Chapter 129: Allah's Magic Wand

TL: LittlePeach

Now that I had agreed to the DEA Korea Branch's request for a joint operation, there was no more time to waste.

"Mr. Kang, from this moment on, you are officially an agent of our DEA Korea Branch, if only temporarily."

Determination and sheer stubbornness gleamed in Branch Chief Morgan's eyes. He was dead set on getting his share of the credit.

"I'll stay in this hangar for a while and personally keep watch for when those bastards at Asia-Pacific Headquarters deploy. If they show any sign of suddenly launching the operation, I'll contact you immediately."

"Should I give you my phone number?"

"No. Take this. It's a secure satellite phone linked to a U.S. military satellite."

"Oh."

I'd really seen it all now. Getting handed a U.S. military phone of all things. What a world.

As I prepared to head into New Bilibid Prison, I felt an intense gaze from beside me.

"Two billion won.... I'm seriously jealous, Team Leader."

It wasn't like I was going on vacation, but Team Leader Kim Do-hyeon was looking at me with envy.

Then again, hearing someone casually offer two billion won right beside him was enough to make anyone's head spin.

"I'll be back soon. I'll tell you all about it later."

"Yes. Come back safe."

Leaving Team Leader Kim Do-hyeon behind, I headed straight out of Basa Air Base.

I caught a taxi, and before long, I arrived back in Pasay City for the first time in a while.

The broker who arranged access to the prison greeted me with widened eyes.

"Oh! You're the guy who tipped me last time.... It's been a while, hasn't it?"

We had only met once, but he seemed to remember my face perfectly.

Rubbing his hands together, he gestured toward the seat across from him.

"Excuse me. Have you been well?"

"More or less."

"Did you come alone today?"

"Yes. But could we leave right away? I've got another schedule to keep, so I'm in a bit of a hurry."

The broker gave me a look that said there was no need to even ask.

"Anything's possible if you've got money. It'll cost extra, though."

Right. There wasn't much money couldn't solve.

After that, the same old process began.

A police car, then a prison transport bus, and just like that, everything went smoothly until I was once again inside New Bilibid Prison.

"Move, move!"

"Shut up! You motherfucker!"

Creeeeak.

The barred door opened with a rusty metallic groan, and a stale, musty stench rolled out.

"Oh, new guy?"

The inmates inside turned to look at me as I entered the cell.

"Gasp."

A few burly, tattoo-covered guys who had been swaggering around suddenly froze.

Then their faces went pale, and they hurriedly backed away.

"Huh? Boss? What's wrong? Aren't we giving the new guy his initiation beating?"

"Please, just shut the fuck up. Before I kill you...."

"M-Me?"

Instead, the small fry stared at them in confusion and tilted their heads.

Tremble, tremble.

"Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the welcome."

"Eek."

At a glance, the big guys seemed to be from Zone A, where I'd spent most of my time during my last stay in New Bilibid.

Watching them quake like little kids, it looked like I wouldn't need to get into another brawl after all.

Anyway.

The moment free time began, those bastards bolted out of the cell.

The other inmates, who had no idea what was going on, hurried to clear out as well.

"Sss... haa."

I stepped out into the open yard and took a deep breath.

There was one place I always had to stop by first whenever I came to New Bilibid.

Sluuurp.

"Mmm. That's the stuff."

Once in Southeast Asia, the first order of business was always a glass of mango juice.

"Wh-Why the fuck is that bastard back here...."

"Fuck.... Don't make eye contact."

With the straw still between my lips, I leisurely strolled through Zone A while the inmates who recognized me flinched and hurriedly scattered to either side.

"E-Eeeek!"

One two-meter-tall guy in particular let out a scream like a little girl the moment he saw me and ran away.

It was quite a sight.

Unfortunately, I had work to do, so I wasn't about to reenact Tekken in real life again.

Sluuurp.

After quickly finishing my mango juice, I headed straight to the makeshift building in Zone B to find a familiar face.

"It's been a while, Shinichi-san."

"Huh? L-Le Wei-san!"

Shinichi's eyes flew wide when I suddenly appeared.

Apparently both shocked and delighted, he rushed barefoot out from under the eaves.

"I can't believe it! You're alive! I thought those Samgor bastards had done something to you, Le Wei-san!"

"Sorry to have worried you. I had some personal business to take care of outside the prison."

"Ah.... Thank goodness."

Even at my half-assed excuse, Shinichi nodded with a deeply relieved expression.

All that bullshitting I'd done to win his trust was finally paying off.

"I can't believe you came back.... I've actually got some good news I've been wanting to tell you, Le Wei-san!"

"Good news?"

"Samgor has completely pulled out of New Bilibid!"

"Oh.... Is that so?"

Samgor's forces inside New Bilibid had vanished wholesale during the electrocution incident last time.

Apparently, Samgor had given up on sending new people into New Bilibid Prison afterward.

In effect, Shinichi must have rushed into the empty turf and planted his flag before anyone else could.

"Thanks to that, all the interests inside New Bilibid now belong entirely to the Irobuchi-kai. We've even established a new distribution route through Pakistan recently."

