Theron Baddeley's sinister eyes when he got out of the car conveyed a sense of danger as he stared at his prey.
Cao Mo had experienced this feeling when he stayed in a border town in southern Akwa a few years ago.
At that time, it was the first time for him to accept Xie Sipeng, and he, Abacha and others went to Akwa to investigate the gold mining investment environment there. At that time, they had to briefly interrupt their journey due to heavy rain and stopped at a hotel in the town.
The spies from the nearby military camp went to the inn to inquire about their movements, and they clearly gave Cao Mo the feeling of a poisonous snake lurking deep in the grass, peeping.
After that incident occurred, it was also implicated in the coup plot of Ufo Bonya.
Last year, Avina Foster went to Lana Del Rey Beach Casino to meet him and gave him the same feeling.
Subsequent facts proved that Awenna had indeed colluded with Badine Savvy Jr. and Ryan Fortis, who represented the Evans Foundation, intending to force him to give up his rights to the Usan River copper and gold mine.
Avina Foster also thought that she could gain great benefits from it, so in front of Cao Mo, she unintentionally showed the condescending, greedy, and contemptuous emotions that one would have when spying on prey.
These subtle and dangerous emotions are completely different from the contempt and self-admiration that arise from being arrogant, aloof, and withdrawn; the latter will not make Cao Mo feel restless like a thorn in his back.
"The scale of our investment in Benin is so large. The Baddeley family, including Speaker Baddeley, has benefited greatly. Honorina is already preparing for my brother's marriage. What problems may arise?"
Zhou Han and Tanya summoned several staff members to the top floor. In addition to collecting as much relevant information as possible, they also set up security guards between the second floor and the top floor to prevent people from entering and exiting at will (this seems to be a rule,
It's just that the implementation is stricter at this time); arrange for people to use high-power telescopes to observe Theron Baddeley's movements in the dark, prepare necessary monitoring and surveillance equipment, etc., and many tasks are quickly implemented.
Starlie stood in front of the window, looking at the three people walking in the sunset by the lake in the distance without any abnormalities.
Facts have long proved that Cao Mo has extraordinary and keen observation skills. During the rise of Tianyue, it was also Cao Mo's ability that allowed him to avoid several big pits that would most likely result in death. She did not doubt that Theron Baddeley
There is a problem, but I just can’t see where the problem is and how big the problem is!
Cao Mo took Stali's hand and patted it twice.
He said he was living in seclusion in Benin these days, but he would also spare time for lunch or dinner every day to eat and talk with some heads of the Benin government departments. Even when he went to Cotonou after spending the Spring Festival in Draculamore,
I first met the Minister of Industry, Geology and Mines, Paboni, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baddeley, the Vice President Toto Ubo and others.
However, no danger signal had been detected before, which meant that even if Theron Baddeley brought a dangerous aura today, he was still a little far away from them.
At least the core of the Benin authorities, including Minister of Industry and Mines Paboni, Speaker Baddeley, Vice President Toto Ubo and others, are not brewing any big conspiracy against Tianyue.
This also means that they are safe for the time being.
However, Theron Baddeley, as a member of the Baddeley family they had tried their best to build a relationship with, actually released such a dangerous signal, and Cao Mo would never dare to take it lightly.
"This is Theron Baddeley's resume that I just found. It's very simple. The information is still being improved!" Zhou Han arranged the work and took the first few simple materials he collected and gave them to Cao Mo for a look.
In addition to Theron Baddeley's personal biography, there is also some information about the Army's Second Division; regarding the Baddeley family's information, Tubman Security Consulting Company has investigated it before, and will also provide relevant information at this time.
Called out.
Cao Mo walked back to the study and spread a pile of materials on the desk.
As the second son of the Baddeley family, Theron Baddeley looks young, but is actually almost forty years old. He is currently only a major officer in the Second Division of the Benin Army.
Because he is not an important person, the information that can be publicly searched is very limited - of course this is related to Benin's poor network construction. The information uploaded to the Internet is very limited. At this time, checking local paper materials is complicated and slow.
