Manhattan Reborn 1978

Island country, Tokyo.

Early morning~

On the left bank of the Tama River Estuary, Tokyo Bay, Ota-ku, Haneda International Airport.

A passenger plane from the United States landed smoothly on the runway.

In the airport.

Marat Poyezhnev and Kihara Nobunari, who had already been waiting at the exit of the passenger passage, soon spotted a familiar face in the crowd, Yuri Orlov.

Ten minutes later.

Kihara Nobunari was driving a car towards central Tokyo. Marat, who was sitting in the back seat, looked at Yuri Orlov beside him with a smile and asked.

"You're saying that our client, Vitol Company, wants to send someone over to discuss the next step of cooperation?"

"Yes." Yuri, who looked tired from the journey, nodded with a hint of tiredness in his eyes.

"The person coming from Vitol tomorrow is Todd Covian. He had a face-to-face discussion with the boss in New York about cooperation."

"He made an appointment with me before I left for New York."

"He suggested that if we want to continue to earn the middleman's price difference from crude oil and fresh fruit transactions in the Nakhodka Commercial Port trade channel, it is best to put it on paper instead of just relying on a verbal agreement."

"Haha~" Marat said with a smug smile, looking at Kihara Nobunari in the rearview mirror.

"Vitol Company must have received some important news that we don't know about. They are afraid that we will find another buyer and cut off our financial resources, so they are planning to tie us up with a contract."

Kihara Nobunari glanced at Marat in the rearview mirror and smiled: "It seems that our last temporary decision to increase the price gave them a sense of crisis?"

"Yeah~"

Marat turned to look at Yuri, who was confused, and explained: "The island country is a newly industrialized country that is highly dependent on crude oil imports. Both the government and enterprises are very sensitive to fluctuations in international oil prices!"

"So there are all kinds of gossip circulating secretly in Tokyo every day, and it's almost impossible to tell whether they are true or false."

"However, the phone number that the boss's butler, Aclade Parkinson, left for us before he left has been of great help to us recently!"

"His friend is an underground intelligence dealer who switched from CIA to specialize in business intelligence business. He has very reliable intelligence channels in Singapore, Athens, Marseille and London, etc., allowing us to know the oil price fluctuations in various places every day. . . ”

"It's just that the information fees he offers are a bit expensive, at least 100,000 yuan per month..."

"Oh~" After hearing Marat's explanation, Yuri immediately remembered something, frowned and thought for a while before saying.

"After I went to see Todd Covian, I wanted to go see the boss and tell him about it."

"But I gave up the idea and went to the Gold Coin Hotel to meet Mr. Odis Parker."

"He said that in order for us to get more intelligence support here, the boss asked Brotney Mecia to reorganize a business intelligence team."

"Oh?" Marat asked, feeling his eyes light up.

"Have you met this Brotney Mecia?"

"No~" Yuri shook his head.

"I just spoke to her on the phone for a while at Mr. Parker's."

"She said that she would send someone to come to Tokyo with Todd Covian tomorrow, and asked me to give her a contact address or contact information when I get here, and she will take care of the rest!"

"Yeah..." Marat nodded slowly, lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then looked at Nobunari Kihara who was driving the car, and smiled.

"It just so happens that tomorrow night, Toshiki Wada of the Yasuda family will also invite us to talk about cooperation."

"Now that we have our own intelligence channels, we can boldly negotiate terms with him!"

When Kihara Nobunari heard Marat say this, he subconsciously slowed down the car and looked at him in the rearview mirror and asked.

"How do you want to talk?"

"Haha~" Marat raised his eyebrows and smiled, looking at Yuri with a twinkle in his eye as he said.

"Perhaps, these words should not be said by me~"

"But when I was your age, I always believed that I could create different legendary lives with my own strength."

"But now that I am middle-aged, if I think about this idea from a different angle and at another time, I will find out~"

"Our lives are determined by the encounters and mutual influence between people!"

Marat patted the young Yuri with his hand, with a tone that sounded like a big brother teaching a little brother, and shook his head slightly and sighed.

