Chapter 354. Forming a Strategic Alliance. (6/10)
“It’s not that I don’t trust you-”
“Yeah, I get it. You already said it, I’m just being difficult because she gets to know and I don’t. I like watching mysteries as they unfold so I’ll suck it up and figure out whatever your little scheme is on my own. Maybe I’ll come up with a good story to write later on out of all this.”
“So, what do you say? Will you hear me out, or not?”
Lea took a deep breath and held it in for a minute. She slowly exhaled out a long sigh and said, “Haaaaaaaah. Fine. As your girlfriend said, it wouldn’t hurt to at least hear what your plan is. I can decide what to do after hearing it. Follow me. We can talk in private upstairs.”
“Yuna, wait here for the time being.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, you womanizer.”
“I’m not womanizing.”
She rolled her eyes, “Sure you aren’t.”
“I’m really not,” I grumbled discontentedly as I followed behind Lea up a set of stairs past the reception desk.
I was led into a small office space. It was pretty messy and disorganized. It could hardly be called an office with the condition it was in. There were motorcycle and car parts strewn about the room on the ground and desks in the room.
I took a seat across from Lea at the desk in the corner of the room. She raised her legs up on the chair. Her right leg was flat, parallel to the seat, while her bare left leg was raised up perpendicular. She had her left arm hooked over her left knee and her right hand holding her left elbow.
“So? What is it you wanted to talk about? If you tell me you fell in love and couldn’t get me out of your mind after our first meeting despite already having a girlfriend, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”
I rolled my eyes and countered, “Fall for you? That’s a pretty funny joke. I don’t have such a strange taste in women.”
“Are you lookin for a fight?”
“Heh, you’re the one who started it, Ms. No Boyfriend.”
“Shut up and get to the point. I don’t like wasting my time. I’m a busy girl.”
“Busy doing what? Riding around the city crying about your pitiful search for a romantic partner bearing no fruit?”
She puffed out her cheek and grumbled, “Shut up, just leave me alone. I don’t want to remember. Guys are jerks.”
I shook my head regretfully at this woman squandering her charms and said, “If you showed guys your cute side you’d probably have better luck.”
“There isn’t a single cute bone in my body.”
“You look pretty cute right now though.”
“Womanizer.”
“I’m not a womanizer. I simply state the facts.”
“Liar. You just said you don’t have such strange taste in women yet you just claimed I look cute.”
“Something can be cute but that doesn’t mean I like it. It’s also entirely possible I abhor cute things you know.” I didn’t, but she didn’t need to know that.
“What the heck? So you’re saying you don’t like me because you think I’m cute? How does that make any sense?”
“Putting that aside, as you said, we should cut the small talk and get to the meat of what this is really about.”
“What you really mean to say is you want to dodge the question, right?”
I cleared my throat, “Ehem. To take down Swastika, I need you.”
“You mean my gang.”
“Yes. I can’t fill you in on everything, but I can give you an idea of how it will be done. First, I want you to take Yuna in, let her go around staying at each of your gang member’s places. To provide her protection. I’d like them to rotate in and out keeping an eye on the place she works at from a distance.”
“Huh? What does this have to do with your plan to take Swastika down?”
“Nothing yet. I haven’t gotten to it yet. This is what I’m asking for. Just let me finish.”
“Continue.”
“It’s unlikely your people keeping an eye on where she works will have to do anything, but in the event Swastika shows up and sees through her disguise, I’d like your people to get her out of there and to somewhere safe. Right now Malory thinks she knows where Yuna works, but in reality, Yuna only works at that location on Saturdays. The rest of the week she works at the second store location. I plan to make arrangements with the Owner to let Yuna also work Saturdays there for some time. When Malory shows up at the location she thinks Yuna works at, I plan to have one of the workers there explain that she quit.”
“Of course, they aren’t going to believe it, but the plan is to turn this into a war of attrition. Essentially, to keep their people looking for me and Yuna and distracted as much as possible. Your gang will also play a critical role as well in drawing their eyes and keeping them distracted.”
“You want us to go to war with Swastika over one girl?”
“No. I want to keep them distracted. For while they are distracted and think they are the hunters, they will be the ones who are being hunted when their backs are turned.”
“What? In what way? By who?”
“By me.”
“You? What can you possibly do?”
“They think I’m completely harmless. They don’t know what I look like when I’m disguising myself either.”
“So what?”
“I have a plan to take out their brain. Not just to take out their brain, but to turn it against them.”
“Huh? How? Are you thinking of going undercover and infiltrating them to somehow convince their leader to betray his own gang? That’s absolutely impossible.”
“No. That is not how I plan to achieve this. Assassinate the leader and make use of him to give out orders that will lead their entire gang into a trap.”
“Assassinate him? You? Are you crazy? There’s no chance in hell that’s going to happen.”
“There is though. I have the perfect bait. A big fish he won’t be able to ignore getting his hands on. It will be enough to lure him out and reel him in.”
