Chapter 124: The Great Villaricca Winery Explosion

TL: LittlePeach

To be honest, I thought it worked out well.

The fact that Maximilien and I were going off to take revenge by ourselves made me feel like we were completely leaving Bella out after everything she'd been through.

It had been weighing on my conscience.

“Pour me one more glass too.”

Maximilien was already a sinking ship.

It was obvious which ship I should be boarding at this point.

Since things had turned out this way anyway, I casually held out my empty glass, figuring I might as well get some more wine out of her.

Bella glared daggers at me.

“Well, look at you.... Sunny Kick, you're no different from my brother. Don't think I've forgotten how you slipped out of the hotel without saying a word either.”

“Fine, just give me a sip.”

At times like this, shamelessness was a weapon.

Bella let out a disbelieving laugh as she stared at me.

“Not in a dump like this. Let's go back to the hotel and drink it with something to eat.”

“Sounds good.”

“...You'll give me some too, right?”

“Shut up. You're not getting so much as a drop.”

“Tch.”

And so, we packed up the remaining wine and equipment and returned to the hotel.

While we slowly worked our way through the wine, Maximilien, who had been cautiously reading the room, began briefing us step by step on his revenge plan.

“My plan is simple. I'm going to snipe Alessandro, the boss of the Avinante Family.”

Maximilien pulled up a map on Bella's laptop, then overlaid it with photos of the vineyard buildings he had taken himself.

Villaricca, on the northwestern outskirts of Naples.

The area, only about a thirty-minute drive from the city, was dotted with renowned vineyards and wineries.

“The property is divided into a main building and an annex. Around dawn every day, about ten Mafia guys come out of the main building and take a walk through the vineyard. I watched them through binoculars for several days, and fortunately, their routine was consistent.”

One of those places was Vigna del Fuoco.

Meaning the Vineyard of Fire, it was the Avinante Family's home base.

“This building by the road happens to be completely empty. It's exactly seven hundred meters from the vineyard in a straight line. Well within my range.”

“Did you confirm which one is the target?”

“Honestly, I'm not completely sure. I asked around, but I couldn't pin down Alessandro's identity. For now, I decided to assume the oldest-looking guy in the group is the boss.”

The most fundamental rule in intelligence warfare was to identify exactly who the enemy was.

Even if he pulled off a perfect shot, if the man he killed wasn't the boss, all he would accomplish was kicking a hornet's nest for nothing.

As I tilted my head, Maximilien marked a point on the map.

“Once they're in range, I'll blow the head off the guy I suspect is Alessandro first, then put down another two or three members standing around him while they're still stunned. The survivors will come after me immediately, but I'll grab my gear and get the hell out without looking back.”

It was exactly the kind of hit-and-run operation you'd expect from a sniper.

Since Maximilien had already decided he wanted to carry out his revenge with a sniper rifle, my role would effectively be that of a designated marksman.

Bella, who had been tapping away at another laptop for a while, muttered with a sour expression.

“I've gone through everything, but I'm not picking up any lines around the vineyard. There's literally nothing I can do for you.”

Her expression wasn't much different from mine.

In the end, everything hinged on Maximilien's sniping ability, so neither of us could help wondering if this was really enough.

'The plan is pretty flimsy.'

Plenty of ideas came to mind, but I didn't bother voicing any of them.

Rather than talk, I could simply act and patch the holes in his sloppy plan myself.

'I've got plenty of options....'

In the end, there was only one real problem.

Even if he killed two or three Mafia members with his rifle, there was no guarantee the actual boss would be among them.

We needed a backup plan for that.

'What do I have right now that could be useful?'

A used car? Gas cylinders? Grenades?

Just then, as I rummaged through my pockets while considering one option after another.

'Hm?'

I blinked without realizing it as I stared at the object I'd absentmindedly pulled out.

A crisp, freshly made passport sat in my hand.

“Ah.”

A good idea came to me.

It also happened to be something that would let Bella put her specialty to full use instead of sitting around with that sour expression.

“Bella, do you know how to composite photos?”

“...Composite them? That's child's play. But why all of a sudden?”

The timing was perfect.

Since I'd come all the way to Italy anyway, several useful tricks I could pull began taking shape in my head one after another.

“Can you naturally composite this man's face into a photo with that vineyard building in the background?”

I dug into my pocket and handed her the passport.

A South Korean passport made under the name of Secretary Pak Mun-ju.