Since nothing could be seen from Theron Baddeley's information, Cao Mo opened the information on Theron and Honorina's father, Jashu Baddeley, and took a closer look.
Jashu Baddeli is the nominal leader of the more than 400,000 Aja people in the southeastern region of Benin, including Oguta.
The southeastern region of Benin, including Oguta, has a population of 4 to 50 million Aja people. It does not appear to be particularly large, and is equivalent to the population of an ordinary county in the country.
However, considering that there are only five million people in Benin, Jashu Baddeli is actually the most prominent person in Benin after the Aja clan king.
Jia Shuo Baddeley was not good at dealing with worldly affairs and liked to live a reclusive life. That is why his younger brother, Mr. Baddeley Jr., represented the Baddeley family in the political arena and has firmly held the seat of Speaker of Parliament over the years.
Therefore, even on the Internet, there is a lot of public information about Jia Shuo. Starry, Zhou Han and others also collected some information about Jia Shuo Baddeley before.
Benin has a single ethnic group and a high degree of secularization. Jashuo Baddeley married multiple wives when he was young, but after he embraced Christianity in the late 1990s, he only kept his youngest wife by his side.
Honorina's mother.
Although there is no public information, Cao Mo is certain that Theron Baddeley was born to one of Jia Shuo Baddeley's previous wives.
After all, Honorina's brother Huntingt is now working as a political assistant for his uncle Baddeley Jr., and is a rising political star in Beninese politics. If he hadn't been too young, he would have been independent in the past two years.
Run for Congress.
Theron Baddeley and Honorina are only half-brothers and sisters, and they have not had a close relationship for a long time. It does not matter that he followed Honorina and little Tubman came to visit the manor.
Cao Mo, this also indirectly proves that there is something wrong inside.
"After the 18th and 19th centuries, Benin became more secularized, and Christianity spread much more widely than Akwa and Kanem. It was rare to marry seven or eight wives at the same time and live together. And Theron
As the second son of Jashu Baddeli, Baddeli also has only three brothers. As long as Baddeli gives him corresponding support, his development in the Benin Army should be smooth. At his age, as a
A major officer may be quite good in the eyes of ordinary people, but he may not be satisfied in his heart - especially compared with his younger brother Xiang Tingte, he is very different. What is he really going to do regardless of the family?
It’s not surprising that it’s about profit!” Stari frowned and said while looking at the brief information about Jia Shuo Baddeley and Theron Baddeley and his son.
Cao Mo didn't detect any dangerous aura from the other members of the Baddeley family, but this could be solved.
Cao Mo took out Benin's army information and scanned it again.
The Benin Army has only two
The 1st Army Division is mainly responsible for the defense of the Primorye region, including Cotonou and the capital Bodonov; the 2nd Army Division is mainly responsible for the northeastern region and the border guarding with Akwa and Kanem.
In terms of equipment, the 1st Division is more elite, but the 2nd Division has slightly stronger combat capabilities in the Northeast, which has long been poorer, and in fighting armed smuggling groups and militants fleeing from Akwa on the border.
In addition to public media reports, Tubman Security Consultants has previously conducted detailed investigations and analyzes of Benin’s defense materials.
"Should we arrange for someone to remove Theron Baddeley's driver now and put a listening device in his car?" Zhou Han asked.
"..." Cao Mo shook his head and said, "Theron is hostile to us, but it has nothing to do with the Baddeley family. We don't know who is behind it. We need to prevent these people from becoming very familiar with us!"
Theron Baddeley was more like an informant who volunteered to spy on news and intelligence. He was a very unimportant role. Cao Mo would not believe that he was the one who led the conspiracy and planned something against this side.
Is Theron Badley qualified for this?
And if there is an institutional force like the Evans Foundation plotting something behind the scenes, then they must be careful about what they do.
Directly installing a listening device will easily leave traces and be easily searched out by the other party using anti-reconnaissance tools - in that case, it will be easy to alert the enemy.
In fact, they had already sensed the dangerous atmosphere at this time, and the other party thought that they were still ignorant, which was their biggest advantage.
