Chapter 53: Ocean Sigma

TL: LittlePeach

Yang Mi-ryeong.

Behind her handing Sparrow No. 7 the enormous sum of thirty million yuan lay no fewer than three calculations.

First, big money possessed a bewitching power all its own, paralyzing a person's reason and ensnaring their soul.

Most people's eyes rolled back in their heads at the sight of five billion won or so; there was simply no more effective way to beguile a person.

So what if Sparrow No. 7, blinded by that fortune, came grasping eagerly for her hand?

'Nothing easier than a man who can be bought.'

From then on, all she'd have to do was knead that greed just right and work him however deliciously she pleased.

And once he was confirmed as a man who could be bought, frankly, even NIS headquarters wouldn't think much of him.

So no one would say a word if she snatched him up for herself.

Which brought her to the second calculation. What if he was the kind of man who accepted a sum like that without batting an eye?

'If money can't shake him, throwing an even bigger pile at him won't change a thing.'

That wouldn't be a bad response either.

A man not easily swayed by the temptation of money would be a man who delivered, one way or another.

She fully intended to mark him down, then and there, as a future business partner.

'So which kind of man are you?'

And so, a few days ago, Yang Mi-ryeong had checked the balance on the account tied to the card she'd given Sparrow No. 7.

What must his face have looked like when he saw that balance?

How much money had he withdrawn and burned through?

She was a little giddy with that sort of curiosity.

[Balance: 29,676,200 CNY]

Money had gone out.

Roughly three hundred thousand yuan.

An ambiguous sum, big by one measure and small by another.

"...Well, well?"

But the truly stunning part was where the money had been withdrawn.

The records showed the withdrawal had been made in Dandong.

Not even that far, in fact, from the Kowloon Hotel where she was staying.

Enter the third calculation, the decisive reason she'd given him a card instead of cash.

It let her track exactly where he was every time he withdrew money.

"Ha. So he comes to Dandong... and doesn't call me even once, is that it?"

He was openly pulling out her money, and not a single word of contact?

He was strolling brazenly around Dandong, a city she plainly held in her grip, and hadn't so much as shown his face?

Yang Mi-ryeong let out a hollow laugh.

"You think I'll let you stand me up again?"

A strange stubbornness welling up in her, she immediately set to work behind the scenes.

Under the pretext of finding a lover who had now run off on her in the middle of the night for the third time, she mobilized the horrified members of the Kowloon Society and combed the streets of Dandong inch by inch.

And in the end, the net tightened.

Before long, she made her way in person to a bar reportedly frequented by a tall, strapping, good-looking man.

"This is the place?"

"Yes. This is it."

"Cleaner inside than I expected."

"They say the remodeling finished a few days ago. The place was recently hit with a fifty-thousand-yuan fine, but someone paid it off anonymously."

"Hmm. I think I have a rough picture of what happened here."

Taking the report as she stepped inside, Yang Mi-ryeong slowly surveyed the interior.

"...."

"...."

"...Gulp."

Three men sat there, stiff as boards and wound tight with tension.

Kowloon Society members had already fanned out around them, radiating menace.

The three sat lined up along one table; Yang Mi-ryeong planted herself directly across from them.

Then she pinned them in place with a jerk of her chin.

"You know who I am, don't you?"

"...."

"No answer. Am I sitting here alone?"

"K-Kowloon, the Kowloon Hotel's...."

"That's right. That's me. Good to hear you know."

"Gulp."

No one who'd run with the gangs in Dandong's back alleys could fail to know Yang Mi-ryeong's face if he tried.

At present, having handily won its war with the Chongqing Society, the Kowloon Society's standing in Dandong was absolute.

Leaving the three ashen-faced men to stew, Yang Mi-ryeong crossed her legs with bewitching poise.

"There's someone I'm looking for. Tall, well-built, handsome."

"...."

"And I hear he's been in and out of this place constantly of late."

Her unhurried voice drifted through the bar.

But the three men, as if by prior agreement, kept their eyes nailed to the floor, pouring cold sweat.

"Surely you're not going to say you don't know him? Everyone around here has already talked. They say the man runs around with you three like you're something special to him."

"...."

"Even the local kids lit up when I asked if they knew him. Champ Mister, they call him?"

She tapped the tabletop with a smooth finger.

Even that light sound made the men's shoulders flinch.

"I'm a very busy woman. If you have so much as a contact number, I'd like you to hand it over nicely."

