Chapter 97: The Operation I Made Up in Five Seconds

TL: LittlePeach

Now that I'd finally accomplished the one and only goal I'd had in Italy from start to finish.

"Mmm. The sea smells nice."

After parking my car at the cliffside where I'd shoved the convertible over, I gazed down at the scenery below and finally savored a leisurely sense of freedom.

Though as I surrendered myself to the gentle sea breeze, one new problem did happen to surface in my mind.

'North Korean drugs, huh....'

After tailing the hit-and-run driver Franco and eavesdropping on a conversation I'd never expected to hear, roughly three facts had come to light.

Franco was the Narancia Family's drug boss, and the family was currently famous for supplying 100-percent-pure meth to the local Naples market.

The man supplying the Narancia Family with those drugs was, of all people, a secretary at the North Korean embassy in Italy.

And this secretary was planning to smuggle in a massive shipment of North Korean meth on his way back from Pyongyang next week.

Thanks to the restaurant being conveniently quiet, I'd even managed to record most of their conversation on my phone.

'But this feels way beyond anything I can control, doesn't it?'

While I was scratching my cheek, lost in thought, a nagging suspicion suddenly flashed through my mind.

'Just like the Taebaek Team agents kept Minister Ri Jong-il under twenty-four-hour surveillance, shouldn't the agents in Italy have been watching this whole scene?'

Before entering the restaurant, I'd made a full loop around the area, just in case.

Nowhere had I spotted anyone who looked like an NIS agent.

If by some chance they really had been observing the scene in perfect concealment, I'd honestly want to give them a round of applause.

But my instincts as a black agent were telling me otherwise.

If I had to lay out the possibilities, it came down to two conclusions.

Either the local surveillance apparatus in Italy had fallen apart for some reason.

Or the agents who were supposed to be watching the embassy in Italy were slacking off on the job.

'This one's outside my authority, too.'

Now that I'd reached a conclusion, there was no need to rack my brain any further.

I'd just file a report with headquarters at an appropriate level and be done with it.

Cleaning up the aftermath was for the higher-ups to stew over, wasn't it?

So there was no need to give myself a headache; I could simply kill time here in Naples until my next assignment came down.

'Forget all that. Let's just go get some pizza.'

Stretching wide, I settled on my next goal in Italy.

That was the moment my mouth started watering without me even realizing it.

Brrrring.

"Huh."

The satellite phone issued by headquarters rang shrilly.

An uneasy feeling washed over me before I knew it.

"...Don't tell me this is about my next assignment?"

But every single time, a bad feeling never fails to hit the mark.

I answered the phone wearily.

Click.

"Yes. Speaking."

-Team 5 Leader. Are you currently on standby in Italy?

"...."

A brisk, breezy tone.

It wasn't the voice I'd been expecting, Group Director Oh Dong-cheol's.

Since the caller had demanded my location out of nowhere, I kept my mouth shut, trying to gauge who I was dealing with.

-Ah. Right, of course. The call was sudden, so I suppose I caught you off guard. This is Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin.

"Hmm."

Only after hearing the name did I finally realize who I was talking to.

Yang Ui-jin, director of the Overseas Intelligence Bureau.

Within the NIS, in terms of rank alone, he was treated at the level of an Assistant Deputy Director.

Just as all roads lead to Rome, every matter in the overseas divisions ran through this man.

And a man like that was personally calling a mere agent like me?

I straightened my posture into something more respectful.

"That's correct. I'm still in Italy, sir."

-You must have been swamped, dispatched on such short notice, but I hear you joined the operation and completed the mission successfully? Excellent work, once again.

"Thank you, sir. But how much have you been told?"

-Hm? How much have I been told? What do you mean by that?

His puzzled reaction gave me one certainty.

The agents watching the diplomatic missions belonged to some other bureau director, not the Overseas Intelligence Bureau.

Which meant the news that Minister Ri Jong-il had decided to defect to South Korea hadn't yet reached the Overseas Intelligence Bureau director.

"No, sir. It's nothing."

-Hmm. Right. Well.

Until Minister Ri Jong-il touched down at Incheon Airport, I'd have to maintain a certain degree of comms security myself.

When I hedged vaguely, the other man didn't particularly take me to task for it.

-In any case. I did some checking of my own, and it seems you've knocked out one major case after another these past few days. Frankly, reading Group Director Oh Dong-cheol's reports on you, I couldn't hide my astonishment.

"You flatter me, sir."

-Now, a mission has come up that requires dispatching personnel most urgently. The situation is extremely delicate, and I judged there was no one better suited for it than you, which is why I'm contacting you personally. Just to be safe, let me tell you now to destroy your satellite phone on the spot the moment this call ends.

"Understood."

For him to hammer home comms security this firmly.

I couldn't help worrying just how big a headache this operation was going to be.

-Recently, the Special Operations Group's Southeast Asia Team acquired some special intel. You're well acquainted with the Irobuchi-kai, the drug organization spanning all of Southeast Asia. You've tangled with them a few times, after all.

"Yes. More or less."

-We've confirmed that they've recently set up their base of operations inside New Bilibid Prison in the Philippines.

"Ah. Mm."

Of course I knew that perfectly well.

That intel had originally come from me; I'd gotten it from Frank, the ASIS team leader.

-So the Southeast Asia Team succeeded in infiltrating agents into that prison. But immediately after insertion, two of the agents went completely dark.

Somehow, I could already guess what my mission was going to be.

Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin spoke in a gravely serious tone.

-Your mission is to safely extract the two Southeast Asia Team agents who infiltrated that prison.

