Chapter XV: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.
0000hrs, 30 August 2013, Somewhere in Tokyo, Japan.
"Well I think we do have to define torture. One man's torture is another man's CIA's sponsored swim lesson." Rachel Marsden
"For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censoring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves." The Apology of Socrates.
The girls had been going through weeks of intensive VR training. Twelve, thirteen, fifteen hour days in the simulator, running every possible operation. Finally, they had been taken out of the medical facility by van and blindfolded.
As far as Amy could tell, they were back in Tokyo again, in a secure military facility.
"Guys…hey guys!" she whispered.
"No talking," a voice out of nowhere said.
"Fine, geez," she muttered.
An hour passed. Then two. Amy was getting really tired and hungry. Yesterday had been the most intense training session yet, eighteen grueling hours in the simulator, running ambushes, assassinations, surviving interrogations, car bombs, the whole lot of it.
The blindfold was lifted off and a blinding light turned on.
"Hey, what's the deal?" she said.
"Stand up," the voice said.
"Okay…" Amy stood up. She could see other girls in the room, having their blindfolds taken off by JSDF troopers. It looked like a warehouse of some sort, but it hadn't been used in years. "Who are you?"
"I'm Colonel Iwasaki," the voice said. He stepped into the open. "Ground Self Defense Force."
"That's great, but why are we here?" Serena asked.
"This is kind of the final test," he said gruffly. "I got a call from the Joint Chiefs and it looks like I'm in operational command of this…SAILOR force. That's a pretty piss poor acronym, but it's not up to me." Again, that was a complete lie; he had been there from the beginning.
He paused for a second. "Anyway, I'm all up to speed on what has been going on with you all. Dr. Kobayashi and Kawasaki explained everything to me yesterday in a phone call. I have to say, it's an interesting one. I'm actually envious of you all."
"Why would that be?" Lita wondered, suspiciously.
"Follow me, please."
Colonel Iwasaki walked toward a door with a keypad on the side of it. He punched in a code (24501, Amy noted) and they entered into a long hallway.
Five minutes of walking later, they came to an elevator, which took them down to a basement, to another long hallway and then finally, to an observation room overlooking six cells.
"What's this?" Mina asked. "There's six guys down there."
"Not any normal guys," Colonel Iwasaki said. "These are the 'maintenance' people from…well. Let's say that they're the guys that set off that explosion that sent you here."
The entire SAILOR team was silent. Finally, Serena spoke up, very slowly and carefully.
"Are you sure…? You're not mistaken?"
"We're positive," Iwasaki said. "We ran their photos with the people in the CCTV footage. It's an affirmative match."
Raye gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "I want to kill them all," she growled.
"Just one."
"What?"
"Just one," Iwasaki repeated. He quickly smirked, but wiped it off of his face. "This is your final test. You will be assigned one individual to interrogate and gain as much information as possible from them. You will then terminate the individual by any means you see fit."
"What about the last person?" Amy asked. "There's five of us and six of them."
"That's the last part," Iwasaki said. "You will all interrogate the leader of the group. You will then terminate said individual."
"That's it?" Mina asked. "Do we have a time limit or anything?"
Iwasaki shook his head. "You must interrogate and then terminate. That's the only two parameters in this test. Everything else goes. If you need any tools, objects, or something that pertains to your interrogation, you are to ask us and we will provide it for you. Any questions?"
Raye raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"When do we start?"
Now Iwasaki smirked for real. "Right now."
The five prisoners were taken out of their cells, one by one and marched to specialized interrogation rooms down the hall from the observation room. On the doors to the rooms, they were marked R1, R2, R3, R4, and R5. In each room there were two chairs, a table, and a whole bunch of monitoring equipment.
Prisoner #10923 was taken to R1. He was blindfolded, and then handcuffed.
It was awhile before the interrogator came in and took off the blindfold and handcuffs.
"Who…who are you?" he said in very broken Japanese.
Amy came into view of the Prisoner. She was holding a tablet computer to take notes with.
"Doesn't matter," she said with a sad smile.
They waited for a few minutes. After a while, the prisoner spoke up again.
"What do you want?"
Amy was completely silent. She stared at him while pacing around the room, analyzing him, studying his body language and his reaction to her silence.
