A good day to you, dear client.

A time where she would have found the assassin in front of her to be intimidating. He was a skilled professional, clearly, though he was grossly underestimating her.

He would very soon come to regret that.

“… So you’ve been instructed not to kill me, then?”

Well that certainly made things simpler, didn’t it? He likely wouldn’t hesitate to injure her, but if murder was off the table…

Then she hadn’t much to lose.

The radio came to life a moment later, the sharp, aggressive voice of Pepper’s superior filling the air.

“-reen? Green, is that you?! Dammit! Answer me!!”

The agent spared a glance at her captor, taking a moment to consider the best way to handle her precarious circumstances. As outright defiance would likely pose to much risk, Pepper decided that stealth would likely serve her best in this situation.

“… Shi-Long.” The man’s given name felt foreign on her tongue, but she supposed that was very much the point. Pepper Green, who was so very fond of formalities, had never referred to the man so casually.

And so, he would no doubt understand that something was very wrong.

“Apologies for worrying you but… something has come up. I need you to put our current investigation on hold.”

Pepper felt reassured by the considerable pause that followed, taking it as a sign that Lang understood that something wasn’t right.

“Green… Don’t tell me you-”

Pepper swiftly interjected, speaking not in English, but instead in her superior’s native language. It was extremely doubtful that Shelly was familiar with Zheng-Fa’s native dialect, but Pepper, deciding not to take any chances, chose her words with extreme care.

I have to go. Trust your instincts, Lang.

She could almost see Lang’s deep set frown and bristling posture, his keen eyes clouding with concern.

“Grr…. Fine.” He growled, clearly displeased, “I’ll stop the investigation, but you had better hurry, got it? I’m counting on you, Green.”

“Yes sir.”

“Not yet.” He replied truthfully. “But I wouldn’t count on it to last, Miss Green.” It was true that he mustn’t kill her at the moment, but his client made clear that it would eventually come to that, so De Killer stayed patient like he always did.

He watched her carefully when she spoke to her superior. De Killer didn’t miss her glance in his direction and responded with an indifferent look of his own paired with a hint of polite friendliness.

While his kidnapped victim spoke with Agent Lang, De Killer listened attentively. Just in case he had looked into possible communication lingo Interpol could use and tried to acquire the necessary knowledge as good as possible with the little time he had left. He covered only the basics. Thus he had found it easier and more efficient to let Miss Green do the first step and communicate with Interpol herself. The time would come when he would contact Interpol himself. For now it was best to keep suspicion to a minimum.

The assassin was fluent in several languages and since the incident involving the president of Zheng Fa, De Killer had made sure to learn their language, chinese, too. He wouldn’t have allowed himself to take on another job involving citizens of Zheng Fa without having updated his language skills at least a bit. But he was genuinely surprised when the agent switched and spoke a single sentence in that language, even more so that she used a dialect De Killer wasn’t yet accustomed to. He could only make out the first part of it... have to go... Trust... The end of the sentence... it ended with the superior agent's name, didn't it? How very interesting.

De Killer made a mental note to himself to look into that curious dialect of Shi-Long Lang when he found the time. Finally he heard the words he expected to hear and nodded approvingly. With a quiet clicking noise, the radio transceiver was turned off.

"This will do for the moment. Well done, Miss Green." De Killer set the radio transceiver aside and brushed off an invisible speck of dust off his suit.

With a short glance at his watch, the assassin rose and added, "Now then, we have to go. Do I need to sedate you again or will you be cooperative?", he asked generously. They still had time, he could put up with a little defiance if it would come to that.

“The consequences aren’t hard to imagine, but I do wonder about the incentive. How can I be sure you won’t simply kill me once I’ve done what you’ve asked?”

She looked at the assassin expectantly, very much intending to learn as much about her current situation as possible before making a decision. At the moment, the only power she held was whatever use she was to him.

She planned to use that to her advantage.

“I see. I can’t seem to find it positive to let oneself be captured that many times though - I would’ve thought that with time one would learn to avoid something like that, don’t you?”

When she examined her bonds, it was to find a way to untie them, of that De Killer was sure. “I don’t think even an Interpol agent well acquainted with being captured can untie those.” He had to admit that bonding his victims wasn’t his forte - not as much as killing was - but the skill was still formidable, when he might say so himself.

"I believe you simply have to trust me in that regard. But rest assured, it goes against my honor to kill you against contract”, the assassin responded calmly and shrugged his shoulders.

He held up the radio transceiver in front of her. “Now all you have to do is speak, Miss Green.”

She’d heard mumbled conversation in the adjoining room, but the only thing she could be sure of was that only one person was speaking. Pepper couldn’t help but also notice that, though her memory of the events leading up to her capture were hazy at best, she couldn’t detect any injuries on her person that would suggest a struggle. Her knotted binds, as well, had been very skillfully done. Given what the agent knew, she was more than likely dealing with a skilled professional.

Which meant she would have to take extreme care in planning her inevitable escape.

Feigning sleep had been a cheap trick, but a necessary one. She had hoped to learn a bit more about her condition before the inevitable conversation between captor and captive, but it seemed Pepper was out of time. Keen emerald eyes opened, observing the man in front of her with utmost attention. At least, with as much attention as she could manage through he drug enduced haze and dire situation.

“…. Chloroform, was it? Nasty stuff…”

Calm. Collected. Unintimidated.

Pepper Green knew this game well.

“Very observant. Do they drug the to-be agents at Interpol in training to have them differentiate between the possible anesthetics, should it come to that?”, he asked conversationally. “... Unfortunately, it didn’t help you recognize it before it affected you, did it now?” His calmly tone was without any kind of judgement, just a simple statement.

De Killer nodded when he noticed that she didn’t panic upon wakening. The Interpol had trained their agents well in that regard - it made his own work so much easier. “As I said before, Miss Green, we have got work to do. If you would please sit up from the floor so that we can speak to your superior.” While he requested that, he switched on the radio transceiver, turning one of its knobs with a serenity as if he had all the time in the world. He had gone out of his way to get one that the Interpol regularly used.

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