Chapter 961 Tracking
Lin Nan has been working in the Security Department for several years, so he naturally knows a lot of inside information. If foreign merchants want to do business in Sanya, the safest way is to cling tightly to Haihan, so many stores will have Haihan shares to a greater or lesser extent. These shares are not necessarily funded by the time travelers themselves. Some of them are simply given by the operators in the name of dry shares to some senior Haihan personnel who hold real power or simply to a certain regulatory agency, in order to obtain benefits in the local business process. Some protection and preferential treatment.
This kind of thing is an agreement reached in private, and there are no various contract documents on paper, so both parties often follow a tacit agreement and do not bring relevant matters to the table. And the Haihan Executive Committee did not deliberately put an end to this phenomenon. As long as the money they made was not too ugly, they basically turned a blind eye.
This is not entirely because the Executive Committee has allowed corruption to flourish. On the one hand, foreign businessmen believe that this relationship can bring them more security, and they often do so on their own initiative. On the other hand, Haihan also needs to use some special means to Obtain certain strategic materials or important intelligence, and sell home-produced industrial products. For example, the Ministry of Commerce owns shares in multiple businesses in a private name, and uses these businesses to purchase special commodities such as minerals and populations overseas. The Ministry of Security will use this relationship to place intelligence personnel in some commercial banks and shipping companies, and use the trade networks of these merchants to send intelligence personnel overseas to lurk.
In this way, even some countries that are at war with Haihan can still keep the commercial activities between the two sides going through the operation of middlemen. Haihan can continuously buy slave populations from the Dutch, and the Spaniards have also been Being able to buy various industrial products produced in Sanya depends on these special interest chains.
Although Lin Nan knew about these secret arrangements of Haihan's senior officials, his work scope was counterintelligence and had no direct intersection with this field. He only occasionally heard colleagues reporting relevant news to the minister in internal meetings. But he also knew some relevant information. For example, like Qiong Lianfa, a large-scale commercial organization where Haihan was deeply involved, many of its trading activities were assigned by Haihan's senior officials. The Nanyang Pavilion involved was also Qiong Lianfa. One of the foreign trade firms under the name of Fa, its customer base is almost all dignitaries from various countries. It is hard to say there is anything fishy in it. If something is found that should not be investigated, their task force may be at risk of being disbanded before the case is solved.
After hearing Lin Nan's explanation, Fu Li hesitated a little. Since he joined Haihan, he has been closely associated with the big bosses of the Executive Committee. In private, he is even called master or uncle instead of the "chief" commonly used by naturalized people. He also knows something about the affairs of these upper-level figures. One thing, what Lin Nan said was not fiction, there were indeed some things they needed to avoid.
"The task force has been set up, we have to continue the investigation, right?" The person who spoke was Zhang Qianzhi, a newly joined task force member from the Ministry of Security.
After Zhang Qianzhi solved the Danzhou assassination case in 1631, he was promoted for his meritorious service as an undercover agent. He had a strong background as a student of He Xi, and his mental ability and experience were good, so he quickly rose to the position. He is currently the leader among the young naturalized cadres in Haihan official circles. However, due to the special nature of his work, not many people outside the system know his name, which is far less famous than someone like Fu Li who often appears in public.
When it comes to his relationship with the upper class, Zhang Qianzhi is no worse than Fu Li. His old man Zhang Tiangui is now the general consultant of Haihan Shipyard. Six of the current shipwrights in the shipyard are his disciples and disciples. Even Yue Zhiyun and Sun The big boss of the Shipping Department like Chang Mi would greet him respectfully when he saw him, and his prestige among the naturalized people was also very high. In his early years when Zhang Qianzhi worked in the Guangzhou Office of the General Office of the People's Republic of China, he had a master-disciple relationship with He Xi and Schneider. He was even qualified to attend high-level meetings within the Ministry of Security.
Lin Nan, a local leader who can take charge of his own business, actually has less experience than Zhang Qianzhi. Therefore, he could only continue to explain Zhang Qianzhi's doubts: "It's not that we don't want to investigate, we have to think about how to investigate. So as not to cause trouble. Think about it, even Hassan, a foreigner, has been remembered for so long when he went to Nanyang Pavilion. If we go to investigate, there is no guarantee that anyone will notice it.”
