Chapter 90: The Naples Mafia

TL: LittlePeach

The Diplomatic Mission Intelligence Bureau's European Mission Management Group, 3rd Team. Otherwise known as Taebaek Team.

Their primary mission was to keep the North Korean embassy in the United Kingdom under close surveillance and management.

With Minister Ri Jong-il, their key surveillance target, currently in Italy under the pretext of a vacation, the team's strength was split in two.

Two stayed behind in Britain to maintain the existing surveillance net, while the other five had flown all the way to Naples, Italy, to stay hard on Ri Jong-il's tail.

"That dispatched agent from HQ, he's been trying to reach us over and over. Should we just keep ignoring him?"

A man lifted the edge of the blackout curtain, and a thin blade of light slipped in beneath the window.

Dust drifted and shimmered in the air before his eyes.

The place was the roastery storeroom of a café overlooking downtown Naples.

A temporary hideout for Taebaek Team, arranged with the help of a local asset.

"Ignore him. Calls, texts, whatever comes in, don't even look at it."

Taebaek No. 1 snorted as he answered.

At that, Taebaek No. 2 added a grumble of his own.

"We've been up day and night for days trying to get our hands on that one bag, and now we're supposed to stand back and let a dispatched agent help himself to the credit? Not a chance in hell."

"Exactly. Doesn't know a damn thing about conditions on the ground, but he'll swagger around because he came from HQ.... All he'll do once he's here is run his mouth, stick his nose in, and get in the way."

Taebaek Team had one objective and one only, to seize the briefcase Minister Ri Jong-il had carried so preciously out of Türkiye.

And now HQ was shoving a dispatched agent into an operational plan they had built to perfection among themselves, without a single word of consultation?

An incompetent ally was more frightening than a capable enemy, as the saying went, so from the field agents' perspective this was the worst-case scenario, bar none.

"I swear, sir, not once has an HQ agent been dispatched to the field and had it turn out well. Not one single time."

"Right?"

Share intel with him and the whole board would get tangled up, that much was a given, and in the very worst case the operation itself could collapse.

Which was why they had agreed among themselves to cut off contact completely.

"All right. That's enough chatter. Everyone back to your positions."

Taebaek No. 1 rose from his seat and clapped his hands.

Their plan went like this.

They would move in two-man teams, each with its own vehicle, and stand by near the resort where Ri Jong-il was staying.

The moment Ri Jong-il's car pulled out, one team would block the front and the other the rear, pinning it so it couldn't move an inch.

They would immediately gun down the bodyguards piling out of the car, then seize the bag and clear the scene at once.

The risk was high, but there was no surer plan available.

"Kid, you understand you've got the most important job here, right? Keep your eyes wide open and watch properly. Got it?"

"Y-yes, sir."

As the agents bustled about checking their pistols and radios, Taebaek No. 7, watching his seniors from a corner of the hideout, nodded hesitantly.

Moments later the agents slipped out of the hideout, quick and without a sound.

Clack. Once the door shut, only the drone of the roasting machine was left humming.

"Tch."

Left alone, the youngest agent, Taebaek No. 7, was gathering up the remaining gear when it happened.

Ding.

A notification went off on the phone sitting abandoned in one corner of the desk.

-Any idea when you'll be arriving?

He stole a look. It was a text from the agent dispatched by HQ.

Taebaek No. 7 clicked his tongue, his conscience twinging.

His seniors all called the man a parachute appointment, someone who'd shown up just to help himself to a meal others had cooked. But an entirely different thought kept circling in the kid's head.

"Still, he's one of us.... Freezing him out this openly is a bit much, isn't it?"

He suddenly remembered his own first posting to Europe, and the giddy excitement with which he'd first set foot in Britain.

Back then his own gruff seniors hadn't given him proper locations either, and he'd ended up wandering the streets sniffling.

Maybe that was why.

He kept picturing the poor HQ agent out there under the blazing sun of a foreign country, sweating buckets, waiting for a call that would never come.

'I mean, come on.... It's not like I'd be handing over classified material. Just quietly telling him what our mission is.... What's the worst that could happen?'

Taebaek No. 7 quickly tucked the phone into his pocket.

He'd move out to the site first, then watch for an opening and contact the man behind his seniors' backs.

