Chapter 74: The First Day of a Lovely Vacation

TL: LittlePeach

It was the day after I'd finished my call with the analyst about the sun-dried chili powder.

Ding.

A message came through the NIS's secret website.

[Store the goods in locker A-11 at the Phnom Penh Olympic Stadium. Make an additional verbal report using the satellite phone left at the same location.]

The moment I got the message, I headed straight for the designated spot.

Before I could even shove the suitcase full of drugs inside, an old-fashioned analog phone was already occupying the locker.

"Let's see...."

Press.

After stuffing the suitcase in, I hit speed dial 1, and it connected directly to an unknown number.

A short dial tone, then, click.

─Codename?

The question was thrown at me without preamble.

The audio was garbled from being routed through several relay lines, but from the way the man spoke, it seemed to be Group Director Oh Dong-cheol.

"This is Sparrow No. 7."

─What was the name of the hotel where you personally abducted So Se-hyok, the SSD Investigation Bureau director?

"That would be... the Kowloon Hotel, right?"

─Right, you're Sparrow No. 7 all right. It's me, Oh Dong-cheol.

"Yes. I'd already more or less guessed from your voice."

The area around the stadium was deserted, not a soul wandering about.

I settled leisurely onto an abandoned bench that sat there empty.

─It's been barely ten days or so since you crossed over into Cambodia... and I genuinely can't work out how things rolled along to produce a result like this, so I thought I'd hear the story straight from your own mouth.

"Where should I start?"

─From the first day you arrived in Cambodia to this very moment. Every last detail, leave nothing out.

"This is going to be a pretty long story, you know."

─I've cleared at least an hour, so go ahead regardless.

"Hmm. Understood."

Since he'd rolled out the mat for me, it seemed I was expected to dance the sword dance.

I cast my mind back over the daily happenings of my past few days in Cambodia.

"First, for the three days right after I arrived in Cambodia, I spent my time adjusting to the local situation. Then on the fourth day, I made contact with the Cambodia dispatch squad. The agents were having a rough time with the Irobuchi-kai's Coconut Warehouse drug plant."

Setting aside, for the moment, how I'd shrugged off the dispatch squad agents' predictable territorial posturing the instant I arrived in Cambodia...

After that, ramming a used car straight into the Irobuchi-kai's Coconut Warehouse and smashing it to pieces; brazenly slipping into the Shanyuan Society's business briefing and eavesdropping on the details of their apartment complex; slamming a car into the Hongmen Society's headquarters to stir up bad blood with the Shanyuan Society and provoke an all-out war between the organizations.

And finally, while watching all that chaos unfold, plucking a suitcase stuffed full of drugs from an overturned sedan and carrying it off with me...

"And that's how everything wound up like this."

In the space of just a few days, I'd pulled off this whole string of exploits in Cambodia, and I summed them up cleanly and delivered the report.

Aside from trimming and tweaking a few minor details, I was more or less laying everything out transparently, hiding nothing.

─....

When I finished my report, the line went quiet for a while on the other end.

All I could hear was something like a huff of breath through the nose.

"Group Director? Hello?"

─....

"Tsss. Did the line drop?"

─...Ah, no. I'm still here.

"Oh. Glad to hear it. Anyway, that's the whole of my report."

─....

Even without seeing his face, I could roughly sense it.

Group Director Oh Dong-cheol was probably in the grip of a considerable degree of cognitive dissonance.

Partly to help sort out his confusion, I spoke up first.

"The mission you originally handed me was to keep the Shanyuan Society under surveillance, but honestly, I don't think there's any need for that anymore."

─R-right? They've taken damage so crippling they'll have a hard time ever bouncing back...

"So should I return to Korea now?"

─Hmm.

Group Director Oh Dong-cheol paused for a moment.

The silence dragged on again for a while, and just about when I was starting to suspect the call really had dropped this time...

─No. Nothing's been decided yet about your next mission, so for now, stand by on-site.

I'd figured as much.

