Chapter 48: My $20,000 Nemesis!

TL: LittlePeach

My reason for suspecting Yu Jong-pil?

There wasn't one.

He just smelled off.

From Yu Jong-pil's perspective, he might feel awfully wronged by my habit of suspecting him first without a shred of hard evidence, but what can you do.

'My $20,000 nemesis!'

Twenty thousand dollars... just how many ice creams for the kids would that buy?

At my suddenly grave expression, Crane No. 12 grinned.

"Pick three from the list for now. Skip anyone with a mark next to their name."

X marks had been checked off beside certain names.

Fortunately, no one had claimed Yu Jong-pil yet.

"I'll take.... Yu Jong-pil, Kim Seon-uk, and Cha Myeong-tae. Those three."

"Okay. Hand it over a sec. Let me mark them on the list."

"Couldn't we just grab any defection broker on this list and ask if there's anyone suspicious among them?"

Crane No. 12 snorted at my naive question.

"That's because you have no idea how closed-off broker society is. Even if there's a vicious bastard mixed in among them, siphoning off defectors and selling them, those people will band together to protect their rice bowls and never open their mouths to an outsider."

I found myself tilting my head.

'That's not what I saw.'

They'd practically pressed their business cards into my hands.

Having finished marking up the list, Crane No. 12 pulled out a slip of paper and began writing something.

"You'll be in for a rough stretch, tailing them day and night for a while."

"And if I'm sure I've got my guy?"

"First we make him spill where the Shanyuan Society's hideout is holed up. I'm planning to set up a surveillance zone nearby."

"Not storm the place?"

"Good grief. Are you insane?"

Ah, right.

A real black agent's work is ninety percent cover and stakeouts; the remaining ten percent is running away.

Frankly, even if we found the Shanyuan Society's hideout, what could a handful of NIS black agents possibly do?

"I heard you wiped out twelve men from a North Korean assassination squad.... Keep that up and one day you'll really end up in the ground. Be careful."

"Haha...."

What with ramming cars and blowing up gas tanks lately, I'd gotten momentarily confused.

When digging up intelligence and keeping watch was a black agent's main job all along.

Of course, it's not as if the NIS has no combat specialists at all, but short of a counterterrorism operation, there's no way they'd ever be deployed to a field site overseas.

"But even if we grab him, would that broker meekly give up the location of the Shanyuan Society's hideout?"

"Doesn't matter if he doesn't."

"Ah."

Now I understood completely.

Since we couldn't work over the Shanyuan Society's hideout, we'd work over the broker instead; that was the gist of this operation.

It wouldn't be an ultimate solution in itself, but at the very least it would be the next best thing.

"Here, the list."

I nodded and took the sheet of paper Crane No. 12 handed over.

It was a memo with the names I'd picked written out separately.

'Yu Jong-pil. Let's dig into this one first.'

It was a decision based on nothing but a hunch, but somehow I felt my gut was right.

Come to think of it, one suspicious detail had just surfaced in my memory.

'No matter how much money you crow about paying later, we have no intention of reading you our ledgers!'

'Even if you buy up every last defector, how exactly do you plan to connect them with their families?'

During the mass defection from the North Korean freight train a few days ago, Yu Jong-pil had openly set out to sweep up every single person scheduled to defect that day.

Even though the other brokers had warned him they would never hand over the defectors' lists or their families' contact information.

'Heh heh. There are ways.'

He'd been nothing but brazen, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Thinking back on it now, that attitude couldn't be more suspicious.

"You're not up against some neighborhood punks here; this is a full-fledged Triad organization. Dig too deep and it could blow back on you, so be careful."

"Yes, I will."

"I'm not just saying that. This Shanyuan Society is crawling with killers."

"Yes, got it."

I nodded obediently.

While thinking something entirely different inside.

While I sorted out my thoughts, Crane No. 12 cleared away the empty dim sum boxes and started the car.

"We're done talking, so I'll drop you off at home."

"Thank you."

We drove, and before long we arrived near Owl No. 5's hideout.

I was about to get out of the car when something suddenly occurred to me.

"Oh, right. Hold on."

"Why, something wrong?"

"Isn't there something you're supposed to give me?"

"Ah."

As if just remembering, Crane No. 12 nodded too.

When I shut the door again, he drove a little deeper, burrowing into a secluded corner of a back alley.

"Get out with me. The trunk has its own lock."

Crane No. 12 stepped out and opened the trunk, revealing a suitcase wedged into the far corner.

He slowly began undoing the two or three heavy-duty locks fastened onto it.

Pop.

"Oh."

When the case opened, the first things to show themselves were three or four pistols.

Beneath them, boxes of ammunition stacked thick.

"That's a whole lot of stuff."

"Just say the word. Need a pistol, by any chance? Colt, Beretta, Glock, Smith & Wesson."

"Glocks suit me. Got a Glock 19?"

I'd salvaged a Colt pistol while ransacking the Rabbit Hole last time, but at the end of the day, a chunky Glock fit my hand just right.

At that, Crane No. 12 rummaged through a corner of the suitcase and pulled out a Glock 19.

It had the glossy sheen unique to a well-maintained firearm.