'What kind of person is he? If HQ went to the trouble of sending him.... he must be a veteran with at least a few decades under his belt, right?'

With a private flutter of anticipation, he headed out to the site.

*****

Naples.

Italy's third city, after Rome and Milan.

Thanks to the warm Mediterranean climate, a mild air hung over every corner of the city, and the faces of the people walking the streets brimmed with unhurried ease.

Everywhere the eye landed drew involuntary admiration, exactly as one would expect of a world-class tourist destination.

Slurrrrp.

"Yeah, Southeast Asia does mango juice way better."

What can I say?

Having arrived in Naples, I was, naturally, in sunglasses, sucking down a lukewarm mango juice and enjoying a leisurely holiday.

It would be no exaggeration to say I was finally, properly savoring the vacation I'd never gotten to enjoy in Southeast Asia.

Wrapped now in the cover of a tourist living the good life on holiday.

Slurrrp.

"Mmm. Sweet."

I'd been through something similar in Cambodia, but honestly, I had nothing to complain about.

I'd been dispatched here to help the field agents in the first place, and if they wanted to play territorial games, they were the ones shooting themselves in the foot.

If the operation went sideways down the line, the responsibility for never having shared the operational outline with me would land squarely on the field agents.

So until they reached out to me first, all I had to do was roam this beautiful city and enjoy my long-overdue vacation to the fullest.

Slurrrrp.

"La-di-da."

Europe, the place other people write down on a bucket list and only dream about.

And these were days off in Naples, Italy, the finest resort city of them all.

There was one fantasy of my own I'd always wanted to fulfill if I ever made it to Italy.

"Good morning. I'm Sunny Kick, I booked over the phone."

"Ah, good morning to you. Could I see some identification?"

"Sure, here."

"Mamma mia! You're Korean? Your Italian is so fluent I was certain you were one of us!"

"Ha ha. Thank you, that's kind of you."

What was set down in front of me was the famous Vespa 125.

What can I say?

Roman Holiday, one of the great films of my life.

The very scooter Audrey Hepburn rode in it.

Riding this thing in loops around Naples had been the single greatest purpose of this trip.

Vroooooom.

"Ahhh."

Italy means Vespa; Vespa means Italy.

Wherever I rode the scooter, the sea was in view.

The shoreline glittering under the dazzling sun was a treat for the eyes, every single time.

Antique villas, built up piece by piece since the fifteenth century, lined the coast in a view that looked like a scene straight out of a film.

'How did I live all this time without knowing this feeling?'

Back when I was knocking around as a mercenary with the Cherny Group, the other mercenaries would come back from their European holidays and proudly unload their travel stories.

At the time it never once occurred to me to go off and enjoy myself, but here I was, come full circle to Europe at last.

"Wow."

Through the salty sea wind on my face, I caught sight of a coastal route curving along a sheer cliff.

I eased the throttle open and headed that way.

Beyond the long, twisting cliffside, the deep blue sea and the yachts spread out below.

"Ah, this is the life."

Under the blazing sun, I cruised leisurely up the cliff road for a good long while.

And just as it felt like the road might go on forever and carry me right up into the sky.

Craaash!

"Hunh?"

A sudden weightlessness wrapped around my whole body, and my eyes flew wide open on their own.

For an instant an enormous impact came crashing in from behind, and then my body was flying through open air.

And then, crunch-bang-clatter!

"Hnnnghhk!"

Roll, roll, roll, roll....

For some reason my body was tumbling end over end across the asphalt.

I rolled and rolled, loud and long, until I fetched up at the very edge of the cliff.

All I could do was lie there blinking blankly.

"Aaaaargh! My car!"

"...What?"

Still sprawled flat, I lifted my eyes to see a bright red convertible stopped a good distance up the road ahead.

Beneath the sleek body, one side of the bumper was crumpled in.

"Dammit. I just bought this thing!"

And that wasn't the whole of the problem.

Right beside that car's front bumper.

"Ah."

My adorable little Vespa, which up until five seconds ago had been nothing but charming, was rammed into the cliffside guardrail, mangled into a wreck.

Steam curled up off the fuel tank, and beneath it the leaking gasoline spread across the ground like blood.

While I lay there dumbfounded with my mouth hanging open, the man in the driver's seat shot me a glare.

