Spy Wars

Kakuzu set down the scroll and leaned back slightly. Shadow covered most of his face.

Konan's cool, composed face rose in his mind.

"Unless..." His eyes flashed. "The problem was a person."

Konan is strong, but the Black Market is full of schemers. Could something go wrong with a transaction in the future? Someone might use a huge order as bait, swindle us, and make off with a shipment large enough to break our cash flow.

The moment the thought occurred to him, Kakuzu found it all too plausible.

He had seen plenty of deals turn into theft. No matter how strong someone was, a complicated trading network always left openings for others to exploit.

"No!" He sat bolt upright. The caution and ruthlessness of his bounty-hunter days surged back. "I can't let that happen. I'll have to be extremely careful about who handles our future transactions!"

He pushed aside the ledger without hesitation and took a heavier scroll from a locked box beside him. Its cover was made of specially tanned leather.

Unrolled, it revealed dense columns of names, code names, assessments of ability, reliability ratings, known transaction histories, and even secrets few others knew.

It was a list of the Black Market's most important—and most dangerous—figures, part of the intelligence wealth he had accumulated over nearly a century.

His eerie green gaze moved down the list, examining each name with exacting care.

His finger paused on certain names as he swiftly recalled everything he knew about them and weighed their suitability as trading agents or partners.

"This one is greedy and lecherous. Too easy to control. No good."

"This one seems to have ties to the Kirigakure council of elders. Too many competing loyalties. Risky."

"Blood Rat has a decent reputation, but his operation is too small to