There were not many people praying in the church on Wednesday, and not many people confessing. After all, in the life of the countryside, how many things are there to confess?
The town was also the countryside. The people were all busy with their lives. Besides coming on Sundays, most of the time people would not come to the church unless they encountered trouble.
The priest sat at the edge of a row in the middle of the aisle. A beam of sunlight shone in from the window and fell on him.
The dancing dust surrounded him, like those small elves, adding a touch of sacredness to his temperament.
He sat there, his eyes fixed on the crucifix, but his mind was on other things.
The share of the liquor, the amount he could put in his own pocket, were the new supervisor and the agents easy to deal with?
Being a priest is really a lot of work!
Not only do I have to run this church well, but I also have to do Sunday service, and I have to listen to some idiots confess!
There was… he no longer knew how to describe that guy. A young man in his twenties, single, working in a nearby cattle farm, not even a cowboy, just a farmer.
He often came to confess, because he had used his hands to solve his own problems.
In the divine oracle, if you use your hands to solve your own physiological problems, that is a sin!
The priest did indeed need to help people solve some of their spiritual problems, but he was fucking not specifically listening to a strong young man in a confessional tell him how he had solved it, and before, during, and after he had solved it, and who the object of his sexual fantasies was, and other bullshit things!
What was even more outrageous was that his fantasies even included some of the sheep on the farm!
His randomly scattered thoughts trembled at this moment. The priest took a deep breath and broke free from his state of tranquility. “Motherfucker, let that bastard go to hell!”
He shook his head, and then he heard the sound of footsteps coming from outside the main gate of the church.
It was the sound of leather shoes.
There were many farmers and cowboys in the town.
Farmers would wear rubber shoes to prevent their feet from being in a damp state for a long time.
The environment on the farm was actually much worse than people imagined, not as beautiful as the people in the cities imagined.
There was animal feces everywhere, especially near the pasture, piled up.
The farmers had to clean it up every day, and then take it to the farm to be composted and then used to fertilize the land. If you don’t wear rubber shoes, whether they are leather shoes or cloth shoes, they will be soaked through by the feces, and in the end, your feet will rot.
So most farmers would wear rubber shoes, the very high kind, to protect their feet.
The sound of rubber shoes on the ground was not like this, and it was not the sound of the leather boots of those cowboys on the ground. Their leather boots had spurs and some other metal accessories. The sound they made when they walked was louder than this.
The person who came was wearing leather shoes, with nails on the soles. He slowly turned around, holding the back of the chair, and looked towards the outside of the door.
A tall man in a suit walked in. He was taking off his sunglasses and putting them in his pocket. Then he sat down in the seat opposite the priest. “A colleague of mine said you had something to find me?”
In fact, before this senior agent had come, he had already been assigned a task, and had even gotten the standard answer. He was just going through the motions.
The priest looked at this senior agent and observed him for a while before asking, “Mr. Supervisor, I am very curious about something.”
He sat sideways, his ten fingers clasped together, and naturally hanging between his two legs.
He had a kind and gentle appearance, without a single bit of aggressiveness, which made people not have any sense of guard.
In addition, with his gray hair, no one would think that this old man was a threat. In addition, this was a church, which could make people relax.
The supervisor looked at him, observing the priest’s expression and eyes. “What?”
“In your life, have you ever done something that you clearly knew was wrong, but still had to do it?”
The supervisor was stunned for a moment. He thought about it seriously for a while and nodded. “I have.”
The priest nodded slightly. “Everyone has.”
“You, me, him.”
He smiled, and then stood up and invited the supervisor to go with him to the door.
The church was located on a slightly higher slope in the northwest of the town, and you could overlook the entire town.
Standing here, Tomato Town was at their feet. The warm summer wind was blowing slowly, wrinkling people’s moods.
The priest took a deep breath, and his heart seemed to have opened up a lot because of this. “A quiet town, everything outside has nothing to do with this place.”
“Maybe there will be occasional noise, occasional conflicts, but it is like a gemstone inlaid in the land nearby.”
“I believe that everyone would not bear to break its tranquility, what do you say?”
The supervisor nodded. He could not deny this point. Looking at Tomato Town from a higher perspective, everything in Tomato Town became smaller. If it could always be this quiet, it seemed to be not bad.
But the supervisor had come with a mission. He needed to state his position. “If we have to do something wrong, then after we have finished, we can do something for the things we have done wrong to make up for our mistakes, our sins.”
The priest’s expression became a little stiff. He turned his head to look at the supervisor. “Are you going to break the tranquility here?”
The supervisor didn’t speak. The priest was a little annoyed. Not speaking, often says more than speaking.
This is like when you ask a person if they love you.
If this person tells you that they don’t love you, you might think that they are lying, that they are angry with you, and you might have other ideas to deny this fact.
But if this person, after you have asked, lowers their head and remains silent, then besides trying to salvage this ending with “why don’t you say something,” you should also understand that they really don’t love you.