This was also the key to their previous success in defusing the Ufbonya coup conspiracy and the conspiracy between the Sevi family and the Evans Foundation to peek into the Usan River copper and gold mine.
If they accidentally alert the enemy, they will lose this biggest advantage and become extremely passive.
In this land, they are always outsiders and naturally passive.
…………
…………
During this period, as senior vice president of Tianyue Industrial and president of the grain, oil and food division, Guo Donghu still stayed in Benin, responsible for sorting out the upstream and downstream business connections between Tianyue Industrial and the newly established West African Agriculture Group. A little later, he and Chen
Shu, Zhang Chaoyang, Huang Hebin and others rushed to the manor from the construction site and office building after a busy day. Song Yuqing, as the hostess, prepared a half-day banquet in the manor and officially started.
We were all overseas and there was no place for entertainment at night, so Cao Mo called us together. In addition to having meals and discussing things together, if there was nothing else to do at night, we could also organize card games to kill the lonely time in a foreign land.
Therefore, the manor is very quiet during the day, but much more lively at night.
The more people know about the matter, the better. Song Yuqing, who was worried that her appearance would reveal her fault, even used the excuse of feeling unwell to hide in the room on the top floor with Zhou Han, continuing to collect intelligence information and not attending the night banquet.
At the night banquet, Cao Mo also specially invited Theron Baddeley’s driver to come in for a meal.
In Kanem, Benin, and Akwa, drivers are equivalent to servants and are not qualified to dine at formal banquets with their hosts.
However, Cao Mo never paid attention to breaking these rules - this was almost an open secret.
The large long dining table is placed in the open air under the grape vine trellis in the courtyard. It is filled with exquisite silver tableware and crystal cups. The young Aja maid brings sumptuous food and fine wine to the table in turn, and there are also other dishes beside the bonfire.
There were two Aja girls wearing traditional floral skirts, beating leather drums around their waists, singing and dancing - Cao Mo even felt that his life in Benin was a little bit debauched.
At nine o'clock, Cao Mo ended today's banquet on the pretext that he had other things to do.
According to the local tradition, it is normal for the banquet to start after dark and continue until dawn the next day. However, Cao Mo is the king of this manor, and it is normal and unquestionable for him to end the banquet whenever he wants.
.
Guo Donghu and the others are still staying in a hotel in Cotonou, not far from the manor. Little Tubman also has a residence in Cotonou.
If he didn't want to stay in Cotonou, it would be a bit far for little Tubman to drive to Oguta overnight, and the journey would take two hours.
However, judging from his own wishes today, he should still take Honorina back to his residence in the city to spend the night together.
Watching the cars driving away from the manor and disappearing into the darkness of the night, Cao Mo frowned and asked Zhou Han who came out of the shadows: "Did Theron's driver talk to the outside world after leaving the banquet?"
Cao Mo asked someone to invite Theron Baddeley's driver to the banquet. Although Theron's driver insisted on sitting at the corner and returned to the car quickly after the meal, even such a short contact was enough for Cao Mo.
Capture some key information.
In the conspiracy against them, Theron's driver was not only an insider, but even had a higher status than Theron Baddeley - or it could be said that this person wanted to spy on the situation inside the manor, so he pretended to be the driver and followed Theron.
Ron Baddeley comes in together.
This person may be the planner or core executor of the conspiracy against them.
Theron Baddeley is a member of the Baddeley family, and the Tianyue family has been fighting fiercely with the Baddeley family for more than a year, so Theron Baddeley was dragged into this conspiracy by the forces behind the scenes.
Hit, right?
Although Cao Mo did not advise Zhou Han and the others to directly install a listening device in Theron Baddeley's car, his car was parked in the manor and it was not difficult to conduct remote monitoring.
Cao Mo now wants to know if this "driver" has had any contact with the outside world for more than an hour since he left the banquet.
"The two phone calls the driver made were relatively long, but what he said was not Aja, nor Yoruba, Akan or other common languages. It was initially judged that it might be the dialect of the Kuin people - there is no one in our core group here.
