After spending a few days in Hartford, William returned to New York, which is at a latitude just below Hafa City, under the protection of Hank and other USS members.
Because of William's status as a transmigrator, he naturally knew about the subprime mortgage crisis that swept the World in 2007.
As well as the company where the crisis originated, Lehman Brothers Investment Bank.
This time, he went to Wall Street on Manhattan Island, using Umbrella's existing good credit to borrow all the Lehman Brothers shares from every securities firm there.
The term was for two years.
In other words, once the time was up, William would need to return the same number of shares plus interest to the securities firms.
To the securities firms, William just seemed like a man with more money than brains.
Currently, Lehman Brothers' peak trading price was sixty-nine dollars and was slowly increasing every day; those securities firms also knew that William wanted to short Lehman.
However, the domestic situation in the United States was excellent right now, with the economy reaching unprecedented prosperity.
Especially given the nature of Lehman Brothers as a giant in investment, it seemed impossible for a stock price crash to occur.
By 2008, he would have to spend even more money to buy the shares back.
He would lose a fortune.
The securities brokers wouldn't ask, and William wouldn't explain.
He knew a formula well:
One person's spending = another person's income.
Setting aside all other factors, take a simple example:
Person A's salary this month is 2,000, but Person A's monthly credit limit is 1,000.
Then Person A's monthly spending is 3,000.
Person B's income would be 3,000, and their credit limit remains 1,000.
Then Person B's monthly spending is 4,000.
And so on.
Everything looks like it's booming.
Everything is linked to debt.
The reason the situation in the United States seemed so good was that everyone believed they had the ability to repay their debts.
Even the banks became blind, no longer investigating or confirming if borrowers had good credit, and began lowering interest rates to issue loans.
Once debt is formed, there will be a cycle.
The cycle will rise, and eventually, it will fall.
If a special event occurs that makes people unable to repay their debts, the banks cannot get their money back.
Then it will come crashing down like a house of cards.
And right now, the United States was at the peak of the cycle.
Those involved are blind to the situation.
The vast majority of people on Wall Street hadn't noticed at all, and those who did wouldn't say a word, keeping their heads down.
Because those people had the same idea as William, wishing for a financial crisis to make a fortune.
Crisis, crisis.
Where there is danger, there is opportunity.
This was also why William disliked capitalists so much before he transmigrated.
But in the end, he became one of them.
'The dragon-slaying hero eventually becomes the dragon.'
However, William had his own goals.
He needed money—vast amounts of money—to control capital and ensure he could act freely when special events occurred later.
There was one more stop on the Wall Street trip, which was to buy shares in Apple Inc.
Right now, Apple's peak trading price was only eighteen dollars; compared to the price of over three hundred in his original World, the difference was like heaven and earth.
With the current number of Apple shares at 1.5 billion, if the average price per share was fifteen dollars, William was fully capable of becoming the sole shareholder.
Of course, doing so would be very unrealistic, but becoming the largest shareholder was definitely not a problem.
Besides, Steve Jobs was still alive.
He was also developing the iOS system and the latest smartphones; becoming a trillion-dollar company was just a matter of time.
The Apple board of directors was bewildered by this sudden, most powerful shareholder.
When invited to attend a board meeting, this mysterious shareholder only said one thing:
"Business as usual for everyone, as long as Jobs is still in charge."
Furthermore, William also made private contact with Jobs and scheduled a time for Halsey to examine him.
He knew that this 'Godfather' was battling a pancreatic tumor, so William pinned his hopes on Halsey.
And as it turned out, this genius female medical doctor indeed had a way to extend his life.
Although she couldn't provide a complete cure, she ensured that Jobs' condition wouldn't suddenly take a turn for the worse... During his days in the United States, William and Umbrella caused quite a stir, drawing the attention of various capitalists.
He wasn't afraid of anything now; the wealth given to him by the system was completely legitimate, as the previous Russells were one of the largest families in England and even the World.
Additionally, Sears Russell of the 20th century was also a prominent figure.
Everyone in various circles simply thought that William Russell was inheriting his Grandpa's will and starting to revitalize the family again.
While William was busy in the United States, the other departments of Umbrella were not idle either.
The Engineering Team led by Kashimo, with the help of special buffs, very quickly completed the construction of the private Base without delaying the progress of the Hive and the Containment Facility.
Andre also had a group of plainclothes personnel traveling across The Americas to find suitable people for recruitment.
Due to William's previous rule of having no bottom line, Halsey extracted the genes of everyone in the armed departments.
Finally, she used Andre's genes to clone a mindless body for testing the t-virus and its vaccine.
Further research would be needed after the Hive was completed, but the wait wouldn't be too long.
The Dimaco Company also officially changed its name to Umbrella Arms Company, moving all equipment and over a hundred employees from Ontario Province to Nova Scotia Province.
Under the 'friendly' greetings of Andre and a group of UBCS members, they signed contracts with generous benefits.
From then on, the arms company employees had no complaints at all; they even felt that the faces of Andre and those UBCS members were truly kind and friendly.
Meanwhile, Halsey took some time to visit the arms company and handed over the concept and design blueprints for Optical Camouflage technology.
She also personally modified the production workshop so it could produce more equipment besides just guns.
As for William, still under the protection of Hank and the USS, he traveled to Toulouse, France.
From Airbus, he spent 'a little' extra money to buy a ready-made A380 and even hired a dedicated flight crew.
He also signed a series of maintenance contracts.
After having a private jet, William felt only one thing... awesome!
On international flights, he could sleep however he wanted; it was simply incomparable to first class.
After staying in France for half a month, William headed to his last stop, Ukraine.
Because there was a huge amount of military hardware for sale there.
A treasure trove!
Upon arriving in Ukraine, through Andre's network of connections, William successfully met the largest arms dealer in Europe... Nikola Victor Oglevsky.
He purchased several tons of military equipment from Nikola; that's right, it now needed to be calculated in tons.
He also bought five An-124 heavy transport aircraft and even managed to get the original design manuscripts for the World's largest transport aircraft, the An-225.
According to Nikola's original words, spoken with a heavy Russian accent:
"Oh ho ho, my dear friend, as long as you provide enough money, I can even get you nuclear warheads."
Hearing this, William could only give a thumbs up and marvel internally, 'The "Fighting Nation" reputation isn't just talk.'
...Regardless, during these six months, Umbrella couldn't slow down at all, expanding frantically.