At Chiang Saen Port, at the very berth where the Hong Kong-Thailand Joint Anti-Drug Action Group had come ashore, a motorboat headed upstream toward the pier.
"Black Chai! Black Chai! How are you?"
At the far edge of the gangway, a man with a pompadour, wearing a floral shirt and sunglasses and holding a cigar in his right hand, began waving and calling out from a considerable distance.
"Long time no see!"
He was Bobby, the Eight-Faced Buddha's regular intermediary, a drug trafficker with quite a reputation in Thailand.
The man receiving such an enthusiastic welcome was clearly his major client, Chai Kwok-yung, a drug trafficker from Hong Kong Island who intended to contact the Eight-Faced Buddha to arrange a deal.
Bobby made his living as a broker. How could he possibly greet his own clients without a smile?
"Heh, heh, heh!"
Chai Kwok-yung stepped out of the cabin, jumped onto the gangway, and exchanged smiling greetings with Bobby.
"Bobby Gor, sorry for the wait!"
Behind Chai Kwok-yung followed his only trusted lieutenant, Su Kin-chiu.
Of course, he was certainly a capable lieutenant, but "trusted" clearly needed quotation marks around it.
As a member of TUI under Sir Kwan, Su Kin-chiu was undoubtedly excellent at his job.
Chai Kwok-yung now trusted him completely and had practically come to regard him as his right-hand man.
"You're right. You really did keep me waiting forever!"
Bobby took a puff of his cigar and spread his arms with an exaggerated expression.
"I thought you'd drowned in the Mekong River!"
Although those words were rather unpleasant, Chai Kwok-yung had known Bobby for years and had long since grown used to his flamboyant eccentricity.
Chai Kwok-yung hurried forward, and the two embraced warmly.
"Black Chai, you lost a few million on Hong Kong Island, yet