Zhang Qianzhi pondered for a moment, and then said: "It is not convenient to conduct a public inspection, so we will conduct a private inspection. The shopkeeper should live in Shengli Port, right? Why don't we pay a visit today."
Su Tong was in a pretty good mood when he closed the shop and went home today. The few gems that the Persian businessman gave him for consignment a few days ago were finally sold to a wealthy Ming Dynasty merchant at a good price today. But what makes him most happy is not that he sells the gems, but that all the money will belong to him, and he will not only get the commission of the transaction like in the past. Because he already knows that the owner of the goods will not come back to collect the money for the consignment of goods.
Su Tong felt that he had been very lucky recently. He learned that Hassan's death was a complete accident. When he went to Haihan Bank in Fort Victory to handle deposit business two days ago, he happened to hear the two people in front of him chatting, and one of them It was the man who was responsible for the on-site autopsy after Hassan drowned. After hearing Wu Zuo's description of the deceased's appearance, Su Tong was certain that it was Hassan. However, Wu Zuo did not reveal the real cause of Hassan's death in the chat, otherwise Su Tong would not have dared to receive the money into his pocket so calmly. inside.
However, two days ago, Su Tong saw an official reward notice looking for a missing Persian man. The appearance described was very similar to Hassan, which made him murmur in his heart - could this Persian man If your horoscope is not good, will you be punished as soon as you come to Sanya? But he didn't directly connect this matter with Hassan's drowning. After all, the police had examined Hassan's body a few days ago. It was impossible to issue this investigation notice now. The target of the reward must be another unlucky person. Persian.
After Hassan died, Su Tong accepted the money with peace of mind. Anyway, the two of them knew about the consignment. As long as Su Tong didn't tell anyone, no one else would know where the money was. . This amount of money is not a huge sum, but it is almost equivalent to his salary if he works as the shopkeeper for another two or three years.
Su Tong currently lives in a rented house near the Shengli Port area. Although it is a detached house, it is not his own property after all, so he has been thinking about collecting money to buy a small house locally. Now that the money is in hand, this wish should be realized in advance. However, Su Tong will definitely not buy a house where he lives now. It is located at the foot of the mountain and is on the edge of Victory Port. This area is full of residential areas for port and shipyard staff. Although the living environment and supporting facilities are not bad, But Su Tong felt that given the nature of his work, it would be better to find a way to live in the wealthy area near Sanya Port.
This is not just a matter of vanity. Being able to change to a higher-level living circle will play a significant role in Su Tong's daily business and making and maintaining more high-level customers. These rich and noble people often have a lot of idle good things. Su Tong's plan is to circulate these good things in the market - of course, this circulation channel is the Nanyang Pavilion he is responsible for running, and what can be done from it The generous commissions he earned were the gray income he could earn from this position.
The more Su Tong thought about it, the more comfortable he felt in his heart. He couldn't help but hum a little tune. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell others about the joy. He only had an old servant in his family, who was almost deaf and could no longer communicate.
Su Tong opened the door and entered the room. Seeing that the room was dark with no lights on, he thought to himself that this old guy went to bed very early. He had to rest before the master came back. Su Tong cursed and turned to close the courtyard door. Suddenly he felt a pain in the back of his head and lost consciousness.
"Is this the place? Don't take the wrong route again!" Zhang Qianzhi complained breathlessly. "You can't blame me. The street signs and house numbers here are all messed up, so it's troublesome to find them!" Fu Li's face was as dark as the bottom of a pot, but fortunately it was already dark, so they all used the lanterns in their hands. Zhao Lu, no one noticed his expression.
This area was first used as a camp for logging teams. Later, the temporary wooden houses were demolished by the carpentry workshop, and a few brick houses were scattered here and there as dormitories. Later, the shipyard and the Victory Port Authority each built employee residential areas in several batches here, but they lacked unified municipal planning. While the resident population is increasing, the corresponding planning and management have not been able to keep up with the pace of development. The house numbers here are all arranged according to the time of construction rather than geographical location. The one next to No. 1 may be in the seventies. No., which caused a lot of trouble to the members of the task force who came here to visit.
