Chapter 1048: The Beginning (Double Monthly Ticket Request)

The only unlocked item at the scene was a children's cell phone. Hannah opened it and flipped through it for a while, and found a bunch of childish selfies in the album.

"This should be Nicholas, the youngest of the 23 missing people. He is only 7 years old, the son of single mother Rebecca. The local town priest was deeply impressed by him."

"This mother is really brave to bring her child all the way from the United States to Africa," Aubrey said with emotion.

Clay's assessment was more to the point, "It's irresponsible."

Ever since the Most Wanted Team agreed to accept the International Department's mission a few months ago, all members of the team have begun to receive various vaccinations, including but not limited to various types of hepatitis, yellow fever, measles-mumps-rubella, meningitis, etc.

Even so, they got a booster shot of cholera vaccine before boarding the plane, and prepared a large number of special medicines for malaria, including artemisinin, quinine, mefloquine, artemether, primaquine, various other commonly used anti-inflammatory drugs, and a large amount of mosquito repellent equipment.

Africa is said to be one of the birthplaces of mankind, but it is also the source of various deadly bacteria and viruses.

More than 460 million children under the age of five die here every year. In addition to the well-known malnutrition caused by hunger, infectious diseases are also one of the main causes.

It is not clear whether the single mother Rebecca had given her son the relevant vaccination in advance before traveling, but even with preparation, malaria cannot be prevented.

There is only one malaria vaccine for children in the world, but it is only partially effective.

To this day, a child dies every minute in this land from high fever or other complications caused by malaria.

In addition, the child is now most likely a hostage. Considering the high mortality rate of children in kidnapping cases and the fact that more than 36 hours have passed since the incident, everyone's faces couldn't help but look a little grim.

"It might be better if they travel with the church and can be considered as one big family," Hannah muttered quietly, somewhat as if to comfort herself.

"That's the problem. They trust their own gods more than science and medicine."

Jack sighed and said nothing more. As for the nature of those American churches, only those who understand will understand.

In that free land, anyone, whether human or demon, can register a small church and become the leader behind closed doors. The size of the church can range from a few people to tens of thousands, with almost no restrictions.

Generally speaking, as long as they don't do anything harmful to the world or engage in mass suicide, no one will care about these guys who keep themselves to themselves. But even so, there are more than 1000 sects in the United States that have been identified as cults.

The number of cults on the FBI's suspected list simply exceeds 5000, and the early models of these cults are basically similar, packaging themselves as harmless charitable organizations.

It would take a long time just to sort out the belongings of the missing people. Everyone first collected all the electronic products at the scene and packed them up. Later, someone would send these things to New York as quickly as possible.

Although Rossi only gave them 24 hours, things still needed to be done step by step.

The 24-hour deadline does not mean that Jack and his colleagues must leave after that time, but rather refers to the time within which the authorities have to make a public statement.

Theoretically speaking, Tanzania is considered a region with a very stable situation in the entire African region. In fact, to some extent, at least in terms of public security, it is much better than South Africa, where racial conflicts are fierce.

But there are still some small local armed forces here, because to the northeast of Tanzania, it is only separated from Somalia by a small and chaotic Kenya, and to the west is Congo, which has been plagued by war for years.

As soon as the disappearance of 23 Americans in Africa made the world news, it was almost foreseeable how many forces, big and small, would emerge and get involved. It would take a huge amount of energy just to distinguish those who jumped out to claim responsibility and use it to extort ransom.

By then, it will not just be the FBI's business. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA will inevitably get involved, and the cost of this will probably be more than enough to buy a few new Bombardier business jets.

Jack walked to the end of the car and pulled the aisle door, but found that it could not be opened. He turned around and looked at the black detective who had been looking at them with interest after getting on the car.

"Detective Pollino, did you guys lock this door or has it always been like this?"

Although the lock of this type of carriage aisle door is not complicated, it is deliberately made to be bulky and crude, and can usually only be opened with a special key.