"Please," he said finally, in Korean. "What do want out of me?"
"Well," she replied, in equally broken Korean. "What's your name?"
"My name is Myeong-su Jeong."
"What?"
"I said, Myeong-su Jeong."
"Okay, where are you from in Korea?"
"Please, don't deport me, I didn't do anything wrong."
Amy continued to circle around the hapless prisoner.
"Tell me, where are you from?"
"I'm from Daegu," he replied. "What's going to happen to my visa status?"
"I'm asking the questions here," Amy snapped. She regained her composure, and continued on. "Who asked you to carry out this mission?"
"What mission…?" #10923 asked. "I just work for the utilities company okay? This was the only job I could find coming over here."
Amy looked at the man. From what he was saying, that could be the truth. But she decided to dig further.
"You're hiding something from me," she stated. "You been in trouble with the law?"
Jeong sighed. "Yeah, you got me. I evaded the draft for a while, before they caught me and placed me in the military. When I got out, I got in with some bad people and then in debt. I managed to get a forged visa to escape all that and come here. But life here hasn't been good either."
Amy stoically nodded. Koreans in Japan were not treated well. Sometimes, they weren't even treated as second-class citizens, but as mere objects to be swatted away. A few Korean immigrants and their descendants, left over from WWII or from more recent times had changed their names and hid their identities to avoid discrimination. It was worse for the workers that were imported in to do the jobs that no well-respecting Japanese person would take.
"So, who was in charge that day?"
"Ah, Kim Yejun, he's from the North though," #10923 said. "Kind of loopy, if you know what I mean. He escaped from that place to the South, and then came on a work visa to Japan."
"And how long ago was this?"
"I dunno, maybe ten years ago when he escaped?"
"Hmm." She took some notes on her tablet computer. " Anything else? What about your work at Hikawa temple?
"Look, that day," #10923 stammered. "I didn't know what was going on. And the following times that we went there, Kim Yejun took care of everything, okay? He just paid us to stand around and do nothing, like most of those public works people, you know?" he laughed nervously.
Amy again, smiled sadly. "Is that all?"
"Well, yeah. When I heard about the explosion, I was kind of shocked, but I didn't do nothing wrong. It wasn't my fault!"
"And what did you tell the police?"
"Just that we didn't find anything when we were out there. Which is true. Kim showed us the gas sniffer and everything! There wasn't anything down there."
"And you believed him?" Amy found that very hard to swallow.
"Please, I needed the money," #10923 said in desperation. "I don't get paid to ask questions."
"But you knew that something was up," she accused.
"Well…yeah. And maybe Kim did something. But I don't care, I just need to start my life again."
Amy nodded. "Anything else?"
"No, that's it. Can I go?"
She ignored that last part. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
Ten minutes later, she came back in with a Taurus Model 605 revolver.
"Whoa, wait a second," Jeong protested. "I'm innocent!"
"That may be so," Amy said. She was cold now, no emotion at all. "But face it. You have no life after this. You'll be deported, then you'll have to face the people back home you owe money to. Even if you manage to stay here, then what? You don't have much of a future anyway." She opened the revolver chamber and put in a single .357 Magnum round. Closing the chamber and cocking it, she put it in front of him, on the table. "There is only one choice open to you."
There was silence. But then, #10923 started laughing.
"You can't do it, can you?" he said. "You don't have the guts to kill me."
Amy hesitated. He was kind of right. This was a real, live, human being, not a VR projection. But she steeled herself with logic and pressed forward.
"Okay, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. After this conversation, the temperature in here will be raised to forty-five degrees centigrade. You will not be given any food or water. You will die slowly of dehydration in the next three days. Those three days will be extremely painful and your death will be excruciating as your cells slowly dry out and die. Your head will swell. You will move slower. You will experience nausea, confusion and fatigue. You will start to hallucinate. You will start to lose sense of time and space. Your body will slowly start to shut down. Then, and only then, after about three days or so, you will finally expire. Or…" She pointed at the gun. "You can decide."
#10923 looked at Amy. She was right. But she was also a coward. "…and a pretty lousy coward, at that." Or so he thought anyway. He snatched the gun off the table and fired into the ceiling.
"If you want me to die, do it yourself." He tossed the gun back on the table.
