The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

Chapter 1091 Reliable Source of Information

"...You should get some rest first. We won't let anyone disturb you, and please don't contact anyone during this time. For safety reasons..."

"I understand. I won't talk to anyone except Akai himself."

"Well, you'll understand."

James nodded, his eyes passed over Rena Mizunashi's bed, and he glanced at Curacao, who had his eyes closed and was still unconscious. He finally closed the door of the ward and looked at Shuichi Akai who was standing in front of the door.

"It's still too risky." Perhaps considering the poor soundproofing in the ward, he lowered his voice. "If you fail to successfully lure out the rescuers this time, and instead she arouses Gin's suspicion, this nail will be completely useless."

"Even if that's the case, there's still Kumail." Akai Shuichi replied calmly, "Even if this incident hadn't happened, her brother had found her and come to Tokyo, and her situation would have been unsafe."

"Their situations are different after all..." James shook his head, but seeing Shuichi Akai's confident look, he didn't say anything else.

Shuichi Akai didn't explain anything further, but he understood what James meant, and he also understood that the other party was concerned about his position and did not elaborate.

After Shuichi Akai was exposed and defected, the FBI has in fact lost its precise grasp of the organization's specific actions.

Kumail is a good backup option, but Shuichi Akai did not disclose all the information he had to the FBI because of Tang Ze's special identity background and possible intelligence value.

——It was later proved that his cautious choice was not wrong. Tang Ze's depth in cognitive science was beyond imagination and enough to drive anyone crazy.

For the FBI, Kumail is an uncontrollable variable, but Rena Mizunashi is an easy target to control.

Although they have different backgrounds and departments, Rena Mizuno has lost contact with her original department due to her father's death. She also has her brother as a weak point. If she sits down to negotiate with them, the possibility of her being recruited is very high.

Shuichi Akai understood all of this.

It was because he understood that he had to continue with his plan.

"Forget it. It's come to this. She was caught in the explosion during a live broadcast, and the footage of you rescuing her has already been broadcast. It's too late to change the plan." Although James seemed to have little hope for his plan, he shook his head and continued to make arrangements step by step. "We must be wary of the organization using other means to test the two of them. Only by making their sobriety transparent to the public can we force Gin to adopt a more radical strategy."

"Their other methods are basically limited to using less familiar, less visible subordinates to probe and investigate." Akai Shuichi nodded. "Fortunately, we all know who that person is most likely to be..."

----

"Huh? You want me to investigate Kiel's situation? That doesn't make sense."

Tang Ze answered the person on the other end of the phone rudely in a subtle and sarcastic tone.

"I used my own methods to deal with Pramya, and I didn't arouse anyone's suspicion the entire time. What was wrong with the way I completed this mission? She was dragged into this because of Keel's bad luck. What does it have to do with me?"

"...The explosion in Shibuya could have avoided happening." Gin squeezed out a sentence while biting the filter tip.

"I've already warned her in advance," Tang Ze retorted bluntly, almost tit for tat. "Not to mention Curacao. I was so considerate to tell her I was going to use some special means to complete the mission in Shibuya, but she still desperately came here. So, I can't blame her for that, right?"

Gin, who was already irritable, took a deeper breath when he heard the name "Curacao".

After confirming that the video Vermouth showed him was indeed a live broadcast, Gin spent a whole day confirming the situation in his busy schedule.

——Because even if we don’t count the fact that Curacao was also involved in the disappearance after the explosion, before she lost consciousness, Rum had already collected enough NOC lists to keep him so busy that he couldn’t spare the time to focus on the problem here for the time being.

He knew that there would be many traitors in the organization from different institutions, some of whom were official organizations, while others might be people from other places with ulterior motives.

The organization has existed for too long and has enough influence to become the target of too many things.

But when he got that long list, even though he knew that he would not have had this feeling eight hundred years ago, he still couldn't help but feel like he was about to have a migraine.

"...Things on Curacao are even more troublesome." Gin's voice became even colder. "I have other things to deal with. I'll give you three days to find out what's going on with them and where they are. If possible, bring them both back."

Tang Ze raised his eyebrows, noticed that Gin's mood was getting worse, and suppressed the corners of his mouth that were about to turn up.

Tang Ze fully understood where Gin's irritability came from.

Putting aside the fact that the two codenamed members were suspected to have fallen into the hands of official organization personnel, the completely misleading list of insiders that had been revised by him, Shuichi Akai and others was enough to make Gin furious.

On the one hand, it was because of the length of the list, and on the other hand, it was actually obtained from the Japanese public security database...

It is truly shameful that the organization is completely unaware of something that the Japanese public security can investigate.

Tang Zeduo paused for half a second to avoid making an overly cheerful sound, then slowly replied, "If your request is to use any method, I can guarantee a 'task completion rate.' Well, it's just that, if I use my method... you don't mind whether I come back dead or alive in the end, right?"

This is a necessary performance for the character setting, but also a test.

We can probably get a glimpse of how the organization understands his abilities and what their definition of Kumail is from Gin.

Gin is by no means a top leader of the organization in name, but compared to Rum, Gin obviously has his own intelligence channels and his own understanding of many things in the organization.

Gin on the other end of the phone answered more quickly and decisively than Tang Ze had imagined.

"They each have their own value. Without solid evidence, they cannot be disposed of arbitrarily. Use all your means to confirm their status. If there are any abnormalities, deal with them directly." Perhaps remembering Akai Shuichi in the picture, Gin sneered sarcastically. "I will deal with other problems when I return."

This means that he is indeed regarded as the equivalent of Goro Akechi, a supernatural killer who can come and go freely and has a good grasp of intelligence.

As for these three days, Gin will probably have to spend a lot of time on that seemingly plausible list.

