill me, otherwise, that would defeat the purpose of kidnapping me…"
Dlamini could not help but utter a bitter laugh. To think that he had forgotten to consider something as basic as that, seemed like his age was catching up to him.
"How does it feel?"
Again, the young man standing beside him asked in that nonchalant tone of his, "Do you feel the exciting rush of being reborn again?"
"You're the devil incarnate!"
Dlamini wearily collapsed on the ground and surrendered. "You win. You've trampled all over my dignity and my pride into meek pieces, you've achieved your goal!"
Arriving at this point, he found himself regaining complete control over his body.
"Mr. Dlamini is overstating things,"
At this point, the young man seemed to finally get serious. He walked in front of Dlamini and said looking down at him, "Dlamini, there's something of yours I want to borrow."
"What do you want?" Dlamini asked weakly.
"I want to borrow your Eiffel Thermal Power Plant for several days."
"Alright, the Eiffel Thermal Power Plant is yours." Dlamini agreed without hesitation. "What else?"
"I'm sorry, I believe you might have understood what I meant."
The young man wagged his finger and squatted down next to him. "I don't need ownership of your power plant. I already said 'borrow for several days'."
"I understand what you meant…"
Dlamini shook his head when he heard the young man. "It's not gonna work, the power plant is responsible for supplying energy to more than a good half of Cape Town. Even though I have complete rights to the power plant, I simply don't have the authority to direct the power to another city. The city hall won't let me do that."
"Who told you that I was going to direct it to another place?"
Instead, the young man responded with a smile. "You don't have to worry about where the electric is going to, there's just one thing you need to do for me."
After that, the young man headed toward the door as he continued. "I only need you to deal with the pressure from 'upstairs'."
"Pressure, you're talking about the officials?" Dlamini took a sharp breath.
"That's right, I don't care what strings you have to pull or what excuse you have to give them. As long as you can hold off the pressure from the officials about there being no power in Cape Town for a few days, that's more than enough. As long as you can do that, I can assure you that you'll be…"
The young man paused for a moment. He turned around and stepped out the door.
"Completely unharmed!"
Chapter 76: The Eiffel Power Plant |
Dlamini left in the end.
Chen Chen released Dlamini, along with the remaining bodyguards who were clueless.
From the balcony, Chen Chen watched as Dlamini walked out of the cheap hotel. Currently, Dlamini had lost his overbearing attitude and he appeared to be much older.
"Are we letting him go just like this?"
Qian Wenhuan walked out from the shadows and wondered aloud. "Not only did you trample on his dignity but you also killed two of his most trusted assistants. Won't that cause him to bear a grudge?"
"When you learn that the people you trusted most had betrayed you and I killed them for you, would you bear a grudge?" Chen Chen replied with his question.
"Uh… Maybe I wouldn't quite know how to feel." Qian Wenhuan suddenly understood.
"That's right." Chen Chen nodded. "I first led them to betray him, so I wouldn't have killed the people he trusted most."
"…"
"In fact, both of them didn't have to die."
Chen Chen thought about it. "I ordered the God chip to shoot because they had the intention of shooting me. And not just the intention — they even put it into action. So, they died."
"But, you were the one who gave them the gun…" Qian Wenhuan's mouth twitched.
"I gave them the gun to show Dlamini the truth — that I can control anyone completely once they had the operation on the back of their neck."
Chen Chen explained, "If I just told him verbally, 'I implanted a chip in you, so your life is in our hands from now on', besides fear, he'd only feel anger at being threatened.
"However, when you present this evidence as a form of truth and demonstrate this in an unforgettable manner, the effect is far different.
"It really gets to you…"
Qian Wenhuan nodded in agreement and sighed. "First, you let two of his juniors kill themselves before him, then you made him put the gun to his own head. I'm guessing that each night, for the rest of the year, he'll be plagued by nightmares."
…
Eskom, the national power company of the Rainbow Nation, published an implementation plan called the Basic Energy Plan in 2006.
The main policy of this executive plan was to allow private companies to build private, profitable coal-fired stations in the form of competitive bidding.
Back during that bidding, dozens of companies made their bids, but ultimately, Dlamini bought the right to build a coal power plant in Cape Town for one billion rands.
The final manifestation of all this was the Eiffel Thermal Power Plant, now located in the northern suburbs of Cape Town.
Cape Town had a resident population of 4 million and the electricity consumption per capita was only thirty percent of the international average. The Eiffel Power Plant was a huge thermal power plant with a capacity of one million kilowatts. Its energy output was mainly used to supply power to several commercial streets in the hub and three hundred thousand residents.
In the suburbs at the other end of Cape Town, there were several thermal power stations similar to the Eiffel Power Plant, but those were small to medium-sized.
The Eiffel Power Plant was responsible for generating forty percent of the electricity in the entire urban area. If an issue cropped up, it was not an exaggeration to say that the entire city would be incapacitated.
What about those slums?
Well, sorry, but they could barely afford to eat. What would they need electricity for?
This was what Bokamoso, the head of the Eiffel Power Plant, said to Chen Chen in the car.
Bokamoso was an archetypal Zulu man. He spoke in English peppered with Zulu slang. It was often unclear if he was complaining about the public security problems in Cape Town or if he was about to spit out the window.
At the moment, Chen Chen was sitting in a Rolls-Royce. Next to him was Bokamoso. They were both on their way to the Eiffel Power Plant.
As they gradually left the urban area of Cape Town, the sky started to darken. A slum stretched out for several kilometers on both sides of the main road.
Most of these slums consisted of low houses built with iron sheets and wooden boards. Even though they were far away, the scope of their area was still shocking.
There were even signs in English and some local African languages, on both sides of the highway indicating "Dangerous Section Ahead".
Places marked
out with signs like these usually meant an area where crimes such as robbery and murder frequently occurred.
Poverty, economic depression, political instability — various factors had led the Rainbow Nation to become one of the countries with the highest crime rate in the world, accompanied by a proliferation of firearms. The country did not even have deterrent penalties such as capital punishment.
However, Chen Chen did not notice this as he was in the car. He only noticed the surrounding trees and buildings seemed to be covered in a thin blanket of ash as they approached the suburbs.
Bokamoso explained that the Eiffel Power Plant consumed 1.8 million tons of coal every year. The resulting smoke from the incineration would need to go somewhere. Therefore, it was a very natural outcome that the ground ten kilometers around the power plant would be coated in black ash.
Bokamoso seemed optimistic regarding this pollution. He said that due to geographical factors, fresh strong winds would often blow in from the southeast from Cape Town's direction. The locals called this wind "Doctor Cape" because it would bring them fresh air and blow the pollutants into the sea…
Chen Chen responded absentmindedly and did not say much. He only displayed a serious look when the convoy stopped at the gate of the Eiffel Power Plant.
"Mr. Bokamoso, I thank you in advance for your help."
"No worries. Since this was what Mr. Dlamini wanted, of course, I'll do it."
Bokamoso hurriedly nodded.
Chen Chen led Cheng Cao and the rest out of the car. Cheng Cao and his group each carried a suitcase, which looked rather conspicuous.
Speaking in scattered English, Bokamoso invited Chen Chen's group into the power plant in a deferential manner. He personally brought them around and finally stopped before the power plant's substation.
"This is the output end of the power plant. The electricity from the turbines and generators is boosted here and finally imported into the grid," Bokamoso explained.
Chen Chen nodded. The purpose of high-voltage power transmission was to reduce the loss of electrical energy during the transmission process. At the same level of power output, the higher the voltage, the lower the current, thereby reducing heat loss in the transmission cable.