"Okay. Be that way." She had the heat turned up, as far as it would go, past forty five, to fifty degrees centigrade. In thirty minutes, he was begging for water. So Amy brought in some water…in a completely full 55 gallon oil drum. As he tried to quench his thirst, Amy flipped him over into the drum and held his legs down. He took two minutes to stop struggling, and another two to die.
"Have a nice death," she said very coldly. "Should have done it yourself."
After that, Amy ran to the bathroom, puking the contents of yesterday's dinner up.
Raye's interrogation went slightly faster. Prisoner #11925 was sitting in room R2 when she burst in, carrying a Jerry can full of gasoline. She undid the blindfold but not the handcuffs.
"Hey!" #11925 said in Japanese. He was a street thug, not affiliated with the mob or anything like that. He was completely beneath them in that regard, and that was saying something. "What are you…"
Raye proceeded to dump the gasoline all over him. She reached in her pocket and got out a zippo lighter and lit it. She sometimes had a smoke here and there, but today, she was going to smoke one of the bad guys.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He was panicking now. "I'll tell you what I know!"
She leaned in very close with the lighter. "You have thirty seconds to tell me everything about the job you pulled near Hikawa temple."
"Okay," #11925 replied, very nervously. "Kim..."
"Who is Kim?" Raye interrupted. "That could be anyone."
"Wait, wait, Kim Yejun, he's the boss! He's the one who planted the timer and the mobile phone!"
Raye closed the lighter and backed up. "Go on."
"He also paid that guy to drive around and to set off the timer with the mobile." He was getting dizzy from the gasoline fumes. "And…and…he paid us twice what they were paying us at the public works company. In cash."
"Anything else that I need to know?" Raye asked.
"No, that's all I know." #11925 sat back in his chair and exhaled. That was a close one.
"Hmm." Raye circled him. "Well, if you have nothing else to say, then we're done here."
She flipped open the lighter and set him on fire. Raye left the room quickly, a smile on her face.
The room quickly turned dark with smoke, but the ventilation system kicked in and the smoke was sucked outside. Days later, people outside could swear they could have smelled the scent of cooked bacon and someone screaming.
Lita was probably the second fastest, next to Raye. She waltzed in room R3 and whipped the blindfold off, much to the surprise of Prisoner #12927, and delivered a punch (with her left hand), to his face.
"OW!" He yelled. #12927 was just an unemployed Japanese male, one of many in the country, and he took the job to pay off some debts. He had some minor run-ins with the law as well, mostly shoplifting.
"That hurt!"
"Yeah, well, that's for taking off my arm, you dumb fuck," she scowled at him.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" That brought another punch.
"Wrong answer. Tell me everything about your work at the Hikawa shrine."
"Hikawa?" #12927 stammered back. "Look, I don't know anything."
"Liar!" She slapped him, this time, with her right arm.
"Okay! Fuck, lady." #12927 shook his head. It really, really hurt now. "We went to that road to do some work, that's all, I swear!" Lita raised her hand up again, and #12927 flinched. "And then we were called out some more times become some people complained about gas or something! That's all I fucking know about that!"
She brought her hand back down. "Who was your supervisor that day?"
"Kim Yejun."
"Okay." That she did know from the other girls. It had been transmitted via SMS to a mobile phone they had received at the beginning of the interrogations. "Alright, I know all about Kim, and he's from the North, and he did most of the work while you sat on your asses and did nothing. Right?"
#12927 nodded. "He paid us good money too."
"Yeah, whatever." She sat down in the chair opposite of #12927.
"What's your name?" she asked him.
"Asakura."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"Hmph." She stared at him. "Anything else you have to say?"
"Yeah, if you won't punch me anymore."
Lita nodded.
"I heard Kim talking to some guy over the phone about the gas line, something about it looking like an accident or something like that. He might have been Chinese, I don't know?"
Lita leaned forward. "Did you get his name?"
#12927 shrugged. "Chun, Ching, they all sound the same to me. He was talking about payment or something to that extent."
"Anything else?" Lita asked.
"Nah."
"Okay then."
Lita got up and started to leave.
"Hey, wait!" #12927 said. "Aren't you going to let me go?"
