Chapter 99: A Life-or-Death Crisis

TL: LittlePeach

After a brief reunion, we headed straight for Pasay City, south of Manila, to meet the broker.

What we arrived at was a shabby three-story guide office tucked into a back alley on the edge of town.

With its peeling paint and the air-conditioning unit rattling away outside, the building was every bit as run-down and grubby as the business card we'd been handed.

Everything about the place broadcast just how far it stood from anything legal.

"Customer? What business?"

The moment we stepped inside, a local employee loafing near the entrance called out to us in Korean.

If he could peg our nationality at a glance, this place must have seen a fair number of Koreans coming and going.

I answered his friendly consideration with a greeting in Korean of my own.

"Hello. We're here on a referral from someone we know. Where can I find the boss?"

"The boss? Come this way, come."

We climbed a dust-choked staircase to the second floor, where a small office came into view.

Inside, a deeply tanned man sat with his feet up on the desk, staring at his phone.

He glanced over at the sound of us, scowled, and waved a hand.

"What is it? Can't you see I'm working?"

"Boss. Customer, customer."

"Yeah, I get that they're customers, but I'm busy. Tell them to wait outside a minute."

The employee who'd shown us up stood there caught in the middle, looking awkward.

I strolled over at my leisure and planted myself squarely in the chair across from his desk.

"Hello. We're here on a referral from Team Leader Choi Woo-seok, over in Korea."

"...What? From who?"

"Team Leader Choi Woo-seok. He couldn't stop singing your praises. Said the guides here made his Manila trip a real pleasure."

At that the man's brow crumpled, and he tossed his phone onto the desk.

He jerked his chin irritably, and the local employee, who had been watching for cues, hurried out.

I gave a light nod of my own to Sparrow No. 10, standing by the door.

"Lock the door behind you, would you."

Clack.

As the mood in the room turned strange, the man's expression visibly soured.

He snorted, displeased.

"Let me say this up front, none of it is on me."

"None of what?"

"Team Leader Choi Woo-seok sent you, didn't he? A few days ago the man called me up screaming his head off, making a whole scene.... Said he'd lost contact with the people who went inside the prison."

My face twisted before I could stop it.

So Team Leader Choi Woo-seok had made contact on his own.

'Is he out of his mind?'

A man who called himself an NIS team leader had phoned a broker and thrown a tantrum because his agents went dark mid-operation?

Never mind the security protocol violation. It was one of the worst things anyone could possibly do to a local asset.

"All I do is get people inside. Whatever mess goes down in there is none of my business. Talking clearly didn't work, so now he's sending people over, but I'll say it again, not one bit of this is my fault."

Blinded by his own greed, he had shoved his agents into a death trap, and every step since had been one after another that no one could believe came from an agent of team leader rank.

I waved a calm hand at the bristling broker.

"Relax. We're not here to assign blame."

"Then what?"

"We're the additional personnel going in ourselves, to bring our family out safe."

"Ah. Hmm."

Only then did the broker's expression slowly loosen.

My steady politeness seemed to have won his trust; he even straightened out of his slouch.

"Ahem. Well, in that case.... What can I do for you?"

His manner turned deferential all on its own.

The body language of a man who knew how to do business.

"First I'd like the situation explained. If we're going in the same way, we need to know exactly how you put our family inside that prison."

The broker blinked at me, bewildered.

He cleared his throat and clicked his tongue in disbelief.

"Hold on. This Team Leader Choi Woo-seok didn't tell you anything?"

"We're family in the same organization, but personally he and I don't get along."

"Ah. Different factions, then?"

"That's right. The organization's big enough that things get messy."

Taking it for a power struggle between gang factions, the broker nodded along, satisfied.

Which, to be fair, wasn't entirely wrong.

"Fine by me. Sort out your faction war on your own time.... To put it simply, I've got a few friends here in the Philippines. Police, prison guards, this and that. I slip them a little pocket money, and they get you inside. Easy, right?"

What he was describing was the basic shape of the setup crime so common in the Philippines.

Law enforcement here was corrupt beyond imagination, so slipping drugs or a gun into an innocent tourist's luggage and arresting him in the act was nothing at all.

It was usually a trick for padding arrest quotas or squeezing people for cash on the side, but the core of this job was running it in reverse, volunteering for it in order to get into the prison.

The Irobuchi-kai and countless other mafia and gang members, he said, were coming and going from the prison the same way.

"Getting in makes sense. What about getting back out?"

"You call me when you get a free moment inside, and I spend a little more money. Swap you out with one of the visitors, or forge the paperwork so you're a pretrial detainee released without charge. Either way, out you come."

"We can carry a phone into the prison?"

"Of course. In there, money does anything."

"Then why did our family, the ones who went in first, go dark?"

The broker grinned, showing yellow teeth.

"Beats me. Maybe they got careless and someone took their phone. Maybe they rubbed the prison guards the wrong way and got thrown in solitary.... So keep yours out of sight. Hide it well, use it carefully."

The broker picked up a pen rolling around on the desk and started scribbling on a notepad.

Then he stopped and looked the two of us over.

"How many are going in, anyway? Just the one?"

"No. Both of us."

I gestured with my chin at Sparrow No. 10, standing at attention beside me.

Honestly, from where I stood, going in alone would have been cleanest. No baggage to drag along.

But there was one fatal problem with that. I didn't know the faces of the agents I was supposed to rescue.

"With hyeong-nim along, there's nothing to be afraid of!"

"Heh heh. Your little brother's a friendly one. Bet he gets doted on plenty."

Fortunately, all those operations together seemed to have brought him along nicely, because Sparrow No. 10, my partner for the infiltration, was brimming with enthusiasm.

Still grinning, the broker tore the note free with a rip and thrust it in front of me.

The address of some motel was written on it.

