Chapter 68: The Shanyuan Society and the Hongmen Society

TL: LittlePeach

With the information I'd dug up as our foundation, the real investigation got underway.

There wasn't much to it, honestly.

We headed to the address Yang Zhenghu had given me, and sure enough, that apartment complex was sitting there bold as day, a good distance off from the department store.

"You said you were only going in to make an appearance.... So how did you manage to pull this information out of them?"

"Ah, well, you know. Just got lucky."

Owl No. 11 asked the question carefully, but I just shrugged like it was nothing.

At that, someone beside me piped up loudly.

"Lucky, my foot! You sunbaes should have seen it with your own two eyes!"

I was the one it had actually happened to, and there I was sitting quietly, while Sparrow No. 10, of all people, was the one getting worked up and making a fuss.

He was practically glued to my side, hovering around and chattering away like, well, a sparrow.

"No, I mean it, when the team leader-nim sat right down among those absolutely terrifying-looking thugs without giving an inch, and just naturally started building connections, I swear I got goosebumps? And later on, when he calmly watched a Shanyuan Society executive and some gangster boss talking business right in front of his face, wow! Watching from the sidelines the whole time, I thought my heart was going to give out!"

"...."

"You really had to see it for yourself! I mean, get this, that guy Yang Zhenghu got so completely taken in by the team leader-nim's undercover skills that he didn't suspect a thing and blurted-out-himself-that-their-compound-was-right-across-from-the-Aeon-Mall-department-store, just spilled-everything...."

"Ah, ahhhh. Okay, okay. Let's finish that story later, later...."

Watching Sparrow No. 10 rattle it all off at machine-gun speed, spraying spit as he went, Owl No. 11 could only shake his head, dumbfounded.

Maybe he felt like his squad's youngest had been stolen from him, because the look he gave me turned just a touch sour.

Anyway.

After we all laughed it off awkwardly, I took a first look around at the surroundings.

"Let's head inside the department store for now and get a look at the situation from within?"

"Let's do that."

Apart from that apartment complex, there wasn't a single thing you could call a high-rise anywhere nearby.

The tallest building around, such as it was, was the one Aeon Mall department store.

"There it is."

"No different from looking at it from down below."

"Right?"

We went straight into the department store and looked out over the whole complex through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

But no matter how many circuits of the department store we made, we couldn't really see what was happening inside the complex.

"This.... is going to be tricky, isn't it?"

Owl No. 11 clicked his tongue, and he was right.

The layout of the apartment complex itself was seriously deformed.

At a glance it looked less like an apartment building and more like a prison.

The whole structure walled off each corner like a rectangular pillar, and an enormous wall topped with barbed wire sealed off the complex on all four sides, keeping access under strict control.

Short of infiltrating the interior directly, there was no way at all to confirm what was going on inside.

Crane No. 22 followed up with more explanation.

"I got in touch with the Southeast Asia Team a little while ago and ran the records all the way back. It's routed through about three shell companies, but the name that comes up as the current actual owner of that complex is Zhang Hai."

Zhang Hai.

That nailed it.

[Boss Zhang Hai]

The very name I'd exchanged a few brief words with over Le Wei's phone, right before I blew the Shanyuan Society hideout in Dandong sky-high.

"But, tsk. The Shanyuan Society, of all people.... This is the first I'm hearing that those bastards are running a separate operation in Cambodia."

Owl No. 11 muttered, cocking his head.

I felt the time had come to bring up the reason I'd been dispatched to Cambodia in the first place.

"Would it be all right if I ran a bit of a briefing on this?"

"Ah, yes."

Once I opened my mouth, all three agents turned their eyes and fixed their attention on me.

"To start, I heard the Shanyuan Society only relocated its base to Cambodia very recently."

"Ah, do you actually know about the Shanyuan Society too, team leader-nim? Those bastards are terrifying, they made their name over in Vietnam doing contract killings. I was just wondering whether I ought to explain, in case you didn't know."

"Of course I know. In fact, hunting these guys down is exactly why I came to Cambodia."

"What? Seriously?"

Only then did all three agents turn to me at once, eyes wide as saucers.

