The air in the private club room was thick, but this time not with cheap perfume, but with expensive cigarette smoke and tense anticipation. Red velvet armchairs, a low table of black marble, and muted golden lighting created an atmosphere of ostentatious luxury. Tae Hwan, sprawled in the center of the sofa with the air of a host, took a drag from his regular cigarette and watched the door.
Beside him, lounging casually against the backrest, sat Tae Sagi. He was fiddling with a heavy Zippo lighter, deftly flipping it and making the metal glint in the golden light like a living coin. His gaze was unfocused, but every muscle in his body was coiled, like a predator before a leap. He lazily flicked the lighter's lid—clang-clang-clang—tapping out some rhythm.
"Ah, nephew," Tae Hwan finally broke the silence, exhaling a stream of smoke upwards. "It's been a while since we've had such a... how should I say... strategic meeting. Not since that business with Chanrat. I've almost started missing the quiet life without your 'surprises'."
Tae Sagi smirked, not taking his eyes off the play of light on the metal.
"Missing the adrenaline, Uncle? Sitting in your office signing papers, watching your accountants go gray—must be making your jaw ache from yawning. I'm saving you from premature aging, free of charge. Consider it brain fitness."
"My stomach personally disagrees with your 'fitness sessions,'" replied the man sitting on the other side of Tae Hwan in a phlegmatic tone. He had the look of a perpetual accountant: a simple haircut, nondescript glasses with thin frames, and a face expressing chronic fatigue from other people's messes. He nervously adjusted his tie. "After your port story with the 'invisible cargo,' I was popping antacids like candy for two weeks. Thought I'd get an ulcer."
"Oh, if it isn't Mr. Logistics speaking!" Tae Sagi turned to him with exaggerated interest. "Don't worry, the stomach is replaceable. But reputation... it's like virginity, lost once and remembered forever. We're taking care of it, right, Ye Woon?"
Ye Woon just sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable.
Tae Hwan shook his head, but the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement.
"Alright, alright, don't harass the man. He's our numbers guy, not a participant in shootouts. I'm afraid to ask how you pulled this one off this time. The Singaporeans..." he frowned, taking another drag. "They're not like the local warehouses with contraband whiskey. Their connections go straight to their parliament and God knows where else. One mistake—and we'll be forgotten faster than our bodies are lowered into the grave. If they're lowered at all."
Tae Sagi finally looked up, catching the lighter mid-air. A cold, sharp spark of ambition flashed in his gaze, but his voice sounded relaxed, almost lazy.
"The main thing is the result, Uncle. The paths taken to get there are details for boring freaks like Ye Woon and for historians when we're already dead. We're not here to preach morality or wallow in bullshit. We're here to turn that bullshit into money. Big money."
"I hope you haven't done anything stupid, eh, nephew?" Tae Hwan's voice grew quieter, but a steely note entered it. "Last time we barely escaped a war with the don. Right now, after 'calming down' the Thais, we're on thin ice. One wrong move..."
"Oh, Uncle, don't start," Tae Sagi waved him off as if swatting a fly. "Don't whine like a schoolkid before an exam. Everything's under control. Well, my control. Everything goes in and out, just like... in a good porno. Smoothly, according to plan, and everyone's happy. Although," he squinted, "given the seriousness of the moment, I'll probably refrain from detailed analogies. I need to adapt to the 'serious tone,' it's an important meeting after all. I'll play the part of a business prick."
Tae Hwan snorted, and a cloud of cigarette smoke erupted from his nostrils.
"On one hand, it's commendable, nephew, that you're trying. On the other—it's somehow even unfamiliar. As if you're not Tae Sagi, but his sensible, yet boring twin brother."
"I'm multifaceted, Uncle, like a diamond," Tae Sagi retorted, sprawling gracefully in the armchair. "Or like a condom—I stretch to fit any circumstance."
Ye Woon coughed discreetly, pretending to study the pattern on the marble table.
The door to the room opened silently. In the doorway appeared the massive, rock-like figure of the Singaporean, the personal bodyguard and trusted aide. His stony face was impenetrable. He stepped aside, allowing three men to enter first.