The supervisor’s silence made the priest feel a kind of uncontrollable threat. His gaze became sharp. “I hope that this time, it is not the wrong choice.”
He had rephrased his own problem and given it to the supervisor again.
The supervisor just looked at him, shook his head, and then took out his glasses from his pocket and put them on again. He left with his subordinates.
Looking at the supervisor’s departing back, the priest’s face had become very ugly.
Ever since he had become the priest here, even the mayor had to give him face. But this bastard in front of him, he actually didn’t give him any face at all!
He took a deep breath, his eyes already showing a sharp glint.
It was no longer news that a supervisor and agents of the Prohibition Bureau had died in the line of duty. It could happen in other places, and it could also happen here.
For the longer tranquility of the town, these people had to be sacrificed.
On the departing car, the supervisor, through the rearview mirror, looked at his subordinate, who was driving the car and sweating all over. “After you go back, put your work aside for a while, go home and think about it, and then tell me what you want to say to me.”
The subordinate who was driving let out a breath. “I see.”
The rest of the time was dull. After they arrived at the office, this guy simply handed over his work and went back.
He called the priest after he got back. “I have been suspended from my work.”
His tone was a little complaining. In fact, he also knew that the priest giving him an extra salary every month was not because he was so outstanding.
It was just because he was an agent of the Prohibition Bureau and needed him to turn a blind eye.
If he lost this job, no matter for whom, it would be very difficult for the priest to continue to give him this salary in the future. He would even have a hard time finding a new job.
No matter whether it was in the propaganda to the inside or the outside, the Federation always put “tolerance” in a very conspicuous position.
But in fact, this place was not tolerant at all. Those who had been to prison, even if they wanted to turn over a new leaf and start a new life, would still be discriminated against and treated specially by people.
So much so that in the end, they had to go back to the gangs, or engage in some low-level heavy physical labor.
But people did have a tolerant side—only to the powerful and influential!
The priest could also hear the dissatisfaction and complaint in the agent’s tone. He did not show any emotion and said in his usual magnetic and gentle voice, “It will be over soon. Everything will go back to the way it was.”
The priest hung up the phone and called another agent. “Is it your turn to patrol these few days?”
“Yes, these few days I’m taking two rookies on patrol. What’s up?”
The priest licked his lips. “Tonight you will see someone trading wine privately at the fruit camp. Then you will report this to your new supervisor, you know?”
The agent immediately realized the priest’s plan. He did not answer immediately.
The first batch of people to become agents of the Prohibition Bureau were all very outstanding talents, drawn from the entire state, and even the surrounding areas.
They were concentrated here, trained, and then dispersed to various places.
He was not a fool. He knew what the consequences of doing so would be.
The new supervisor would definitely lead his men to pursue those private liquor dealers.
How many of them were there?
But what they were facing might be dozens of people!
This was a very simple trap, but very useful.
He could even imagine the supervisor and his new colleagues being killed, but everything would also end there. They would, before the arrival of the next batch of new colleagues, continue to maintain the stability and tranquility here.
“I saw him this afternoon. He plans to destroy our peaceful life.”
The priest was hinting to him that the supervisor and the others were not willing to join in and even wanted to arrest him.
Once the priest and the people at the bar were arrested, none of their protectors would be able to escape.
The agent, who realized that he was already standing on the edge of a cliff, immediately made a decision. “What are the details?”
The priest was very satisfied with his change and immediately told him the subsequent arrangements.
For a whole afternoon, the agent had been taking the two new guys on patrol in the street, driving a car.
He introduced the streets here, and the specific situation here to the two of them.
There were no gangs in the town, but there were motorcycle gangs, which were also the most common in the towns of the Federation.
He also needed to tell them about the situation of these people.
In the evening, the three of them had a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant in the center of the town, and then they went their separate ways.
The agent drove his car alone to the road that was a must-pass to return to his residence. He had a cigarette in his mouth, smoked more than half of it, and then entered a phone booth and dialed the office’s number.
Soon the call was answered. “It’s me. I found someone conducting a private liquor transaction at the intersection of… and… street.”
“Yes, okay, I’ve been following them. I saw them enter a warehouse in an alley.”
“Okay, I’ll just stay here.”
He put down the phone, came out of the phone booth, looked at the dark alley, and returned to his car.
After waiting for about twenty minutes, two cars arrived here.
The supervisor explained with a sentence when he got out of the car, “I’m not familiar with the city. I went in the wrong direction.”
He paused for a moment. “Where are the people?”
The agent pointed at the dark place in the alley. “There is a door there. They went in and have not come out.”
In the dark of the night, the supervisor stared into the agent’s eyes, which made the agent feel a burning sensation on his face.
He only looked at the other party’s gaze for a short while before he couldn’t help but turn his head and look at other places. He was guilty.
He knew what was inside.
There were at least a dozen people inside holding weapons and waiting for them to open that door.
The moment the door was opened, the bullets would shoot the people at the door into a sieve like raindrops.