At their expressions, brimming with bewilderment, I added an explanation.

"Back when I was in Dandong, I got hold of intel that these guys were trying to abduct North Korean defectors and run them as voice phishing workers. They'd actually set up a hideout in Dandong and everything. That's when my rotten history with the Shanyuan Society began, you could say. I chased their trail so hard I ended up over here before I knew it."

"Ah! North Korean defectors, as the phone operators for a voice phishing racket?"

"Right."

The agents' faces all screwed up as they looked back at the apartment complex.

"So then.... there must be quite a lot of North Korean defectors locked up in there right now?"

"No. Nobody yet. The hideout they'd built in Dandong got blown up in one piece, so their plan to abduct the defectors fell through."

"For real? Why did it blow up?"

"I did drive a little recklessly."

"What?"

"I was kind of itching for some action."

"...."

"They may have changed their plans by now and started trying to secure Korean manpower instead, but as far as I know, that's how it went down."

Anyway.

The purpose of that apartment complex was obvious.

An impregnable fortress cut off entirely from the outside world, a prison that, once entered, no one ever came out of alive.

"One way or another, everyone's targets have all converged on one spot. The gangsters that Busan MIU is chasing will be steadily feeding voice phishing manpower in there, the Irobuchi-kai's drug plant will be running inside it too, and the Shanyuan Society bastards will all be in there as well."

"Hmm. You've got that right."

Things had gotten complicated.

Or should I say they'd gotten clearer?

In the end, smash that one apartment complex and the whole thing was solved.

"When are the MIU people supposed to arrive?"

"They'll probably screen their people and send an advance party of two or three the day after tomorrow. The contents of that business briefing you extracted this time, we'll pass along through the Southeast Asia Team."

"We don't need to meet them in person, right?"

"Of course not. For black agents like us, a face-to-face meeting is a catastrophe waiting to happen."

The MIU detectives who'd descend the day after tomorrow would clearly be left shaking their heads too the moment they laid eyes on that grim apartment complex.

It was an apartment complex planted right in the middle of the city, and it belonged to a Triad organization, so the local Cambodian police wouldn't exactly be cooperative about searching the interior either.

While I was staring intently at the apartment, Owl No. 11 and Crane No. 22 struck up a quiet conversation between themselves.

"Funny thing, though. The Irobuchi-kai always used the Hongmen Society for their security services, but this time they've gone and decided to join hands with the Shanyuan Society instead."

"Right? Looks like they switched over the moment that coconut warehouse blew up last time."

"That'd make sense."

The Hongmen Society?

The name rang a bell, and I found myself tilting my head without meaning to.

"The Hongmen Society?"

"Ah, they're another one of the Triad organizations, same as the Shanyuan Society, except they've been rooted in Cambodia from the start. Their roots run so deep that guarding any large-scale facility or drug plant is basically a Hongmen Society monopoly."

"Ohh...."

"Do you happen to not know much about the Hongmen Society, team leader-nim?"

"No. Could you explain a bit more?"

At my question, Owl No. 11 rubbed his chin and smacked his lips.

He shot one more glance at the Shanyuan Society apartment complex looming in the distance, then shook his head.

"There's nothing we can do right this minute even if we sit here camped out, so let's head out for now."

We left the department store, got in the car, and drove into the very heart of downtown Phnom Penh.

After rumbling along in our rental car, we eventually pulled up in front of some stylish high-rise.

Owl No. 11 gestured at the building with his chin.

"See that building?"

"Yeah."

"That whole building is the corporate headquarters the Hongmen Society set up."

"Oh."

A building a dozen or so stories tall, sitting in the middle of Phnom Penh, where high-rises were few and far between.

Flashy billboards were plastered all over it, a Southeast Asian answer to a Times Square building.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined the Hongmen Society was an aboveboard outfit, respectable enough to set up a headquarters this fine.

And no wonder.

'You son of a bitch! Are you a hitman for the Hongmen Society?!'

Because Le Wei, the one who'd fired an RPG rocket at me in the corridor of the Shanyuan Society hideout, had grilled me exactly like that, veins bulging, the second he saw me.