"Ohhh...."

"And all of this is thanks to you showing us the way, Le Wei-san!"

While I'd been gone, the balance of power among the prison's drug cartels had apparently been completely reshuffled around the Irobuchi-kai.

Things had taken a strange turn.

"Your timing couldn't be better, Le Wei-san. We have an important guest inside right now. Since you're here, I'd like to formally introduce him to you."

Shinichi seemed desperate to show off as he led me inside with excited steps.

When I followed him into the makeshift building, unfamiliar gang members I'd never seen before were bustling around inside.

"Please don't take offense if the gentleman inside doesn't say much. For religious reasons, he apparently doesn't like talking to people of other nationalities."

Deep inside the makeshift building was an office, where an exotic-looking man with a thick beard and sharp eyes sat waiting.

Judging by the turban wrapped around his head, the Irobuchi-kai's newly opened distribution route seemed to have ties to the Middle East.

"Why don't you two introduce yourselves? Tariq Kashmir-san is an executive of the Karachi Gang, based in Pakistan. He's a major player in the drug trade running from the Middle East into Southeast Asia."

"I see. Nice to meet you. I'm Le Wei."

"Hmm."

Tariq Kashmir of Pakistan's Karachi Gang.

He looked me up and down from across the table, then tilted his head.

So much for being a man of few words. He suddenly asked me a question in English.

"Strange. There's something oddly familiar about you. Are you perhaps a brother of Islam?"

There was no reason to flatly say no and make the atmosphere awkward.

"I'm not a believer, but would you believe me if I said I've always had a great deal of interest in the teachings of Islam?"

"Hmm! I rather like your honesty. I believe you. May Allah's protection be with you as well."

Tariq was so quick to act friendly toward me that even Shinichi looked caught off guard.

I felt the same way.

'Why's he acting like we're old friends?'

Just as I began to feel uneasy about him, Shinichi puffed out his chest with an excited expression, as though trying to brighten the mood even further.

Grinning, he pointed toward one corner of the makeshift building.

"As it happens, Tariq-ssi's men brought us a tremendous gift today. With their help, we plan to create a second Samgor here in New Bilibid.... No. A cartel no one in all of Asia could ever replace."

A tremendous gift?

Wondering what he meant, I turned around.

I fell silent.

'Are you fucking kidding me?'

A couple of wooden crates had been carelessly stacked in a corner not far away.

Inside were dozens of AK rifles and magazines.

The problem was, that wasn't all.

Inside another crate, partly hidden at an angle, sat something that absolutely had no business being here.

"Is that...."

"Indeed. The magic wand our one true God, Allah, bestowed upon this earth."

Noticing where I was looking, Tariq grinned and nodded.

Allah's Magic Wand.

An RPG-7.

"How did that get in here?"

"We greased enough palms to get it inside."

"What if the prison guards try to confiscate it later?"

"Now that it is already inside, it is too late for regret. Our asymmetric arsenal is complete. If those corrupt prison guards attempt to take God's grace from us, they shall taste the merciless wrath of Allah."

"Wow...."

The level of armament the Pakistani gang had brought in as a "gift" was far beyond anything I'd imagined.

Never in my wildest dreams had I expected the Irobuchi-kai to ally with a Pakistani gang and amass this kind of firepower while I was gone.

'Things are getting weird.'

The problem was that the DEA Asia-Pacific Headquarters special operations team planned to air-assault straight into the middle of this prison by helicopter before long.

What would happen if the operation went ahead like this?

'What do I do?'

Going into a firefight against a cartel alliance armed this heavily would be practically suicidal, even for a special operations team from the Thousand-Trillion Nation wielding near-extralegal authority.

Completely unaware of what I was thinking, Shinichi kept boasting with a huge smile on his face.

"The Irobuchi-kai's production capacity, Pakistan's distribution network, and solid weapons to boot! With this, we've secured the safest stronghold in the world!"

"...Wow. Impressive."

As Shinichi proudly puffed out his chest, I clapped along and pretended to be impressed.

All the while, I was seriously thinking through the problem.

Riiing, riiing.

"Huh."

An unfamiliar ringtone suddenly went off inside my pocket.

It was the U.S. military satellite phone Branch Chief Morgan had given me earlier.

Shinichi and Tariq's gazes instantly dropped toward my pocket.

“Sorry, I need to take this. Excuse me for a moment.”

"No problem. Take your time."

I gave them an awkward smile and excused myself to both men before hurrying out of the makeshift building.

Click.

"Hello?"

-Mr. Kang! We've got a serious problem!

The moment I answered, Branch Chief Morgan raised his voice.

Before I could say anything, he rattled off the words so quickly he nearly ran out of breath.

-From what I hear, those bastards at Asia-Pacific Headquarters are planning to infiltrate the prison when it starts raining. A huge rain cloud is passing near New Bilibid right now, and they've just started assembling!

"Oh."

Tap, patter.

Just as Morgan said, raindrops began falling onto my head.

