Chapter 355
2-in-1-chapter
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“If you do not accept electronic transfers, how do you want the transaction done? Surely you don’t expect to hand over cash and credit chips to a logistics company to deliver. That would be even less secure.”
A logistics company could transport anything, even illegal goods, as long as the money was paid. But not cash itself. No one would ever trust a courier with that kind of delivery.
“That’s simple. You co to Bolivia. I will send you coordinates. You et at the designated place. We exchange—money for goods—in person.”
The voice paused, then added, “Actually, coming to Bolivia won’t be a loss for you. You can treat it as travel. And this shipnt is worth eighty million. I doubt you would trust anyone else to escort sothing that valuable back to Night City.”
He was right. Just as the arms dealer didn’t trust electronic transfers, Leo would never entrust cargo worth eighty million to a shipping company. Only by escorting it himself could he rest easy.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
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Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, took its na from the liberator Simón Bolívar.
It was a landlocked country in the center of South Arica, bordered by Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay, with a national territory of 1.098 million square kiloters. Its constitutional capital was Sucre, though the seat of governnt was La Paz.
Bolivia was rich in mineral resources, as well as oil and natural gas. Forests covered nearly half the land, more than 530,000 square kiloters of dense canopy spread across its mountains and lowlands.
Yet compared to its mines and forests, Bolivia was better known for sothing else: coca.
Coca was the main raw ingredient for the production of Glitter.
xico was notorious for its glut of Glitter. Cartels that controlled the trade there wielded more power than the xican governnt itself.
But xico lacked the conditions to cultivate coca. The raw leaves ca from elsewhere—from Peru, from Bolivia, from Colombia, from Ecuador.
And the cartels that controlled Bolivia’s coca fields were, in strength and ruthlessness, more formidable than those across the border in xico.
After renting a heavy-duty truck from Rogue, Leo brought V and Lucy with him. They departed from Night City, boarded a cargo ship with both vehicle and crew, and first arrived at a coastal city in Peru.
From there, they drove the truck inland toward the Bolivian border, bound for a small town in La Paz Province where Leo had arranged to et an arms dealer. The town was insignificant on any map, but it had been chosen precisely because of its obscurity.
Bolivia’s political situation had long since deteriorated into chaos.
Governnt troops, anti-governnt militias, guerrilla bands, and the Shining Path all took turns tearing the country apart, fighting their battles openly in streets, villages, and fields.
Leo, V, and Lucy had each brought their weapons. He had not even bothered asking why the arms dealer had chosen a country like this for their eting, because the reason was self-evident. Arms dealers thrived in war zones; without conflict, there was no soil in which their trade could survive. No one in their right mind would try selling military-grade weapons openly in a stable region like Europe—only a fool would do that.
Crossing the Peruvian border into La Paz Province, Bolivia, Leo and his crew took turns driving. By the third day, they finally arrived at the designated town—only to find the place razed to the ground.
There was no one left to ask for directions. The town was nothing but rubble and ash.
In recent years, Bolivia’s instability had made such massacres and scorched-earth raids commonplace. The Bolivian army barely held the capital, La Paz itself, and could not even secure the surrounding province, let alone the country. Anti-governnt militias and the Shining Path road freely, slaughtering civilians and fighting each other.
Leo tried calling the arms dealer but received only dead air. As he was considering alternatives, V pointed to the distance.
“Leo, look over there… a broadcast station. Let’s try it.”
They drove to the base of the derelict tower. V and Lucy remained below while Leo climbed up, connected his tactical optics via a cable to the control panel, and began working the signal. At first the sound ca in broken and distorted, but after tuning the equipnt, the connection cleared.
“Hello? Can you hear ?”
“…That voice… is it Mr. Leo?”
“Yes, it’s ,” Leo answered directly. “I reached the site, but the town is gone. It’s nothing but ruins. Where are you now?”
“How many of you ca? Did you bring weapons?”
Leo caught the urgency in the man’s tone. Sothing was wrong.
“We’re ard. What happened to you?”
The arms dealer spoke in a rush. “The town we agreed on supported the governnt secretly, and sohow the anti-governnt forces found out. They attacked last night—shooting anyone they saw. I only had a handful of n, we couldn’t fight them, so I escaped. From what you said, the town really was wiped out?”
“That’s right,” Leo confird. “Everyone was killed. The place is rubble.”
