HA2 23.2 – A Talk with Paolo
In the middle of a bridge, two blocks from Tomoya Pasta, Hide casually stripped down the 2G cellphone and voice-alteration speaker he used to call Paolo a moment ago. Other than the battery, he dropped everything else to the river below him.
Next to Hide, Takeo watched the cellphone’s component hit the surface of the river one by one, and gone for good. Then, he turned his gaze to Hide, “How do you know about the escort mission in Suriya?”
“Bar chat,” Hide casually replied. “An acquaintance who directly participated told me about it.”
“That’s really a nice mislead,” Takeo admirably said. “Now, Paolo will never connect the treasury bond to us, two high school kids who milks money through credit card hack.”
“Exactly.”
“What about Morris Abram?” Takeo curiously asked.
“Do you want to hear the short version or the long one?”
“The long one,” Takeo firmly replied.
“As you wish.” Hide then took a deep breath before starting the story.
Morris Abram was a Jewish American, a lawyer and civil right activist. He was best remembered as civil rights attorney who successfully waged a fourteen-year struggle from 1949 to 1963, to end the Georgia State electoral rule that effectively gave disproportionate weight in primary elections to the whites at the expense of the blacks.
He also closely worked with Dr. Martin Luther King before he became famous. His works to defend the minority’s interest had caused him lot of business lost. Rumor said he even almost lost his life when a small number of former Americ Special Force who devoted themselves to preserve white supremacy put him on their shit list.
Morris was then focusing himself on humanitarian work while became an ardent supporter of Jewish cause. He also became opponent of many liberal civil rights advocates. Despite the heavy critics and cynicism for his stand to support Jewish cause, Morris’ humanitarian work was fair, just, and indiscriminate.
In mid 2000s, a woman used his name as codename every time she organized humanitarian work, mostly in Acia and Avrica. No one knew her real identity, but she was definitely a player in financial world, connected to Eisrel chamber of commerce, and cherished the value that Morris Abram had fought for throughout his life.
In 2017, this particular woman announced that her daughter would take over her humanitarian work and her codename. The other thing that worth to note was that, lot of former seasoned mercenaries gathered under her wings, protected her, and was fully ready to die for her.
Therefore, even though she offended lot of dangerous people to the point they tried to track and kill her with everything they had, no one managed to harm her. Her bodyguard killed them all instead.
“That’s the long story,” Hide casually ended his explanation.
“She must be freakily rich if she can pay lot of mercenaries to die for her.”
“She doesn’t pay them at all.”
Huge question mark instantly popped up on Takeo’s forehead, “How is that possible?”
“She gives those dangerous, fucked up, and broken mercenaries a salvation. In return, they treat her as their messiah.”
“Is Paolo one of them?” Takeo curiously asked.
“No, right now he is more like a part-time worker for Morris.” After a slight pause Hide added, “He left the flock after his ex-wife passed away in a traffic accident and leaving behind their only daughter alone.”
“I see.”
“Well, let’s meet Paolo as two young and beginner hackers who are in a pinch. He has soft spot for this kind of folk.”
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Without delay Hide and Takeo left the bridge. The two went straight to Tomoya Pasta. On the way, Hide dumped the cellphone battery to a garbage bin for stuff that required specific disposal handling.
---
After arriving at Tomoya Pasta, Paolo went straight to second floor through the backyard. When scaling the spiral stairs case he took a glimpse at Clara. She was busy orchestrating the bustling kitchen, but everything seemed fine so Paolo let her did her job undisturbed.
After taking a bath, Paolo sent a text message to Morris’s man in Nichiko. He told him that someone wanted to donate Treasury bonds with total worth around 5-6 million Dillar. A moment later, he received a reply that someone would pick it up in two hour.
Then, Paolo went to a small greenhouse in a corner of second floor. It was a modest greenhouse, but more than enough to produce Italica herbs he needed for his cooking. After checking a few clusters of tomato that were almost ready for the harvest, he went to pick some fresh oregano. Paolo was about to make the third pick when one of his staff entered the green house with two boys.
“Boss, these two want to see you,” the staff said.
“Who are they?” Paolo asked while took a glance at his guests.
“Dunno, after Clara talked a bit with them, she asked me to bring them to you.”
“My name is Uesugi Hidetada, a sophomore at East Nichiko High,” The boy in the right respectfully introduce himself. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Paolo.”
“My name is Takeo Ishida, also a sophomore at East Nichiko High,” The boy on the left added, also in a respectful tone. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Paolo.”
Paolo said nothing and only creased his brow. Then, he took his smartphone, and calmly took his time to check a few things before saying to his staff, “You can go.”
“Roger,” The staff casually replied.
As his staff left the green house, Paolo looked at Hide and Takeo before asking, “A national champ and a prefectural runner-up for software engineering competition, what bring you two here?”
“We hear from a chat in dark web that you can help us to get second citizenship,” Hide said.
“For your information, Nikko prohibits its citizen from having second citizenship,” Paolo said.
