Chapter 127: You Can't Say No to a Helicopter

TL: LittlePeach

Once we officially opened the doors and started service, a fair number of customers began pouring in, apparently having heard the news somewhere.

“Maxim, how long has it been! Are you finally reopening the restaurant? I was worried about you. Did you get those thugs sorted out?”

“Welcome, Pierre. Actually, today is our last day in business.”

“Ah, mamma mia....”

“But don't even think about paying today. Just enjoy the food.”

“Thanks for everything, Maxim. I'm really going to miss your cooking.”

There were about a dozen regulars and local merchants who had come after hearing that Maximilien was closing the restaurant.

Each of them briefly expressed their regrets to Maximilien and greeted him with kisses on the cheeks.

With several families who happened to stop by while passing through added to the mix, the restaurant quickly grew crowded.

“By the way, who's this pretty young lady?”

“You haven't met her before, have you? She's my younger sister.”

“Mamma mia! You've been hiding a treasure like this from us all this time?”

“Hehe. Welcome. I'm Veronica.”

Bella smiled brightly in response to the easygoing customers' jokes.

As though she had finally cast off all the worries that had weighed on her, she moved gracefully around the dining room with a radiant smile across her face.

“Then is that Asian guy in the kitchen Veronica's husband?”

“Oh my. Do we look like that?”

“He's handsome. You two make a lovely couple. You picked a good one.”

“Hehe. Thank you.”

Bella glanced back at me and played along mischievously.

I quietly turned up the gas flame and pretended not to hear.

“Sunny Kick, three pasta orders just came in. Make sure you've got them.”

“Yeah. Got them.”

Maximilien, the chef, handled the labor-intensive salads and pizzas, while I was put in charge of the relatively simple vongole pasta.

The recipe wasn't particularly complicated.

Sauté garlic and chili peppers in olive oil, add the clams and white wine and cook them, then toss in the pasta, pasta water, and parsley. That was it.

As I gently tossed the pasta in the pan, the customers' conversations from the dining room drifted into my ears.

“I heard one of the vineyards over in Villaricca got completely wrecked. Apparently there was gunfire all through the night. It was chaos.”

“Must've been some turf war between Mafia bastards. Tsk, tsk.”

“By the way, has anyone seen Mateo lately? I haven't been able to reach him for days.”

“He does that sometimes, doesn't he? He probably went off on a long trip somewhere.”

Once Maximilien had worked through most of the backed-up orders, he slipped out of the kitchen whenever he had a spare moment and made the rounds through the dining room.

With a warm smile, he personally poured wine into the customers' glasses.

“Good lord. Isn't this Monfortino? Are you sure you can just give something this expensive away?”

“Please, finish all of it. I need to empty the entire cellar before I leave anyway.”

“Sounds like you're going pretty far away.”

“Yeah. I got a new job in Russia.”

“Oh dear. Leaving this warm, fragrant land of wine for that bleak den of vodka.... Be careful not to catch a cold over there.”

“Hahaha. I'll keep that in mind.”

Leaning against the kitchen entrance, I quietly watched Maximilien from behind as he skillfully traded jokes with his regulars.

That was when it happened.

Tap, tap.

“Misteeer. Want this?”

“Oh.”

A child who had wandered over toddled up to me and suddenly held out a piece of chocolate.

Several children brought by the customers were currently scampering around one corner of the dining room.

“Thanks. Want me to make you something tasty in return?”

“Something tasty?”

Rolling the chocolate the kid had given me around in my mouth, I quickly made a pizza with some leftover dough.

At my promise of something tasty, the children who had been milling around noisily gathered together around me.

While Maximilien laughed and chatted with the customers.

“Here, try this. It's good.”

Right in the heart of Naples, I whipped up yet another pineapple pizza.

It was my masterpiece.

“Nom.”

“It's yummy!”

“More, pwease!”

Behold the reactions of these pure, innocent children.

This was the purity of those who could cast aside narrow-minded conventions and enjoy flavor for what it truly was.

“...What the hell is he doing?”

The adult customers, meanwhile, reacted with quite the uproar when they discovered the true nature of my creation.

“Mamma mia!”

“Holy Madonna!”

Each of them wore an expression like they had just witnessed a different kind of apocalypse.

