Chapter 221
After the failed operation to capture Rye, Rum very cautiously re-investigated everyone who had previously investigated Rye, focusing particularly on Gin and Vodka. Only after confirming that nothing could really be found did he find an opportunity to call together several organization members who were relatively familiar with Botanist or Rye for another meeting.
"...Rum was the one who called us here, but Rum himself isn't coming?"
Chianti impatiently kicked the chair in front of her.
Bourbon said sarcastically: "Who told us we have Gin here? This is the very Gin who personally recruited Rye into the organization and personally investigated him to conclude Rye had no problems! Although according to the latest investigation, Gin indeed has no issues, Rye also showed no problems before. What if they're accomplices... Anyway, to avoid us being caught in one net, it's normal for Rum not to want to come personally."
Chianti glanced at Gin sitting in the corner and suddenly sneered: "You're right."
Rum was already cautious by nature. With the Rye incident happening, plus the meeting members including quite a few people Usuha Izuki had identified, he didn't even want to bother with disguises—he simply didn't come to the scene, participating purely by voice.
Better safe than sorry!
Facing Chianti's disrespectful attitude, Vodka clenched his fists and defended Gin: "You can't blame big brother for this! Didn't the intelligence team also fail to find anything?"
Damn it, ever since Rye was exposed, everyone in the organization looked at big brother with strange eyes, and their attitudes weren't as respectful as before... He really felt sorry for big brother!
Gin kept a cold face and said nothing.
As currently the most suspicious person, he believed the innocent would clear themselves and was too proud to explain, too lazy to join such meaningless topics.
Scotland was actually relatively neutral in the organization, so he didn't speak for Bourbon but instead said a few words for Gin.
"Alright, alright. In that last mission, the person Rye wanted to trap was Gin, right? If they were really on the same side, Rye definitely wouldn't have chosen that time to expose himself. After all, Rye didn't know Rum was also going—among the executives, only Gin and Vodka were there. He couldn't have been trying to catch Vodka, right? Obviously, anything Vodka knows, Gin should know too."
Vodka nearly shed tears of gratitude.
Scotland was simply the most clear-headed person in the organization right now. He wanted to switch brains with Scotland.
Ever since Rye was exposed, he constantly felt his brain wasn't just insufficient but seemed to be breaking down.
He often dreamed at night of big brother suddenly asking him "I'm going to run away—do you want to come with me?"...
Wah wah wah, he had actually wavered in his trust of big brother—it was all Usuha Izuki's fault!
Just then, Bourbon's phone, which was standing in for Rum, suddenly rang. The other people in the room all quieted down, watching Bourbon answer the call.
After a few seconds, Rum's voice finally appeared.
"Is everyone here?"
This was just a rhetorical question to open the conversation. Rum had already answered himself mentally and hadn't considered there could be a second answer.
Then he heard Bourbon say: "No."
Rum: "..........."
Vodka said resentfully: "Botanist didn't come."
The only person who would dare stand up Rum at a time like this was naturally Usuha Izuki.
Rum had also been traumatized by Usuha Izuki and quickly accepted reality, just somewhat confused: "Haven't you contacted him yet, or did he refuse?"
"...We couldn't contact him." Vodka wiped his sweat. "Big brother and I were blacklisted, and he's had his phone off for the past two days."
Rum was very puzzled: "It's normal that you and Gin were blacklisted—what about the others?"
Scotland said helplessly: "When I called, it did connect for a moment, but Botanist said 'I get annoyed seeing snipers now' and blacklisted me too."
Chianti clicked her tongue: "I don't even have Botanist's number—he seems to not answer calls from strangers... But I'm also a sniper, so I'd probably get blacklisted too."
"...What about Bourbon then?" Rum did a process of elimination and asked the person who seemed least likely to be blacklisted. "Did you get through?"
Bourbon: "...Sorry, I actually discovered later that on the day Rye was exposed, Botanist called me, but I was very busy and the line was occupied, so I didn't answer. By the time I noticed, he had already blacklisted me..."
Rum was full of question marks: "Just because of that?"
Although Vodka found Bourbon's constant targeting of his big brother very unpleasant, when it came to badmouthing Usuha Izuki, they were on the same side, so Vodka quickly said: "I can testify—Botanist is just that petty. Not answering his calls, hanging up directly, and such things will all make him hold grudges! Boss Rum, why don't you try calling Botanist?"
Rum: "..........."
Do you think I haven't tried? If I could get through, would I need you to contact him? You just said he had his phone off the past two days—do you think it's on today?
Rum had suspected before that Usuha Izuki simply hadn't saved his number in his contacts. Hearing Chianti say Usuha Izuki didn't answer calls from strangers, he understood why he couldn't get through... Sure enough, Usuha Izuki not only hadn't put this organization second-in-command in his phone, he hadn't put him in his eyes either...
After asking around, several people who might answer Usuha Izuki's calls all failed. Even Vermouth and Miyano Akemi said that although they hadn't been blacklisted, they couldn't contact him.
If they went to find him in person, no one was home.
After all, Usuha Izuki had always liked to disappear before. Now that Rye had run away, and this runaway Rye knew the location of Usuha Izuki's house, Usuha Izuki's reason for not wanting to go home was quite legitimate.
What if he went home to sleep one night and Rye, who had been bullied by Usuha Izuki, came for revenge and set a fire to burn Usuha Izuki to death inside!
Without Usuha Izuki needing to explain personally, everyone had already automatically filled in the reasoning.
The meeting had been going for ten minutes, just looking for people with no progress at all. Rum was getting frustrated: "This Botanist is really too..."