"A masterpiece. You and I have pretty similar taste."

"Do you use a Glock too, sir?"

"Yep. Glock 17 for me. That heft is just right."

"Ahh. Glock Comrade."

Beyond that, the goods came in every variety.

To hide the fact that they'd come over from South Korea, most of the items were standard-issue US military equipment.

Grenades, combat knives, pistols, and so on.

And last of all.

"Honestly, this thing had me scared half to death."

"Ahaha. You don't look scared at all, though?"

"No, really."

Buried beneath all that gear lay a single box, blunt as a brick.

The M18A1 Claymore I'd been waiting and waiting for.

"There's only one?"

"Hey.... even one was damn hard to get."

"Guess I'll have to use it sparingly...."

"...."

Crane No. 12 stared at me with a sour look.

At the sight of my sulky, doleful eyes, his expression soured even further.

"What the hell are you planning to use this on?"

"It'll all come in handy somewhere."

"...."

"Honestly, I just want to stockpile it for emergencies."

I'd heard the rumors, but seeing him in the flesh, he really is a full-blown crazy bastard.

That inner thought was written all over his face.

"You're not planning to use this on this operation, are you?"

"Come on. Of course not."

"...."

"Really."

Be that as it may, I lovingly lifted the Claymore box and transferred it into the shopping bag beside me.

"I can take a few grenades too, right?"

"...."

"Thank you."

Watching my shopping bag grow heavier and heavier, Crane No. 12's expression twisted into a tangled mess.

Be that as it may, I decided to get a little more shameless.

Rustle, rustle.

"...Anyway, see you again soon."

"Yes. Get home safe."

His car considerably lighter, Crane No. 12 hurried out of the alley.

After seeing the car off into the distance, I went straight up to the hideout and carefully moved the shopping bag's contents under the desk.

That poor thing, which must have sat packed in the same box, in the same sorry state, for years on end since the day it was made.

'Thank you for rescuing me from that dark, dark place, Hae-chan.'

It spoke to me.

"Don't mention it."

I could hear its voice.

The hundreds of steel balls packed tight inside it clamored to please, please be set off.

"No, thank you."

Someday, the day would come when I'd grant its wish.

*****

Frontier backwater or not, Dandong was still China.

The urban population alone, excluding the rural districts, came to nine hundred thousand, and there was no way to just up and find Yu Jong-pil here without a single lead.

Pounding the pavement to hunt for one man would be nothing but a pointless waste of manpower.

Ring, ring, ring.

Click.

-Who is this?

So, out of the defection brokers I'd exchanged business cards with before, I called the man who'd been especially chummy with me.

"Hello, sunbae-nim. Do you remember me?"

-...Sunbae? You mean me? And who might this be, calling out of the blue?

"A few days ago, after the deal wrapped up at Dandong Station, we greeted each other and exchanged business cards. You don't remember?"

-...Ah, ah! The one from Russia!

"Yes. That's me."

-Well, this is a pleasure. So, to what do I owe the call?

The stiff edge in his voice finally softened into something friendlier.

I cleared my throat once.

"Thank you for such a warm welcome, sunbae-nim. The thing is, I called because there's something I'd like to ask you."

-No need for thanks. Go on, ask away.

"I was wondering, sunbae-nim, if you might happen to know where a broker named Yu Jong-pil is these days."

And in that instant.

-...Hm? Why are you suddenly looking for Yu Jong-pil?

A sharp wariness bristled in his voice once more.

However trashy a colleague might be, the moment someone went around digging into his business, they would instinctively close ranks and defend him.

Recalling Crane No. 12's warnings about how closed-off broker society was, I shamelessly got ready to lie through my teeth.

"Honestly, I'd like to offer him a proper apology in person for what happened at the storage yard that day."

-An apology? For what?

"Though if I may air one grievance of my own in return, that day Yu Jong-pil drove the price of the defectors I was trying to buy up a full five times over, didn't he?"

-That's.... yes, so he did.

"So that day I saw red before I knew it and flipped the whole table in a fit of temper.... but when I got back and thought it over, it seemed I'd been terribly out of line, humiliating that sunbae-nim like that."

-Hmm.

A strange groan came over the line.

It was the sigh of a man who'd found it satisfying enough at the time, but who, thinking it over now, had to admit I had gone a bit far.

Without missing a beat, I landed the finishing blow.

My ultimate technique, the preemptive sob story.

"On top of that, because of me he even took a rifle butt to the solar plexus from that North Korean army squad leader.... Even now I feel so uneasy and so sorry about it, truly.... Every time it comes to mind, I can't get a bite of food down my throat. Ah, dear me."

-Hmmmm....

I murmured it all in my most doleful voice.

Had my heartfelt remorse carried through the phone?

The broker held his silence a moment, then clicked his tongue, tsk tsk.

-Well, well.... To think a junior with a heart this rare had come into this business, where blood runs cold and tears run dry.

There. Hooked.

-I felt as much back then, but you truly are a man of proper character. Very well. As it happens, I've caught a passing word of that fellow's whereabouts.

The corners of my mouth curled all the way up to my ears.

Sure enough, my acting chops hadn't gone anywhere.

*****

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