"...."

Leaning against the car, I sank deep into thought for a while.

From the sound of it alone, it seemed like a considerably difficult mission, but honestly, my sense for mission difficulty had gone numb lately.

Did he take my silence for hesitation?

-There's one more thing I should add. Do you remember the Cambodia dispatch squad agents you worked with until a few days ago?

Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin brought out the rest of his main point.

I could roughly guess why he was bringing up the Cambodia dispatch squad at this exact moment.

"Yes. Of course."

-One of them will be temporarily assigned as a team member under your command. For this Philippines operation, you'll move as a two-man team. We judged that you'd built up solid teamwork with them during your time in Cambodia.

That was welcome news.

I nodded, making no particular effort to hide how I felt.

"That's right. We worked well together, sir."

-Good. As it happens, when we sounded out the Cambodia dispatch squad, not one of them showed the slightest sign of refusing. Seems you're rather well liked.

"Ahaha. Thank you, sir."

Well, how much had I slipped them in side-job allowances, after all?

Compared to their days of thankless grinding under the Southeast Asia Team without so much as a bonus, it must have felt like the heavens had split open.

"By when should I depart, sir?"

-'By when'? The lives of field agents are on the line. Commence the operation at once.

At his words to commence the operation, I suddenly remembered the problem that had been weighing on me until just moments ago.

Group Director Oh Dong-cheol might not manage it, but a man of Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin's stature could resolve this problem in my stead.

"The timing couldn't be better, sir. As it happens, there was an operation I'd been pursuing personally here in Italy, and it's just now wrapped up cleanly."

-An operation?

Apparently hearing this for the first time, Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin sounded puzzled.

Fair enough.

It was an operation I'd just made up in five seconds.

Stealing a glance down the cliff, I licked my lips, ready to spin my tale.

"Director, how well would you say you know the dangers of the Naples drug market?"

Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin let out a low chuckle, as if wondering what kind of odd question that was.

-Well enough, of course. At least that the mafia is quietly swallowing the city whole.

"Then this will be easy to explain. The truth is, since I was staying in Naples anyway, I'd been investigating the currents of the local drug market. I'd heard rumors that a drug organization here in Naples was dealing 100-percent-pure meth, and it raised my suspicions."

-Suspicions? Why?

"Director, do you happen to know which country is famous for producing the highest-purity meth in the world?"

-North Korea.

North Korea had one more breadwinner product that raked in profits every bit as handsome as the Scud missiles it sold off to the Middle East, and it was none other than meth.

With the state itself running the operation, PhD-level elite personnel churning out drugs on the latest equipment, the purity was on a different plane from the start compared to the crude product some criminal outfit cooked up from cold medicine.

"The mafia organization whose tail I picked up is called the Narancia Family. And just moments ago, I caught the Narancia Family's drug boss meeting with a North Korean embassy secretary in Italy, exchanging payment for the drugs."

-...What? Is that true?

"Yes. I recorded the entire clandestine meeting on my phone, including their plan to double the volume coming in next week via diplomatic pouch."

-Hah....

Since it wasn't recorded on professional equipment, the audio might be somewhat degraded, but after an expert's touch-up, it would probably be reborn as vivid as if it had been recorded right at their elbow.

Through the receiver, I could hear Bureau Director Yang Ui-jin's dumbfounded voice.

-Good grief, man.... How long have you even been in Italy, and already this....

"There was just one thing that concerned me, however."

-Concerned? Concerned how?

While I was at it, I laid out everything about the possibility that the agents assigned to watch the diplomatic mission in Italy were slacking off on the job.

A North Korean secretary had openly shared a meal with an Italian mafioso at a restaurant and traded a bag of cash, and there hadn't been so much as a whisker of a surveillance agent in sight.

-Hmm. Your concern is valid. It worries me as well. But that's not something I can handle at my level. We don't even know for certain whether they were actually slacking off. It will have to be reported to the Deputy Director with the Diplomatic Mission Intelligence Bureau director present.

And just like that, I'd learned the exact name of the department the Taebaek Team belonged to.

The Diplomatic Mission Intelligence Bureau.

Apparently they were the ones in charge of embassy surveillance.

Having finished his rapid calculations, he continued.

-For now.... even the diplomatic pouch isn't almighty. If Italian customs mobilizes the police to search the bag right after it crosses the border, he can be designated persona non grata on the spot for drug trafficking and expelled. As for this secretary, we'll coordinate with the Italian Foreign Ministry and relay the situation immediately.

Expulsion, huh.

For some reason, I felt a keen pang of regret.

All the more because I'd been dispatched this time just to snatch a single bag, only to have a completely unexpected defection fall right into my lap.

"Then how about this instead, sir?"

-How about what?

"Rather than letting him get expelled from Italy, we approach the secretary on the spot and propose defection to South Korea, right then and there."

-...What?

"While scaring him that once his drug trafficking in Italy gets shut down, he'll be purged to answer for it."

NIS life really must have been getting comfortable for me lately.

Pitching ideas like this to a man of no less than bureau director rank.

'Honestly, I think it'd work.'

But then, with the minister at the UK embassy already set to defect, wouldn't it be all the better if the secretary in Italy came over along with him?

Judging by how Minister Ri Jong-il had chosen defection at the speed of light, the odds weren't zero.

-....

Perhaps at a loss for words, no reply came from the other end of the line for a while.

My unprecedented proposal seemed to have blue-screened his brain.

*

Author's Note

Since you readers seem to play favorites with the Claymore a little too much, I've brought along a fresh and sprightly grenade as well ^^

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