Delivery Operation (2)
One of the thugs darted forward and yanked the bag from his shoulder in a single fluid motion.
Yeon-woo startled and seized the strap.
"No, no. That'll only hurt Amigo. It's a nice night—let's keep things smooth."
One of the men behind pulled a pistol from his coat, leveled it, and stepped forward.
Yeon-woo's eyes went round; both hands shot straight up.
The gunman smirked at the sight and asked,
"Chino? Or American?"
"A-America... U.S.... please."
He stammered it out with a face full of terror. The gunman chuckled and drove a boot into his thigh.
"Guh—!"
Yeon-woo pitched forward. The man with the gun—clearly the leader among them—spoke to the rest of the punks.
"Killing Americans gets messy. Just take the goods and bounce. If that drunk dies wandering around here, not our problem. What's in the bag?"
"Laptop and junk. There's some weird machine thing? Too dark to tell."
"Got it. Grab the smartphone in his hand too."
One of them approached the sprawled Yeon-woo and wrenched the phone free.
"He—hey."
"Shh."
The thug grinned at the half-hearted resistance and drew a finger slowly across his own throat.
Universal language: mess around and die.
Then he planted a foot on Yeon-woo's back and spat.
"Dirty Mario bastard, crawling in here without a scrap of fear? We'll spare your life—get lost."
The others behind him rifled through the bag, snickering.
Still wearing a mask of pure terror, Yeon-woo staggered upright and began backing away.
Having taken both bag and phone, the thugs clearly decided there was nothing left worth taking from him.
When he spun around the corner and fled, they only glanced after him for a second before losing interest entirely.
Once around the corner, Yeon-woo spoke.
"Omega. Delivery complete."
- Confirmed.
On the rooftops of the buildings flanking the alley, the agents who had been watching the entire scene lowered their muzzles.
If the thugs had shown even the slightest intention of firing, they would have been turned into Swiss cheese regardless of the operation.
Not that the agents had any intention of holding back.
"Omega. Moving to next step."
Yeon-woo drew the pistol hidden at his waist, used the corner for cover, and opened fire on the group.
Bang—
Bang-bang—
"Aaaargh!"
"What the fuck—Merda! What the hell!?"
The round punched clean through the calf of the man who had kicked him moments earlier.
A carefully placed hit fell well within operational parameters; there was no personal grudge involved.
To frighten them enough to move exactly as desired, one of them inevitably had to take a light sacrifice—and that particular thug had simply been standing in the most convenient spot.
He could have put a round into any of them with perfect precision if he chose. Hitting the one who had kicked him was pure coincidence.
Pure coincidence, of course.
The sudden gunfire sent the thugs scattering in panic. The one whose shinbone had been neatly shattered collapsed onto the pavement, howling.
Bang—
Bang-bang—
The leader, still holding his own weapon, yanked open the pub's back door and used it as cover to return fire.
Naturally, every round he loosed flew in wild, useless directions.
He actually thinks that door is cover. A straight shot would punch right through it.
He had waved the gun around for threats before, but he had clearly never been in a real firefight.
Bang—
Yeon-woo fired purely to rattle them, sending a round through the back door so that it grazed past the leader's ear.
"Aaaargh!"
The man tumbled out into the alley as if the near-miss had taken half his head off.
Wow, what a drama queen. Collapsing completely defenseless over a mere graze—practically begging me to put one through his skull and end it.
Of course he had no intention of killing anyone, and the thugs absolutely could not be allowed to die. Yeon-woo sprinted for the opposite corner.
"Omega. Next step complete."
- Roger. Commencing the drive now.
Hearing Kim Su-hyeok's voice, Yeon-woo nodded and put distance between himself and the scene.
Behind him, a rapid series of whistle blasts began to echo.
Not the police, of course.
No police force on earth would respond that quickly to a disturbance in nighttime Cracolândia.
But the men who had just been shot were far too panicked to grasp what was actually happening.
Chased from place to place through the long night, the thugs eventually limped toward the den where the rest of the vermin gathered, carrying their castella cake and boric acid like the perfect bait.
- Location signals from the targets are coming through clean.
Inside a long-abandoned building, the man with a bandage wrapped around his ear glared with eyes that burned.
"Those fucking Mario bastards... I'll kill every last one of them."
At that moment the one who served as the group's resident brain called out to the leader.
"Santos! Look at this! The stuff that American was carrying is no joke."
"No joke?"
"The green circuit board that was in the bag."
Besides the laptop, the wad of cash, and the inexplicable stethoscope, the bag had contained one more item.
"Isn't that just some computer part? Chinese guys are trading those like crazy for coin mining these days. Graphics cards or whatever."
The thug who had been poking around on the stolen laptop shook his head.
While scrolling through the photos stored on the machine he had found images of green boards that looked nearly identical to the one in the bag—and they did not look like ordinary computer components.
"Doesn't seem like that level. Look. Almost the same, right?"
He turned the screen toward the leader. Santos compared the image to the actual green board lying beside him.
"Yeah, similar. What the hell is this. Ah, shit—pain's coming back. Damn Asian bastard!"