"If it were hundreds of years ago, the three of us would have been... knights who were appreciated and used by the lord. Not only did they receive support from his funds and connections, but they were also assigned important tasks by him~"

"So when we leave the lord's land and work for him, everyone and everything we have to face must be carefully considered before making the right decision."

Kihara Nobunari was surprised when he heard Marat suddenly say these words. He stopped the car on the side of the road and turned back to look at him silently.

Marat shrugged pretending to be relaxed, spread his hands to the two of them and smiled.

"In fact, to become a qualified international trader, we must not only understand our own abilities and continuously accumulate contacts and trading experience, but also have a very clear understanding of trade commodities and trade customers~"

"For example, you may be surprised, why can I, the person in charge of crude oil spot exports at Nakhodka Commercial Port, negotiate the price...?"

"Actually the answer is very simple~"

“Since the outbreak of the last oil crisis, the country’s domestic crude oil production capacity has been growing at a rapid pace, and its annual output has more than tripled. However, its domestic demand for crude oil and external exports have not been able to keep up. .”

“Oversupply will inevitably lead to an increasing amount of accumulated inventory, until they are unable to solve the storage problem of these crude oils and have to find ways to sell these crude oil spot through various channels, even if the price is slightly lower. It doesn't matter!"

Yuri felt a little strange and asked: "Since they have extracted a large amount of crude oil, they cannot sell it all in a short period of time."

"Then why don't they stop production?"

"Hahaha~" Marat looked at Yuri and smiled.

"Yeah, why don't they stop production?"

"I used to have this question too..."

"But the reality is that wells rarely shut down unless absolutely necessary."

"Although shutting down an oil well is not complicated, reopening it to resume production is not only costly, but will also most likely result in the well being unable to maintain the production level before shutdown, or the crude oil production in a large production area being affected. . . ”

Marat saw the puzzled look on Yuri's face and smiled: "We can use soda water as an analogy to explain it..."

"If you open the soda and fail to drink it immediately, cover the bottle cap and let it sit for a while. When you want to open it again and drink, most of the bubbles may have gone away."

"Moreover, Xiong Daguo has a special geographical and climatic environment. The crude oil mined underground has high condensation and high viscosity. Once it is closed, the cost of re-exploitation will be very high."

"For example, the production of heavy oil requires various measures to heat the underground, inject steam, etc., so that the crude oil can flow before it can be mined."

"If the well is shut down and production is stopped, the underground temperature will drop and then be heated again. However, for the extraction of high-condensation oil, surface gathering and transportation still need to be heated, and high operating costs will also be incurred between stops and starts."

"The greater potential risk of shutting down oil wells is that it may damage the entire oil and gas industry chain."

"Shutting down and restarting oil wells is not conducive to the long-term stable production of upstream oil fields, which will affect midstream pipelines and downstream refining and chemical companies, affecting the operation and efficiency of the entire industry chain."

"Taking the refining and chemical industry as an example, each refinery develops its own refining processes and equipment based on the type of crude oil it refines. If the supply of raw materials is interrupted or the type of raw materials changes, the refinery will need to make adjustments, but this is by no means It can be completed in a short time..."

"So, through my recent understanding of the crude oil mining industry and after consulting several experts, the answer I got is that if you want to shut down an oil well that is being exploited, you must follow three judgment criteria~"

"First, the shut down oil wells will not damage the liquid production capacity, oil production capacity, water injection capacity and related equipment, facilities, roads and other supporting conditions required for stable production of the oil field in the future."

"Second, within a certain oil price range, the investment in the development work of the oil well and the realization of crude oil production no longer meet the requirements of economic benefits."

"Third, the oil well is unable to achieve the profit production target within the stage, nor can it achieve the goal of increasing oil recovery in the future."

"These three conditions must be met at the same time before the oil well can be shut down."

"In other words, if an oil well is very inefficient in productivity, cannot create economic benefits, and has no room for more potential exploration, and it is located in a remote area and has no impact on surrounding blocks and related supporting facilities, it can only be shut down."