In the suffocating silence, the three men cautiously read one another's faces.

How much longer did that heavy stillness drag on?

"...We can't tell you."

"Hm?"

At first Yang Mi-ryeong thought she'd misheard.

But when she saw the changed look on the face of the man sitting in the middle, she realized she hadn't.

"We could die and come back, and we still wouldn't say a word about our big brother."

"You insolent little shits, do you have any idea who you're talking to...."

At that, a bristling Kowloon Society enforcer clenched his teeth and started forward.

But.

"Enough."

Stopping him with a single gesture, Yang Mi-ryeong fixed the man with a level stare.

"You do fully understand who I am when you say that, yes?"

"...We do. Even if you are the owner of that fearsome Kowloon Hotel, our answer stays the same. Go ahead and kill us."

"My, my?"

"We've decided we'd gladly stake our lives for our big brother."

At that impossibly grim declaration, Yang Mi-ryeong couldn't hold it in and snorted with laughter.

Why did men insist on twisting something so simple into something so needlessly hard....

She lightly smoothed the hem of her dress.

"You shouldn't say 'kill us' so easily. Resolve that rolls off the tongue that lightly only makes you look cheap."

Shhk.

In that instant, a pistol was already in her hand.

With an elegant motion, Yang Mi-ryeong leveled the gun point-blank at the forehead of the man who'd been playing brave.

Facing the muzzle, the man's eyes jolted and trembled.

"Hk. Hrrk...."

"I'll give you one last chance. Where is he?"

But soon enough, as if his mind was made up, he squeezed his eyes shut.

The two men at his sides did the same.

"Hup!"

"Ngh...."

They even clasped one another's hands tight, as if the three of them were one body.

Watching their bloodless faces, Yang Mi-ryeong let out a laugh of pure disbelief.

This wasn't how she'd meant it to go.

'It seems the man has a decent eye for people, too.'

To make even worthless back-alley thugs like these step up and stake their lives.

At the unexpected sight, a covetous smile spread across Yang Mi-ryeong's face.

It made her want to make him hers all the more.

Just as the silence began to ache down to the bone, she lowered the gun.

"I like the spirit. I never intended to kill you in the first place."

"...."

"Open your eyes. The gun's down."

"Pwah!"

"Hah! Hrgh."

"Whew. Whoo."

Only then did the three men gasp out the breath they'd been holding, shaking all over.

Resolve or no resolve, the body reacts how it reacts.

Yang Mi-ryeong leaned in against the table.

"Relax, all of you. I won't ask again. But do you even know what he and I are to each other, digging your heels in like this?"

"Whew, whew...."

First she'd stormed into the shop and grilled them like she meant murder, then she'd pulled a gun out of nowhere.

And now she was smiling sweetly and playing the coquette.

The Black Panther Gang trio reeled, thoroughly whiplashed by her impossible-to-read moods.

"D-Do we really need to know what you two are to each other?"

"I take it he never mentioned me?"

Yang Mi-ryeong gave a little snort.

"That man is my lover."

"...."

A chilling silence.

Then the three men, aghast, turned to stare blankly at one another.

And shook their heads hard, as if they couldn't believe it.

"Y-Your lover.... Then why did you come hunting him down like you mean to kill him?"

"Because he's now stood me up three times and is on the run."

"...."

They shut their mouths, faces frozen in horror.

Forget standing up the Kowloon Society's Dandong branch chief three times; shouldn't a normal man have died at the second?

While they agonized over that private curiosity, Yang Mi-ryeong rose gracefully from her seat.

"Stake your lives or don't; catching him is only a matter of time. I'll be blanketing this neighborhood with my people from now on."

"Ah."

"Uh, uh...."

"Well then, take care. We'll be seeing each other again."

Yes, it would be soon enough.

As long as he stayed in Dandong, he was bound to roll right into her hands before long.

"Heh heh...."

She found herself looking forward to that moment.

*****

Scratch, scratch.

[Thank you for flying with us today. We have arrived at our destination. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the seatbelt sign has been turned off. When opening the overhead bins....]

Maybe it was hearing a Korean in-flight announcement for the first time in ages?

For whatever reason, my ears itched, and I dug at them the whole way here.

I had arrived at Incheon Airport.

I'd debated dropping in on the Black Panther trio one last time before leaving, but in the end I just left.

They'd been open all of two days; by now the place had to be dead quiet.

And what could I possibly say to console them, standing in an empty dining room without a single customer?