Then again, all of these results had come about within ten days of my deployment, so headquarters probably hadn't had the chance to map out my next plan either.

Scratching the back of my head, I offered him a fallback.

"In that case, I'll stick close to the Cambodia dispatch squad for a while and help out with their operation."

─Do that. Until your next mission comes down, you're officially on vacation.

"Understood."

─And let me ask one thing of you. Honestly, every time news of you reaches me, my blood runs cold.

"Your blood runs cold?"

When I asked back, baffled, he let out a small, dry laugh.

─I'm well aware you deliver excellent results every time, but you always solve things in the most outlandish ways imaginable... and I worry that one of these days I'll lose a precious talent like you.

"Ahaha. Thank you for your concern."

─It's not just concern, I really mean it, my heart's been aching lately. I'm seriously debating whether I'll have to start living on cheongsimhwan. [TL Note: cheongsimhwan is a traditional Korean herbal pill taken to calm the nerves and steady the heart.]

A sigh was folded into the light rebuke.

He didn't seem to be joking; if anything, he meant it.

─In any case, do spare a thought for my heart.

"I'll keep that in mind."

─We'll be discussing your next mission before long, so keep this phone line open for the time being.

Click.

With Group Director Oh Dong-cheol's parting request, the call ended.

Slipping the phone into my pocket, I stepped out of the stadium.

I felt so refreshed that I honestly wondered whether I even needed a vacation.

"La-di-da."

Still, Sihanoukville, where I'd be heading soon, was supposedly Cambodia's finest resort town, so inwardly I was looking forward to it.

*****

Sihanoukville.

A seaside city home to Cambodia's only port, and a mecca for backpackers passed along by word of mouth.

At least, that's what the old travel guides used to say. Lately, the situation seemed to be rather different.

Vrrrrrmmm.

Clank, clank.

Screeeech, clank!

"Sure is loud."

Ever since China's Belt and Road Initiative got underway, Chinese capital had been pouring into Sihanoukville, and casinos and high-rise hotels were shooting up one after another, each racing to outdo the last.

Everywhere near the beachfront, giant tower cranes and half-finished construction sites caught the eye.

The Triad organizations were probably lending a hand in this too.

Even so, if only for the emerald sea spread wide before them, a fair number of tourists still came to Sihanoukville.

"One mango juice, please."

We'd more or less finished pinpointing the location of our next target, the drug plant commonly known as the Mango Farm.

Now we'd moved on to the stage of tracing the goods' final destination, confirming which truck the product left on, which container it was packed into, which ship it was loaded onto, and the like.

The Cambodia dispatch squad, each of them draped in a cover identity as a real-estate investor, a businessman, a clergyman, and the like, had scattered across Sihanoukville to go about collecting intel on them.

And now.

Slurrrrp.

"Mm. Sweet."

My own cover identity was that of a backpacker.

True to the part, diligent tourist that I was, I lay sprawled on a sun lounger at Otres Beach in Sihanoukville, busy slurping down a mango juice packed with finely crushed ice.

A hum slipped out of me all on its own, blending into the sound of the waves.

Slurp.

"Nice view."

Beyond the beach spread out before me, all sorts of tourists came and went.

Especially eye-catching were the women in their swaying bikinis.

I was leisurely taking in the sight through my sunglasses, when...

"Hmm?"

Sensing someone behind me, I turned my head.

A beauty with hair dyed a bright blonde was, for some reason, staring straight at me.

When our eyes met over my sunglasses, she flashed a bright smile and opened her mouth.

"Excuse me, oppa. Is that mango juice any good?"

It was in Korean.

The Asians vacationing around this beach were usually, for the most part, Chinese or overseas Chinese from Taiwan.

So I hadn't expected someone to abruptly strike up a conversation in Korean like this.

I gave a nonchalant nod.

"...Yeah. It's pretty good, sure."

"Really? Then I'll have to get one too."

At my answer, she headed off toward the stall, hips swaying.

