Chapter 440

"Hey - you guys, are you okay?"

When Haibara Ai woke up, she found herself lying on the beach of Hachijo Island - Naomi Argent was also sleeping beside her, and the person who woke her up was a purple-haired man who looked like a Western European.

——He doesn’t look like someone from the organization.

Haibara Ai finally felt relieved, and when she was about to answer the other party's question, she saw the man calling the police.

Soon, Inspector Megure came over with a large group of people.

"Great..." Makino Yosuke, who had just escaped, collapsed to the ground in front of everyone. "This way, everyone survived except Grace who infiltrated the Europol surveillance center."

"What happened?" Haibara Ai, who was trapped in the organization's submarine almost the entire time, looked at the adults around her with strange expressions and showed a puzzled expression.

"The Pacific buoy was sunk by a submarine." Conan Edogawa squeezed out of the crowd and briefly summarized the situation at the scene of the accident to Haibara Ai, "I guess no one knows what happened afterwards, because everyone was busy escaping - that's how I was squeezed out."

“However, although the cutting-edge technology and equipment held by the Pacific Buoy sank to the bottom of the sea, isn’t it a good thing that no one was killed?”

Conan Edogawa tilted his head and gave a bright smile to Mouri Ran, who had found herself again through the crowd, and Haibara Ai, who was still sitting on the beach.

At the same time, in order to save time, the Japanese police started taking statements directly on the scene. So, after Marisbury finished his own statement, he also took advantage of the gap in the police's recording to grab a purple-haired man who was casually assigned by Amphitrite to plan the aftermath of this operation.

"That person is also a member of our Chaldea." Marisbilly introduced the purple-haired man who was being questioned by Sato Miwako to Shiratori Renzaburo. "Although Chaldea is an observatory, we are gathering elites from various fields - not just astronomy-related fields. Surant is a marine biologist hired by our Chaldea."

"Director Marisbury." After the recording was finished, Surante and other members of Chaldea gathered around Marisbury, "Is there a seat for me on the helicopter back to Antarctica this time?"

"The Chaldean helicopter is still big enough." Marinesberry replied with a smile, and then asked Surante, "Don't you plan to take a closer look?"

"Let's go back to the safety of Antarctica." Surant looked at the direction where the Pacific buoy had sunk a short while ago, and gave Marisbili his answer. "Come to think of it, you were all in the Pacific buoy earlier. Did you miss the live webcast press conference where the deputy director announced the opening hours of Chaldea?"

"…Is it over?" Goldruf cautiously confirmed with Surant.

"It's not over yet." Surante shook his head, "But I think that Chaldea is about to open up to the outside world, and it's a bit unreasonable for internal members to still be messing around outside."

"Professor Leif has been dragged out to save face again." Duston and Andreas gathered together, marveling at the current situation in the Chaldea live broadcast room. "I thought Professor Leif would never have the opportunity to show up like this after that incident."

"After all, he is the developer and manufacturer of Sheba. No matter what, there should be no one more suitable than him to introduce Chaldea." Marisbury smiled and looked back at the two people from the engineering department. "Okay, we should get ready to leave."

After the turmoil on Hachijo Island gradually subsided, Conan Edogawa had a telephone conference in Sherlock Holmes' office with Subaru Okiya and Toru Amuro, who had refused to review the matter face to face under the pretext of high-sounding excuses.

"...Okay." Edogawa Conan turned on the speakerphone for both phones and climbed onto the sofa in front of Holmes. "Mr. Amuro, the Pacific buoy has already sunk. It's time for you to explain the situation at that time, right?"

"The problem is that I don't know the current situation either." Amuro sighed deeply, and the sound mixed with some electric current came into the ears of the others through the mobile phone, "The FBI should have told you about the shooting in Beika Town, right?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmes also told me that the deceased was Rum..." Conan Edogawa's voice became smaller and smaller, "Who killed Rum?"

"Judging from the bullet, it should be Gin who did it." Amuro Toru's voice sounded a little self-destructive, as if he despised the necessity of his activities as an intelligence agent of the organization. "But at the last meeting of the organization, the reason for arranging this action was based on Rum's plan - obtaining cross-age recognition technology should only be Rum's request, and has nothing to do with the boss."

"But this mission was over. Binga died, and so did Rum—even Rum died before Binga."