She turned and looked at him. "In a manner of speaking." Lita opened the door and left.
"Damn," #12927 muttered. "And I was looking forward to getting out of here." He rubbed his head. "So sleepy…" He put down his head on the table and fell asleep. Two hours later, he was dead from an intracranial hemorrhage.
Serena was taking her time on this one. #14929 was sitting comfortably in a chair in room R4, with some tea in hand. #14929 was also an unemployed Japanese male, like #12927, but was getting back on his feet nicely after a long spat of homelessness.
#14929's name was Kenta Abe, after Serena pressed him for information. He had been silent at first, but she was finally getting him to open up.
"Mr. Abe," Serena asked. "What were you doing when Kim was doing his work in the sewer?"
"I was sitting outside, with others."
"And he paid you to sit out there?"
"Yeah. I do what the boss man says," Abe said. "This is the first time I've had a job in years and I'm not going to rock the boat." He smiled. "Funny, isn't it?"
"What?" Serena asked absentmindedly, doodling on the notepad in front of her.
"Well, the first time I get a good job in years, I get picked up the police and get sent here. Funny that the police never picked on me…well, nothing like this anyway…in all the years I was homeless, but when I get a job, bang, here I am."
Serena shrugged. "Luck of the draw. I don't want to do this either, so just answer my questions, and we'll be fine."
Abe shrugged back. "Sure."
Serena continued down the list of questions on her notepad, next to the doodles of a plane and "Mamaru loves Serena" heart. "One of your coworkers mentioned that he heard Kim talking to someone about the gas leak. A Chinese person, perhaps."
"Oh, Mr. Chung?" Serena scribbled that down frantically. "Yeah, I even saw him once. He came by and talked to Kim when we were on break. He works at the Chinese Embassy."
"Does he now?"
"Yeah. But that's all I know. I think that they know each other from when he defected from to the South."
"Huh." Serena sent that information to Amy via SMS.
Strange. Why would a PRC official be concerned with the wellbeing of a defector? They have both good relations with both the North and the South, but to show preference toward a defector might hurt relations.
Serena put away the mobile phone. Despite the boost in intelligence, Amy was still the one to know all of that stuff.
"Okay, how do you know that the Chinese guy worked at the Embassy?"
"He only drove up in a car that was Embassy marked."
"Oh. Anything else about the car or…?"
"Nothing special about it, was a Lexus...uh, I think it was one of those Hybrid vehicles."
"Right…" Beep. Another SMS from Amy. That would be a Lexus HS series.
"Thanks Captain Obvious," she muttered underneath her breath. Did everyone get finished before me? Oh well.
Serena switched the phone to silent.
"Did you notice anything suspicious about your coworkers as well?"
"Well, he did confer with the Korean guys on my team, but I figured because they were Korean and we were Japanese. I don't speak Korean, and I don't care to. But they met every Friday at a restaurant called Hallelujah. It's pretty good, actually."
Beep. Dammit, I thought I turned you off. Serena pulled out the phone again. Hallelujah is located near Gaienmae Subway station, near Aoyama High School.
"Okay, now that was useful," she said.
"What was that?" Abe looked at Serena furiously sending an SMS back for everyone not to contact her during the interview.
"Nothing." Serena put the phone away and looked down at her notes again. "Is there anything else that you remember?"
"Sorry, that's all I got."
Serena looked at Prisoner #14929. He was in his early-fifties, slim build, average height, average weight, graying hair. He could have been somebody's grandpa, or father even. That made this next part even harder.
"Look, Mr. Abe. I'm sorry to have to do this, but there is…uh…a special circumstance that must be completed before I can let you go."
"And what would that be?"
"You are going to have to die." Serena almost choked on those words.
Instead of being shocked or angry, Kenta Abe shrugged. "Okay."
Serena looked at him. "Just…okay?"
"You know, there comes a point where I realize that something is going pretty far south and there's no way to come back. This would one of those moments. The second I step back out in the real world, I'll be back at step one. Or step zero in my case. I had a nice job, but that won't be waiting when I get out of here. Not that I had choice anyway. I knew that these guys were bad news, but I buried my head in the sand and didn't pay attention. My life has been filled with tragedy after tragedy. Lost my wife and kids in a divorce, yeah believe it, I had a divorce in this country. I lost my home, job, respect from others...I have nothing left but my honor, and very little at that."