Too what—he didn't dare say it out loud. If it got back to Botanist, he'd be the next one to be tormented... Look at the current fate of Gin and Rye, who had been openly disliked by Botanist...
Bourbon timely suggested: "If we don't have Botanist for this meeting, it feels pointless to hold it. Why don't we have 'that lord' try contacting Botanist? Maybe 'that lord' has some other contact method. If Botanist won't even listen to 'that lord'..."
Rum thought this made sense.
Although the boss had previously said not to bother him with Botanist-related matters, this was a special situation. Besides, it wasn't a small matter—the boss should understand this wasn't meaningless interference.
So he went to contact the boss.
If the phone was off, even the boss couldn't reach him.
The boss was silent for a while, then slowly asked the soul question: "...If no one can contact him at a time like this... could something have happened?"
Rum: "......"
Good question—it seemed no one had realized this possibility!
Probably because the impression of Usuha Izuki acting crazy was too deep. Everyone seemed to subconsciously think no one could get the better of a crazy Usuha Izuki, plus Usuha Izuki often disappeared anyway...
Who could tell whether he was actively missing or passively missing?
Just as Rum was struggling with whether to send people to investigate where Usuha Izuki had gone, he received the latest message from the intelligence team.
...Having some trouble breathing—where's my oxygen tank?
Although he had disguised himself as an old man, he really didn't think he was very old. He was still in his prime—why had he been feeling dizzy lately, only relieved by oxygen?!
Sigh, forget it. Let's have the meeting first—can't keep everyone waiting for just Botanist! If he wasted one minute, it was wasting ten minutes for everyone!
So after taking oxygen, Rum shared the intelligence team's latest information with everyone.
His electronically altered voice carried inorganic coldness: "According to intelligence gathered by the intelligence team, Rye... is indeed FBI."
The room immediately filled with the sound of sharp intakes of breath—the noise was so loud it nearly warmed the globe.
Vodka's eyes went straight.
The exhausted Vodka had no energy left to roar. He just murmured to himself in his heart.
Impossible, absolutely impossible. This must be a nightmare. How could that Usuha Izuki kid be so accurate...
Damn Rye! Deceiving my trust! I was so wrong about you!
Gin couldn't help frowning: "Intelligence from where? Are you certain?"
Rum answered: "From our contacts in the police. The gunfight was too loud, so after being stopped by Japanese police, they proved their identities..."
Chianti jumped up: "What about Gin then? Is Gin also FBI?!"
Her eager tone sounded like she was very much looking forward to being given a mission to kill Gin right now.
Rum's voice was rational: "No, that's still uncertain."
Though he said this, not categorically denying it, this ambiguous wording was enough to show Rum's trust in Gin was no longer what it used to be.
Chianti was quite displeased: "Botanist said it so many times—Rye is an undercover agent—none of you believed him. Now Rye really is an undercover agent, so why not also believe what he always emphasized about Rye and Gin being very similar, about Gin investigating his own people? Are you waiting to get slapped in the face again later?!"
"After all, Botanist used to be practically using exhaustive method..." Scotland tried to make everyone not trust Usuha Izuki too much.
"Bullshit!"
Chianti, who had never been called an undercover agent by Usuha Izuki, stood straight with confidence, feeling she was the most qualified person present to speak: "Your exhaustive method got even the origin organization right! Said FBI and it really is FBI! If this was random guessing, what are the odds!"
Everyone: "................"
Korn, who similarly hadn't been accused of being an undercover agent and had been personally recruited by Usuha Izuki, counting as part of Usuha Izuki's faction, couldn't help speaking up: "If what Botanist said is right, except for us two, everyone present probably has problems..."
After several days of settling, Vodka, who could quickly recover even from such shocking intelligence, also joined the battlefield.
"You can't say that. I feel when that Botanist guy calls others undercover agents, he's actually mixing in personal grudges—whoever he argues with, he calls an undercover agent... Most importantly, when he said Rye was FBI, it was right after Rye had just been hit by Miyano Akemi's car. He went to the hospital and identified the person as FBI after seeing him... I mean, if you insist he can tell who's an undercover agent at a glance, that's not completely impossible, but saying he can tell at a glance which organization someone's from—don't you think that's too ridiculous?"
Vodka desperately tried to downplay Usuha Izuki's contribution.
"I've asked several times, and his reasons were basically 'divination,' 'could tell at a glance,' 'dreamed about it'... Do you really think that's reliable? If he was confident, why wouldn't he give reasons? So he was definitely talking nonsense! Honestly, even if you brought Botanist to this meeting, he definitely wouldn't know more than I do!"
Bourbon absent-mindedly listened to Vodka's defense, feeling that today's meeting had immediately dropped in importance without Usuha Izuki present.
...But it didn't matter. The suspicious Rum had already investigated everyone once. Next, he could finally find time to ask the Public Security people.
These FBI were now with Japanese Public Security, with upper levels communicating about the situation.
Whether Rye was forced to rebel or was originally FBI, whether there had been any probing and communication after Usuha Izuki guessed his identity...
Soon, he would know.
He was just a bit worried that they couldn't contact Usuha Izuki at this time... Rye wouldn't have made revenge on Usuha Izuki the first thing he did after running away, would he?
Thinking of Usuha Izuki's torment of Rye and this failed undercover mission...
He knew Usuha Izuki was his predecessor's adopted son. Sometimes even he hated Usuha Izuki to the point of gnashing teeth. Rye... if Rye wanted revenge...
Bourbon rarely found himself worried about Usuha Izuki.