Naturally, I'd assumed they were a criminal organization rotten to the core, on equal footing with the Shanyuan Society.

"Those guys have been providing private security services to high-ranking Cambodian officials for ages. Thanks to that tight relationship, they're doing better than any other Triad organization that's set foot in Cambodia."

"Hmmm."

"They estimate there are roughly fifteen or so more drug plants inside Cambodia besides the Irobuchi-kai's, and most of those organizations are probably using the Hongmen Society's security services. If you want to run a drug operation in Cambodia, you basically have to go through the Hongmen Society, who've got the government's protection."

A place that plays the part of a respectable enterprise out in the open while monopolizing every kind of shady, foul-smelling business behind the scenes.

An organization with a completely different feel from the Shanyuan Society.

'If that's the case, this gets a little complicated.'

I stood there quietly organizing my thoughts as I looked at the building.

The Cambodia dispatch squad also started discussing how they were going to surveil the Shanyuan Society apartment going forward.

"But if that's how it is, then in the end there's nothing for it but to take turns like before and just keep watch on the cars going in and out of the complex.... no clever way around it, is there?"

After all their deliberating this way and that, the Cambodia dispatch squad reached a conclusion.

That there was no method other than taking turns like before and keeping watch on the vehicles going in and out of the complex.

"That's right. Doesn't look like we could sneak into the apartment either."

"There's only the one entrance, and the thickness of that steel gate is no joke."

Sneaking in was impossible, and even if we forced our way in, that was a problem too.

There was no way to tell what the internal armament level was like, since we couldn't see it with our own eyes, but given the Shanyuan Society's nature, crawling with killers, the odds were high we'd just get ourselves killed for nothing.

'Loading a few gas canisters onto a pickup truck won't cut it this time.'

I roughly finished my own calculations too.

Ramming a car in like last time, this go-around there was a good chance it'd end with nothing more than one busted steel gate.

With the resources we currently had in hand, it was a tough situation to easily flip the board.

And then, out of nowhere.

"Hmm?"

An outrageous idea suddenly popped into my head.

It felt like all the little scraps of information laid out in front of me were snapping together in my mind, all at once, into a single picture.

Here's the crux of it.

'The Shanyuan Society and the Hongmen Society.'

First, when Le Wei of the Shanyuan Society laid eyes on me for the first time in Dandong, he flew off the handle demanding to know if I was a Hongmen Society hitman.

That's proof of just how deep the rift of bad blood between the two organizations runs.

Second, most of the major criminal organizations in Cambodia are using the Hongmen Society's security services.

And in the middle of all that, a few days ago, the Irobuchi-kai, who lost their drug plant thanks to me, abruptly ditched the Hongmen Society and joined hands anew with the Shanyuan Society.

Third, from the perspective of the Hongmen Society, the old master of the house in Cambodia, they'd be feeling considerable resentment toward the Shanyuan Society for poaching their customer.

With all this ill will toward each other piled up layer upon layer.

What would happen if I tossed one tiny little spark into it?

In that instant, Boom!

The puzzle assembled in my head abruptly detonated and blew apart.

"...Team leader-nim. Do you happen to need a car?"

"What?"

At the question thrown at me out of the blue, I jerked my eyes wide, wondering if my inner thoughts had been read.

For some reason, the agents were all glancing at me with knowing looks.

"A car? Why?"

"No, it's just.... you're smiling right now."

"Ah."

The looks they were fixing on me were a fifty-fifty blend of anxiety and anticipation.

Is he going to pull something off again this time too?

That was the meaning behind those expressions.

Well now.

'I did come up with a real doozy.'

I rubbed at the corners of my mouth, which were twitching upward without my permission, to settle them down.

Then I put my manufactured smile back on.

"But you said this car's a rental."

"It's insured, though...."

"And shouldn't the two of you be setting off for Sihanoukville by now?"

"We could leave a few days later...."

"There's nothing you can do even if you stay here, is there?"

"...."

The agents turned glum and dejected.

"Off you go now, safe travels."

"Yeah, well...."

I get the feeling I've gone and taught them a bad habit somewhere along the way.

At this rate, I wonder if they're going to end up like me, driving around looking for something to ram a car into.

*****

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