"Tsk. Today's cursed from start to finish!"

"...."

"Hawk. Ptooey."

The instant I started to push myself up under that stare, the man clicked his tongue and spat out a gob of phlegm.

And then, vrooooom!

"Hold on...."

Without the slightest intention of getting out of the car, he stamped straight down on the accelerator.

Exhaust roaring, the convertible tore off along the cliff road and vanished from sight in a heartbeat.

"What the hell was...."

And now it was just me and my wrecked scooter, alone on the road.

Hisssssss.

Pale smoke began seeping out of the crushed engine.

It was so absurd I couldn't even manage a bitter laugh.

"The fuck?"

I'm not the type who curses much, but it came out all by itself.

That's right. I had just been the victim of a hit-and-run.

*****

I'd had the scooter for barely ten minutes.

It was an absurd turn of events from where I stood, so how much worse must it have been for the rental shop owner?

The instant he got the call about the accident, he came tearing over in his truck.

"Mamma mia!"

Only ten minutes earlier, he had waved off the Asian tourist renting his scooter with a warm smile.

And now the precious instrument of his livelihood, sent off so warmly, had come back looking like a crumpled-up receipt!

The face of the friendly Neapolitan twisted into something vicious in a single instant.

"Mamma, ma, mamma mia.... Dio mio, santa Maria! What in God's name have you done to my beautiful Vespa! Ten minutes! In ten lousy minutes, what did you do to my baby.... Ma che cazzo hai fatto! You've turned her into a squashed tuna can!"

"...."

"Oh, Lord.... Oh, Madonna! This lunatic tourist has destroyed my livelihood! Porca miseria, damn it all! That's it, polizia, the police! I'm calling the police right this minute!"

Standing over the crumpled scooter, the rental shop owner unleashed a burst of pure Italian machine-gun rap.

Even I, reasonably comfortable in Italian thanks to my years on multinational mercenary teams, couldn't catch every breathless syllable; the gist of it came somewhere close to a scream of anguish.

In the end, as always, there was exactly one way to settle any problem cleanly.

Rustle, rustle.

"I'll reimburse you in full, enough for a brand-new one."

"...."

I held out the wad of euros I'd withdrawn ahead of time.

The last thing I wanted was for this to blow up into a police matter.

The moment the owner confirmed the thickness of the stack, his bull-like expression went instantly serene.

Money, as ever, was always right.

"...All right. I'll take you as far as the city."

"Let me help you load it up."

"Thank you, signore. I'm sorry for shouting at you before."

"Don't be. Heave-ho."

Anyway.

Warm-faced once more, the rental shop owner loaded the ruined scooter onto his truck.

Because I'd helped him out with it, I got a ride back into the city in his truck.

Now that the problem was settled, maybe he finally had room to spare a thought for my situation.

"But what on earth happened? Short of going off a cliff, there's no way my Vespa ends up that badly wrecked."

At the owner's question, I shook my head bitterly.

"Some lunatic rear-ended me back there. That's how the scooter ended up like that."

"Mamma mia.... Then it's sheer heaven's luck you're alive. Holy Madonna!"

"Tell me about it. The one who hit me was driving a red Porsche convertible. Any idea who that might be, around here?"

"Hmm. I couldn't say. Sports cars are a very common sight in this town."

"I see...."

Naples was, as he said, reckoned Italy's third city.

Vrooooom.

"See there? Look how many sports cars go tearing around Naples."

"...."

Right on cue, a sports car shot past our truck in the next lane over.

And red, of all colors.

Just looking at it made my blood boil.

Grrrrrowl.

"And the people who drive cars like that around here are mostly dangerous people, so you have to be careful."

"You mean the Mafia?"

"Mamma mia. Exactly. A tourist like you should never get tangled up with them."

"Hmm."

"Above all, stay out of northern Naples if you can help it. That place is an outright Mafia den."

I called up the image of the hit-and-run driver who'd run me down and fled.

The bastard who clicked his tongue, spat out a gob of phlegm, and vanished without a second thought.

One look at that face and it was obvious the man was Italian Mafia.

So much for a Roman holiday. My brief escape had ended as a Neapolitan tragedy.

'Whoever you are, you're dead.'

Which meant that, as of this moment, mission or no mission, I had just acquired a target.

*****

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