Chapter 77: Native Species and Invasive Species

TL: LittlePeach

Ever since arriving in Sihanoukville, I'd gone out of my way to avoid contacting the Cambodia dispatch squad.

Owl No. 11 and the two men under him were already handling the dispatch squad just fine. My barging in would only muddle the chain of command, and there was a good chance the agents would lose their focus watching for my reactions.

So I never asked, never pried into where in Sihanoukville they were staying or how they were running their operations.

'They were right around the corner, though.'

Right under my nose the whole time.

The guesthouse where Sparrow No. 10 had been staying was two corners away from the resort I was checked into.

We met at a quiet local restaurant nearby.

Inside a place with no menu worth the name, not a customer in sight.

Owl No. 11 and Crane No. 22 had already claimed a corner table.

"Welcome, team leader. I've ordered a few simple things."

"Yes. Thank you."

The mood was grim enough to put a funeral parlor to shame.

I sat down without a word and pulled at the mango juice I hadn't finished.

Slurrrrrp.

"For now, I intend to scrape up witness information along Sparrow No. 10's last known movements. Crane No. 22 will search for the blonde woman who picked him up last night."

Owl No. 11 began the briefing in a bone-dry voice.

When it came to recovering an abduction victim, the golden window was generally within twenty-four hours, and the single most important thing was moving as fast as possible on the initial response.

Past that mark, the probability of never finding the victim climbed to sixty-eight percent.

If it came to that, Sparrow No. 10's status would shift from simply out of contact to missing.

"I don't think either of you needs to bother with that."

"Sir? What do you...."

"I've got a pretty good idea where Agent Sparrow was taken."

"...I'm sorry?"

Fortunately, I had hands-on field data I'd assembled personally just the night before.

Even if it wasn't the same Korean-Chinese trio who had grabbed me, the odds were high that he was locked up inside the same wenchi compound.

"I got picked up by the same woman yesterday and abducted by a crew of Korean-Chinese myself."

"...."

I laid out everything I'd been through the previous day, briefly and in order.

Starting with getting picked up on the beach by the blonde beauty, then letting myself be taken and hauled into the wenchi, running into an Australian Secret Intelligence Service agent there by chance, and finally rearranging the kidnappers' jaws and strolling out at my leisure.

The further the explanation went, the wider the two stunned agents' mouths fell open.

"So there's a good chance Agent Sparrow is locked up inside that same wenchi right now."

"...."

"Which is why I'm going back to that wenchi to turn the place inside out."

"Won't that, ah, be dangerous, sir?"

Snapping back to himself at my words, Crane No. 22 wet his lips with his tongue.

If a single massive organization had the entire wenchi in its grip, sure, it would be.

"I don't think it'll be particularly dangerous. From my look around yesterday, they're all too busy watching each other."

But what was gathered in there were cell networks that each did their own thing, so even if I went stirring up one of them, the odds of anybody else sticking their nose in were low.

Everyone else's business is nobody else's, in other words.

Anyway, that simplified the situation.

"On the off chance Agent Sparrow's already been sold off somewhere, the odds are it's to the Mango Farm we've been chasing. It's the closest place to offload someone fast."

"Hmmm."

"If that's the case, I'll contact the Australian Secret Intelligence Service agent I met yesterday and get some intel handed over."

"You mean to coordinate with them, sir?"

"Yes. We'll be targeting the same farm either way, so as long as it's come to this, coordinating is better. We need to avoid the unfortunate business of shooting at each other along overlapping routes."

"Absolutely right, sir."

So the wenchi came first.

Having heard my whole story, Owl No. 11 rubbed his face with both hands and muttered.

Relief was thick in his voice.

"I truly.... I can't tell you what a relief it is that you were here in Sihanoukville with us, team leader.... Otherwise we'd have been scrambling around this one neighborhood and lost that kid for good."

"Ahaha. The luck lined up in a lot of ways."

If I hadn't been abducted in person the day before, I'd probably have been scrambling right alongside them.