"I understand. Then I'll wait for your good news, Gin-senpai?"

Gin didn't answer him again and the call was hung up mercilessly.

It was obvious that once he started talking in a disgusting tone, Gin didn't want to hear a single word.

Tang Ze smiled, put away his phone, looked at Akai Shuichi in front of him, and gave a definite answer: "Yes, Rum has indeed received the list. Gin will probably be flying around the world for the next three days to deal with the most difficult ones."

Compared with those deadly names in the original computer room, this list is obviously much less lethal.

There are names of several code-named members in it, but they are either not undercover agents at all, but existing members of the organization whose identities have been discovered by the FBI or the Japanese Public Security Bureau, or they are indeed from some special intelligence departments, but there are many problems with their identities, and they are likely to have been subverted or betrayed.

Gin will personally carry out the execution. This is a great opportunity to use the power of the organization as a weapon, and no one will miss it.

"You're right to be cautious," Akai Shuichi said, curling his lips. "However, I never expected that the Japanese public security would actually store all the information Bourbon had investigated, including Bourbon's own information, in the database."

"Confidential database." Tang Ze corrected.

"That's also a database." Akai Shuichi was not convinced. "Keeping it on paper is risky. Some information can only be stored in some people's brains..."

Having said that, he looked at Tang Ze meaningfully.

The only exception is probably the one in front of him, the Phantom Thief of Hearts, who can read the true "database" of mankind...

"So, you are so confident in choosing this plan because you deleted your data more cleanly?" Tang Ze understood his implication and just pretended to be stupid and changed the subject.

It's better to just know about this kind of thing. It would be impolite to say it out loud.

"Well, no biological information was left behind." Akai Shuichi nodded lightly, as if it was a matter of course, "Otherwise I wouldn't dare to make such a risky plan."

He said this very easily, but Tang Ze's expression when he looked back was a little complicated.

Tang Ze knew that what Shuichi Akai meant was that for a person who was ready to devote himself to the undercover career, anything left to the original department would only become an obstacle in the future, but the meaning behind this sentence was far more serious than that.

Any past relationship or omission may become an accident in the long undercover career and become a hidden danger that destroys the perfect disguise.

Almost all the undercover agents exposed to the organization, including Ethan Hondou, Morobushi Kagemitsu, etc., fell at this step.

This choice could only be made by Shuichi Akai, who ran away from home and had no contact with his family for many years in order to concentrate on investigating his father's condition. He also gave up his friends and even his lover in the United States without hesitation for the next mission and walked on like this for ten years without hesitation.

Because this choice means...

"Your informant wasn't Judy or Carmel, but someone else, right?" Tang Ze tilted his head. "If your informant also died, like Ethan Hondou's partner, you would end up in a more miserable situation than Rena Mizunashi."

For an undercover agent whose past records have been erased, if unfortunately all his contacts and superiors are killed, then even if he is still alive and still holding his ground, there will be nothing in the world that can prove his identity.

Those helpless actions during the undercover period, those tacit sacrifices and choices, will no longer be corroborated and will only be treated as part of the criminal facts...

"Yes. They are. The two of them are coming to Japan because I notified the FBI that they need to take away the special witnesses participating in the witness protection program." Shuichi Akai did not deny it and nodded.

Judy and Kamal are his trusted colleagues, but their past relationships and years of collaboration make them unqualified for this position.

The roles they originally played were similar to those of the other members of Rei Furuya's Zero Team.

"Thinking about it now, I feel a little regretful. If I hadn't called them both over, maybe I wouldn't have been exposed to Gin so easily." Akai Shuichi could only shake his head helplessly when he thought about this.

They were not his closest contacts, so naturally, they were not as vigilant in this regard.

"It's hard for me to say..." Thinking of Yuya Kazami who would blurt out Mr. Fūya whenever he spoke, Tang Ze could only say that it was difficult to comment.

Who knows? Perhaps an undercover agent with no flaws of his own just needs a few less capable teammates. It's part of the rules of the world, meant to maintain a balance of power...

"By the way, do you know that old man who set you up that day was Rum himself?"

Thinking of this, Tang Ze suddenly said something.

"Hmm?" Akai Shuichi frowned, "Is that person Rum?"

"If I'm right, it's him."

"I just realized that his identity was not simple... If I had known earlier, I should have left later."

"What? Stay a little longer to observe the situation? Then you might not be able to leave so smoothly. Gin reacts very quickly."

"No, I should have ignored that respect for the elderly and just killed him before leaving. No mercy, this is the only thing I always hesitate on, and I really shouldn't have done that."

"Then according to the principle that whoever you want to kill should die first, maybe he will obediently commit suicide..."

"Ok?"

"Nothing. I mean, you're pretty good at this, Xiuyi."

By the time Conan knocked on the door and came in, the two of them had already finished a high-information conversation that should have been blurred out with black blocks if it were broadcast to anyone else. Only Shuichi Akai was left flipping through the photos and comparing them methodically.

"...You look quite relaxed." Conan's mouth twitched, he closed the door and looked at the room carefully.

It was very clean and tidy, even cleaner than when he lived at home.

After all, this is just a guest room, which is not used frequently. If Xiaolan hadn't been watching and reminding him, he would not have done any major cleaning...

"There's no point in being impatient. Now's the time to counterattack." Akai Shuichi nodded calmly, and while handing the photo in his hand to Conan, he said, "I have a reliable source. Gin doesn't have time to confirm Rena Mizunashi's whereabouts within 72 hours. This is a list of new patients admitted to the hospital in recent days. We can screen for any suspicious individuals."

Because the elementary school student suddenly came back and was about to jump out the window to return to the base, the "reliable source" who was still hanging outside the window said: "..."