Bella furrowed her brow in confusion.

“And after I do that?”

“Add the winery's address to the photo and send it anonymously to the North Korean Embassy in Italy. Route it through several connections so they can't trace who sent it.”

“...North Korea? Why North Korea all of a sudden?”

The North Korean inspection team agents spread throughout Europe were probably frantic to catch Pak Mun-ju, who had disappeared with five hundred million dollars.

So what if someone kindly dropped a photo in their laps showing exactly where Pak Mun-ju was?

Blinded by the chance to score a major achievement, the inspection team probably wouldn't even waste time debating whether it was real or fake.

Within thirty minutes at most, they'd converge on the place in an organized rush and grind the Avinante Family into dust.

'Among the guys fleeing the vineyard, there'll probably be one person everyone goes out of their way to protect.'

That would solve, at least to some extent, the uncertainty of not knowing who the boss was.

I wet my lips first.

“This guy here is named Pak Mun-ju, and right now North Korea is....”

***

The North Korean Embassy in Italy was like a chimney with a bad draft every single day.

The offices were thick with cigarette smoke.

Sighs and groans filled every corner of the building.

The moment intelligence arrived that Pak Mun-ju had appeared at an Italian airport, every inspection team agent hastily dispatched across Europe had converged here at the embassy in Italy.

But only a few days later.

'While we were standing around with our eyes wide open, the Republic's revolutionary funds vanished.'

Ever since they realized that Pak Mun-ju had already made off with five hundred million dollars of the Republic's money in Switzerland, everyone had been sitting there as though nailed to their chairs, chain-smoking cigarettes.

'What in the world are we supposed to do now!'

If they returned to Pyongyang without recovering either the money or the traitor, there was no telling what would happen to the lives of those dispatched with the inspection team.

Everyone sat silently with bloodshot eyes, steadily filling the ashtrays.

Bang!

“C-Comrade Group Director! W-We received a report that that bastard Pak Mun-ju has been spotted in Naples, Italy!”

“What did you say?”

Tak Ji-ung, the inspection team's section chief, snapped his eyes open from where he had been blankly smoking.

He shot to his feet and snatched the sheet of paper from the agent's hand.

“That gutless bastard Pak Mun-ju dares....”

The traitor Pak Mun-ju's face could be seen, albeit somewhat blurry, in the printed photograph.

And beneath it, someone had even helpfully attached a map with the address clearly marked.

“...But who sent this report?”

A strange suspicion flashed through his mind.

The instincts he'd developed as an inspection team agent kicked in.

“How in the world did they know we were hunting him high and low!”

“T-That.... We have no way of determining where it came from.”

“You damned bastard.... What kind of undisciplined nonsense is that! Are you certain this hasn't been fabricated?”

“W-We couldn't find any signs of manipulation in the image. The quality is simply so poor....”

“Keep your head on straight! This could be a deception tactic Pak Mun-ju prepared to lure us in!”

An anonymous tip from an unknown source.

It reeked of something fishy at first glance.

Trusting such uncertain intelligence and charging in blindly with the entire unit was the sort of thing only the rankest amateur would do.

Just like what had happened only a few days ago, when every member of the strike squad hastily deployed after hearing Pak Mun-ju had arrived in Italy ended up wiping each other out with Italian Mafia men at a villa near the airport.

But the inspection team agent who had brought the photograph muttered while sweating profusely.

“I-I cannot say for certain, but.... what if this is real?”

“....”

That one sentence sent Tak Ji-ung's thoughts spiraling.

He had a point.

'What if this is real?'

And what if he ignored this photograph, stayed holed up in the embassy, and Pyongyang later discovered what had happened?

'A reactionary who ignored a decisive lead and neglected his duty. Execution!'

Tak Ji-ung suddenly felt as though the charge against him had already been decided.

A bullet through the head would practically be merciful. More likely, he'd be dragged off to a political prison camp and spend the rest of his life mining coal until his bones shattered.

In the end, this wasn't a question of whether he believed the information or not.

“...Goddammit! Everyone, grab your weapons and move out immediately!”

Any rational judgment that this might be a trap had no choice but to melt away before the terror of a brutal purge.

***

The predawn gloom was lifting as dawn slowly began to break.

On the rooftop of a house seven hundred meters away, overlooking the vineyards spread throughout Villaricca.

“I was hoping you would never get involved in bloody work like this....”

Maximilien couldn't hide his complicated feelings.