Slurrrrrp.

As I drained the last of the mango juice with a much lighter heart, the food arrived from the kitchen.

"Let's eat first and head straight out after."

"Mm. Understood."

With a weight off their shoulders, the two agents picked up their spoons across from each other.

Their guts, cramped tight with tension, must have loosened, and the hunger must have hit them all at once.

While the two of them emptied their bowls at a frantic pace, the color finally came back into their pale faces, something recognizable as human skin again.

Koreans really do run on rice.

"Agent Sparrow might have infiltrated the wenchi on purpose, same as me. He's sharp, quick on his feet, isn't he?"

The thought struck me, so I slipped in a word to salvage Sparrow No. 10's dignity.

At that, Owl No. 11 snorted as if to ask what on earth I was talking about.

"No, sir. You should have heard that kid's voice on the phone with us yesterday. Grinning like an idiot, running his mouth about how he'd gotten picked up, like it was something to brag about."

"Unlike you, team leader, that one absolutely fell for the woman hook, line, and sinker and got himself taken."

"Ahaha...."

Faced with the two agents shaking their heads in flat conviction, all I could do was scratch my jaw awkwardly.

Sparrow No. 10 clearly had a long way to go before he shed the Sparrow off him.

*****

After the meal, the first thing I did was buy a sharply cut suit from a tailor's shop in a nearby mall.

Inside a wenchi full of half-naked men, a neat suit is actually what works best for putting the fear into them.

'I've used the name Zhang Chen too much. Time to switch it up.'

What mattered from here was the concept.

Immersion in a character comes down to a clean core and a story.

Something like this.

'I'm Nguyen Kodam. A Vietnamese mixed-blood hitman who draws his gun first when things don't go his way.'

Concept locked in, I headed for the wenchi.

"...."

"...."

I seemed to have nailed the concept spectacularly.

Because as I strode along, every wenchi gang member I passed flinched and hurried to clear a path.

Only natural, really. A man in a suit suddenly walking through the middle of a crime district where going around half-naked was basic etiquette.

I felt like the two-eyed man in the village of the one-eyed.

"Let's see now...."

I walked up to Room 107, where I'd been held the day before.

I pounded conspicuously on the steel door that was obviously empty.

"...."

Bang bang.

Bang bang.

As I stood there hammering away at an empty room, the racket drew a steady gathering of obvious stares.

A few guys loitering in the corridor started stealing glances at me.

People who took an interest in other people's business, like them, were exactly the targets I wanted.

"Hey."

"Y-yes?"

I called over one man who'd been hovering especially close to me.

Eyes gone round as a frog's.

"I'm not going to try anything. Come here."

"...."

Singled out with no warning, the guy shuffled up in front of me in a half crouch.

The other gang members scurried back into their own rooms like cavemen who'd just seen lightning.

"I'm here because I heard an acquaintance of mine was taken somewhere in this wenchi last night. Do you happen to know where in this building the men who snatch people and sell them run their business?"

At my question, the man worked his parched lips.

He rolled his eyes, hesitating over his answer.

"I, I really wouldn't know."

"No? How about now?"

I pulled a rolled-up wad of dollars out of my pocket and waved it.

Gulp.

His eyes locked onto the stack of bills in my hand.

"Just the room numbers. Then the money's yours."

In a neighborhood where money was worth more than a human life, a roll of dollars that thick amounted to a categorical imperative.

The man snatched the money and shoved it into his pocket, fast, as though terrified someone might see.

"Well, there's plenty of guys who kidnap people.... but only three places are actually running these days. Room 101 at the end of the first floor, Room 107, the one you're knocking on, and Room 212 at the end of the second floor.... That's all of them."

For all their pretending not to care, they clearly knew everything about each other that they needed to.

As though sealing his guarantee, I opened my jacket and let him catch a glimpse of the pistol riding in the holster inside.

His Adam's apple heaved.

"This is solid information, I trust?"

"O-of course!"