“A big fish?”
“Yes.”
“What is this big fish?”
“Unfortunately I can’t go into details on that either. You will need to trust me. Once the brain is out of commission, that is when the hunt begins. When they’re in chaos, that will be the time to strike. With the plan I have in mind, they won’t even be aware their leader has been assassinated.”
“Let’s say you are able to do this. What does this… hunt… entail?”
“I’m glad you asked…” a nefarious smile grew on my face.
I opened my mouth and explained in great detail the order that would be issued and how everything would go down.
As she listened, a sharp gleam appeared in her eyes.
By the end of my explanation of how zero casualties on her side would be possible, her eyes conveyed the horrible grin she had on her face hidden beneath her face mask.
“If you really can get things to that stage, the endgame really would be a piece of cake. They’d be like flies running headfirst into a bug zapper. Nothing more than prey walking into a lion’s den.”
“Exactly. But what this hinges on is whether we can occupy all their eyes on us so they don’t notice the capitalizing hunter directly behind eyeing them in secret.”
“You won’t tell me any specific details of the hunter’s plan?”
“No, I cannot. It’s complicated and very sensitive information. The smallest information leak could ruin everything. We only get one chance with this plan. If it fails, it’s not something that would work again. It’s do or die. Eat or be eaten.”
“I see. In that case, I’ll have to refuse.”
“Haaaaah. May I know why?”
“I can’t trust you. You could be working for Swastika and this could all be an elaborate trap. If I’m not careful, and I blindly trust you, the ones being wiped out could be my side. The ones with zero casualties might end up being Swastika instead.”
“Certainly, that is entirely possible. Declining for that reason does make sense.”
“The only way I could trust you is if I have a hostage that is valuable to you. How important is your girlfriend to you? The reason you’re having her stay with us isn’t it to give us that hostage to win our trust?” I couldn’t deny, her reasoning wasn’t flawed.
“No. It’s simply for her protection. I wouldn’t give Yuna to you to be a hostage. If you want a hostage, you can take my life hostage if you want.”
“Huh? And how would I do that? You’re going to be running about staying low, aren’t you? I’m not going to be able to keep my eyes on you and I’ll probably lose track of you.”
“You could strap a bomb to me that will remotely detonate at the press of a button or automatically explode if I flee the city or try to remove it or something.”
“Where do you think I’m going to get something convenient like that?”
“No idea.”
“Then it looks like we’ve arrived at a roadblock in negotiations.”
Chapter 354. Forming a Strategic Alliance. (6/10)
“It’s not that I don’t trust you-”
“Yeah, I get it. You already said it, I’m just being difficult because she gets to know and I don’t. I like watching mysteries as they unfold so I’ll suck it up and figure out whatever your little scheme is on my own. Maybe I’ll come up with a good story to write later on out of all this.”
“So, what do you say? Will you hear me out, or not?”
Lea took a deep breath and held it in for a minute. She slowly exhaled out a long sigh and said, “Haaaaaaaah. Fine. As your girlfriend said, it wouldn’t hurt to at least hear what your plan is. I can decide what to do after hearing it. Follow me. We can talk in private upstairs.”
“Yuna, wait here for the time being.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, you womanizer.”
“I’m not womanizing.”
She rolled her eyes, “Sure you aren’t.”
“I’m really not,” I grumbled discontentedly as I followed behind Lea up a set of stairs past the reception desk.
I was led into a small office space. It was pretty messy and disorganized. It could hardly be called an office with the condition it was in. There were motorcycle and car parts strewn about the room on the ground and desks in the room.
I took a seat across from Lea at the desk in the corner of the room. She raised her legs up on the chair. Her right leg was flat, parallel to the seat, while her bare left leg was raised up perpendicular. She had her left arm hooked over her left knee and her right hand holding her left elbow.
“So? What is it you wanted to talk about? If you tell me you fell in love and couldn’t get me out of your mind after our first meeting despite already having a girlfriend, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”
I rolled my eyes and countered, “Fall for you? That’s a pretty funny joke. I don’t have such a strange taste in women.”
“Are you lookin for a fight?”
“Heh, you’re the one who started it, Ms. No Boyfriend.”
“Shut up and get to the point. I don’t like wasting my time. I’m a busy girl.”
“Busy doing what? Riding around the city crying about your pitiful search for a romantic partner bearing no fruit?”
She puffed out her cheek and grumbled, “Shut up, just leave me alone. I don’t want to remember. Guys are jerks.”
I shook my head regretfully at this woman squandering her charms and said, “If you showed guys your cute side you’d probably have better luck.”
“There isn’t a single cute bone in my body.”
“You look pretty cute right now though.”
“Womanizer.”
“I’m not a womanizer. I simply state the facts.”
“Liar. You just said you don’t have such strange taste in women yet you just claimed I look cute.”
“Something can be cute but that doesn’t mean I like it. It’s also entirely possible I abhor cute things you know.” I didn’t, but she didn’t need to know that.