'It's not like I was ever going to live out my days in Dandong anyway.'

So I just left.

If I cut off all contact, the Black Panther trio would eventually stop worrying about me, and they'd forget all about Wang Chunsam's Eatery too.

'This is how a black agent does it.'

It was time we each went our own way.

I felt light, and a little lonely.

There was no unfinished business left for me in Dandong.

Anyway.

"Busy, busy."

Now that I was back in Korea, the rest of my unused paid leave was finally kicking in.

Headquarters hadn't told me to report to the building, either.

Until my next assignment came down, I was free to rest however I pleased.

"Let's see. The KTX to Busan...."

So I hopped straight on a train to Busan.

In Choryang, Dong-gu, Busan, there's a district they call Texas Town.

A place in much the same vein as a Chinatown, it was a street mostly frequented by the foreign sailors off the many ships passing through Busan Port.

"This the place?"

At the far edge of Texas Town, tucked deep down an alley, hid a money-changer.

Inside, a big, bald, fat Slavic man was smoking indoors without a shred of shame.

He gave me a once-over.

"What."

"Excuse me. Would you be Dmitry Suvorov?"

"Hm?"

He hadn't expected me to address him in fluent Russian; his eyes went wide.

He looked pleased enough to set down a cigarette that still had plenty left on it.

"Well, aren't you a surprise. What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for the fastest illegal sea passage to Vladivostok."

"Oho. You've come to the right place. But I don't know your face. Who sent you my way?"

"A friend of mine referred me. Fellow named Nikolai."

"Nikolai? Nikolai Smirnov?"

"No. Nikolai Nikolaev."

"Mm!"

Countless ships came and went through Busan, and plenty of them were bound for Vladivostok.

Used-car export carriers, king crab boats, timber bulkers, and more.

All kinds, and lots of them.

Which made an illegal sea passage from Korea to Russia relatively easy.

It's the other direction that's hard.

"That Nikolai? Then I take it you're ex-PMC too."

"Something like that."

"What, did you commit some crime on Korean soil?"

"Too many over the years to count."

"Heh heh. Really? You don't look the type."

"Anyway, find me the fastest one you've got."

"It won't come cheap."

"Dollars work for you?"

"Always welcome."

It's not as if Russia were somewhere I couldn't reach by plane.

But as a rule, a black agent like me can't leave the country except under orders or on an operation.

Illegal sea passage it was.

"I'll be a repeat customer, so give me a discount."

"I'll book you the fastest fishing boat there is. Fair warning, it'll reek of fish."

"If it's going to reek either way, I'd rather have a king crab boat."

"Heh heh. I'll tell them to at least throw some crab sticks in your ramen."

Every snot-nosed kid in the Republic of Korea knows an illegal sea passage is a crime, but black agents like us?

Aren't we the sort who wander in and out of legal and illegal as we please?

*****

Nearly two days later, I arrived in Vladivostok.

Another hour and a half by taxi from there lies a town called Bolshoi Kamen.

Home to Ocean Sigma, a frozen-seafood processing plant that cuts cod, pollock, king crab, and other frozen catch into pieces and exports them by the part.

When I was shown into the office, a Russian man sat there staring vacantly at a TV.

I called his name straight out.

"Nikolai."

"Huh?"

He must have already put away a few glasses of vodka; it took him a good long moment to come around and recognize me.

Then his face split into a grin, and he sprang up and grabbed my shoulders.

"Well, I'll be. Look who it is. Sunny Kick!"

"Been a while. You doing well?"

"You know me, always well. Man, it really has been forever. What brings you here?"

"You wouldn't happen to have a friend of mine here, would you?"

"Ah."

Nikolai grinned and led me off somewhere.

Between Russians, there was no need to hash out the details, which made things easy.

"I had a feeling that's what you were here for, actually."

The processing floor was frozen cold enough for a skin of ice to form.

Puffing white breath, we reached the far end of the plant.

As expected, Owl No. 5 was there.

"Hey, Comrade Worker!"

"Huh? Whuh?"

"Over here. Someone's come looking for you."

A hollow-eyed, sharp-featured man turned toward us, sniffling through a frozen nose.

The moment he spotted me, he reacted.

"Ngh... hwaaahh...."

I hadn't expected him to be quite this happy to see me.

At the sight of Owl No. 5's big, teary, wavering eyes, I found myself smiling.

'Is that why they call them Owls?'

Fittingly for the codename, his eyes were a matched pair of owls, big and round and brimming.

*****

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