He carefully pressed a fingernail around the bandaged ear and grimaced.
The man who had taken the round through the leg still lay sprawled in the back, untreated and high on whatever drugs they had given him.
"This... is a circuit board that goes into missiles."
"...What?"
Leader Santos immediately picked up the green board and examined it more carefully.
Now that he looked, the silver soldered edge was stamped with the letters USAF.
"Yoo-saf?"
He had seen the marking earlier while rummaging through the man's belongings in a rage, hunting for anything that might identify him. At the time he had dismissed it as just another computer part.
Santos lifted his smartphone and searched the portal for USAF.
USAF : United States Air Force
"This is insane..."
Only then did the words the Asian had been spouting on the phone back at the pub come flooding back into Santos's mind.
"Business, broker, commission... That crazy bastard was smuggling American military hardware to sell to arms dealers."
"If the U.S. gets involved, we're finished. The cartel won't protect us—hell, they'll grab us first and hand us over for the bounty."
The faces of the other thugs listening to the exchange between leader and brain grew grim.
"Th-then what do we do? Just dump it. Throw it in the Tietê River and nobody will ever know."
"You idiot! Nobody will know? The second that Mario who shot us gets picked up by the Americans, the CIA or the FBI or whoever will comb for us like they're hunting rats. Haven't you ever watched a movie?"
"Then what?"
Santos rolled his eyes for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. He slipped the green board back into the bag.
"We hand it over to someone who can protect us, make us money, and get us medical treatment."
"Who? Igor?"
"No. Take it to Igor and we'll be floating down the Tietê by tomorrow. He'll dispose of us and keep everything for himself. We have to present it directly to the man higher up."
At Santos's words the thugs' eyes went wide.
"Higher up—you mean him?"
"What choice do we have? Salis back there took a bullet and is lying around moaning. We take him to a hospital and the cops grab him on the spot. Who's paying the medical bills? You?"
Everyone averted their eyes.
He was right. In all of São Paulo, the only person who could resolve every one of these problems was that man.
Listening to the targets' conversation through the bug hidden deep inside the bag, Han Hae-un reported to Yeon-woo.
- They're moving exactly as expected. No need for any additional operations.
Yeon-woo nodded at the words.
They had spent the entire night driving the thugs into a frenzy, herding them from place to place until the sun was already rising.
With low-level scum like that, the classic move was to drop a prize far too big for them to handle; fear would do the rest and force them to pass it up the chain.
"Then we end the operation here. All that's left is to wait for them to lead us in themselves. Tell the agents to rest."
- You took part in the operation yourself, Team Leader. How about delivering the order in person?
Yeon-woo scratched his cheek.
"Well... alright."
In truth, a little nighttime stroll hardly deserved the grand title of "operation," but moving in the field alongside the other agents again...
It had been a very long time.
Yeon-woo opened every communication channel from one through five.
"Omega. This operation ends here. Disperse, rest, and stand by until the next step."
Answers came back across the net.
- Confirmed.
- Roger.
"Hmm. Time for me to head back too."
The clock already read half past seven.
He caught a taxi and rode toward the hotel where he was staying.
"Lucky those thugs didn't get greedy for this."
Stepping out of the cab, Yeon-woo dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of caramels.
He smiled at the security officer standing guard at the front entrance.
"Olá! Bom dia."
He offered the caramels with the greeting; the guard smiled back.
"Oh, the guy who left earlier. Tough shift, huh? Night off, just a quick nap, and straight back to work."
As Yeon-woo entered the lobby, the security officer's radio crackled.
- Static— Male in a suit entering first-floor lobby.
Beep—
"Ah, ID confirmed. He's staff here."
- Understood.
Yeon-woo rode the staff elevator at a leisurely pace up to the R floor.
The fundamentals of infiltration had never changed: a smile and a gift.
Arriving on the R floor, he took the emergency stairs down one level.
The stethoscope was still inside the bag the thugs had stolen, so he pressed his ear tightly against the door instead.
After a short wait, another security officer appeared to be coming up for the eight o'clock shift change.
While the two men conducted their handover, Yeon-woo slipped the emergency stairwell door open, timed the soft click of its closing with the opening of his own hotel room door, and stepped inside.
Click—
Then, as casually as if he had simply been about to leave the room, he poked his head back out.
"Hmm? Two of you on duty today."
"Ah, shift change. We were just doing the handover."
"Ah, I see. By the way, I'm heading down for breakfast—do you think the suit is a bit much?"
"Huh?"
Faced with the sudden question, the security officer could only blink. Yeon-woo scratched the back of his head and smiled.
"Seems a little overdressed. Better change clothes."
"Ah... yes, sir."
Watching Yeon-woo disappear back into the room, the security officer tilted his head.
Isn't that kind of TMI? Well... he did seem pretty sociable.
Inside the room, Yeon-woo stripped off the suit that reeked of gunpowder and marijuana, dropped it into the bathtub, and soaked it thoroughly.
He pulled on a casual gray hoodie, then stretched hard enough to make his spine pop.
"Ugh, pulled an all-nighter. Still have a schedule today."
He had felt the same way back in Berlin: at least he was still young enough to get away with it.