Jack made a quick inspection and found signs of violent damage, but the purpose was not to unlock the door, but to destroy the lock core to prevent the door from being opened from the other end.

“Perhaps you should talk to the train conductor who called the police after discovering the accident. The devout believer who kept chanting ‘ascension’ was very cooperative.

But the only help he can provide is some gibberish, I hope you can ask for more useful information."

Jack felt overwhelmed when he heard this. Believers were the most troublesome, so he looked directly at Jubal for help. Jubal was the only one among them who went to church every week.

Jubal knew the character of his men and accepted the task without hesitation.

Jack continued to say to the black police officer, "I want to talk to the search and rescue team you organized."

"They should be here soon." Detective Pollino raised his Swiss Plum watch to check the time, "Also, I have sent my officers to search along the route, but no news has been received yet.

Our main purpose in asking you for help is to narrow the search area as much as possible."

Everyone looked at each other in surprise when they heard this. 36 hours had passed and not even a search and rescue team had been organized. It seemed that in terms of relaxation, the French could only rank second.

Jack had no choice but to settle for the next best thing and continue to ask the detective for information.

Detective Pollino seemed to be very satisfied with the work attitude of these FBI agents from the United States. As his cooperation improved, he spoke more and more.

"This train was originally an overnight train. It was supposed to depart at 8pm and arrive in Arusha the next morning, but due to the delay, the train stopped in the town at am. The tourists boarded the train and it did not stop at any other stations along the way."

"Six hours late?" Aubrey, who was helping to pack things, looked up in surprise.

"Well, it wasn't like this 20 years ago. Back then, the railway workers were strictly trained, and no one dared to steal the cables connecting the signal lights."

When Detective Pollino said this, his eyes became a little strange, with pride and a little embarrassment. Everyone else was a little confused, but only Jack could roughly understand what he was talking about.

Tanzania is famous for its tourism industry in Africa. One-third of the country's land is listed as national parks, animal and forest reserves. Although the country is also rich in mineral resources, it is slightly inferior to its neighbors.

There is a country called Zambia to the southwest of Tanzania. Under its 75 square kilometers of land, there are copper mines accounting for 2.8% of the world's reserves.

It is a super copper belt that is 220 kilometers long and 65 kilometers wide. There are 150 discovered mineral deposits alone, and there are a large number of mineralized points waiting to be further explored.

But Zambia is a landlocked country, and South Africa to its south was still a white country in the true sense, so it was forced to look to the northeast for an outlet for its copper resources.

Thus, the famous Tanzania-Zambia Railway was born. Although the University of East Africa was extremely poor at the time, it gritted its teeth and assisted in the construction of this 1860-kilometer railway under the background of being isolated and helpless in international politics at that time.

However, the University of East China overestimated the operational capabilities of its African brothers. The railway has been losing money since the day it was built. Its designed annual capacity of 200 million tons reached a peak of only 127 million tons, and finally only to tons were left.

After the apprentices trained by the experts from the University of Tokyo retired one after another, accidents became more frequent on this railway, and it fell into a vicious cycle.

Although the railway that Jack and his colleagues are on now is not the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, the situation they face is the same. The backward education has led to a shortage of talent, and without talent there is nothing.

Previously, Garcia spent several hours communicating just to count the number of missing persons after a case. Rossi explained that the locals were not sensitive to numbers, which was a good example.

From all these signs, Jack had already sensed how unreliable it would be to expect to find the whereabouts of the missing persons through large-scale searches along the route, and he had to find another way.

"Then are there any armed organizations or other forces along the railway?" Jack was too lazy to beat around the bush. Some deep-rooted things could not be changed and he could only adapt to them. Fortunately, the black policeman in front of him was unexpectedly cooperative.

"There are indeed some legendary figures nearby, but they only do petty thefts against tourists, claiming to rob the rich to give to the poor. Kidnapping and the like have never happened."

Detective Pollino said as he mumbled something in Swahili under his breath, not wanting Jack to understand him, but it was nothing more than words like a bunch of wimps and cowards.