Before long she came back with a mango juice in hand and broke into a wide grin.

"Wow! This is really good. Thanks for the tip."

"Don't mention it."

And then, ever so naturally, didn't she go and plop herself down on the sun lounger right up against mine?

If only because of her rather revealing bikini, I had no choice but to gaze off at the distant shore for a moment.

Indifferent to all that, the woman, working her straw between her lips, leaned in slightly and edged closer to me.

"Where are you from, oppa?"

"Me? Korea, obviously."

"Ahaha. Really? Actually, I'm from Korea too."

"So I gathered."

"Hehe. Just kidding. I'm studying abroad in Australia. I'm based in Melbourne, but I'm knocking around during a short break. Until a few days ago I was in Bali and Kuala Lumpur."

"Wow. You get around."

"And you, oppa?"

"Me, I run a business over in China, and since I had a bit of time off, I came out here."

"What kind of business?"

"Real-estate investment."

"Oh my!"

That kind of trivial small talk went on, one thread pulling along the next.

The woman was busy pouring out all manner of grievances at random, starting with a plug about how she was staying at a luxury resort on the outskirts of Sihanoukville, then a story about how one of the friends she'd come with had hit it off with a businessman from Australia and hauled every last bit of her luggage clean out to his hotel room.

And then, whoosh, didn't she heave a big, pointed sigh?

"So now I'm stuck all alone in this lovely room I paid good money to rent."

"Hmm. Is that so?"

When I answered indifferently, she shot me a sidelong glare.

Then, feigning familiarity for no real reason, she gave my shoulder a slap.

"Oh, come on, oppa. How can you be so oblivious? You're not supposed to say that at a moment like this."

"Then what was I supposed to say?"

"I'm working up a lot of courage here...."

At this point, even if I'd wanted to play dumb, there was no missing it.

Truth be told, the very nuance of her voice gave it away.

"Why don't the two of us hang out today, back in my resort room?"

She leaned in, showing off her body with pride.

So I made a show of mulling it over for no real reason, then nodded.

A Korean picks out a fellow Korean and makes an offer like this in Korean?

'She's a pro.'

Because in this line of work, there's no such thing as coincidence.

*****

Who's the most dangerous person to run into abroad?

Pickpockets, junkies, cabbies who specialize in ripping people off, crooked cops hungry for a bribe, and so on.

There are plenty of characters who make the list, but the seasoned travelers who've knocked around abroad a fair bit always say the same thing.

'Above all else, watch out for Koreans when you go abroad.'

Finding someone who speaks the same language in a strange foreign land?

That fact alone throws open the doors of the heart and slides back the bolt of one's guard.

And the ones who casually slip a blade into that easily opened crack of complacency are precisely the swindlers from back home.

"If you're out front by the Otres Café here at five in the afternoon, our resort's van will come to pick you up, oppa. I'll be waiting, okay?"

Recalling the woman's coaxing whisper, I stood planted in front of the beachside café.

Having deliberately posted myself right at the edge of the road, to make it easy for the soon-to-arrive vehicle to pick me up.

That was when it happened.

Screeeeeech!

Before long, a van with pitch-black tinted windows slid to a stop right in front of me.

Whump!

"Oh."

The instant the door swung open, a couple of hands shot out and yanked my body roughly.

I was sucked in as though being pulled into a vacuum cleaner.

Slam!

The door slammed shut hard, and the van tore off, wildly picking up speed once more.

At the same time, a lump of metal came right up to the tip of my nose.

"Shut your mouth and stay still."

"...."

Inside the van, the stale reek of cigarettes hung thick.

A man with his face hidden behind a mask jammed a pistol against my head, speaking in a Korean-Chinese accent.

A cheap revolver, churned out by God-knows-which factory.

Sneaking a glance, I saw the chambers didn't hold so much as a spent casing.

Bluffing with an empty gun, of all things.

'Amateurs.'

These guys didn't have even the basics of a kidnapping down.

*****

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

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