A Rather Unconvincing Performance
So why would the Wanderer deliberately go out of his way to tear holes in his own side's story?
Kir couldn't make heads or tails of it.
But the situation was critical, and there was no time to waste puzzling over the Wanderer's motives.
Just as her mind was racing at full speed in search of a way out, the distant wail of an approaching siren loosened the tension coiled through her body. She spoke into her communicator: "The police are coming. We should probably hurry up and clean things up. There's no way Akai Shuichi could still be alive after this."
But the Wanderer, entirely indifferent to how Kir might feel, pressed her: "The police are still a ways out from your position. Take a moment and open up the terminal and take a look — it'll only take a second."
Unable to think of a single reason to refuse, Kir reluctantly, slowly raised her left hand and opened the watch-like terminal on her wrist — then abruptly froze mid-motion...
By now Gin was losing patience, suspicion toward Kir beginning to creep in. He leaned close to the communicator and demanded sharply, "Kir. What's going on? Why aren't you moving?"
"I can't..." Kir replied.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Gin asked, baffled.
"I mean, I don't know how to pull up the infrared detection function on this terminal." Kir's voice drifted out, cool and unhurried, as she explained. "You only gave me this thing yesterday. Not a single person taught me how to use any of its features, so naturally I can't..."
Gin choked on his retort, then glanced over at Vodka and silently signaled for him to walk Kir through it.
"Oh, that's easy. All you have to do is—" Picking up on his big brother's cue, Vodka hurriedly jumped in.
But before he could get more than a few words out, the siren — clearer now with every passing second — cut him off.
Gin's brow furrowed. There was no more time. To avoid inviting further complications, he abandoned the whole idea of the terminal and ordered Kir to finish cleaning up the scene before the police arrived.
With those final words, Gin cut the connection to Kir and told Vodka to drive off.
"Understood," Kir answered.
Then she produced the timed bomb she had prepared long ago, armed it, set it beside the corpse, got back in her car, and drove away.
Boom—
Before long, the sound of the exploding car reached her from not far behind.
Only now did the stone that had been pressing down on Kir's heart finally drop away. She let out a long breath. The plan had, at last, truly succeeded.
In the car, Gin took out a cigarette and was about to light it when, glancing up, his eyes inadvertently met the Wanderer's in the rearview mirror. His brow instantly knotted.
What was with that contemptuous look the brat was giving him?
Seeing that Gin had finally noticed his stare, the Wanderer let out a cold snort. "Heh. You hand your people such a useful piece of equipment and can't even be bothered to assign someone to teach them how to use it — and just like that, the final confirmation window slips through your fingers. Tsk. I knew it. This organization doesn't have a future."
Gin's patience snapped. In an instant his Beretta was out and leveled at the Wanderer. "So what you're saying is — you intend to betray the Organization?"
"Relax, I have no such plans at the moment. My old organization was far more trouble than this one."
Face to face with the muzzle, the Wanderer showed not a trace of fear. Instead, he shot back with open provocation: "Besides, was I wrong? I honestly cannot fathom why the whole procedure had to drag on with everyone talking so damn much."
Even for him — someone who had known all along that Kir and Akai Shuichi had colluded to stage this entire performance — the two of them had simply had far too many lines.
Especially that moment at the end, when Kir pressed her gun to Akai Shuichi's forehead and he said what he said. "I never thought it would actually come to this." Words so laden with hidden meaning — were they trying to make Gin notice something was off?
"And that Akai Shuichi of yours wasn't half as impressive as you all made him out to be, either. So he took one bullet to the lung — big deal. He was clearly still able to talk, so why didn't he make one last play and take out Kir? Instead he just lay there and waited for death like a good little boy." The Wanderer's tone was thick with disappointment.
After all, there were men out there who'd taken multiple bullets and still managed to finish off their enemies, collapsing only when their bodies truly gave out.
Which meant this performance really was a little too fake. Akai Shuichi, the ace of the FBI, gunned down that easily by a single person — one shot, no, two shots — without offering the slightest resistance? Just thinking about it, it seemed downright implausible.
If Gin hadn't genuinely been monitoring Kir's actions in real time, and if the footage really hadn't revealed any flaws, he would never have let Kir leave that place alive.
Still, sooner or later the Organization would learn that Akai Shuichi wasn't dead — and when that day came, they would surely come after everyone who had taken part in the mission.
So as long as he raised the suspicious points first, now, then even when the whole affair eventually came to light, no one could pin anything on him.
Gin shot the Wanderer a warning look, said nothing, and holstered his gun — clearly, he had taken the boy's words to heart.
Back at the Organization's base, after parting ways with the Wanderer, Vodka finally asked Gin the question that had been gnawing at him the whole drive. "Big brother... do you think the Wanderer might actually be planning to betray us?"
Hearing the boy declare right there in the car that the Organization had no future, Vodka had felt his heart genuinely shudder. To say something that blunt, straight to Gin's face — the nerve of it.
"Don't worry. Knowing his personality, he was telling the truth. Besides, given who he is, and given that tangled web of connections in his former organization, there's nowhere else he could go. We're the only group he can turn to — we're the ones with the partnership."
His big brother's words put Vodka somewhat at ease.
Then, glancing carefully at Gin, he ventured, "And those suspicious points the Wanderer brought up in the car...?"
Though Vodka found the brat's temper insufferable, he couldn't deny that the kid was capable far beyond his years. At the very least, until the Wanderer had pointed it out, nothing about the scene had struck him as strange.
But that proved nothing either way, which was exactly why he wanted to know what his big brother thought.
Gin pondered for a moment, then turned to give his orders: "Don't pull the people we've been keeping on Kir. Send someone to look into the corpse they found at Raiha Pass. And at the same time, arrange for eyes on how the FBI reacts — especially that woman, Jodie."
From those orders alone, Vodka understood that his big brother, too, had begun to have doubts about today's events. He accepted the commands without hesitation.
Meanwhile, Jodie and Camel had returned to Beika Central Hospital, where they learned that Rena Mizunashi had arranged to meet Akai Shuichi alone.
Still dazed with worry over Shuichi, she happened to catch a news report playing on the television nearby — the story of an unidentified man's body discovered that night at Raiha Pass.
Jodie stared blankly at the footage on the screen. Even as grief and dread gnawed at her — the fear that Shuichi might be the unidentified man — she forced herself to calm down quickly, and began searching for a way to confirm the body's identity without exposing the Organization.