People who are proficient in this language, Ogunuo found a security officer, but he could barely understand the Kuin dialect. He was sent the recording, but he couldn't confirm many parts, so he directly arranged to come over and participate in the analysis together -
—People should be arriving soon!" Zhou Han said.
Cao Mo frowned slightly. There were many ethnic groups on the African continent, and their dialects were very complicated. The Kuen people were a very small ethnic group along the Gulf of Guinea. He doubted how many people on the entire African continent could speak Kuen language.
The security personnel who are now rushing from Oguta can only say that they can barely understand it. It is hard to say how much useful information can be analyzed from the recording.
"Where are Little Kuski and the others?" Cao Mo asked.
"Little Kuski has already arrived in Cotonou with two groups of people. Starlie did not arrange for them to come directly to the manor for fear of making too much noise. However, he will arrange two more cars to guard the outside of the manor. Look from the outside to see if there are any
Someone is watching here..." Zhou Han said.
Even if the crisis is not imminent, since it has been noticed, the necessary arrangements must be implemented.
Cao Mo frowned and thought for a while, then said, "I don't want two groups here. I'll send one group to the Keris Hotel!"
The Keres Hotel is where Guo Donghu, Zhang Chaoyang and other dispatched employees live together in Bei.
Not long after Theron Baddeley's "driver" was invited to the night banquet, he also looked at Guo Donghu, Chen Shu, Zhang Chaoyang and others.
This is actually Cao Mo's biggest headache. Tianyue is bigger and its target is bigger, and the other party's conspiracy involves characters like Theron Baddeley. If something is really going to happen, the noise will definitely not be small.
If something unexpected happens, it will be difficult to take everything into account.
If the other party only targets him, he can just find an excuse and move to another place under the protection of elite bodyguards, basically avoiding the main risk.
"I will contact Kuski. If there is a shortage of manpower, I will ask Drew to transfer a team of manpower from Cornero Security Company in the name of strengthening construction site security." Zhou Han said.
Cao Mo nodded and walked towards the main building.
Now the third and fourth floors of the main building are sealed off, prohibiting ordinary servants from entering and exiting. Stari has also moved a large bulletproof commercial vehicle equipped with a satellite communication platform to the front of the main building.
"Have you found any more detailed information about Theron Baddeley?"
Cao Mo asked Taya who was staring at the intelligence analysts working.
Although Theron Baddeley's "driver" is more critical, there is no clear information about this "driver". At present, we can only continue to dig deeper from Theron Baddeley's line.
Taya handed Cao Mo the information collected in the last two hours.
Cao Mo received the information and wanted to sit under the light in front of the window, but was stopped by the bodyguards, who told him that his current situation was special and that a lighted window at night was a very dangerous place - they could not close all the curtains in the main building to prevent
If you peep, you should avoid going to the window as much as possible to avoid being exposed to the surveillance of enemies lurking in the dark.
Cao Mo sighed, walked to the sofa in the middle of the room and sat down.
Although the Internet in Benin is very backward and there is almost no useful information, some information has been pieced together from the Internet and urgently transferred local paper media materials.
Although Theron Baddeley is not very happy in the family, as the son of Jashu Baddeley, he still gained some public attention - and as a small country, Benin has only two print media and two TV stations in the country.
With how many channels there are, relatively speaking, the information that requires extensive searching is not as scary as imagined.
The newly collected information has pieced together a relatively complete resume of Theron Baddeley in his early years in the army.
Theron Baddeley was tacitly regarded by his family. He barely managed to become a lieutenant ten years before joining the Second Division of the Benin Army.
Just like playing games, early game experience is the best and easiest to upgrade.
Therefore, Theron Baddeley's promotion from lieutenant to major in eight years is not considered slow, but the ten years it took him to be promoted to lieutenant officer is really slow.
According to the general path of the Benin army, it is normal for a young man with a background like Theron Baddeley and a very good academic background to be directly promoted to lieutenant three or four years after joining the army - and then as the upward path progresses
After narrowing down and following the steps step by step, one can now serve as a lieutenant colonel or colonel-level officer in the army.