I looked up and saw that the fickle Southeast Asian sky was already covered by a broad mass of pitch-black clouds.

SHHHHHH!

Before long, thick sheets of rain came pouring down like a waterfall, as though someone had punched a hole through the sky.

I hurriedly backed under the eaves for shelter.

"You're right. It's coming down hard."

-If the special operations team assembles and takes off within five minutes, they'll be there within twenty! If that happens, our joint operation is finished. Finished!

"Hmm."

I'd barely gotten inside and started taking things easy, but now everything was suddenly moving too fast to leave me any time to think.

'That's tight.'

I had twenty minutes.

The time limit was bad enough, but the biggest problem was how heavily armed the gang members inside the makeshift building were.

I could already picture the Asia-Pacific Headquarters helicopters getting blown out of the sky over New Bilibid one after another by RPG rockets fired by those Pakistani gangsters.

"All right. Screw it. I'll give it a shot."

-...What? Give it a shot.... What exactly are you going to do?

"There's no time to explain. I'll contact you again later."

-W-Wait, Mr. Kang....

Click.

I ended the call without bothering to explain anything.

Then, worried the phone might interfere with the operation, I shut it off completely.

When I stepped back into the makeshift building, the two men were staring at me, waiting.

SHHHHHH!

"Wow, Southeast Asian weather really is impossible to predict. It suddenly started pouring like this again."

"Indeed. It's the rainy season, so we've been getting a lot of rain lately."

"With rain this heavy, I wonder if there might be another electrocution accident."

At my probing remark, Shinichi snorted.

"Don't worry. We recently spent a great deal of money repairing the place so something like that can't happen again."

"Is that so?"

Just as the confident Shinichi claimed, rain was pouring past the eaves like a waterfall, yet not a single drop was leaking into the makeshift building.

'So I can't use the electrocution plan.'

Rumble, rrrrrumble!

Even darker storm clouds seemed to be rolling in from the distance as the low growl of thunder gradually drew closer.

Pretending to casually watch the rain, I swept my eyes around the room, scanning the locations of everything I might be able to use.

The gang members' positions, Tariq and Shinichi's lines of movement, even the crates packed with weapons.

'Okay.'

A rough plan took shape in my head.

Now came the acting.

"Urgh! My stomach...."

I immediately clutched my abdomen and hunched over.

Startled by the sight, Shinichi hurried over.

"Le Wei-san? What's wrong? You look pale...."

"The mango juice I had on the way here.... I think it upset my stomach. It's going crazy in there...."

Rumble, rrrrrumble.

Right on cue, thunder rolled along with my performance.

Shinichi smiled awkwardly and discreetly pointed farther inside the makeshift building.

"There's a restroom in the back."

"P-Please excuse me for a moment. Urgh...."

I hurried toward the restroom in a half-crouched, awkward gait.

Click.

The moment I locked the door behind me and stepped inside....

KRAKOOM! KRAKAKOOM!

Lightning struck nearby, and thunder exploded so violently it seemed ready to erase the entire makeshift building.

Everyone's attention was focused completely on the weather.

'I'll move with the next thunderclap.'

I sat on top of the closed toilet lid and judged the timing.

I had roughly fifteen minutes left.

I calmly slowed my breathing and waited.

Tap, patter.

Ratatatat.

The deafening rain hammered against the corrugated metal roof, while the muffled voices of gang members talking outside barely reached my ears.

'Don't rush.'

Another five minutes or so passed.

Flash!

A burst of light flared outside.

Rrrrrrumble....

'Now.'

KRAKAKOOOM!

I slipped soundlessly out of the restroom.

The sound of the sky tearing apart engulfed the entire makeshift building, swallowing every other noise in the world.

Rrrrrrrrumble.

The thunder kept rolling for quite some time.

"!, !!"

"!!!, !"

I couldn't even hear what the gang members only a few steps away were shouting.

While all their attention remained fixed on the violent weather outside, I glided across the floor toward the corner of the makeshift building.

Crates containing RPG warheads were strewn around there.

'It's been a damn long time since I loaded one of these.'

Fortunately, veteran hands were veteran hands. My body remembered exactly what to do.

First, I fitted the long warhead and propellant charge together, then slid the assembled round deep into the launcher while it was still on safe.

Click, click!

Every step of the process fell into place with almost eerie precision.

'Ready.'

It took barely ten seconds to pull the fuze's safety pin and bring the weapon to a ready-to-fire state.

"Hm? Huh?"

One gang member who had been completely distracted by the thunder finally noticed me.

He stared blankly at me in confusion, but by then it was far too late.

Click.

I disengaged the launcher's safety and aimed the muzzle over my head.

My objective was to capture Shinichi alive and take him with me.

The target was the wall of the makeshift building.

'Sorry, Shinichi. That's how it is.'

Click.

The number one thing to watch out for when handling an RPG was the backblast behind the shooter.

FWOOOOSH!

"Urrgh!"

"Aaaaaaargh!"

The backblast from the propellant charge alone swept every gang member nearby off their feet and sent them sprawling in every direction.

KRAAAASH!

*****

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