"Otherwise, during the life cycle of an oil well, only those wells that produce less than 0.5 tons of liquid per day and have failed to improve after taking various production-increasing measures for several months will be shut down."

"Besides these accidents, the biggest risk hidden in shutting down oil wells is, in the final analysis, people!"

"Xiong Daguo's increasingly decadent bureaucracy in recent years has destined that anyone who wants to stabilize their position will not make high-risk decisions that are not beneficial to them!"

"Issuing an order to shut down an oil well is very simple. Even if there is a major economic loss and very bad consequences, it will harm the national interest, not the individual."

"The key is who gives the order! Who takes the responsibility? Who takes the blame!"

"If no one is willing to stand up and take responsibility and take the blame, how are we going to solve this problem?"

Marat raised an index finger to Yuri and said with a "bright" smile.

"Transfer!"

"As long as the problem of excess crude oil production is transferred to the refining companies and the departments responsible for crude oil exports, they can put themselves in a more favorable position and accuse the other party of incompetence and inaction."

"So, if international oil prices do not surge again in the short term, I am confident that our crude oil spot trading price from Nakhodka Commercial Port will be 2-5 meters per barrel lower than the international trade price!"

"Hi~ But you're not afraid...?!" Yuri took a breath of air and asked hesitantly.

"What are you afraid of?"

Marat said with an indifferent smile: "The essence of trade is to use various means to compete and make profits."

"We are just middlemen. We must not only gain profits from transactions, but also make all parties satisfied with the profits, and ensure the safety, smoothness and stability of transaction channels."

"The efforts of the three of us alone will definitely not work!"

“Only if Vitol Company and Nakhodka Commercial Port understand the importance of keeping this trade channel open and have to make some reasonable concessions for this, can we ensure our own interests and safety!”

"Especially Vitol Company, they are not novices like us~"

"How could they be so aggressive if there was really no profit to be made?"

Marat met Kihara Nobunari's gaze, spread his hands and smiled.

"Even if there are people at Nakhodka Commercial Port who want to settle accounts with someone because the price of oil they sold is too low, they can only vent their anger on me, but they can't change anything."

"This is a abnormal supply and demand imbalance caused by the international trade environment during the Cold War. It cannot be changed by the will of some of them alone~"

"They are even less likely to watch as oil wells have overcapacity and are forced to shut down operations, causing greater losses."

"So, those issues you're worried about..."

"Haha~ Leave it all to me!"

"This is also the main reason why the boss specifically asked the three of us to perform our duties."

"Yes!" Yuri stared into Marat's eyes, nodded vigorously, and relaxed.

"..." After hearing this, Kihara Nobunari silently drove the car towards the city, but more questions arose in his mind.

----

new York.

It's approaching evening~

Manhattan, West 63rd Street.

Auston, the head of the auxiliary police office, who was sitting in the car, finally saw his subordinate Far Pochvino, who had brought "Octopus" Wasim.

After the two got into the car, Auston nodded to Wasim in the rearview mirror, started the car and left here quickly.

Ten minutes later, in an old dock next to the Hudson River.

Wasim faced the cold wind of the winter evening and looked down at the long, wind-beaten and rain-beaten rocks at his feet, which were covered with smooth rocks, and remained silent.

Farr Bocchivino stood not far behind him, quietly looking at Auston who was on the phone in the phone booth, wondering how he would solve the matter.

After Auston made three consecutive calls in the phone booth, he finally walked out of the phone booth relaxed and whispered to Farr Bocchivino who came over.

"The people who want to solve this matter will be here soon."

"You go and stabilize him first, for ten minutes at most."

"Okay." Although Farr didn't know who Auston would ask for, he trusted this reliable boss and nodded in agreement.

The sun sets~

Far walked to Wasim and watched the sunset with him without saying anything.

Wasim seemed to be "awakened" by the strong wind by the river at this time, and asked in a very low voice.

"You want to stop me?"

"Um.."

"why?"

"Because what you plan to do is divorced from revenge itself."

"You are deliberately seeking death!"