Considering that the country of Benin is small and sparsely populated, the army colonel can be regarded as a senior general in the Benin army.
After the establishment of the Economic Community of West African States, under Kanem's initiative, if there is unrest in a country within the community, other countries can form a joint force to enter the peacekeeping force. After becoming a lieutenant in the Army's Second Division, Theron participated in the peacekeeping force.
He led a detachment stationed in a small coastal country southeast of Canem to maintain peace and suppress rebellions. He stayed in this small coastal country for two years before returning to Benin.
It was also after participating in that peacekeeping operation that he was quickly promoted to a major officer.
Nothing could be sorted out from Theron Baddeley's resume, and there was still too little useful information. However, Zhou Han still marked the limited information with diagrams.
At 11 o'clock at night, the security officer who knew a little bit about Quin's dialect arrived, but because he could barely understand some simple sentences, he was worried that he could not be of much help.
Intelligence analysis is a tedious job, more like a jigsaw puzzle. Even if it can only provide a small correct piece, it is still beneficial - Taya also arranged the staff here to help people quickly familiarize themselves with the information that has been sorted out here.
information to help him understand more of the content in the recording.
"...Kuiketuo," the visitor quickly identified a key piece of information, "the recording clearly mentioned the name of this place called Kuiketuo!"
Starry, Zhou Han, and Taya were all excited. Quecoto was the place where Theron was stationed as a peacekeeping force officer. That was eight years ago—if Theron Baddeley’s driver was there,
The place name Kuiketuo was also mentioned in the call with the outside world, which is probably a very crucial piece of information.
This can draw a relatively clear direction for the next step of intelligence analysis.
"I have searched using this place name before. The amount of information on the Internet is very limited. I am not sure there is any exciting information!" A staff member sitting in front of the computer turned around and said.
Quicoto is not in Benin. It is a small town located in the small coastal country southeast of Canem. Cao Modu doubted whether this country has established its own Internet. If relevant information cannot be searched online, it will be difficult to find it in a short time.
Get written materials.
"Check if there are any other spellings for the place name Kuiketuo - collect as much information as possible about the area near Kuiketuo and the peacekeeping forces!" Zhou Han ordered.
Although the selected members of the core intelligence team are all carefully selected, we have to admit that the local people are limited by their education level, and some people's abilities and ideas are still a little bit unsatisfactory. Many tasks require detailed instructions from Zhou Han.
After Zhou Han's reminder, intelligence analysts quickly found out that another more commonly used spelling of Kuikoto is "Quicotos". Instead, there are several articles about the place name "Quicotos" on the Internet.
A shocking report - "The Great Offshore Drilling Robbery of Quekotos".
In the second half of 2002, France's Langhe Petroleum Group acquired an offshore oil field that an oil company had operated near Quecotos for many years, and maintained and operated the oil drilling.
However, less than half a year after Langhua Petroleum Group acquired these offshore drilling platforms, that is, in early 2003, these offshore drilling rigs began to suffer frequent pirate attacks.
At that time, Langhua Petroleum Group equipped these drilling rigs with quite powerful mercenary weapons, but the pirates were equipped with high-speed boats. Their weapons and equipment were no weaker than those of mercenaries, or even stronger, and their training was better.
In addition to paying tens of millions of dollars in ransom for the captured dispatched employees, Langhua Petroleum Group also lost more than 20 dispatched employees and hundreds of mercenaries in frequent pirate attacks, and eventually had to shelve these drilling projects.
Operations, evacuating all personnel, and it has been delayed until now and has not been restarted.
The main competitor for Langhua Petroleum Group's acquisition of the Quekotos offshore oil field in 2020 was the Linton Petroleum Group, a subsidiary of the Evans Foundation. There was even a report that directly pointed out that these pirates equipped with high-speed boats were the Evans Foundation's competition.
An act of revenge for the failed acquisition of the Quekotos offshore oil field!