Passion Novel - Volume 4 - Chapter 95

Wait, what happened again? So… Luther. He had looked for Luther when he woke up. Luther meant UNHRDO. He had left there. After leaving there, he went to Southeast Asia, then crossed overland to Central Asia, and then came to Europe from Tashkent. And…

Jeong Taeui rubbed his still throbbing head, his face furrowed, and rummaged through his memories. He remembered meeting Kyle. He had stayed at Kyle’s house. He had also encountered the annoying Moro. So he was about to leave there, but… why didn’t he leave? Ah, he hurt his leg. So he went to the hospital and came back.

Having traced his memory that far, Jeong Taeui finally remembered. Ah, he muttered, nodding.

He was on his way back after getting a new cast at the hospital. On the way, he met some suspicious guys, and… yes, his memory cut off after inhaling the drug. And now.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and tapped his head. Damn it. What kind of drug did those bastards make him inhale? They should have just made him cleanly lose consciousness, but his head hurt like hell, as if they had messed up the dosage or inhalation time. Moreover, his head felt hazy and he couldn’t think straight, like he had become an idiot. It must just be that he hadn’t fully recovered from the drug and his head wasn’t working properly yet, but Jeong Taeui hated this feeling. The sensation that his body wasn’t his own.

He was already far below the family average in terms of intelligence, so what if it got worse from here, Jeong Taeui grumbled to himself, then suddenly looked around at the people.

Oh dear, how embarrassing. They’re all naked. Jeong Taeui thought with a completely unashamed face. And looking down at himself, he muttered again to himself. Oh dear, how shameful. They’re all naked. His face was still completely unashamed.

He had a guess. They had probably taken all his belongings, including his clothes, thinking of potential threats or any unforeseen circumstances. Jeong Taeui looked at the seemingly locked door and thought of the men guarding it outside. Among them, there was probably the man Jeong Taeui had hit earlier.

“I don’t know who these guys are, but to shove five naked men into one room, they really have no sense of aesthetics…”

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue in displeasure and muttered. The man next to him heard that and laughed. He looked back and saw the man closing a leather water bottle. It seemed that he was the one who had given Jeong Taeui water earlier.

—We don’t know who you are, but you’re Kyle Riegrow’s guest, staying at his house for over ten days. A guest of Kyle Riegrow, who cherishes everyone who visits his home. Even if you’re not that important, it’s fine, because you’re not the only one.

Jeong Taeui, still dizzy, leaned against the wall and quietly looked up at the ceiling. He calmly replayed what that man had said earlier. Without much thought, the answer to this situation became clear. The reason Jeong Taeui was dragged here wasn’t his own problem. He was just one of the baits. …If he’s not an important person and he’s not the only one anyway, they could have just left him out.

Jeong Taeui smacked his lips, thinking a somewhat selfish thought among the five. But even putting his hand on his conscience and thinking again, he still felt the same way. Kyle liked everyone. There might be differences in how much, but he didn’t seem to particularly favor any specific guest. So, if it wasn’t just for the reason of staying at that house, it wouldn’t have necessarily had to be Jeong Taeui.

He had never seen the other four people before. They might have stayed at the house when Jeong Taeui wasn’t there, or they might have known Kyle in a different capacity than Jeong Taeui. They were probably more important figures to Kyle than Jeong Taeui was.

“Oh, for crying out loud… I thought I was finally living a comfortable life, lounging around at that house, and now this again…”

After leaving UNHRDO, nothing particularly bad or unpleasant had happened, so he had thought, unscientifically, that the UNHRDO environment didn’t suit him, or that the internal human relationships in the branch had caused bad luck, and that his bad luck was over. But it seemed he was wrong.

“Are we… kidnapped?”

Jeong Taeui quietly asked the man sitting next to him. Even though he spoke quietly, everyone heard it because the room was so silent. All eyes gathered on him again.

The man who received Jeong Taeui’s question frowned and seemed to ponder for a moment, then shrugged.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm… I was walking down the street and was kidnapped by people who got out of a car, what about you?”

“Me too, similar. I was dragged here while jogging this morning.”