Although Fu Li worked in the Police Department, he really didn't know much about the situation in this area. He volunteered to lead the way at first, but he didn't expect that he had gone through many wrong turns and still couldn't find the right place.
"We found the right one this time." Lin Nan raised the lantern high and illuminated the house number at the entrance of the courtyard: "No. 7, Nanmu Village, is right here."
Lin Nan reached out and pushed on the courtyard door, and the door opened with a creak. The three of them were waiting in, and Lin Nan had already noticed something strange on the ground: "There's a guy lying there!"
The village chief and militia captain, as well as the only barefoot doctor in the village who knew something about medical skills, rushed to the yard almost at the same time after receiving the notice, but their arrival could no longer save Su Tong's life. In fact, when Lin Nan and others found Su Tong, he was already dead.
After discovering the body, Zhang Qianzhi and Fu Li quickly searched inside and outside the yard. Except for an old servant who fell asleep in the house, they found no other suspicious people. But looking at the old slave who was deaf and blinded and could not even stand still, it was obviously unlikely to be the murderer. Although the residual warmth of the body told them that the murderer might not have escaped yet, due to their severe unfamiliarity with the nearby terrain, they had no way of tracking the murderer's escape route.
"It's a step too late!" Lin Nan sighed: "It seems that Shopkeeper Su really knows the inside story."
"If I hadn't led the wrong way, maybe I could have blocked the murderer!" Fu Li regretted extremely at this moment. If he had known that he would make such a low-level mistake, he should have asked the village cadres to lead the way from the beginning, instead of He rushed into the village recklessly. Now that this line is broken, the subsequent detection work will be much more difficult.
Zhang Qianzhi kept calm. He first called the village chief and militia captain to the side and asked whether any suspicious unidentified people had appeared in the village in the past two days and whether Su Tong had any social connections. But the result was obviously not optimistic. The village chief and militia captain failed to provide any valuable information, and their understanding of Su Tong was limited to Nanyang Pavilion where he was employed.
While the boss was leading people to collect the bodies, three key members of the task force got together and held a short meeting.
"It seems that we have frightened the snake by posting the reward notice!" Lin Nan analyzed: "Someone came to reveal that Hassan met Su Tong before his death, and Su Tong died. There should be some connection between the two murder cases. Contact.”
"This time the murderer didn't try to disguise the body as an accident." Zhang Qianzhi said coldly: "If a person falls on his back and makes a hole in the back of his head and dies, I think it is unlikely that he would go out of his way to turn over. Keep the wound facing up so we can find it easier."
Su Tong's dead posture was very stretched, lying on the ground with a wild "big" character. There was a very obvious fatal blow to the back of his head. However, the murder weapon has not been found yet. It is possible that the murderer took him away from the crime scene. But compared with Hassan's disguised death scene, Sutong's death seemed very violent and direct. The styles of the two murders were indeed very different.
"It may be different murderers, but it is also possible that the murderer deliberately created two different styles to mislead us." Fu Li had calmed down again at this time and began to use his experience in handling cases to make speculations. But he is not optimistic about the direction of the investigation of the case: "No matter what the possibility is, what we will do next will not be easy to handle!"
Zhang Qianzhi said: "Perhaps we should think carefully about where the murderer got the news from and rush to kill Su Tong before us. Just now, Brother Lin said that he was able to scare off the grass and scare the snake. I don't think that is necessarily the case. If Su Tong's death is related to Hasan was related to him, so the reason why he was killed was probably because he knew who the murderer was in the Hassan case. Of course, it is also possible that this incident had nothing to do with the Hassan case, but if it was an independent incident, then this timing would be too coincidental. A little.”
"I don't believe there is such a coincidence." Fu Li shook his head and said: "This is not a coincidence, this is a well-calculated murder! The purpose is to silence Su Tong and let him die with all the secrets."
(End of chapter)