"I see it!" Pablo shouted out loud even though Joseph was 1 meter away from him, but he was so excited… that he started running through the woods straight toward the creek, leaving behind the person he was supposed to protect… even the other guards around got surprised by it, and some of them laughed at how much he was excited about it.
He was really a real pirate sniffing out the money and already seeing in front of him the millions.
"It's majestic…" He said as he looked back at Joseph, and indeed it was majestic.
The small creek running through the woods, a real creek not like that fake waterfall they just saw, and the most important thing was the willow trees. It wasn't how he remembered, at least 10 trees were there, all situated next to the creek with big branches limping down toward the ground… it was a calm moment, a moment to relax.
The trees were there… but the real question was if the money was still there at the barks of the tree, or somebody had already dug it out.
"It seems untouched." Pablo shouted again as he already was at one of the trees looking down on the ground at the bark of it, but there was not a single scratch or a sign that somebody dug around it.
"Good, then start digging." Joseph said as he was at the creek, leaning down and splashing his face with the freshwater, just like how he did back then when he was a boy.
It was kind of a sad experience. Once, he was here with his father, whom he thought loved him, that they were a real family, a family that is bound to be together… but now there wasn't family, there wasn't father, mother, or siblings… they all died because of the exact thing now he came for.
The money, the wealth, and what came with it… the influence and power… but now it was all there for Joseph… a treasure, if still there in the ground.
"Then 9 of you go and dig at the other trees, at the bark, around a meter deep as Joseph said. If you find something, shout." Pablo said as he was kneeling and unfolding the shovel, while the others nodded and all of them did the same, going to the trees and getting ready to start to dig, while Joseph himself found a good spot to sit down and just observe while resting a bit, because this whole trip had put a big-ass weight on him.
Like he felt every inch of his body just hurting and burning, even his breath control was messed up… it was like he needed to relearn how to cool all of it, like his body needed to experience again what it's like to be under load even if it was just walking through the woods and terrain.
But shit, that's what you need to go through if you just sit for ten years, and he knew that his body needed to experience all of the things… but it was good to just sit down and see how others work and struggle… especially Pablo.
He used that shovel like it was an ex, because as he started digging he immediately struck a big root, and then he just crashed out and started chopping the shit out of it with all his power… but he had the will to do it and did it with a smile on his face.
For money, he would've chopped the whole tree down with a shovel if it needed to be done.
"By the way…" he stopped for a bit, taking a short break. "How much money are we exactly talking about?"
"To be true, I don't know." Joseph said. "All I know is that it was in big suitcases and in plastic bags like banks use, and they also used the 500 dollar bills."
Now Pablo froze, looking at Joseph, as well as a smile appeared on his face. "500?"
"Yeah… but I don't know exactly how much per briefcase or plastic bag, but if they usde the big ones then it's around 30 million in it per suitcase." He looked at him. "So yeah, under those trees could be hundreds of millions, or tens of millions.
"But isn't that strange?" Pablo asked back. "Why would he leave it just here?"
"He forgot about it." Joseph said. "There are many spots all around the city and maybe even the country where he hid money, but only this one is what he showed me."
Now Pablo was kind of more shocked about it… like when he was back at the DAG, he actually saw things like this, especially at the cartel. They had so much cash that some of them just burned it, some of them just gave it out to the public, while others did exactly what Joseph's father did.
They buried it all over the place, but in amounts that was just mind-blowing. Some of the cartel hid literally a billion dollars into fucking fields after the rope tightened around their necks… how crazy is that, to have a billion just buried away and waiting to be found?
But the thing is, they knew and remembered where the money was every single time. Even if they hid away one fucking bill, they remembered it.
So hearing that Joseph's father just forgot about hiding a few hundred million in a fucking forest was just unbelievable, because who the fuck would forget about it?
Then he remembered what he said about the bills. "He hid it because of the 500 bills, huh?" He asked, and well, Joseph just nodded to it.
The 500 bill was mainly used by banks and large corporations, governments. They used these bills to move money more efficiently, relying on their size to transfer vast sums with fewer notes… which the criminal underworld also adapted, but it came with fuckery when the governments and alliances started limiting the usage of it, and only enabling it for federal usage or large companies.
So all of the mafias, or anybody that had 500 bills were fucked because nobody wanted to exchange it to smaller bills… and the only way was to go to a foreign country, then exchange it to their local currency and come back and exchange it back to dollars.
But Joseph's father didn't really give a fuck and didn't want to waste money on flying it back and forth between countries… so he buried it the fuck away and didn't really care about it.
"Well, fuck, money is money." Pablo said and just started chopping up the roots again,while a pair of eyes were looking at them.
"What the fuck are they doing…" Yeah, she was still after them, laying low between trees and what she saw was well more strange than everything so far… or more like the overall picture was just what the fuck…
Joseph Cassian came into the park with a dozen men around him, then into the old forestry where they are digging up the ground at the willow tree barks… she knew exactly what it meant.
They are searching for something, or want to hide something, and she is going to stop it.
Yeah, they are now digging in a national park, which is against the park rules, and it's an arrestable charge especially when they are destroying the roots of protected trees and she is a park ranger… and of course, it is Joseph Cassian… how crazy would it be if a park ranger arrested him and his men?
So, with her decision made, she pulled out her handgun, safety off, and was ready.
"Thi—"
"I found one!" Her voice was drowned out by the shout of one of the men as he was kneeling down, pointing at something in the ground.