Even so, this information was very helpful to Henry currently, making his upcoming actions more targeted.
At the very least, if all the personnel and assets on this list were eliminated, the McKinley family would basically collapse.
"What kind of person can get B-level black market credentials? A-level? S-level?" Henry asked.
Drummond smiled bitterly and said, "I'm not clear either. It's given after internal black market evaluation. My friend has over thirty bars in several nearby cities, plus nearly 300 elite private armed forces, controlling the private liquor markets in several major cities in this state."
"If I hadn't done him a big favor once, he wouldn't have helped me get this intelligence," Drummond added.
Henry's expression softened as he asked, "How much does this intelligence cost?"
"3,000 dollars, with a commission of 600 dollars. Giving you a fifty percent discount makes it 300 dollars, totaling 3,300 dollars," Drummond said unhurriedly.
Henry's face darkened.
This kind of exclusive business was way too expensive!
3,000 dollars was equivalent to 360,000 dollars (2.5 million yuan) in purchasing power from his previous timeline.
Just for intelligence that could be distributed multiple times!
And they even had purchase qualification restrictions.
Drummond said, "Don't think it's expensive. Without B-level black market credentials, you couldn't even get McKinley family intelligence."
Considering the current difficulty of collecting and organizing intelligence, Henry nodded and said, "Fine. How do I pay you?"
Drummond had already thought it through, determined to firmly attach himself to Henry's coattails.
"Just deduct it from the bar's profit sharing."
Henry felt much more comfortable hearing this, since he hadn't received the bar's profit sharing yet, so deducting from there meant he didn't have to pay out of pocket now.
"You did well this time. I'll remember it," Henry said definitively.
Drummond immediately said, "Happy to serve you, Sheriff Henry. As long as you're satisfied, just find me anytime you need intelligence."
After speaking, he stood up, bowed slightly, then turned and left.
Henry carefully reviewed the McKinley family information again, finding they had numerous branches with outstanding talents in both political and business circles.
Even Brendan, the big boss here in Denver, was just one major leader of their family's central-western branch, still constrained by six major elders.
Why did this sound somewhat like the Roman Empire's management model?
So these big families really had their methods when it came to reproduction and education.
The silver mine managed by Sean at Devonshire Manor was estimated to have reserves of 80 million ounces, producing about 2.4 million ounces of silver annually. It was a medium-to-large silver mine with accompanying copper deposits.
Currently in America, due to the discovery of many new silver mines plus improvements in refining processes, silver prices kept falling.
The price of one ounce of silver was $1.12.
Including the copper mine, this mine could produce about $4 million annually. Even calculating 25% pure profit, that was $1 million.
This silver and copper mine had been operating for twelve years and could continue for about twenty more years.
Henry thought about how his own head was only worth $10,000 - just one percent of this mine's annual pure profit!
This made him want to immediately release Sean and Brendan - this was too insulting!
However, releasing them was easy, but actually getting this mine would be truly difficult.
After all, this was equivalent to an industry with annual pure profits of $100-150 million in his previous timeline.
Moreover, figuring out who the shareholders behind this mining company were would be very troublesome, as five companies held stakes.
Each of these five companies probably had several more companies holding stakes behind them, creating layers of shell companies.
If Henry forcibly seized this mine, he would definitely face many unknown opponents.
But if it was just sabotage, or figuring out the mining company's transportation plans, using his storage space to steal all the silver output could work.
After all, the annual output of 2.4 million ounces of silver was only about 68 tons, less than 6.5 cubic meters in volume. With Henry's current 33.5 cubic meters of storage space, he could easily carry it all away at once.
However, this mine was guarded by an entire company of about 200 family cavalry private soldiers, and might have various fortresses, traps, and Gatling guns, possibly even howitzers. It wasn't so easy to attack.
This was completely different from Henry's previous ambush of McKinley cavalry private soldiers.
This showed the importance of intelligence in operations.
Henry vowed he must establish his own powerful intelligence network in the future, such as opening multiple newspapers, detective agencies, etc.
Moreover, controlling media outlets and secrets of upper-class figures would also help his future plans for Chinese naturalization.
It seemed he couldn't casually release Sean this time - he needed to extract as much intelligence about the gold mine and McKinley family from him as possible.
Currently in America, there was actually a private national-level institution - the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency.
Over twenty years ago, Scottish Allan Pinkerton, who had gained fame for helping foil an assassination plot against the then-candidate Lincoln, established the Northwest Detective Agency with Chicago lawyer Edward Rucker, which quickly upgraded to the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
It was said that over ten years ago, the legendary President Lincoln had them handle security during the Civil War. After the war ended, when the Army took over presidential security duties, the president was successfully assassinated.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency rapidly grew and expanded. Starting in 1871, they took a federal Justice Department contract worth $50,000 annually for "searching for and prosecuting criminals who violate federal laws."
The agency currently had over 1,000 active Pinkerton family members, plus over 10,000 reserve members - almost all veterans.
The Pinkerton Company's logo was a large eye with the slogan "We Never Sleep."
In his previous timeline, when Lucas Warren played "Red Dead Redemption 2," he had a very deep impression of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which clung like a bone maggot in the single-player story mode - the well-dressed, eloquently spoken Pinkerton agents were an unstoppable narrative threat, constantly forcing players to relocate overnight and even plan impossible escapes abroad.
The current Henry greatly coveted the Pinkerton Detective Agency's intelligence collection center. He even suspected this black market intelligence system was connected to this agency.
After all, detailed intelligence wasn't so easy to collect in this era, requiring enormous human and material resources. There couldn't be many such private intelligence organizations.
What could an annual contract fee of $50,000 accomplish nationwide?
Pinkerton was just using public authority for private gain, pleasing the powerful, and suppressing competitors.
Often, credentials were the most expensive thing.
For example, if several parties were competing for a security or detective contract, at the same price, one had national credibility backing while others had none or much inferior credentials - how would you choose?
One step ahead, every step ahead.
Otherwise the Pinkerton Detective Agency couldn't have developed to its current massive scale.
Without this credibility, would those elite veterans be so easy to recruit?
Moreover, this agency mainly served officials and big capital - railway companies, mining companies, steel companies, etc. Sooner or later it would inevitably clash with the rising Henry.
Henry had also been reviewing Pinkerton Detective Agency intelligence in police files these past few days, finding they were currently pursuing the notorious train-robbing James brothers - Jesse James and his brother Frank.
A few years ago, this agency had even visited the James brothers' mother's home and bombed it with incendiary devices, disabling the mother and killing her youngest son.
This showed that in this timeline, this agency operated with similar ruthless methods.
Thanks for the recommendation tickets from Anran.Shenshang, Lietufeinghou, wsnd, Duxing Wannian, Yizhi Da Shanshan, and Reader 8001.
(End of Chapter)
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