43. Preparations
The Blood Brother CodeHappy birthday to Mayyoung and take-it-easy!
It was unclear whether Suho was unhappy about the deal or delighted at a chance to piss Luhan off. What was clear was that he didn’t trust the police.
“He says no bodyguard, no electronics, no weapons,” Jongin read off the list. “Does he think she’s a princess or an assassin?”
Kyungsoo looked up from the fake tooth cap he was testing to make sure it worked and then shrugged. “What time is he picking her up?”
“Between midnight and one in some park.”
Kyungsoo put the gadget aside and looked at the paper. “You’re kidding. That’s drug central.”
“And right in the centre of his territory.”
“We can’t leave Semi alone there at that time of evening.”
“We’re going to have to unless we call the whole thing off and come up with a better idea. Or try to negotiate through Xiumin.”
“Lay’s right; I don’t particularly want him trying to screw us over.”
There was silence for several moments as Jongin absently started dusting the paper for fingerprints, even though he’d already done it twice before and they knew that they would get nothing from it.
“Was trying to give Luhan a fake phone ruled out, then?” Kyungsoo asked. “I missed this morning’s meeting.”
Jongin looked up and rolled his eyes. “I know, hyung, I was there. And yes, it was. Luhan’s probably expecting us to try that, which is probably why he tried to target Semi specifically so that he could lure her away when Sehun was kidnapped. Yixing and I reckon he’s going to demand Semi and Xiumin when he gives us his terms. Then he was probably going to focus on the phone once that was all sorted. And speaking of the phone, I need your help. I was trying to rip the video file so we had a backup just in case anything went wrong, but there’s some kind of data corruption and I can’t. I can’t get it off the phone whatsoever.”
“And this is an iPhone.” Kyungsoo his bottom lip between his teeth. “Weird. And the video’s not stored on the iCloud or anything?”
Jongin shook his head. “Semi mentioned it had been malfunctioning when I first met her in America, but she was absolutely paranoid about letting the phone out of her sight for even a couple of seconds, especially after the assassins started coming, so we never got it fixed. I mean, it still worked fine as a basic phone, but something had gone funny with its ability to recognise what the internet was, so there wasn’t an automatic backup system in place. She only actually told us what was on the phone after it was stolen.”
“I’ll take a look at it when I have time, then,” Kyungsoo promised. “Apple products aren’t really my forte, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do something.”
“That would be great. Has Xiumin been up to anything interesting?”
Kyungsoo shook his head. “I’m actually quite disappointed in his lack of reaction. Taemin said he was stressing last night, but now he just seems to be enjoying the alone time. He probably figured she went to a friend’s and that she’ll be back.”
“That’s pretty much what I told him, though I said nothing about staying overnight. What’s he doing now?” Jongin craned past Kyungsoo to look at the computer screens. “Surfing the internet?”
“I think he’s working on the third of the cases Chen gave him. He fixed Semi’s phone earlier, too.”
“How long do you reckon it’ll be before he starts to freak out?”
Kyungsoo just shrugged. “No way of telling, really.”
“I want to know what’s going on inside his head,” Jongin muttered. “I want to know how much of his charming Semi act is down to his nature or because he’s trying to use her. Or if it’s potentially because he’s not an unemotional robot towards her.”
“We have no idea what’s going to happen to you once Suho picks you up,” Kyungsoo told Semi, “and he’s said no electronics, so you’re pretty much going to be without communication until he decides to give you back again—”
“We were thinking about giving you a hidden mic of some kind,” butted in Lay, “but we suspect he’ll have you strip-searched on entry and he might consider it a deal breaker.”
“Right,” agreed Kyungsoo. “So I’ve got two things for you.” He opened his hand. On his palm lay a pair of earrings and something that looked like a natural-coloured tooth crown. “It’s worth a go with earrings because they might be overlooked, so they’re both miniature microphones – not very powerful ones, but they should be able to catch anything somebody says to you within a two-metre radius. The tooth crown is a transmitter.”
“Oh!” Semi brightened up a little. “That’s why you took a mould of my teeth yesterday!”
Kyungsoo nodded. “It should fit nice and snug over the first molar on the left side of the top row, where it’s unlikely to be noticed. We’ll have your location at all times and we’ll make sure people are as nearby as they possibly can be. If things tu
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