"Then this arrangement of Rum is very problematic." Akai Shuichi removed Okiya Subaru's voice change and joined the conversation with his original voice, "I remember that you were sent by Rum to investigate my death, right? In other words, you are a code member closer to the Rum faction than the Gin faction."

"Who was the person who announced the assignment at the meeting?"

"Who else besides Gin would issue group missions in a face-to-face meeting?" Amuro Toru replied to Akai Shuichi unhappily, "Have you been away from the organization for too long and your brain has gone bad, Ley?"

"...I thought you still remembered that I had never met Gin or Bourbon when I was in the organization." Akai Shuichi sighed helplessly and began to analyze the situation. "Most code members in the organization have equal status, but there are exceptions. Although I have indeed never met a few code members, judging from Rum's situation, the power structure of the organization can probably be figured out."

"Without sufficient intelligence support, your judgment will easily be wrong!" Amuro Toru protested against Akai Shuichi's remarks.

"It doesn't matter. Brandy can also serve as evidence for this speculation." Akai Shuichi chuckled. "Although you are an intelligence agent, you should know the name of Brandy, right?"

"You mean Brandy who was in charge of the aftermath!?!"

"What do brandy and rum have in common?" Shuichi Akai asked Conan Edogawa.

"There are six types of alcoholic beverages that are called the base liquors of cocktails." The person who answered this question was William, who also participated in the tea party that night. "Gin, whiskey, brandy, vodka, rum, tequila - the answer you want is that these two alcoholic beverages are the base liquors of cocktails, Shuichi Akai."

"Thank you for your answer." Akai Shuichi continued to speak out his speculation, "Even if the current organization is not like this, the power distribution of the organization in the past was definitely like this - the boss controls the entire organization, and these six code names control the power of the organization in different aspects."

"However, although Vodka is not bad as a code member, and can even be considered excellent... he is obviously not the type who will hold part of the power of the organization." Amuro Toru denied Akai Shuichi's speculation, "Even if it is said that Gin holds the power of the organization, it is unlikely - although Gin does assign tasks to other members..."

"But considering that there was a MI6 sharpshooter who escaped unscathed in the past, and his code name was Gin..." Akai Shuichi paused and asked the MI6 on the other end of the phone, "What was the real name of that sharpshooter?"

"He has never used a pseudonym." William laughed and looked at Conan Edogawa. "Just like Conan said that our names are all like perfunctory pseudonyms, his name is also of this type."

"Is it Sebastian Moran?" asked Shuichi Akai.

"That's right." Louis pushed open the door and answered Shuichi Akai's question on the phone while holding a cup of tea. "Also, Moran does have a prosthetic arm. Seventeen years ago, a huge power shift took place within the Black Organization. The previous power distribution was just as the young FBI speculated. The six bottles of base wine divided the boss's power equally, and the boss's orders would only be given directly to them."

"These six codenamed members were the actual controllers of the organization at that time."

"However, there are only five codenamed members that are actually recorded." William took the black tea that Louis handed to him and took a sip. "Moran has 'Gin', and the unidentified 'Whisky', 'Brandy', 'Rum', and 'Tequila'."

"There is not even any rumor about the code name "Vodka" - so we initially judged this code name to be a ghost code name."

"Then, the power changes within the Black Organization seventeen years ago..." Amuro Toru, who had already realized part of the truth, held his breath and waited for the answer from the mathematics professor who had a lot of information.

"Ah, it was caused by the boss of the Black Organization in order to recover the scattered power." William put down his teacup, smiled and spread his hands to Conan Edogawa, "However, looking at the current situation of the organization, I think you should all know the final result of this struggle."

"The boss of the organization has successfully recovered the power he had dispersed in the past." Shuichi Akai concluded.

"That's right, but after that, the boss of the organization did not hold all the power tightly in his own hands." William paused and added, "Seventeen years ago, Moran exposed his identity when the boss of the organization took back the power, making "Gin" the first code name with a clear record of replacement."

"The second code name with a clear record of replacement is 'Rum' - the current 'Rum' was personally selected by the organization's boss. Originally, he should have been a pure member of the boss's faction, but judging from the current situation, his ambition was exposed, so the organization's boss was unable to bear it and killed him."

"After all, even though Moran was the one holding the codename 'Gin' before, the fact that 'Gin' is a sharp knife in the hands of the organization's boss is something that will never change."

"If it was Gin who killed a member of the organization, either his undercover identity was exposed, or the organization's boss felt that the existence of this code-named member threatened his own safety."