Twenty Seven Years

   three days later

  The evening of August 28

After the investigation of the information was almost done, Verak, Vladislav and others held another meeting, and through a show of hands, they finally decided to adopt the proposal of the comrade from the Sder station, set a trap in the next city in advance, and then send Mark Sim drew over and completed the assassination while taking the initiative.

  As for Veraker's method of "laying an ambush and assassination on Maxim's only way", it is classified as a backup plan. Preparations will be promoted simultaneously with the main plan to deal with possible emergencies.

That night, Virak, Arseni, Connie, Vikenj, August and others took the lead to set off with a team to go to Uno City to set up traps first, and push the two plans to the point where they only need to 'pull the trigger' the point.

  Vladislav led another team to keep active around Dnokov City, attracting Maxim and buying time for them.

   August 30th

  Virac and others arrived in Uno City.

Uno City is close to Dnokov City, and Maxim predicted that people from the Bash branch of the International Equality League may come here next, so the prevention work in Uno City is relatively strong, which has caused a lot of damage to the implementation of the plan. hinder.

   Fortunately, in front of the comrades of the International Equality Alliance who are united as one, there is no hostile force that is monolithic, and there is no defense that is airtight.

On August 31st, they had already mixed into the city in large numbers, and began to infiltrate the hotels with the highest specifications that were closest to the city hall, and selected suitable places for assassination on several main roads between it and the train station, and planned to evacuate route.

  On September 2, under the personal supervision of Veraker, they identified eleven assassination points on the three most likely routes for Maxim. On average, there are three or four chances to assassinate Maxim on each road, raising the success rate of the operation to the highest.

  On September 4th, the hotel went smoothly as well. Two comrades entered it through bribery and other methods to work as cooks and waiters, and secretly transported weapons in.

   In order to prevent accidents, Veraker arranged staff in another hotel.

  Uno City is not big, and there are only these two hotels with reasonable specifications. They have made preparations for both places, and it is impossible for Maxim to escape this disaster.

  On September 6th, Vladislav, who had restrained the scavenger for more than a week, finally completed his mission and fled towards Uno City.

   As expected, Maxim arrived in Uno City by train in time, and stayed in the hotel closest to the city hall.

  At the same time, the guards in Scavenger United City set up a guard zone to issue passes and residence permits to people in the guard zone, so as to prevent people from mixing with the International Equality League from endangering Maxim's personal safety.

  That night, Verak led a small group of people and left Uno City, and joined Vladislav's team in a secluded place outside the city.

   "Finally brought him here." When Vladislav saw Verak, he couldn't help but heaved a sigh of relief, "The next step is up to you."

"It's hard work." Verak handed a cigarette to Vladislav, who hadn't smoked for several days, "Everything is fine here, wait a day or two, and the comrades who are placed in it can find out the situation, and we can acted."

   "What exactly do you want to touch? I think it is possible to shoot him directly with a gun, and then escape through the window. Anyway, isn't the evacuation route already established?" Vladislav's thinking is very simple and direct.

Verak laughed and said: "That's all you touch. If you want to kill Maxim cleanly, you must first know how many guards there are at his door. If you want to poison food, you must first know whether he can Do you want others to try it first?"

   "Also..." Vladislav nodded, smoking greedily, "Then wait for another two days. After two days, we have determined the most detailed situation of the other party, and we will do it."

"Um."

   Within two days, at noon on September 8, the people in the hotel managed to get the news out.

  Outside the city, Verak, Vladislav and others organized a meeting to formulate the final assassination plan based on the information obtained.

"There are many guards at the gate of Maxim. Even if the people in the hotel want to get close to him, they need to conduct a detailed body search and have special personnel follow around. The comrade who was pretending to be a waiter and Maxim currently met. After meeting twice, I can’t even sacrifice myself to die with him, let alone leave alive after a successful assassination.” Verak looked at the list of contents sent by the comrade, shook his head slightly, and chose to put the comrade on hold .

   "Where's the cook?" Vladislav asked.

"That one is just an apprentice at the moment, working for others, but poisoning is not a big problem." Verak said, "But as expected, Maxim will arrange for someone to test the poison, and he will take it only after others have eaten it without any problems. We will Through this method, others will inevitably be hurt. Moreover, poisoning has greater uncertainty, and accidents are prone to occur."

Vladislav frowned: "If the poisoning is not successful, but it arouses Maxim's vigilance, then the backup plan will be affected to some extent. What is really left to us now is whether to try poisoning or Simply give up the operation at the hotel and adopt a backup plan to assassinate Maxim on his way to the train station."

Arseni raised his hand: "I think it's time to give up the hotel operation. I didn't recommend this plan very much from the beginning. At that time, I considered that there were too many places to manage, and the risk would increase accordingly. Now, I have An even worse guess."

   "Tell me about it." Vladislav said.

"From the fact that there are many guards outside the door of the room, and that people will be arranged to test the poison before the meal, it can be seen that Maxim's vigilance is very high, and almost all the methods that can assassinate him have been eliminated. Do you think it is this level of defense? , wouldn’t he expect us to see through his occupancy rules and set up an ambush in the next city in advance?” Arseni questioned the hidden danger.

"That's exactly what I'm going to mention." Veraker and Arseni glanced at each other, "Comrade Arseni's analysis is very reasonable, it is impossible for Maxim to leave omissions in such a critical place, unless this He did it on purpose. And the two comrades we sent in are both new faces. He has the right to whoever enters the hotel, so why didn’t he question the two newcomers? I also It is inclined to suspend the operation of the hotel completely, and wait for the opportunity to assassinate Maxim when he is going to the train station."