Seeing the man speak so nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal despite being dragged away, Jeong Taeui thought this man was quite something too. Now that he looked, they were all similar. There was hardly any sign of anxiety or fear about the future. A faint discomfort or unease was discernible in all of them, but they didn’t seem to be intimidated or afraid of being kidnapped.

Jeong Taeui watched them for a moment, then hummed and looked up at the ceiling again.

Indeed. He himself was nothing more than a small-fry guest who had been staying at Kyle’s house for quite some time, though he didn’t know who he was, but it seemed they were not. That was the attitude of those who were accustomed to such situations, or who believed that misfortune would not befall them. In other words, they were those who held high positions in society.

Perhaps they are Kyle’s important business guests or official friends, Jeong Taeui thought, scratching his head, I, a poor soul with no one to rely on, must somehow cling to them and find a way to survive. Then he suddenly dropped his head and looked at his leg. Pain, he realized, always came the moment one became conscious of it. He hadn’t thought about it until just now, but the moment he saw the cast on his leg, his ankle started to ache.

Yes, he had put weight on this ankle and ran earlier. If it was going to end up like this anyway, he should have just let himself be caught quietly instead of overworking his ankle for nothing. This, it seems, put quite a strain on it. If he made it back alive, he felt like he should go to the hospital first.

“Damn it. My ankle bone is slightly cracked, and I’ll probably have to go to the hospital a lot…”

Jeong Taeui grumbled, rubbing his cast — though he felt no sensation in his ankle. The man sitting next to him saw that, clicked his tongue, and asked sympathetically, “You must be having a hard time, even though you’re not comfortable already.”

“Yes, well… I’m not the only one. Everyone here has been dragged away by unknown people…”

Jeong Taeui looked at him and responded appropriately. Then the man smiled ambiguously, saying, “I see.”

Seeing that smile, Jeong Taeui tilted his head slightly. It wasn’t a clear answer. After thinking for a moment, Jeong Taeui asked bluntly, “Do you know who those guys are?”

The man frowned, his face troubled, and fell into thought for a moment. Then he opened his mouth and said, “Well…”

“Aren’t they people who want something from Kyle’s company?”

He said only that, then shrugged and closed his mouth. It was as if he didn’t want to talk about something uncertain for long. The others also chimed in with a few words, agreeing. Jeong Taeui scratched his head again. Come to think of it, Kyle had said something recently.

—They call it a defense contractor, which sounds nice, but to put it simply, it’s an arms dealer. So, of course, we get attacked a lot. Not to mention human rights organizations and religious groups, sometimes we even get threats from rebel groups or armed terrorist organizations. In these cases, they’re not telling us to stop selling weapons, but to hand over weapons to their side.

“…”

Jeong Taeui slowly nodded. He couldn’t be certain, but a rough formula had emerged.

Now, the problem was what would happen next… How would Kyle react? He probably had his own methods, as this kind of thing had happened more than once before.

Jeong Taeui sighed uselessly. He really should have found his brother first. He didn’t know how to find him, but he definitely needed to find his brother first, and if he had to go somewhere, they should go together. Then, based on past precedents, he wouldn’t have been in this situation, and even if he were, he wouldn’t have to worry or feel anxious at all; he would just have to wait for the walls of this house to suddenly collapse due to shoddy construction or for a police chief to receive a divine revelation and raid this house.

…That’s a truly useless thought.

Jeong Taeui closed his eyes. His headache had improved somewhat, but he felt that if he took another nap and woke up, this dizziness and headache would be completely gone. After that… well, whatever happens, happens.

The news reached Kyle after dinner. He was in a rather good mood when he returned home from work. A clue to a long-standing difficult problem seemed to be emerging. For several months, he felt like he might finally catch the tail of a person whose whereabouts had been unknown.

When Gable, whom he had sent to Doha, circled the area for a long time and then contacted him saying he had “a little more room to investigate” and would cross into Saudi Arabia, Kyle saw a glimmer of hope. Gable was not someone who moved easily. Moreover, he was excessively cautious when he spoke. At times, it could be frustrating, but for him to say there was “room to investigate” meant it was close to what ordinary informants would call “a lead has been caught.”

Finding the person who had disappeared was a request from a close friend, but above all, Kyle himself desperately wanted to find him. It was a purely profit-driven objective; the last part of the design blueprint that person had left behind was incomplete. His company’s internal research institute — a group of scholars brought in with promises of the best treatment in the world — had agonized over the blueprint, but they couldn’t complete it.