"I…" Serena was completely at a loss for words.
"I don't hate you. You're just doing your job. I know that this is something that is way larger than myself. I just wish that this moment would have come later on, when I built my life back up. But I guess you can't win them all."
They stared at each other for a moment. Serena finally snapped out of it. "It's…my duty. This is something that I have to do."
"And like I said before, I understand. I just have one request."
Serena stood up from the chair she was sitting in. "Yeah?"
"Tell my wife and kids that I love them."
Serena could only nod. "Thanks," Abe said. "Oh, and make it quick. Nothing like a slow death, I guess."
Serena walked behind him. She placed his hands on his neck. "Close your eyes," she said. "This will be quick."
She snapped his neck, and Prisoner #14929 fell over limp.
Mina took the longest. By the end of hour ten, everyone was wondering what the hell she was doing to that prisoner.
#15931 was now completely dazzled by Mina's presence. He was another Korean on a visa and had never been around as someone as elegant and beautiful as Mina. #15931 name was Han Jihun, in R5.
"Your Japanese is very good," Mina noted. He had managed to hold his own in this conversation, and for having no formal education in Japanese, he was doing just fine.
"Soo," he said, to Mina across from him. She had just brought some more tea in for them to drink. "What do you do, other than this?"
"What do you mean, other than this?" She giggled, shuffling her bottom in the very uncomfortable metal seat.
"I mean, you must have something other than coming in and talking to me," Jihun said.
"Well, I am supposed to ask you all these questions about your boss and stuff, but they know everything about already."
Jihun scoffed. "Not that again. I meant, on your free time."
"That's real interesting," Jihun said. "My kids want to grow up to be one of those K-pop stars, like ah…uh…um…"
"BoA?" That was the first thing that popped into Mina's mind. "You have kids?"
"Yeppers, three young'ins in Milyang City." He pulled a small picture from his front pocket. At least the guards let him keep that.
"Wow…" Mina gulped. Three young children, two girls and one boy, stood waving, frozen in time.
"What are their names?"
"Well, the two girls are Jiu and Yunseo. That boy there? He's a Jihun, like me."
"You named him after yourself?" Mina asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It was my wife's idea," Jihun joked. "But yeah, after she died, they had to move in with their grandparents. I don't want them working the fields all their lives. Especially like me. That's why I'm here. To make sure that they don't."
There was a moment of silence.
"I'm sorry for your wife," Mina finally said. "I…well…I could arrange something for them."
Jihun perked up. "Really?"
"I might have some contacts that I can dig up. You know, provide a few favors here, some money there…and soon, they'll have a good education and a decent shot at a good job."
"Could…could you at least get my son out of the draft as well? I had to go through that and I don't…"
Mina shrugged. "Sorry, I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees."
Jihun still looked pretty relieved.
"But…there is something that you might have to do for me."
"Whatever I can do." Mina had really gotten his hopes up.
"You met at a restaurant called, ah…"
"Hallelujah," he replied.
"Yeah, that one. What did you all do there?"
"Well, Kim took Jeong and I to that place every Friday now for about…eh, three months now. We just chatted and made fun of each other. But one time…"
He stopped for a second.
"Go on, it's okay," Mina reassured him.
Jihun took a deep breath, and continued on. "He said that he still had some contacts in the North, and that they sometimes gave him money, you know, just to tell him what was going on. No military stuff, no politics, just…a status report."
"Uh-huh…" So Kim was spying for the North Koreans.
"Look, we all need a money," Jihun said. "Even Kim, and he was a supervisor. He wasn't a bad guy. He's certainly no Kim Jung-un." He stopped for a second, then Jihun and Mina laughed at the unintended pun.
"Well, maybe that was a bad example," he said. "Anyway, that was only one time. He never brought it up again. He always stayed behind after we finished eating and went back to the hostel."
"Right…"
"And…well…again, this is none of my business, but I think the Friday before the explosion…the 10th, yeah, he had a very loud and heated conversation with someone."
"And you didn't tell this to the police…?" Mina asked, sharply. Jihun was taken aback. "I'm sorry," she quickly replied. "I knew some people…."
