Blaze

Into the Fire

~_____~

Seated in a room similar to yesterday's, both teams sat down on the opposite ends of the 'U' shaped table. A large white screen hung down from the wall at the end of the room and a projector from above came to life the second Donghae hit a button on the wall. The orange chairs offered complete comfort and Donghae darted his eyes over to Tao just to make sure he wasn't dozing off. Walking over to the laptop in on the podium, he pulled out a file and started.

"The drug trafficking ring we're tailing conducts their business from Osan to Kwangju, from the countryside to the cities. I won't go into much detail with the process, since I'm sure you're as informed as we are," Donghae turned to run his eyes over the others before changing the slide, "Park Kyungbo, the drug trafficker we arrested in Osan has admitted that their ring leader has never revealed his identity. This is where our dead end is at. Our next mission here is to find their leader. We're going to do this by searching for his other circus, human trafficking."

Lay's arm shot up. "I did some work with drug trafficking before coming here. I'm not sure if I was dealing with the same group, but I've heard a lot about human trafficking in Wonju. Since I'm sure that the drug trafficking line would be separated from where they run their human trafficking circle, we should look elsewhere first. Looking for connections in the same area might not be very helpful because they'll be careful not to mix drug trafficking with human trafficking."

Donghae nodded, "Good suggestion."

"Actually, human trafficking happens everywhere. Wouldn't it be better to start off somewhere nearer until we get a lead?" Suho questioned.

"Then what do you suggest?" Donghae asked.

Suho and Namjoo glanced at each other as if either would have the answer before Chorong spoke up, "Since you said that the drug trafficking line extends from Osan to Kwangju, lets head in the opposite direction. What city...uh..."

"Suwon, Anyang, Incheon," Kris added by counting with his fingers.

"Should we look where there are more cases of kidnappings?" Lay questioned. "Most victims are young children and women."

"Incheon," Victoria spoke up, "I've heard of numerous disappearances in Incheon the past four months." Then she turned to Donghae, "What do you think?"

He nodded in agreement, "Fine, we can start from Incheon."

"We can split the work." Victoria began. "Some of us can dig up information of missing people cases while the others can head out to Incheon to survey the area and question people about whether they've heard of anything."

Donghae eyed the group and thought it would be nice if they could all work together in harmony, but first they would have to get closer on friendly terms in order to reach that. Split them up, he decided. Then his eyes shot over to Tao who was almost falling asleep. Without questioning himself he knew Tao must have been dazing off the entire time. For a knockout like him, Donghae would have to work hard with disciplining him and enforcing into his head responsibility.

"Tao," Donghae called.

Tao's head leaned back against his chair and obviously he didn't reply.

"Tao!" Donghae raised his voice.

Tao didn't wake until Namjoo must have kicked him with her foot from under the table. He jolted in his seat and glanced around while flapping his eyelids wildly.

"Since you're new to this, why don't you and Suho go?" Donghae said.

"Eh?" Tao sounded surprised.

Donghae ignored him and turned to Victoria, "What about you?"

Victoria glanced at the others, "I'll send out Lay since he's familiar with the sequence." She then glanced at the other two. "Which one of you two wants to join?"