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“You have around twenty subordinates under your wing. Did you borrow that gun from one of them? No, you didn’t. There was no reason for you to use a gun at this time of the morning. You took it. Why? Because the grip was lightly stained with blood and some white powder. But there is neither powder nor blood on you, Mr. Hirotsu. One of your subordinates must have caused some trouble over drugs. Judging by the bags under your eyes, I’m going to say it happened last night. So you tied your subordinate up and took his gun because who knows what he’d do if you didn’t.”
“That’s—,” Hirotsu uttered in a muffled voice, but Dazai kept on speaking and cut him off.
“That subordinate is ignoring the syndicate’s policy, Mr. Hirotsu. Selling drugs makes a lot of money, but it also brings a lot of problems along with it. The Special Division for Unusual Powers, narcotics agents, the MP’s criminal-organization watchdogs… Government organizations are champing at the bit just waiting for us to make any sort of mistake that would give them a chance to strike. Simply taking your subordinate’s gun isn’t going to do anything.”
“But…”
“Mr. Hirotsu, I don’t know why, but I was given the lofty position of executive, and when you’re an executive, you get subordinates whether you want any or not. But I can’t produce results with a bunch of sloppy flunkies. That’s why I cut the bad ones loose early. You should do the same.”
“…I am deeply sorry,” Hirotsu mumbled, his voice strained.
In the Mafia, “cutting the bad ones loose” means killing them. Refusing executive orders is treat
ed as betrayal and dealt with in the same fashion.
Hirotsu apologized but said no more after that. Dazai fixed him with a piercing gaze; the silence was so deafening that time nearly froze in place.
“…Ha-ha! Just kidding!” Dazai abruptly added in a cheery tone. Hirotsu stared back at him, confused. “The reason you have so many people following you is that you don’t turn your back on them. I’ll leave things in your hands. I won’t tell the boss.”
He patted Hirotsu on the shoulder and smiled. Hirotsu unconsciously rubbed his throat while he nodded. He must have been tense.
Dazai, the youngest executive in the Mafia’s history, was a living legend within the syndicate. Nothing got past him, be it from an enemy on the outside or a scandal from within the group. More importantly, nobody had even an inkling of Dazai’s desires or dislikes, or what he supported or was opposed to. Not even Hirotsu, who’d been in the Mafia for longer than most, could figure him out. No one would have been surprised if Dazai had “disposed” of Hirotsu just then.
“All right, let’s get back on topic. Is there any footage of the attackers?” Dazai asked with a snap of his fingers.
At Hirotsu’s signal, a man in a black suit brought over a total of five pictures from the security camera. Dazai took them from him and began to study them. The stills showed several men sneaking into the warehouse and stealing the Port Mafia’s firearms. The thieves were wearing worn-out sacks over their heads and dingy cloaks instead of overcoats. On the surface, they didn’t look any different than your average back-alley thug. However…
“Those are soldiers.” Dazai’s lips slightly curled the moment he laid eyes on the photos. “Seasoned ones, at that.”
He looked over the dim figures of the raggedy men several times, tilting the photos this way and that.
“They look like your run-of-the-mill ruffians at first glance, but they’re moving in a diamond formation to cover their blind spots. Mr. Hirotsu, you know what kind of gun this is?” Dazai pointed at the pistol on the waist of one of the attackers.
“It is an old model, very old. It appears to be even older than me. From the gray body and narrow muzzle, I would say it’s an old-fashioned European pistol known as a grau geist.”
“I saw this gun yesterday.” Dazai’s eyes narrowed. “That means the men who robbed the armory attacked us immediately beforehand…which means that was just a diversion. Heh. Now things are getting interesting. These guys are even more fun than I imagined.”
With the pictures still in hand, Dazai spun around, turning his back to the others before starting to walk off. He placed a thumb on his lip, muttering to himself as he paced back and forth.
“So they purposely leaked intel that they were going to attack us in the middle of our next business transaction. That way, we’d focus our manpower in one location, leaving only a few guards at the armory. Then they stole the weapons—a lot of them. But why? To resell? No, it wouldn’t need to be weapons if that were the case. I see. This is…” Dazai rambled, lost deep in thought. All the others could do was wait for him in silence.
“……”
Hirotsu’s subordinates stood stock-still as they waited for the much-younger executive to gather his thoughts.
“Y’know,” Dazai commented after a good few moments of silence, “I’m thirsty.”
“I will have someone buy you a drink.” Hirotsu gave a flick of his finger, signaling the subordinate by his side to go. The black-suited mafioso then rushed off in a fluster.
“Get me a coffee with lots of milk. Make sure to cool it off!” Dazai cheerfully yelled out as the man dashed away. “Oh, but no ice, okay? If you can get me a decaf, that’d be even better. And double the sugar, please!”
Watching the Mafia grunt depart in a cold sweat, Dazai dropped his voice to a murmur. “Mr. Hirotsu, the enemy didn’t attack just any armory. They went after one of the three major armories containing the Port Mafia’s emergency weapons supply. It’s heavily guarded, and an alarm sounds if anyone enters the area without permission. But these guys easily got past all that, and they sneaked in using the actual passcode—something only subexecutives and higher would know. So how did the enemy get their hands on such top-secret information?”
Hirotsu’s face tensed. There were only three possibilities: A Port Mafia member was tortured into talking, someone had a skill that enabled them to extract information, or there was a traitor within the organization. All three options spelled a worst-case scenario.
“This entire area is going to turn into a war zone.” Dazai gazed at the city skyscrapers and gave a small smile. “That over there is gonna end up a pillar of flames. I can already see the sky burning crimson.”
“Do you know anything about the enemy organization?” Hirotsu asked, suppressing his emotions.