The dealer swore on the other end. “Damn it. I can’t get to you now, but can you co to ? I’m south of the town, in an abandoned church about half an hour away. The anti-governnt troops caught up and have surrounded with my n.”
“And the rchandise? It’s with you?”
“O-of course, it’s with .”
“Good. Stay put and try not to die. We’ll co.”
Leo disconnected, descended the tower, and explained to V and Lucy, “The seller’s holed up in a church south of here, thirty minutes away. He’s surrounded by anti-governnt fighters and needs extraction.”
V frowned. “An arms dealer’s supposed to be neutral. Why would the anti-governnt troops be chasing him? Don’t they all rely on dealers?”
Bolivia was not Night City. There were no gun shops on every corner. Governnt forces, militias, guerrillas, even the Shining Path—all got their arms from smugglers like this one. Normally, no one hard a dealer, because everyone needed them.
Leo shook his head. “I don’t know.”
He didn’t particularly care if the dealer lived or died. Selling weapons in a warzone ca with obvious risks. But this one held goods Leo required, and that ant Leo would have to intervene. If he saved the man’s life, it would also be a perfectly valid excuse to cut the final paynt in half.
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South of the ruined town, in the abandoned church.
The arms dealer wore a suit covered by a ballistic vest, a kinetic pistol in each hand. He leaned against a window fra, eyes scanning outside. His three remaining bodyguards covered other sides of the church.
He had begun with seven. Two were gunned down in the town, another two scattered during the retreat. Only three remained. They stayed not out of loyalty, but because abandoning him gave them no better chance of survival. Together, their odds were at least marginally higher.
One guard, staring at the desolate exterior, grew restless and muttered into the comm channel.
“Boss, why the hell are they chasing us like this? It’s not like we’re carrying cold syrup.”
The dealer snapped back, irritated. “How the hell should I know?”
Another guard asked, “Boss, how long are we staying in this church? Why don’t we just break out now?”
“Break out and do what?” the dealer replied harshly. “Make yourselves into targets? I’ve already called for backup. Sit tight. They’ll be here soon.”
The other two exchanged uneasy looks.
“Backup? From where?”
As bodyguards for an arms dealer, they all understood a simple truth: arms dealers did not belong to any corporation, which ant that when they were in danger, no corporate reinforcents would ever co to their aid.
Yet now the arms dealer was saying that support would arrive soon.
What was going on?
“It’s the buyer we’re eting this ti,” the arms dealer explained.
The others froze at his words. For a mont they wondered if his brain had been scrambled by the explosions.
“Boss, are you serious?” one finally asked.
It sounded absurd. None of them had ever heard of a buyer not only paying for weapons but also handling rescue missions.
These were not green rookies but seasoned bodyguards who had walked through plenty of firefights. They considered the arms dealer’s idea unreliable, and none of them were willing to pin all their hopes on outsiders.
“And if they don’t co?” another pressed.
“Then we wait until dark and slip out under cover of night…” the arms dealer began, but before he could finish, a sudden burst of gunfire erupted outside the church. The noise made him duck instinctively beneath the window.
“They’ve started the attack.”
“Fight back! Drive them off!” soone shouted.
The stained glass shattered into fragnts, bullets hamring the stone exterior in chaotic bursts.
The arms dealer did not dare raise his head. He simply lifted his kinetic pistol and fired blindly out the window.
It was useless. He quickly realized that spraying rounds without aim would achieve nothing. Dropping the pistol for a mont, he pulled a grenade from his vest, yanked the pin, and hurled it outside.
Boom!
The explosion shook the ground, and for a mont the gunfire outside went silent.
The arms dealer stood, gripped his weapon with both hands, and fired on the silhouettes sprawled across the ground outside the window.
The three rcenaries he had hired to protect him added their fire, pouring rounds into the attackers.
The anti-governnt militia besieging them outnumbered them ten to one. But the militia were barely trained, fighting on numbers alone. When struck hard, their morale cracked quickly.
After several exchanges of gunfire, more than a dozen bodies lay scattered outside the church, and the militia broke, fleeing in panic.
Inside, the defenders let out a collective breath of relief.
“They’ve finally pulled back.”
But before the words had finished leaving his lips, one of the bodyguards shoulders erupted in a spray of blood. He froze, staring dumbly for a second before collapsing onto the floor, clutching the wound and screaming in agony.
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