“What the heck? So you’re saying you don’t like me because you think I’m cute? How does that make any sense?”
“Putting that aside, as you said, we should cut the small talk and get to the meat of what this is really about.”
“What you really mean to say is you want to dodge the question, right?”
I cleared my throat, “Ehem. To take down Swastika, I need you.”
“You mean my gang.”
“Yes. I can’t fill you in on everything, but I can give you an idea of how it will be done. First, I want you to take Yuna in, let her go around staying at each of your gang member’s places. To provide her protection. I’d like them to rotate in and out keeping an eye on the place she works at from a distance.”
“Huh? What does this have to do with your plan to take Swastika down?”
“Nothing yet. I haven’t gotten to it yet. This is what I’m asking for. Just let me finish.”
“Continue.”
“It’s unlikely your people keeping an eye on where she works will have to do anything, but in the event Swastika shows up and sees through her disguise, I’d like your people to get her out of there and to somewhere safe. Right now Malory thinks she knows where Yuna works, but in reality, Yuna only works at that location on Saturdays. The rest of the week she works at the second store location. I plan to make arrangements with the Owner to let Yuna also work Saturdays there for some time. When Malory shows up at the location she thinks Yuna works at, I plan to have one of the workers there explain that she quit.”
“Of course, they aren’t going to believe it, but the plan is to turn this into a war of attrition. Essentially, to keep their people looking for me and Yuna and distracted as much as possible. Your gang will also play a critical role as well in drawing their eyes and keeping them distracted.”
“You want us to go to war with Swastika over one girl?”
“No. I want to keep them distracted. For while they are distracted and think they are the hunters, they will be the ones who are being hunted when their backs are turned.”
“What? In what way? By who?”
“By me.”
“You? What can you possibly do?”
“They think I’m completely harmless. They don’t know what I look like when I’m disguising myself either.”
“So what?”
“I have a plan to take out their brain. Not just to take out their brain, but to turn it against them.”
“Huh? How? Are you thinking of going undercover and infiltrating them to somehow convince their leader to betray his own gang? That’s absolutely impossible.”
“No. That is not how I plan to achieve this. Assassinate the leader and make use of him to give out orders that will lead their entire gang into a trap.”
“Assassinate him? You? Are you crazy? There’s no chance in hell that’s going to happen.”
“There is though. I have the perfect bait. A big fish he won’t be able to ignore getting his hands on. It will be enough to lure him out and reel him in.”
“A big fish?”
“Yes.”
“What is this big fish?”
“Unfortunately I can’t go into details on that either. You will need to trust me. Once the brain is out of commission, that is when the hunt begins. When they’re in chaos, that will be the time to strike. With the plan I have in mind, they won’t even be aware their leader has been assassinated.”
“Let’s say you are able to do this. What does this… hunt… entail?”
“I’m glad you asked…” a nefarious smile grew on my face.
I opened my mouth and explained in great detail the order that would be issued and how everything would go down.
As she listened, a sharp gleam appeared in her eyes.
By the end of my explanation of how zero casualties on her side would be possible, her eyes conveyed the horrible grin she had on her face hidden beneath her face mask.
“If you really can get things to that stage, the endgame really would be a piece of cake. They’d be like flies running headfirst into a bug zapper. Nothing more than prey walking into a lion’s den.”
“Exactly. But what this hinges on is whether we can occupy all their eyes on us so they don’t notice the capitalizing hunter directly behind eyeing them in secret.”
“You won’t tell me any specific details of the hunter’s plan?”
“No, I cannot. It’s complicated and very sensitive information. The smallest information leak could ruin everything. We only get one chance with this plan. If it fails, it’s not something that would work again. It’s do or die. Eat or be eaten.”
“I see. In that case, I’ll have to refuse.”
“Haaaaah. May I know why?”
“I can’t trust you. You could be working for Swastika and this could all be an elaborate trap. If I’m not careful, and I blindly trust you, the ones being wiped out could be my side. The ones with zero casualties might end up being Swastika instead.”
“Certainly, that is entirely possible. Declining for that reason does make sense.”
“The only way I could trust you is if I have a hostage that is valuable to you. How important is your girlfriend to you? The reason you’re having her stay with us isn’t it to give us that hostage to win our trust?” I couldn’t deny, her reasoning wasn’t flawed.
“No. It’s simply for her protection. I wouldn’t give Yuna to you to be a hostage. If you want a hostage, you can take my life hostage if you want.”
“Huh? And how would I do that? You’re going to be running about staying low, aren’t you? I’m not going to be able to keep my eyes on you and I’ll probably lose track of you.”
“You could strap a bomb to me that will remotely detonate at the press of a button or automatically explode if I flee the city or try to remove it or something.”
“Where do you think I’m going to get something convenient like that?”
“No idea.”
“Then it looks like we’ve arrived at a roadblock in negotiations.”