The Singaporeans entered without haste, with the cold dignity of people who know their worth. Their light ivory-colored suits screamed money so loudly they almost drowned out the quiet music. Their faces were masks of polite detachment, and their eyes—quick scanners, assessing the setting, the people, the risks in a second. Taking seats on the opposite sofa, their whole demeanor showed that time was their most valuable asset.
The middle one, a man in his fifties with graying temples and a gaze that could open tin cans, addressed the bodyguard without taking his eyes off Tae Sagi.
"Mr. Wu," his English was impeccable, cold and precise as a surgical scalpel. "Are you absolutely certain about the reliability of these... partners? The setting is somewhat... informal for business of this scale. And I hope we won't have to witness another... improvised performance."
Wu merely inclined his head slightly, his voice sounding muffled, as if coming from underground:
"We shall see now, Mr. Lim."
Hearing this, Tae Sagi slowly put the lighter away in his pocket. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and his face lit up with a wide, sunny salesman's smile.
"Mr. Lim!" he began with a light, almost friendly tone. "Good to see you in more... civilized surroundings. About the port—you caught me, it was a performance. But not for you. For one specific viewer who likes crude theater. And my uncle and I," he gestured with a motion full of filigree familiarity toward Tae Hwan, "are simple people. We like to get straight to the point. But if ceremonies are required... My esteemed uncle, Tae Hwan, our respected face, our patriarch, and the guarantor that everything will be smooth. And me... I'm the one who organizes all this smoothly. Tae Sagi at your service. Be careful not to cut yourself on the sharp mind."
Tae Hwan, barely concealing a pleased grimace at this circus, nodded to the Singaporeans, his manners instantly shifting to heavy, businesslike, and reliable, like a safe.
"Everything is in order. Gentlemen," his voice rolled through the room like a resonant drumbeat. "Pleased to see you. Please accept my apologies for the previous... peculiarities of our first meeting. Confidentiality, as you understand, sometimes requires bright colors."
Lim appraisingly slid his gaze from Tae Hwan to Tae Sagi, who now sat with the look of a good boy, hands folded on his knees. His companions maintained icy calm.
"We value confidentiality," Lim stated coldly. "But we value predictability and clarity even more. Our business is not containers of iPhones. It's live, extremely fragile, and very dangerous merchandise. One mistake in the chain—and the losses are counted not only in money but in freedoms. Or what permanently replaces them."
"That's precisely why you came to us, and not to some serious firm with a big name and a ton of surveillance up its ass," Tae Sagi countered, his smile not faltering a jot. "Because all your 'safe' channels are either jam-packed or under the watch of so many agencies even the president couldn't squeeze through. And we... we don't offer just a hole in the fence. We offer complete invisibility. So complete that our route disappears from reality faster than a father who went out for milk."
A corner of Ye Woon's mouth twitched. Tae Hwan closed his eyes, pretending to ash his cigarette.
"A bold claim," one of Lim's companions, a young man with intelligent, predatory eyes behind thin glasses, finally joined the conversation. "'Invisibility' in the age of facial recognition, satellites, and total digital surveillance is a myth for romantics and suicides."
"Digital surveillance is for digital people and their digital asses," Tae Sagi replied calmly, almost gently. "Our route lies outside their networks. Old paths. Human rivers. Shadows that don't cast reflections in cameras because they are part of the darkness. We are not afraid of your technology, Mr...?"
"Zhou, and I am responsible for risk assessment. And your 'off-network' path raises one substantial, nail-in-the-boot question: control. If the merchandise isn't tracked, how can we be sure it won't 'evaporate' en route into the pockets of your own people? Or be intercepted by... other shadows who also like milk?"
Tae Hwan exchanged a quick glance with Ye Woon. The critical moment had arrived. Ye Woon paled slightly.
"The guarantee is us," Tae Hwan said firmly, without emotion. "Our reputation. Our organization. We are not fly-by-night intermediaries who disappear after the first container. We have been here, on this ground, for decades. We are responsible for every stage with our heads. Not our own, of course. The merchandise travels under the protection of our people from loading to unloading. Not a single outside fly will get into the chain."
"And who are these people?" Lim asked, steepling his fingers. "Crude gangsters with guns under their arms? They'll attract attention faster than a customs officer with a dog."