"Oh, I see." Jihun looked down at the table. "It's just that everyone is trying to get me deported back to Korea, where I won't have much of a life. Here, at least I can make some good money and hopefully make my kids' life better. I didn't want to rock the boat on this one. I just…"
"It's okay," Mina said. She reached out and touched his hand. He grabbed on and sobbed for a little bit. "Look, we haven't had lunch," she said to him. "How about I step out for a little bit and get us something to eat?"
"Yeah…" he replied. "That would be good."
She let go of his hand and started to stand up.
"Thank you."
"Huh?" She looked back down at him.
"Thank you. You're the only one so far to treat me with dignity and respect."
She could barely smile. "You're welcome. This will be over soon."
Mina left the room and came back with some sandwiches and a glass of water for each of them.
"Thanks!" Jihun said. He gulped down the water and the sandwich.
A couple of seconds later, he started to feel weird. "Damn…I must have eaten too fast."
He started to tremble, then his vision went all blurry. Jihun stumbled out of the chair and looked for Mina.
But she was gone. He realized that she had been planning this all along, and it was too late. He would never see his children again.
Prisoner #15931 died soon thereafter.
"Oh my god," Mina said. She watched #15931 die from the observation room. Amy, Lita, Raye and Serena were there, along with Colonel Iwasaki.
"Heh, glad to see that guy go," Colonel Iwasaki said. "He was probably a NK agent and they made up all of that stuff."
Mina shot him a glare through a couple of tears in her eyes. She had just killed a father, and now his kids would suffer for the rest of their lives because of it.
"Oh come on," Raye snorted. "You don't believe any of that stuff that he said about his family? It's totally shopped."
"Raye, you didn't even ask the guy his name!" Mina snapped back. "You just dumped some gasoline on his head and set him on fire!"
"And it worked!" she retorted.
"Ladies!"
Serena interrupted them. "You did what you had to do. Mina, I understand. You were out when…"
She took a deep breath. "But we have to push forward. Or else."
There was silence. "Okay then," Serena continued. "Let's go talk to Kim Yejun."
The last prisoner waited in his cell. #16933, or now, Kim Yejun as the SAILOR team had now come to know him, had no idea what was in store for him. The door opened up to his cage, and he saw five, very, very, angry girls come in.
"What's this now?" he sneered (in Japanese). "JSDF resorting to women to interrogate me?"
"Come on," Lita said to him. She grabbed him and lifted him on his feet. "We're going for a walk."
They took him out to the docks outside (the warehouse apparently was in a wharf district); by the time they had done so, it was night again. They had waited for this moment for awhile now.
Yejun was blindfolded, and taken out to the middle of a large, flat area near the docks; where it was, he did not know. The air was hot and humid, and it felt like it would rain tomorrow.
"What are you doing to me?" he asked, but somewhat confident. "Can't be as bad as what those troopers did."
There was more silence. "Oh come on, now, cat got your tongue?"
Lita came up behind him and shoved him on the ground. "Come now, that wasn't bad at all."
Suddenly, he heard four engines start up. Yejun rolled over and saw that there were four SUVs (Land Cruisers, to be exact) parked to his upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right.
"Uh…"
Serena came into view. "Okay, this is how it's going to work. I'm going to ask you about Chung. You are going to tell me what he was doing here and why he wanted to blow up that area near Hikawa temple. Second, you are going to tell me the conversations you had with your NK contacts. Third, you will tell me why you did it."
Yejun spit at her. "Go to hell, lady."
"If that's the way you want to play it, fine. Girls!"
Amy, Lita, Mina and Raye exited the SUVs with some rope in hand. They started to tie his arms and legs up, then attach them to the SUVs.
"Okay, what are you doing?" The confidence in his voice was gone now.
"One of my people suggested it to me," Serena said. "It's an old method of execution called quartering."
"Yep," Amy continued. "You see, they would have four horses tied up to one person, kind of like what we're doing right now. And then they would have them gallop off, and the person would be torn apart."
Yejun was now very frightened. "Alright, I get the point! I'll tell you everything, just get the ropes off!"
"Not until you answer the questions," Raye said.
"Okay," Yejun said in a panicky tone. "His name is Hao Chung, or Zhung, something like that, okay? They pronounce their names funky!"
