"The Hive?"
Seeing William's spirited expression, Halsey couldn't help commenting, "It just feels really unsafe."
"Uh..." William felt as if something were stuck in his throat.
Indeed...
Whether in the movies or the games, Raccoon City's Underground Facility was always the first place to be breached.
Although he couldn't refute her, William waved his hand and said, "As long as the name sounds good."
"Fine." Halsey blinked and shrugged, no longer teasing him.
"Click!"
Andre pushed open the door and entered. He hurriedly said to William, "Kid, I just discussed the military contracting matter with that old bastard Frank.
Give his law firm two million dollars, and we should be able to settle things with the federal government and obtain the license. We'll also be able to purchase fully automatic weapons and transport them into Canada."
William knew which Frank Andre was referring to. In his memories, Frank had once been his grandfather's personal lawyer.
If not for Frank, his father might have squandered the entire family fortune, and this lumber mill would never have existed.
Besides, Canada only allowed the purchase of semiautomatic weapons without a permit. Fully automatic weapons were completely prohibited.
Two million dollars was an astronomical sum in 2006, but obtaining permission to operate as a military contractor in Canada was well worth it.
"Good. I'll transfer the money to him tomorrow." William readily agreed. He stood and walked over to Andre, saying:
"Tomorrow, come with me to a construction company outside the suburbs. Before the permits come through, let's first turn this place into a military base."
"No problem." Andre patted his chest.
"Boss." Halsey, who was sitting on the sofa, lazily raised her right hand.
"Tomorrow I'll also go negotiate the hospital acquisition. Just so you know, I won't be haggling."
Looking at his two highly capable and enthusiastic 'employees,' William was filled with confidence. He nodded and smiled.
"Heh, all right.
No matter what, the Umbrella Corporation has officially begun its march into the world!"
The next morning;
William and Andre went to a bank downtown and transferred two million dollars to Frank's law firm in Toronto.
The moment Frank received the money, he called Andre and William.
The gist of it was...
If the existing Umbrella Corporation, which was a lumber company, changed its nature and became a private military contractor, a consultant holding an ATF license would have to jointly own the company as a shareholder.
After all, William, the owner of Umbrella, had neither an ATF license nor any military experience.
William had no objections.
Andre was like both a father and a friend to him. Through the system's loyalty monitoring, William knew that the burly man's loyalty had long since reached its maximum.
There was therefore nothing to worry about.
After confirming that everything was in order, Frank began negotiating with the federal government, applying for all the necessary documents and permits for Umbrella.
As for Halsey...
This female genius, who had already signed a contract and officially become an Umbrella employee, had gone to William's seaside villa earlier.
She had reorganized the layout of William's existing factory and designed a blueprint for a military camp capable of training and housing two hundred people.
When she handed the plans to William, Halsey merely brushed back her hair and said in an unconcerned tone:
"I was bored last night, so I designed it while I was at it."
From then on, William truly believed that Halsey was capable of anything.
Afterward, Halsey went to Dixon Private Hospital beside the downtown park to negotiate the acquisition.
Meanwhile, William and Andre drove to the suburbs to a construction company called FlyChicken.
The owner was a Chinese man from China in his thirties named Wang Zhaofeng. He was slightly chubby.
Although there were only a few people inside the company, it was in fact one of the largest construction companies on Canada's east coast.
According to Wang Zhaofeng, he only gathered the employees when they had a job, to save money.
Based on Halsey's plans, Wang Zhaofeng guaranteed that construction could be completed within forty days.
In the end, the cost of all kinds of building materials and other expenses totaled only four million Canadian dollars, equivalent to 2.8 million U.S. dollars.
William thought the price was incredibly cheap.
Perhaps it was because he had five billion dollars in his hands, making a few million feel like a few dollars.
He soon completed the hiring agreement with Wang Zhaofeng's company. He also wanted to see just how fast they could work, so he promised to pay a bonus of one hundred thousand for every day they finished ahead of schedule.
Naturally, the quality had to be guaranteed.
Since there were still at least forty days before the camp's renovations would be complete, William had Andre recruit discharged soldiers and active-duty police officers throughout Nova Scotia.
William clearly specified two requirements.
First, they could have no bad habits, such as excessive drinking or smoking.
Second, they had to come from financially struggling families, with priority given to those who had family members suffering from serious or terminal illnesses.
He explained the concepts of UBCS and USS to Andre in broad terms.
The plan was to first form a regular force of one hundred people and a Special Forces unit of twenty.
William believed that Andre, who had come from the KGB, definitely had a way to perfectly fulfill his requirements.
What shocked William most was that Andre, already forty-nine years old, still had a combat rating of ninety-three according to the system's detection.
That happened to suit William perfectly. He needed someone capable of intimidating those mercenaries.
And Andre was the best candidate.
Combined with the image of this Warrior Nation strongman, he gave off the feeling at a glance that he was the Boss.
Next came the acquisition of Dixon Hospital.
Dixon, the owner and director of Dixon Private Hospital, initially refused to believe that a nineteen-year-old girl had the ability to purchase a hospital.
However, when Halsey told him that the hospital occupied twenty thousand square meters of land, had fifty thousand square meters of floor space,
and possessed 414 beds along with various medical devices, all worth approximately 77.62 million dollars...
Dixon, a physician over fifty, and his more than twenty doctor shareholders ultimately failed to resist Halsey's offer of two hundred million dollars. They readily agreed to sell the hospital.
When William learned of this, he nearly vomited blood.
He had said he wasn't short of money, but who would offer more than twice the price right from the start?
And as the buyer, no less!
After taking a long while to calm down...
William stopped dwelling on the two hundred million. It was the system's money anyway.
Thirty-two days later, July 23.
The original lumber mill had successfully been transformed into Umbrella's private military camp.
There were four two-story barracks containing sixty single rooms, a two-kilometer-long training ground, and a conference hall that could accommodate two hundred people at once.
One area had simple steel-frame buildings for simulating urban combat. There was also a shooting range, a helicopter pad, and more.
Every building a small military base should have was fully equipped here.
Before you continue