Tae Sagi chuckled softly, and his laugh held a genuine, caustic mirth.
"Oh, Mr. Lim, you're still judging by that circus at the port? I told you—a performance! Our operatives... alright, I'll admit, about twenty percent look like gangsters. But the other eighty—they're truck drivers who only talk about traffic and family; they're sailors in grimy overalls; they're logistics terminal workers with perpetual sleep deprivation. They don't 'blend in' with the environment, they are part of it. And their main weapon isn't in holsters, it's up here," he tapped his temple with a finger, "and here." He pulled a thin folder from his inner jacket pocket and tossed it onto the table. "Impeccable documents at every checkpoint. Not forgeries. Real ones. Temporarily... supplemented."
Zhou narrowed his eyes, his interest clearly piqued.
"Impeccable documents... Interesting. At what level are they 'supplemented'?"
"At a level where a border guard, checking a number in his system, will get a green light from his own central office," Tae Sagi replied without a hint of doubt. "We don't print stamps with a printer. We temporarily... make adjustments to the right databases. For a strictly allotted window—exactly for the time the cargo is passing through. Then the entry conveniently 'forgets' itself, leaving behind only a legal but absolutely useless record of the inspection of some container with a smudged number and a note 'visual inspection not conducted.'"
The Singaporeans exchanged glances. A heavy, significant silence hung in the air. What Tae Sagi had just said was more valuable than any armed escort. It was a key to the systems, a thing incomparably more dangerous and valuable than any weapon.
"That is... ambitious," Lim finally exhaled, and something remotely resembling respect sounded in his voice for the first time. "And damn expensive."
"Quality, Mr. Lim, is always expensive," Tae Hwan countered, stubbing out his cigarette. "But the final cost for you will be lower than using 'safe' channels with their endless kickbacks, delays, and hassle. And an order of magnitude safer. We're not selling transport. We're selling peace of mind."
"Suppose so," Lim said, leaning back on the sofa. "But there's another aspect. Payments. We cannot and will not transfer millions to accounts that could be frozen within an hour while we're having coffee here."
Tae Sagi nudged Ye Woon with his elbow and gestured toward him with theatrical pomp, like a magician introducing his assistant.
"And here's where our master of quiet financial flows steps in! Ye Woon, show them how we love money."
Ye Woon, starting slightly, gave a soft cough and slid his worn leather briefcase forward.
"We have anticipated this, gentlemen," he spoke in a voice where a tremor tried to hide behind professional monotony. "A hybrid system. Part—cryptocurrency, through a chain of disposable wallets. Part—precious stones of specific characteristics, which can be legalized through our... retail networks. And a small but substantial part—cash, old, untraceable bills, for operational expenses on-site. The risk is distributed. No one, not even a very clever uncle from the tax office, can trace the entire sum from start to finish."
Tae Sagi watched as the Singaporeans studied the documents Ye Woon laid out before them with trembling hands. He saw the iceberg of their distrust slowly cracking, replaced by cold, calculating interest.
"The first batch," Lim finally spoke, as if pronouncing a verdict, raising his eyes. "A trial. Minimum. If it goes through cleanly and on schedule, as agreed here," he tapped his nail on the schedule, "we will open a permanent channel and discuss expansion."
"Naturally," Tae Hwan nodded, and a profound satisfaction gleamed in his eyes, which he couldn't hide. "We will prepare everything for Friday. All details will be coordinated with Mr. Zhou."
"And one last thing," Lim's voice sharpened again like a razor. "Absolute discretion. No hints, no leaks. No one, not even your closest people, should know the final destination or the nature of the cargo. We will communicate only through encrypted channels which we will provide. Agreed?"
Tae Sagi and Tae Hwan exchanged glances. The glances of people who had long since crossed all lines and for whom 'yes' was just another word in the game.
"Agreed," they answered in unison.
For the first time that evening, Lim allowed himself something remotely resembling a smile. He stood up, his companions, like shadows, following him.
"Then, I believe we have reached a preliminary understanding. Let the technical specialists discuss the details." He nodded to Zhou, who was already pulling out a thin, matte-black laptop.
Wu by the door silently stepped aside to let them pass. When the door closed behind the Singaporeans, silence hung in the room.