Sigh after sigh escaped him as he watched his younger sister lay out a mat beside him.

“Oh, please. Do you even know how many crimes I've already committed with nothing but a keyboard while working as a hacker?”

“Watching people die right in front of you carries an entirely different weight.”

Despite her brother's sincere advice, Bella simply gave a light snort.

Then she planted herself firmly beside Maximilien.

“Stop thinking about other things and focus. They're coming out.”

Before long, just as expected, around a dozen men began filing out of the vineyard building.

While Maximilien zeroed his sniper rifle, Bella raised her binoculars and carefully swept the vineyard.

“Which one is the boss?”

“Not the front row. See the white-haired man in the middle of the rear row?”

“So you're not sure he's Alessandro, but he's still the most likely target, right?”

“Right.”

Maximilien's original plan had contained only one objective: put a hole between that white-haired man's eyes.

But after accepting Sunny Kick's suggestion and revising the operation, he now keenly realized just how sloppy his original plan had been.

'I was too careless.'

Just looking at the way they took their morning walk made that clear.

For men supposedly guarding the boss of the organization, the members around him were far too loosely positioned.

Not only that, but now that he paid attention, the man he'd assumed was the boss was chatting and laughing with the others far too freely.

'What if I'd carried out the operation alone?'

He might have been forced to flee after accomplishing nothing more than dropping some random low-ranking member.

Only now did he realize that his thirst for revenge had blinded him to a massive hole in his plan.

“By the way, where did Sunny Kick say he was going?”

“He said he was bringing his own car.”

“We had plenty of room in ours. Why bother?”

“Maybe he left something important behind.”

Just as the siblings whispered their questions to each other.

“Maximilien, they're here.”

Bella poked Maximilien in the side.

At the far edge of the view she was pointing toward, a group of black vans came racing in from the distance, kicking up clouds of dust.

The Avinante Family members out for their walk watched the approaching vehicles and began murmuring among themselves with puzzled expressions.

They clearly hadn't even considered the possibility that the vans were coming for them.

“They're getting out. That's a lot of them.”

“One, two, three, four.... Maybe around twenty?”

It didn't take long for the Mafia men to realize they were under attack.

Bang, bang-bang, rat-tat-tat....

The thin cracks of gunfire cutting through the early morning silence reached them faintly from the distance.

The members who had been out walking were caught in a hail of bullets from the North Korean agents and tumbled to the ground in the blink of an eye.

Honestly, that alone had already accomplished Maximilien's original objective.

“This is insane. I can't believe things are actually playing out exactly like Sunny Kick said....”

But as if to prove that thought premature, the vineyard was soon thrown into a state of emergency.

Caught off guard by the sudden attack, Mafia members poured out from all over the buildings with guns in hand.

Beneath the growing light of dawn.

Bang, rat-tat, ratatatatat....

Distant gunfire popped chaotically among the rows of grapevines.

Bella swallowed hard, her face pale.

“Just who is this Pak Mun-ju guy that they're coming after him that desperately?”

“Probably a terrifying criminal. Don't worry about anything beyond that.”

“O-Okay....”

Now that the operation had begun, Maximilien had regained his composure and answered calmly.

He took his eye away from the scope and looked toward the vineyard with the naked eye.

“Hm? What's that....”

Behind the route the North Korean vans had entered through moments earlier, a single car could be seen charging toward the battlefield from far behind.

Bullets flying in from all directions hammered against the car body and sent sparks flying, but the vehicle showed no sign of stopping or swerving.

Then, still traveling at that tremendous speed, the car finally reached the winery building.

Crash!

It slammed straight into the outer wall and buried half its body inside.

“...Whoever that was, he must have been one hell of a loyal North Korean.”

“Y-Yeah. I guess so.”

Bella muttered in a daze, and Maximilien stammered his agreement.

For one brief moment, silence seemed to fall over the vineyard, as though even the gunfire had stopped.

KABOOOOOM!

“Gasp.”

“What the hell....”

Without warning, a colossal pillar of fire erupted upward as though painting the sky red.

Even from the rooftop seven hundred meters away, the blast wave washed over the siblings with a rush of heat.

The winery building was blown apart beyond recognition, debris scattering in every direction as the vineyard instantly transformed into a hellscape of chaos and screams.

“Mamma mia....”

Neither of them could even begin to imagine just how loyal to North Korea someone had to be to do something like that.

*****

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