The supervisor and agents of the Prohibition Bureau, in the process of solving a case of smuggling and selling private liquor, had a fierce firefight with the smugglers and died heroically!
What a good gimmick?
At that time, they would find two unlucky bastards to take the blame—the unlucky bastards, knowing that if they were caught, they would be sent to the electric chair, had put up a fierce armed resistance, and were ultimately shot dead by the heroic agent in a certain alley.
Alright, perfect!
These people would be commended, and the criminals would be brought to justice. Besides the supervisor and a few agents being sacrificed, the town would soon return to peace, and everything would go back to the way it was.
Now, from a stable and comfortable life, there was only… a distance of a few dozen steps.
“Why don’t you dare to look at me?” the supervisor asked.
The agent was stunned for a moment. “Uh… I didn’t, I just…” he still didn’t dare to look at the supervisor, afraid that he would reveal some flaw.
In fact, he didn’t know that from the very beginning, he had always been the flaw.
“In the phone call just now, you didn’t explain some things clearly. How many people did you say you saw?”
Seeing that the supervisor had changed the subject, the agent breathed a sigh of relief. “Two. I saw two people. They ran into the alley…”
“You’ve already said it once. You don’t need to repeat it.”
“Are you sure there were two, not seven or eight, or even a dozen?”
The agent shivered. His hands had already begun to tremble slightly. “No, I’m sure, only two.”
“Did you see them run in, open the door, and then go in, and have never come out?”
This was clearly a flaw, but at this point, the agent had no choice but to continue to maintain this statement.
He nodded and said, “I have been here all along and have not left.”
He did not raise his head, so he did not notice the naked mockery in the supervisor’s eyes as he looked at him. “Is there anything else you need to add?”
“No, no, no!”
The supervisor nodded slightly. He walked to the side of the car and picked up a microphone. “Action.”
The sound was very loud. Just as the agent was wondering who the supervisor was talking to, seven or eight police cars, and even an armored car, suddenly rushed over.
Fully armed agents got out of the cars. The supervisor pointed at the door in the alley. “They might be hiding behind the door. Be careful they don’t shoot first.”
The action team began to move. Some of the surrounding citizens had been attracted and were watching from a distance.
The folk customs of the town are very simple, not at all like a big city.
If a person from a big city were here at this time, he would definitely tell the people who were watching the fun to run like hell!
Because once a firefight starts, whether it’s a gang or a law enforcer, as long as their eyes are red with killing, as long as an unfamiliar person is moving in front of them, they will immediately open fire.
The agent’s legs had already begun to tremble. He watched these fully armed agents enter the alley, and then a fierce firefight broke out. He could no longer stand steadily.
He supported himself with the car and sat half-leaning against the car door. In the night, his face was ashen and bloodless.
The sound of the gunshots shrouded the entire town in an uneasy atmosphere. Soon the sheriff and some temporary workers arrived. Fortunately, the law enforcement vehicles at the scene made him breathe a sigh of relief.
But he was a little annoyed again. He questioned two people and came to the supervisor. “You should have told me first. This is my territory!”
The supervisor just glanced at him sideways. “You are a sheriff, not a gangster. You should think carefully about what words you are using!”
He paused for a moment. “I suspect that you and your men have a close connection with a smuggling group, so I did not notify you.”
The prosecutor was furious. “I’m going to complain to your superiors!”
He felt that his face and dignity had been challenged. Tomorrow, the whole town would be saying that he was a “useless” sheriff. Such a big thing had happened, and he was actually the last to arrive at the scene.
The supervisor, however, shrugged indifferently. These things were all arranged by the State Prohibition Committee, and there were even more powerful people behind them.
To complain or not, it really didn’t matter.
“Whatever. If you don’t know the complaint number, you can come to my office later. I’ll give you a copy.”
The gun battle had almost ended at this time. With the sounds of “don’t shoot” and “I surrender” coming from the room, everyone knew that it was over.
The agent could no longer stand. He sat in the car, supporting himself with the car door, but he didn’t dare to run, and he couldn’t run away.
The first to be sent out were some corpses, and then some of the private liquor dealers who had been escorted out.
The agents from the higher level had also been injured. Even though they had made sufficient preparations, no one’s life was in danger.
Looking at the seven or eight people who were still alive, the supervisor laughed twice. “Much more than I thought. We have a whole night to figure everything out.”
He turned around and looked at the agent who was smoking in the passenger seat, and said with a smile, “Don’t you think so?”
The firefight and the cleanup of the scene were soon known to the priest. The priest’s face was very ugly after he heard it. He also realized at this time that this personnel transfer was aimed at him, or at the Holy Bell Party.
But he understood too late!
He picked up the phone and intended to tell Joshua about this, but there was no sound at all in the phone. The phone line had been cut.
He turned around sharply. It just so happened that at this time, the main gate of the church was pushed open. The supervisor strode in from outside and came to the priest.
“You should pay the price for what you have done wrong!”
(End of a Chapter)