"Go and ask the front desk for the key to room 404. After that the whole thing runs itself. Tape your phone and your offering money to the inside of your groin and keep them there. Get dragged off in cuffs in the middle of the night, catch a little sleep, and by tomorrow morning you'll be eating breakfast inside the prison."

"What's the total?"

"Seven thousand dollars a head."

I pulled the three bundles of dollars I'd prepared in advance from inside my jacket and tossed them over.

At five thousand a bundle, there was some change left over.

"The extra thousand's a tip."

"Oho. Generous. That Choi Woo-seok character was a real eyesore, but our new arrival here is nice and clean. I like it. I like you."

The broker checked the amount and bared his teeth.

He tucked the bundles into a drawer and offered one last word of advice.

"Try not to do anything that gets you knifed in there. Let's keep this relationship going a long time."

*****

Just as the broker had said, everything after that went like clockwork.

Crash, bang!

"Wake up, asshole! Wake up!"

"Move, move! You fucking piece of shit!"

In the dead of night, with Sparrow No. 10 and me stretched out asleep in the motel room, the Philippine police kicked in the door right on schedule.

They dragged us off looking savage enough to kill us, but the moment we were inside the police car their attitude changed completely.

"Hand. Give hand."

Speaking to us in Korean, and cuffing us with the gentlest, most delicate touch, no less.

"Oh. Your Korean's good."

"I practice Korean plenty much."

"Great pronunciation."

"Heh heh heh."

The compliment seemed to please him, because the Filipino officer grinned and gave my shoulder a light pat as he moved off.

It was a moment that made me feel these men, too, worked with a professionalism of their own.

'Money well spent.'

Sparrow No. 10, cuffed right along with me, was staring at his own wrists, flushed and shifting in his seat.

"Whoa. Back there they looked ready to actually open fire. Scared the life out of me. Were you all right, Team Leader?"

"Yes. I was fine."

"I nearly pissed myself a little...."

There was no police station, no statement taken, no trial and no verdict.

Still in cuffs, we were soon transferred onto a sixty-seat transport bus, and the bus tore across the silent predawn roads toward the outskirts of Manila.

Toward the worst human chicken coop in the Philippines, New Bilibid Prison.

"Move, move."

"Shut up! You want to die?"

"Come on, you motherfucker!"

The instant we arrived, we were stripped down to nothing but our underwear and put into drab orange prison uniforms.

As we walked a dim corridor among a good number of other prisoners, the prison guards tore us apart at a fork in the passage.

"Wait. T-Team Leader?"

While a flustered Sparrow No. 10 receded down the far side of the fork, I sent him a hand signal.

'We'll make contact inside. Watch yourself.'

'Ah, yes sir!'

Leaving behind the sight of Sparrow No. 10 nodding tensely, I too was shoved along by a prison guard until I stood in front of my own cell.

Even before the heavy iron door opened, the stale reek of sweat and mildew came seeping out.

Clang.

"Ooh, a new one?"

The moment the cell door opened, the five prisoners waiting inside fixed their eyes on me.

The room couldn't have been more than a hundred square feet, cramped even for one man.

Clang.

"Been a real long time since we got somebody new."

"Heh heh heh. Nice and pale, nice and pretty. Been a while since one like this rolled in."

"Hey there, pretty. Fair skin and a fine face to go with it?"

"...."

The iron door had barely shut before the prisoners sprang up and circled me like hyenas.

The one who looked like their leader flicked his tongue out at me.

A pot-bellied thing, bare from the waist up, his torso plastered with crude tattoos.

"Come on, drop the pants. Big brother here's going to love you up nice and hot."

A physical revulsion started at my toes and shot up in a prickling wave to the crown of my head.

My reaction seemed to delight him. He smirked and took another step closer.

There was nothing more to see.

Thwack!

"Gurk!"

Crunch!

My fist went in without hesitation and caved in the dead center of his face.

Below the flattened nose, dark red blood came pouring down like a waterfall.

"Gaaaaaah!"

The huge man clutched his face and stumbled backward, then groped at the collapsed bridge of his nose with a stupid look on his face.

The ridge of it was simply gone, sunk in as if a hole had opened.

"F-fuck! Kill that bastard, right now!"

The other four, wild-eyed at the sight of blood, threw themselves at me all at once.

Just as getting into the prison had gone like clockwork, so did clearing them out.

Thud! Crack! Bang! Smack!

A few punches was exactly enough.

"Ugh, uh."

"Hnngh. Huuh...."

With the brief initiation ceremony out of the way, I got them off the floor, groaning and all, and onto their knees in a neat row.

The cell's boiling energy went damp and sticky in an instant, soaked in blood and tears.

"All right, listen up. I hate repeating myself, so I'll say this exactly once."

They couldn't even look at me, frightened faces turned down, eyes on the floor.

Standing in the middle of the room, I laid out a few brief impressions of my admission.

"From today on, anyone who lays a hand on me, gets on my nerves, spouts bullshit like that again, or comes at me a second time, I'll fold him in half on the spot."

"...."

"Understood?"

Some last shred of pride, maybe, because they hemmed and hesitated.

"Why, you."

"E-eek...."

"Answer me."

"Y-yes, sir!"

Nothing instills good manners quite like violence, after all.

Their eyes had gone meek, nothing like when they'd circled me.

With the pecking order settled, I dropped into the cleanest spot in the room and gathered my thoughts.

'This wasn't what I had in mind, though.'

Honestly, the plan had been to keep quiet once I got inside the prison.

Our objective wasn't to turn this prison upside down, but to rescue the agents who had gone missing.

But someone coveting my ass was a major development that hadn't been in the plan, so there was nothing to be done.

If there was one thing that worried me....

'What about Sparrow No. 10?'

Now that was a crisis.

*****

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