"These things together are indeed suspicious, but the question is, if Maxim did it on purpose but we didn't take any action, will it make Maxim suspect that we have also ambushed in other places again? ?” Vladislav worried that the backup plan would still be affected.

   "...It's possible." Verac couldn't deny the possibility.

Maxim was extremely intelligent. If he knew the movement of the comrade who intended to assassinate him in the hotel, after the other party gave up the assassination, he would naturally guess that it might be that the International Equality League knew that this was a loophole he left on purpose, and then Beware of other aspects.

   "Then what should I do... Is it possible..." Vladislav didn't say the rest.

  In fact, he didn't say it, but others knew it well.

   To reassure Maxim, he had to pretend that he didn't see anything unusual, and let the two comrades in the hotel continue to assassinate. After their assassination failed, Vladislav and others withdrew to other places, and the moment Maxim was relieved to pursue was the best time for them to implement the backup plan.

"We haven't reached that point yet, not to mention that there is not enough evidence to prove that the flaws in the hotel were deliberately left by Maxim." Verak didn't want to see this scene happen, he thought it was completely unnecessary, and it wasn't Maxim is not dead now, and the substation will have to be played the next day.

   "You mean, we should find a way to confirm Maxim's situation now before making any plans?" Arseni had no idea for the time being, and wanted to hear Verak's opinion first.

   "How to confirm Maxim's situation?" Verak himself was having a headache.

  He has never met such a difficult person.

  Maxim deserves to have done in-depth research on the International Equality League. He knows very well what methods Verac and others can come up with to deal with him, so he keeps a hand in advance everywhere.

   After a while, Comrade Hogan said: "Maxim's threat is still too great. If you can seize the opportunity, even if you make some sacrifices, I think it will be worth it."

  "Give up so easily, you are giving up on the two comrades who were placed in the hotel. Their lives are fate, and we need to discuss it again." Someone objected.

"I don't mean to underestimate them. If possible, I would like that person to be me." Hogan argued, "I think that through so many things, it is enough for us to see how difficult Maxim is to deal with. If we drag on, what? Anything can happen. Perhaps making an early decision now can just avoid greater losses in the future.”

   "Comrade Hogan is right." Veraker first agreed, and then said, "But I have a new idea."

  —

  Uno City, luxury hotel, Maxim's room

   Classical music was playing in the room, and Maxim was lying naked in the bath for a nap.

   came out this month, his mind changed.

  At first, his biggest goal was to climb higher and higher in Winterhold, and sooner or later he would stand on the top, so that everyone would respect him, and he would have wealth that he could not spend no matter how much he squandered.

  But after leaving Winterhold, far away from the breathless place where people feel that life is hopeless unless they climb up, he actually thinks it's good to be swaying and leisurely.

  No one can stand on his head and order himself to do this or that, and no one can interfere with his various bold ideas.

   Such freedom is priceless.

   Gradually, he relaxed a lot in pursuing and suppressing the International Equality League. Instead of running around day and night without letting go of a little bit of clues, they used lazy methods to predict where the International Equality League might go, and then notified where to increase precautions.

   Wait for the International Equality Alliance to really appear, and then take the train there.

  I didn’t do anything when I went there, except that I ate a lot of fish and meat in the hotel, and ordered people to guard the inner and outer third floors of the place where I lived, and there was no other arrangement.

  The higher-ups asked about the situation and said that they helped cities resist the infiltration of the International Equality Alliance. The International Equality Alliance has not formed a climate in any place so far.

   If this continues, Maxim feels that he is about to degenerate into a complete waste.

   But such a relaxed waste, what's wrong with it?

  He is very satisfied.

   It's just that he hasn't really fallen into a drunken dream all day long.

  Since the appearance of Veraker in the Bash branch of the International Equality League, which caused his layout to be burned for several months, he has renewed his interest in this organization that has never been taken seriously.

  Although he didn't press everywhere and exhausted himself to death, he deliberately left omissions, waiting for Verak to take the bait and taste the feeling of being deflated.

  His mood reached its peak today because Verak took the bait.

  The Bash branch of the International Equality League really thought that they would forget about the safety of the hotel, so they sent a few people to the hotel before they came to the hotel, mixed in and pretended to be waiters and chefs, waiting to spy on information or simply assassinate themselves.

  They thought they were pretending to be good, but in fact their every move was under the surveillance of Maxim.

   "Alas..." Maxim, who was taking a bath, sighed.

   The instant Veraker took the bait, his fun spiked for a while, then plummeted to an all-time low.

  According to his previous style, he would rely on these two people to find out the location of Verak and others secretly, then seek support, and wipe out the chaotic party under the absolute superiority of troops.

  But now, he was a little bit reluctant.

  Is the person who disturbed his layout really going to be dealt with like this?

  Is the happy life I was chasing and suppressing outside really coming to an end like this?

  Maxim wanted to catch this group of people more for fun, and when he had enough fun and was tired of staying outside, it would not be too late to get rid of them and return to Winterhold.

   "Boom boom boom."

"Enter."

   "Sir." A trusted aide walked in and stood a few meters away from the bathtub and said, "The waiter secretly contacted suspicious people outside again today. I suspect that the information in the hotel has been passed on by him."

   "It doesn't matter, let them know, what can they do? Do you dare to attack?" Maxim snorted disdainfully, "How is the investigation of the person who connected with the waiter?"

   "That person is still investigating."

   "It's not urgent, don't alarm them. We finally waited for them to make a move, and now they are scared and hide away. In the end, it is us who are in trouble." Maxim warned.

"Yes."

   "Help me turn off the phonograph."

"Yes."

   Music stops.

  Maxim opened his eyes, put on a bathrobe, walked to the sofa in the living room and sat down, poured a glass of wine to himself: "Go out, business as usual."