To look at them, you'd think I'd summoned a demon or something.

In the distance, Bella spotted my wicked scheme and came stomping over with a murderous glare.

“Sunny Kick! You really are insane!”

“I'm telling you, it's good.”

Nom nom.

Munch munch.

I smiled with satisfaction, using the children as my shield.

I had poisoned Italian cuisine.

***

The lunchtime rush that had hit like a storm finally came to an end.

One by one, the customers reluctantly made their way out of the restaurant.

“Take care, Michela.”

“Thank you so much for everything, Maxim. I'm really going to miss you.”

“Thank you. I'm going to miss all of you too.”

Maximilien personally saw every last customer out.

Some looked ready to cry, while others pulled him into deep embraces.

“Take care, Pierre.”

“I hope you give that awful friend of yours a proper lesson someday.”

“I promise.”

“Good grief. Pineapple on pizza. Holy Jesus Christ....”

Only after he had seen the very last customer all the way out the door with a bright smile did the restaurant finally fall silent.

With his final lunch service in Naples now over, Maximilien looked around the empty restaurant.

“I'd like to think Uncle Mateo would've had no lingering regrets after this....”

Without saying anything, I walked over and lightly patted Maximilien on the back as he stood there lost in a swell of emotion.

For him, today's final service seemed to have been both a farewell to his restaurant and his own sort of funeral for Mateo, who had died such an unjust death.

Maximilien gave a small grin, looking far more relieved.

“All right, we should eat too.”

“Want me to help?”

“Nope. Get the hell out of my kitchen right now, Sunny Kick.”

“Nghk.”

Maximilien literally booted me out of the kitchen.

“Keep this guy on a tight leash, Bella.”

“I was already planning to.”

Bella dragged me into a corner of the dining room, dumped me there, and kept watch with a fierce glare.

The siblings had already completely forgotten all about my valuable help in the kitchen.

What an ungrateful pair.

The menu was Maximilien's special staff meal, cobbled together from all the remaining ingredients.

As I slurped down the vongole pasta, memories of my grueling mercenary days came flooding back.

“Good, isn't it?”

“It's good.”

“You've got such a perfectly normal palate, so why the hell would you ever think of putting pineapple on pizza?”

“If it tastes good, isn't that all that matters?”

“I know it tastes good too. But pineapple belongs in dessert, not in a dish.”

“If you add something tasty to something tasty, it gets twice as tasty.”

“Hey, now. Looks like you still haven't come to your senses. Do you seriously want me to shoot you?”

“The kids ate it just fine....”

“Hey!”

The food was so good that our plates emptied in no time.

Stuffing a piece of pizza into his mouth, Maximilien jerked his chin toward me.

“Sunny Kick, what are you going to do now?”

“About what?”

“Are you staying in Italy? Or are you planning to come with us to Russia?”

“Hmm. I'm still thinking about it.”

I was in an awkward position where I wasn't exactly on duty, but I wasn't exactly on leave either.

I should've returned to Korea immediately after the special-effects makeup operation ended, but thanks to Bureau Director Yun Tae-seong's consideration, I'd effectively ended up on leave.

Besides, I hadn't originally planned on coming to Italy at all.

If I hadn't heard that Maximilien might have been kidnapped, this would be about the time I was leisurely sipping my morning coffee at a hotel in Switzerland.

“I should probably get back to work soon.”

“Come to think of it, I haven't heard what kind of work you've been doing lately. Can I ask?”

“I've just been taking various jobs here and there.”

“What kind of jobs?”

Maximilien seemed to have gotten the vague impression that I was some kind of hitman.

Of course, that wasn't exactly wrong.

'Arson, explosions, assault, extortion, kidnapping....'

Looking back over everything I'd done, I realized there had been a surprising number of hair-raising jobs.

“Just, you know, little odd jobs here and there.... If you're curious what I do, go ask Nikolai. He'll probably explain it very kindly.”

“What's that nutjob been doing lately?”

“He's a tactical advisor for a PMC now.”

“Mamma mia....”

“I'll probably have business in Russia before long too. We'll see each other again then.”

“Sounds like you're running all over the place.”

“Wasn't really my intention, but things just kept working out that way.”

Come to think of it, I still had plenty of work left to do as an Eagle agent.