I dismissed him with a jerk of my chin, and the man broke into a run, scrambling away as fast as his legs would take him.

I went straight down the dark corridor to the far end of the first floor.

[101]

Bang bang.

When I knocked, a tired voice came from inside.

"Nnngh. What. Who is it?"

Bang bang.

I said nothing and knocked several more times.

A surly shout came pouring out.

"I said, who is it!"

Bang bang.

Before long a swarthy-faced man yanked the door open and stepped out.

The instant he saw me in a suit his face twisted, and he pulled the revolver from his waistband and gripped it.

"The hell. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm looking for someone. I heard an acquaintance of mine was abducted by somebody in this wenchi, so I'm going door to door."

"...."

"I heard you make your living kidnapping people and selling them, so I came to you. If you're holding my acquaintance, I'll pay a fair price, and I'd like him back."

"What fucking bastard dared.... Who told you that?"

"That's not your concern. And I don't intend to make a scene."

"...."

The man narrowed his eyes at that.

Keeping the revolver's muzzle pointed at the floor, he rolled his eyes, pretending to think it over.

"We did grab two tourists yesterday."

"Did you? Any chance you could show me their faces?"

"Sold them off before dawn, long gone. Decent slaves are hard to come by these days, so there's no shortage of guys who'll pay a premium the second merchandise comes in."

It didn't matter that they'd already been sold.

If I knew where they'd gone, I could simply go there myself.

"Would the buyer happen to be the Mango Farm?"

"Who knows.... I'd have to check the ledger, wouldn't I? We've got a number of clients."

Even if the Mango Farm was the main client, as he said, there might well be others.

While I sorted my thoughts behind a blank face, the man smirked and started putting on airs.

"But honestly, hmm.... that's pretty heavy information to just hand over so casually. We're talking about a client we've been supplying for a long time."

"How much do I pay for the price of betraying that trust?"

"You'd have to take care of me with ten thousand dollars, minimum."

Ten thousand dollars was roughly ten million won.

In Cambodia, enough to buy a Scud missile. No.

Enough to buy five whole cheap secondhand cars.

As the going rate for information on where they'd sold an abductee, it was an outrageous fleecing.

Apparently not listening to reason was the defining trait of this neighborhood.

"Wait here a moment."

"Mm-hm."

I rummaged inside my jacket.

The man's eyes glittered with greed, convinced I was about to produce a wad of dollars.

But I'd never carried that kind of cash in the first place.

What I pulled out instead was a grenade.

"Ten thousand dollars is cheap for a life, wouldn't you say?"

"Huh?"

And then, right in front of his eyes, I made a show of plucking the pin out.

Clink, a chilling little sound of metal.

"Y-you crazy bastard!"

The man went ashen at the sight and reflexively tried to slam the steel door shut.

Wham!

But a fraction before it closed, I jammed my shoulder and foot into the gap.

Half my body, arm and grenade included, had shoved its way into the office.

"Nn, ngh!"

"Ow, ow. That hurts, that hurts."

"Ghh, nngh!"

"Whoa, whoa. Careful, now? If I drop this, it's your loss."

"F-f-fuck...."

However hard the man strained and crushed the door against me, I dangled the hand with the grenade in it without a care in the world.

The horror on his face was worth the price of admission.

"Why don't you open the door right now? I think the strength is starting to go out of my arm...."

"Nn, nnngh...."

"Huh? Uh-oh? Losing my grip here."

"Aaaaargh!"

The man gritted his teeth and leveled the revolver.

I'd assumed he didn't dare pull the trigger because of the grenade in my fist.

'His chamber's empty too.'

A quick glance confirmed this one had no rounds in his gun either.

Apparently carrying an empty revolver was basic etiquette in this neighborhood.

In a place where they all struck poses with empty guns, none of them could have imagined a lunatic barging in with a live grenade already pulled.

If a bullfrog comes crashing into a pond full of nothing but tree frogs, well, panic is a fair response.