"You getting this?" Serena asked Amy.
"Yep." She was tapping out stuff on her tablet.
"And…and, he helped me to defect over to the South after I got fed up with the North!"
"We know that already!" screamed Raye. She kicked him in the ribs. "Tell us something we don't know!"
"OW! Fuck! I left the North because all the guys on the top got nice shit and I worked my ass off and got squat, okay!" He was breathing very hard now. "I met Chung when he came by and toured one of our weapons factories where I worked at."
He stopped for a second, but continued on after Raye prodded him in the ribs.
"I gave him some information about NK weapons and he agreed to set me up in the South. But when I got there, they completely left me out to dry. So I ended up working lots of odd jobs, and then applied for a visa to come over here. But I didn't get one, not until some people from NK contacted me and told me I had to spy on Japan, just little things though."
"Where does Chung play in all this?" Serena asked.
"He's a go between sometimes, since they're on better terms with NK. He gives me money, they give me money, and it's all good." He struggled with the ropes for a second, but was stopped by another prod by Raye.
"Until you blew up a street with five innocent girls on it," Serena stated.
Something clicked in Yejun's head. Five dead girls…but there were five here…"Oh…shit."
"Yeah, oh shit is right," Lita said. "We're not quite dead. Just a precaution they had to take."
"So, why did you blow up the road?!" Amy yelled at him.
Yejun was panicking now. "It was Chung's idea! He needed a favor for some people and I would get paid a lot of money for it! Okay?"
"For who?" Serena asked. They were so close!
"I don't fucking know! Ask Chung! I just do what they tell me to do! He works at the Chinese Embassy!"
"We fucking know that!" Raye kicked him, harder this time. "Stop wasting our time!"
"I swear, that's all I know!" Yejun. He would have curled up into a ball but he was restrained by the ropes.
"Are you sure?" Serena said.
"Yes! Now will you please let me go?!"
There was a silence, then all the girls backed away. "Wait…hello? Guys…?"
Four car doors slammed shut. They all had their mobile phones on now, waiting for a SMS from Serena.
She was standing far enough away so that she wouldn't get splattered by the now doomed Kim Yejun. Serena texted out the message, "Do it," and hit send.
Three seconds later, the SUVs floored it and Prisoner #16933 was dismembered, the body parts flaying about behind the moving vehicles.
#16933 would have screamed out, but the shock was too great. Blood spurted everywhere as the SUVs came back, and as the SAILOR team approached, #16933 could faintly see them standing over him, watching stoically as he died. It was the last thing he saw.
"Bastard," Raye said, watching the light fade from #16933 eyes. "Got what he deserved."
"That's for taking off my arm," Lita spat.
"And for my legs," Serena added, somewhat more softly.
"Now what do we do?" Amy asked. "We killed all of them."
"We go after Chung," Serena said. "Or Zhong. Whatever his name is."
"Wish you could." The SAILORs turned around to see Colonel Iwasaki behind them, holding a piece of paper. "I did a check on Mr. Zhong…Chung…whatever. Turns out he was under investigation by the Ministry of State Security," he said. "He was doing some freelance work for 'somebody,' they don't know who, and a month ago he went to Hong Kong and no one has seen him since."
"So…" Mina said. "That's it."
"What, we just stop?" Raye chortled. "I don't believe it. We can't stop here, we need to keep going. We need to go to Hong Kong and find this guy."
"Raye," Amy interrupted. She had done a quick search on Zhong as well and had come to the same conclusion. "He's been gone for a month now. He has a month head start if in hiding or more likely, he's dead and no one had found him. We wouldn't even know where to begin."
"But why us!" Lita asked. "Who did he need a favor from?!"
Serena shrugged. "We'll never know now then."
"Be that as it may," Iwasaki said, "You passed."
"Uh…thanks," Mina mumbled.
"This project is officially in action," the Colonel went on. "Personally, you are going to do great out there. I'll tell Dr. Kobayashi and hopefully, you'll be in the field in no time. Oh, and don't worry about …that." He motioned to #16933. "I'll have someone clean it up."
He left, leaving the girls there.
"Well," Mina said. "That went well. Do you think we'll do good out there?"
"I sure hope so," Serena said. "I hope so."