And Hide calmly replied, “That’s the very reason why we come to you. We want a second citizenship without losing Nikko citizenship.”
“Are you saying do you want another citizenship fully unrelated to your Nikko citizenship, a fresh one?”
“Yes,” Hide firmly replied.
“May I know why you need it?”
Without further ado Hide nodded and told Paolo the background story he had prepared beforehand.
---
After hearing the reason why Hide and Takeo wanted a second citizenship, Paolo’s expression when seeing the two became softer. It was pretty much as Hide predicted.
“That’s smart,” Paolo said. “Five thousand Dillar is small enough to be overlooked by most rich jerk. They have lots of credit card transactions around that amount.”
“We do a proper research before starting the milking,” Hide calmly said.
After nodding his head Paolo asked another question, “How many rich jerks do you milk right now?”
“Around 30s.”
“How often?”
“Once every two months.”
“That’s another smart move,” Paolo admirably said. “I presume after you got your second citizenship and bank account, you will enlarge the operation.”
“Yeah, but not too large. At most, we plan to maintain around 50 targets, with milking period around 2 years before we cut them lose from our list.”
After contemplating for a while Paolo turned his gaze to Takeo, “How did Hide coax you to jump into his plan?
I mean, I can clearly see you have a great gift for software engineering, but you are too honest to plan such slick plan.”
“It’s true Hide plan everything,” Takeo calmly replied. “But he didn’t need to coax me. I jump in on the spot as soon as he showed me the plan.”
“I see,” After a smile Paolo turned his gaze back to Hide. “Can you tell me why you want to take medical school? I’m sure you realize that with your skill you will have good future in software engineering.
You ended up as prefectural runner-up because you enter the competition from the same city as Takeo. If you entered from other prefecture, you would become runner-up at national level.”
“I feel the calling to enter medical world, the surgery field to be precise,” Hide casually replied.
“And why do you choose Germane and not Americ?” Paolo curiously asked. “Americ offer more job opportunity for international medical student with excellent grade.
These medical students then can go back to their home country not only as fresh graduate, but also as experienced medical workers.”
‘Well, first, it’s because I have mastered Americ’s advance medical procedure. No point to re-study the standard procedure in the medical school.
Second, most of top-line hospital in Nikko uses Germane’s medical procedure,’ Hide muttered to himself. Then, he calmly expressed his third reason, “Nichiko University has six-year medical program where in the last two year of the program, they will send some top students to study in Germane under full-scholarship, followed by two year of internship in Germane’s best hospital.”
“I see.” After pondering for a while Paolo said, “It will be expensive, but it worth every penny.”
“How much?” Hide firmly replied.
“72.000 Dillar per citizenship, not including the first deposit to open your bank account.”
“We have the money,” Hide casually said.
“Okay, let me give you the basic outline for the process then.”
After taking a deep breath Paolo started the explanation. First, Hide had to go to Germane while Takeo went to Italica. It was unrecorded arrival so they would use cargo flight and bypass the immigration as goods in the box.
After that they had to stay for 2 days and 3 nights. When everything was done, they would go back to Nikko using their new citizenship in business flight. The ID maker would take care of the visa and everything else, and also taught them how to extend the visa for their second citizenship.
That way, whenever they wanted to go overseas from Nikko, they had the flexibility to use either Nikko’s passport or their second one.
“That’s the outline,” Paolo closed his explanation. “As for the detail of your second citizenship, I know nothing about it.”
“Okay,” Hide calmly said.
Meanwhile, question mark popped-up on Takeo’s forehead. Then, he asked, “Mr. Paolo, I don’t mind to go to Italica for a few days if I have to, but, can I skip this step? I can put additional fee if that’s possible.”
“No, you can’t,” Paolo firmly replied. “In Eurova and Americ, no matter the citizenship you use to open international bank account, you have to be present in the bank personally. No ID maker can bypass this procedure.
But have no worry, as long as the ID you use to open the account is legit, the process is easy and fast. You will complete it in less than one hour.
The ID maker can also arrange a short-trip to Swizz if you want to open your bank account over there, free of additional charge.”
Takeo nodded and said, “I see.”
“I have to run a background check on you, to ensure you are not part of dangerous movement or element. It will take 2-3 weeks. After that, if the ID maker agrees to help you, they will arrange the flight.”
“Okay,” Hide calmly said. “We will wait for the good news then.”
“Just a friendly reminder,” Paolo said in a drop dead serious tone. “Bear in your mind that no matter how small the crime a hacker does, if he or she is caught, it will end his or her future as programmer.”
“We know,” Hide firmly replied.
“Do you know the name for hacker who escapes the jail time by working for the government?”
“State’s slave,” Hide gave Paolo another firm reply.
After a smile Paolo said, “It seems you really do the research and don’t just enter the field blindly.”
This time it’s Takeo who gave Paolo a firm reply, “We do.”
After leaving their cellphone number, Hide and Takeo then left Paolo’s place.
*****