Louder than Bombs | KNJ

The Triad

~One week ago~

Namjoon was itchy.

Partially because this job was going a little too well so far. That always made him concerned. But also, because the bug spray that Hoseok had said had no scent, apparently also had no effectivity and the midges were driving Namjoon up the wall.

He liked being outdoors. It was one of his favorite things. Today, however, was no gentle walk by the Han River.

Namjoon and Tae had been the last one's in country on this mission and Namjoon had heard every curse word directed towards the bugs he could think of since he'd arrived. Namjoon was fairly certain that by now he'd heard every variation of any combinations of curse words from Yoongi's mouth.

Even Jimin had started to make noises about the bugs by the third day. Hoseok was nearly frantic trying to apologize, and swore he'd take it out on the supplier as soon as they got back to the Tower, but in the meantime, absolutely all six of them were itchy.

They weren't in the desert of northern China this time, they were in Shandong province, near Yantai, in a tiny village on the coast. A village that apparently missed every ocean breeze provided to the surrounding area and was a dismal swampy place. And every inch of it, was filled with these midges.

Jimin and Yoongi had reported in earlier and said something about how the fishermen were gleeful about the weather. Namjoon understood that the bugs landed on the water, the fish tried to eat the bugs, and then the fishermen tried to catch the fish. Such was the cycle of life in most villages by the sea.

But this was a miserable experience. If the reward hadn't been so great, Namjoon would have canceled the contract as soon as he'd stepped foot off the boat that brought them here.

"Target acquired," came Yoongi's low whisper in Namjoon's ear and he shifted where he sat with his newspaper at one of the village bars.

"Hyung confirm," Namjoon subvocalized into his throat mic. He nodded at the bartender and the man brought him another bottle of the Snowflake beer he'd been drinking. A long time ago Namjoon had learned the art of appearing to drink while subtly spilling it occasionally. This was all he could do, other than keep his hand over the lip of the bottle, that's how thick the midges were.

There were men in the far booth he was keeping an eye on, and Namjoon was disgusted that they were drinking from open containers.

Namjoon waited until he heard Seokjin's voice again.

"Target confirmed," came Jin's voice and Namjoon knew that Jin had used his facial recognition software against the camera Hoseok attached to Yoongi's SRS Covert rifle.

Yoongi's target tonight was the head of a kidnapping and human trafficking ring that was operating here in this little province south of Beijing. The Triad here were targeting school age girls and shipping them drugged and abused to ports in the United States and Europe. Brian Powell had asked that it be investigated, but Bangtan had decided they were happy to take it all down.

Namjoon and his team had spent all of the last month, going over each step of this operation so that they could slip in and out again with as little notice as possible. After the General's warning about Bangtan becoming enemies of the Triad, Jin had put out feelers and Jimin had talked to some of his old contacts on the streets, just to see what the word was.

So far, they had seen a lot of movement from the Triad area in the north that they had stirred up on their last mission, but Jin wasn't getting a lot of traction otherwise.

Jimin however, had begun to hear word of a gathering in Seoul of a group of organized crime members. From that, they'd just begun to investigate what was happening in their own city, when Director Powell had asked them to take on this job.