"Haha~" Wasim took out his cigarette case, lit his fifth cigarette, and smiled to himself.

"Why did you come here with us just now?"

"..."

"You still want to ask for our help?"

"..."

"Everyone on that list should pay a price."

"But you can't always use this method of revenge, right?"

"..."

Far turned to look at the silent Wasim, knowing that since he had decided to do this, he might not be lucky at all, so he could only say helplessly.

"Sorry ~ I'm a policeman."

"It's my job to investigate this case, and it's what I insist on..."

"Is it justice?" Wasim suddenly looked at Farr and asked.

"Haha..." Farr showed a wry smile and shook his head.

"Where's the justice?"

"I'm just sticking to the bottom line of why I originally chose to be a police officer."

"Oh..." Wasim nodded in appreciation and said after hearing Far's answer.

"What about Auston?"

"You brought him here, do you want me to disappear? Or take me back?"

"None of them." Far turned his head and glanced at his boss wandering on the street, frowned, walked up to Wasim, and whispered.

"I have been accompanying you to pursue this case these days. You should also know it, right?"

"Just the two of us can't get all the villains punished!"

"So I thought about it all night last night and finally decided to help you again..."

"help me?"

"How to help?"

"have no idea.."

"Huh??" Wasim was even more confused.

Farr shook his head honestly and explained: "The list you got from the little leader is actually just some of the clients he heard about when others were bragging. It is not the list of core members of the trafficking group."

"This is just like when our police are investigating drug cases, they will focus mainly on arresting drug dealers, and will not pay special attention to those bastards who rely on taking drugs to survive all day long."

"Same reason~"

"People are deeply disgusted with poachers who poach endangered animals, and for those who buy endangered animal handicrafts, they can only use morality to despise his behavior, but there is no better way to punish him."

Wasim tilted his head and looked at Far in surprise, and asked with his lips pursed.

"Did you come up with all this yourself?"

"No...it's him!" Far pointed behind him and sighed.

"Auston is one of the few good police officers I have seen in my nearly ten years of working in New York!"

"I was able to get the opportunity to help you investigate the case, and it was with his strong support."

"Perhaps the principles he told me are confusing concepts in your opinion..."

"But I think what he said... still makes some sense."

"We cannot get rid of all drug addicts. We can only do our best to arrest drug dealers and eliminate the drug lords who produce drugs."

"We cannot kill all poachers, we can only do our best to protect those endangered animals and call on the society to boycott the purchase of endangered animal handicrafts."

"So, I think if we investigate the people on that list and confirm that they are just customers, not the principal criminals involved in human trafficking cases..."

"You want me to let them go?" Wasim asked with cold eyes.

Farr felt his mouth was a little dry, and subconsciously turned his head to look at the quietly flowing Hudson River and said.

"I don't know how many people are buried in this river every year..."

"I don't even know, who among them is innocent?"

"But I have always insisted that those who deserve it be severely punished and that the weak and innocent people get justice."

"But, Wasim!"

"I am a police officer, and you are a father who wants to avenge his daughter."

"We are not judges, nor are we God!"

"Everyone's sins should not be judged by us at will."

"Although revenge can bring short-term pleasure, it will become a drug that poisons you, gradually turning you into a slave and machine that only knows revenge."

"Think of your daughter Betty!"

"Does she really want you to look like this when you avenge her?"

"Although it can bring short-term pleasure... in the long run, the pain of retaliation far outweighs the benefits."

"Because while you are taking revenge, you are also creating another human tragedy..."

"The bastard you punished also has a family..."

"Their children will also sow the seeds of hatred in their hearts because of the tragic loss of their loved ones."

"Tsk, tsk! That's enough!" Wasim curled his lips and shouted loudly to stop Far's "long-winded". He looked at him with a strange expression and was speechless.

In the few days he spent with Farr, he had never found this kid to be so eloquent and verbose. .

Auston, who had been lingering far behind the two of them, heard Wasim's somewhat impatient voice and couldn't help but glance at Farr a few more times, thinking in his mind. .

"Continue...stop!"