No, to be precise, they could complete the blueprint, but it resulted in three or four possibilities. All of these possibilities led to excellent results that could be used as new developments, but that made it even more difficult. Not only was it impossible to know which of them the original developer intended, but it was also possible that it was meant to be completed in a different way altogether.

Even in that state, they could have developed and commercialized it, but in this industry, leaving even one dubious part could lead to a major accident later. Thanks to that, the research expenses incurred just from analyzing that blueprint were enormous. Money was one thing, but ultimately, no one knew what its true completion was. The conclusion was that the developer was needed.

However, the developer had disappeared, leaving behind only an incomplete blueprint. The director of the research institute had not been able to go home properly for several months, clinging to the blueprint and agonizing over countless diagrams, until he finally exploded in a fit of rage recently. He said, “I don’t know if he’s a genius or what, but that damn bastard must have planned this to screw us all over.”

Kyle wanted to agree.

A phone call broke their peaceful evening. While discussing defense industry matters with Moro and Jenkins, Rita informed him that he had a call. And Kyle, upon answering the phone, heard something that instantly shattered his pleasant mood.

From the moment he heard the unfamiliar voice on the phone, he had a bad feeling. He rarely had good memories after an unfamiliar voice began speaking in a subtly lowered tone. And his intuition was correct. It had happened several times before. It was his fault for letting his guard down, as nothing like this had happened in recent years.

“…”

When Kyle hung up the phone and returned to the living room with a clouded expression, his two friends, who had been talking and waiting for him, read his expression and stopped smiling.

“Was it bad news?”

Moro subtly watched Kyle’s expression and asked. Jenkins also waited for his answer.

Kyle mumbled, “Hmm,” like a groan, then opened his mouth.

“It was an armed group from Bolivia. From the fact that I’ve never heard their name, they’re probably small-scale, but they say they have my friends.”

The two fell silent. They frowned, waiting for Kyle’s next words. They soon understood the situation. Such things rarely happened. They wanted weapons.

In fact, if any weapon would do, it wasn’t difficult to acquire them. Numerous brokers illegally traded weapons, and it was not uncommon for defense contractors to be unofficially involved. So, even for a small organization with no means of procuring weapons, there were plenty of ways to find them if they just looked around.

The problem, however, was when they wanted a specific weapon. Common weapons, widely available, could be obtained anywhere with very little effort. So, if the weapon they desired was something supplied only through limited channels, it was a different story. And such weapons, the sellers themselves had to be cautious about. The more limited the route, the easier it became to trace the path through which the weapon was distributed. If a problem arose, there was too much room for trouble. Therefore, sellers did not provide such weapons to just anyone, especially not through unofficial channels. Unless it went through a trusted intermediary, they rarely dealt with parties they had no prior history with. It was more a matter of trust than money.

The call Kyle had just received was one of those kinds of problems.

If they wanted a specific weapon with a limited route but had no prior transaction history, they had to find a broker who could mediate. If they couldn’t find such a broker, they had no choice but to give up on the desired item.

But sometimes, very rarely, there were such people. Blackmail was the most foolish method they could use.

“So, who are the hostages?”

Jenkins asked, frowning. Kyle listed the names they had given him one by one.

“…Hines, Ludwig, and Kim.”

When the last name came out, Jenkins raised an eyebrow slightly. Jenkins, who had known Kyle for quite some time, seemed to know all the other names but not the last, and tilted his head. Kyle added, “Ah, he’s a young man I met recently, and he’s staying at our house now.” Next to him, Moro’s eyes rolled as if he was thinking something.

“At least it’s fortunate that they’ve only gathered people they can’t treat carelessly.”

Jenkins said, sounding displeased despite saying it was fortunate. Kyle also nodded with a troubled expression.

The names they called were all Kyle’s close friends. But at the same time, they were also business associates before they were friends. They were all involved in various fields, but they were at the top of their respective domains. In other words, they were people whose deaths would cause significant trouble for the perpetrators. Of course, that also meant trouble for Kyle.

“This happened before, didn’t it?”

Jenkins muttered, his lips twisted.

“Hmm. It happened a couple of times.”