One of the two listed agents was staying in Vladivostok.

Once Maximilien got talking with Nikolai later, he'd probably hear that I was an NIS black agent, at least in broad strokes.

Until then, I had no particular intention of going out of my way to correct his misunderstanding.

“Sunny Kick, give me your number. I forgot yours.”

“Give me your phone. I'll save it for you.”

“But I smashed my phone.”

As Maximilien sat there with a stupidly blank expression, Bella snorted beside him and dug through her pocket.

“I restored it for you, remember?”

“Oh, right! Thanks, Bella.”

I saved my international number into the phone she handed him.

Then something suddenly occurred to me.

“By the way, Bella. You deleted all the malware you planted on my phone last time, right?”

I stared directly at her as though interrogating her.

Bella puffed out her chest proudly.

“Of course. I only put it on there for a little while, just in case. It's clean now.”

Well, I decided to believe her for the moment.

I'd probably end up smashing this phone too before long anyway.

'Just to be safe, I'll delete the banking app.'

Maybe it was because I'd just been thinking about phones.

Riiing.

“Huh. A call out of nowhere....”

A ringtone suddenly came from my pocket.

It was the satellite phone issued by the NIS.

“Don't mind us. Go ahead and take it.”

“Sorry. It looks urgent.”

When I checked, it was an unfamiliar number.

Click.

“Yes, hello?”

I answered in Korean.

As a result, the siblings sitting side by side across from me couldn't understand a word I was saying.

-Excuse me, Team Leader Kang Hae-chan. Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin told me to contact you at this number. I hope you've been well.

“...Who is this?”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, like I almost recognized it but couldn't quite place it.

When I tilted my head in confusion, an awkward chuckle came through the phone.

-This is Kim Do-hyeon, the newly appointed Southeast Asia Team leader.

“...Oh.”

-Do you happen to remember me?

“Of course. I remember you.”

Of course I remembered him.

He was Team Leader Kim Do-hyeon of the Domestic Intelligence Bureau's Special Intelligence Team, who had persistently tried to recruit me in the past under orders from the NIS Director.

'No, wait.'

Come to think of it, Kim Do-hyeon was now the team leader of Special Operations Group Southeast Asia Team 4.

-Whew, thank you for remembering me. Do you have a moment to talk?

“Of course. What can I do for you?”

I replied to Team Leader Kim Do-hyeon in a friendly voice.

Now that he'd transferred departments, we were all part of the same Special Operations Group family, so I had no reason to keep him at arm's length.

-A little while ago, you were deployed inside New Bilibid Prison in the Philippines, weren't you? Together with Sparrow No. 10 from our team.

“Yeah. I did spend a few days relaxing in there.”

-Ah, haha.... The reason I'm calling is that the DEA Korea Branch contacted us about that operation.

The DEA Korea Branch?

Apparently, the information I'd dug up from inside New Bilibid had been passed over to them.

-Thanks to the intelligence you provided, DEA Asia-Pacific Headquarters is planning to deploy a special operations team there soon. Since the NIS provided the decisive intelligence, we've been allowed to attend in an observer capacity.

“As observers?”

-Yes. Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin decided to send me as the official observer. He wants me to see firsthand how they conduct an operation on the ground. I was calling to ask whether you'd be interested in joining me as an observer.

The proposal was just as out of the blue as the call itself.

After all, I was the guy who had personally gone inside New Bilibid and even kidnapped Wei Hong, one of Samgor's mid-level lieutenants, on my way out.

And now they weren't asking me to join a coordinated operation, but merely to observe?

The offer wasn't particularly interesting.

“Can you tell me in advance how they're planning to run the operation?”

-From what I've heard, they're planning to round up every last member of the drug cartel staying inside.

“Round them all up?”

“How?”

-I don't know all the details myself, but it sounds like they're planning a helicopter assault, inserting a special operations team directly into the prison.

“Oh.”

Helicopters, huh.

America really did operate on a completely different scale.

I'd originally meant to turn him down.

“Can I ride in one too?”

-...What?

There are some things a man just can't say no to.

*****

For 20 advance chapters, you can check out my Patreon here -->

If you enjoy this novel, please review and rate it at Novelupdates. Thanks! 😊