In the operation center, everyone immediately stopped making noise or minimized it if they could not.
Mr. Schneider asked after activating his earpiece:
"May I know who I am talking to?"
"It is rude not to present yourself first."
"My name is Jack, Jack Schneider."
"Alright Mr. Jack Schneider, what do you want?"
"I didn't get your name, Mister..."
"You can call me Ghost."
"Noted. So, Mr. Ghost, we need your help with a delicate situation. The pay can be negotiated but success is a must. Can we count on your help?"
"Let me hear about it first."
"Fair enough. There is a hostage in the town where you are. We need you to do a search and rescue."
"Interesting. Do you have a localization? What about the number of hostiles, their positions, their movements, their possible reinforcements? What about the delivery of the package and the payment?"
With that reaction, Mr. Schneider could already determine the confidence of a competent person, giving more credit to his previous judgment. Thus, nodding to himself, he continued:
"First of all, we believe the hostage to be localized in the middle of the town where they established their temporary headquarters. We determined the numbers of hostiles to be around 50 but as we don't have a real time view on them, we could not determine their movements.
As for their reinforcements, they should not have any since that place was a trap, given how things went for my men, so they will most probably start to prepare their departure soon. But, that does not exclude another wave of fighters coming to join them. For the delivery and the payment, my people can come by helicopter in about 4 hours-"
The voice on the other side, colder than before, cut Mr. Schneider off before he could finish:
"I want nothing in the air above me if you don't want to lose it. Prepare everything north of the town, 2 hours from it. I will contact you after the job is done and you will come to the meeting point I will pick up by ground. The payment will be ten million US dollars. Deal or not?"
Mr. Schneider looked at the middle-aged man, causing the latter to nod to show his assent. With that, the former answered his faraway interlocutor:
"Alright, Mr. Ghost. Give me a moment to confirm whether I can pay that much in a few hours."
Signaling to one of his subordinates, he went to an adjacent room that had everything an office should have. Coming to the computer on the desk, he first checked that the communication was effectively muted in the control room he just left after his order.
Afterward, he hit a few keys on the keyboard to change the encryption of the call before resuming the negotiations:
"Mr. Ghost, are you there?"
"Yes. Do you have an answer now?"
"Indeed, I do. But ten million dollars is too much so I would like to add to the previous mission. If you can do it, the money won't be a problem."
"Go on."
"I want you to not leave anyone alive in the town apart from the hostage, in other words, an extermination mission."
"Oh... And what is the order of priority for the two objectives?"
He seemed to hear a bit of amusement from the until now cold or colder voice.
"The search and rescue comes first."
"For a moment there, I thought the extermination mission would be the priority and if I only did the search and rescue my money would be a problem."
Now he could really confirm that the man on the other side was teasing him.
"It was a wrong impression Mr. Ghost. How would you want your payment?"
"Hehe, is that so?"
Now becoming normal(cold or colder), the voice continued in his earpiece:
"Whatever. I want my money with one million in cash, another million in different currencies like yuan, euro and so on, another converted in XOF and the rest in a cryptocurrency that does not fluctuate too much."
"It will be done."
"Good. Now give me the details of the hostage."
"It is a woman. Samantha Monroe, American, 21, blonde of average height. She is the daughter of Joseph Monroe, a rich widower and a merchant of death. I would have sent you her photo but unfortunately, my man PDA did not survive the blast just like its owner. However, she should be the only woman in that town or, at worse, the only white woman. "
"For how long has she been held hostage."
"One week. Why?"
"I wouldn't want to kill her by accident if she had been brainwashed into fighting for her captors already."
"You make a good point, Mr. Ghost. I take it that you are not new to this type of enemy, which is quite frankly a relief given that this is our first cooperation. I hope there will not be the kind of complication you mentioned and I pray for your success."
After a pause from the other side, as if to assimilate the details, an answer came before the communication was ended:
"I will contact you when I'm done."