Chapter 24: Just Assume I've Lost My Mind

TL: LittlePeach

"I think I must have... heard that wrong. H-hold on a second?"

Having heard the whole report, Choi Min-sik raised a hand like a man in a trance and started digging at his ear.

"Again. Report that again. What was that just now?"

"Ah! A supplementary report just came in! It confirms that the North Korean special forces operatives belong to the Reconnaissance General Bureau's 24th Reconnaissance Battalion, and that Dandong Public Security Bureau director Wang Xianqing was the assassination squad's primary target. Director Wang Xianqing has been killed and is confirmed dead."

"Uh... uh-huh...."

"The last surviving member of the assassination squad is its squad leader. Sparrow No. 7 judged further pursuit unfeasible and called the situation closed."

For a while, Choi Min-sik just sat in his chair in a daze, mouth hanging half open.

Words wouldn't even come out properly anymore.

Inside his head, a great many things began tangling into a jumbled mess.

"I think I heard something wrong.... Sparrow No. 7 shot fourteen assassination squad members dead. Is that it?"

"Ah! M-my apologies. I misread the report. The exact wording only states that he visually confirmed their deaths."

"R-right? That's it, right?"

At the analyst's answer, Choi Min-sik squinted, an awkward look on his face.

And yet, why was it?

Was it because of the flamboyant track record Sparrow No. 7 had racked up single-handedly, from the Sinuiju operation until now?

'But to my ears it did sound like he was saying he killed all fourteen himself. If it's that kid, then maybe....'

For some reason, the back of his neck prickled.

Then, as if something had just occurred to him, Choi Min-sik's eyes went wide.

"Analyst Seong Ji-yeon. Over here for a second...."

"Yes? Ah, yes."

After no small amount of deliberation, he headed for a secluded corner of the situation room.

Recognizing his gesture, the analyst pulled off her headphones and approached him, bewildered.

"Ji-yeon. This hasn't gone up the chain to the group director yet, right?"

"No. For now the duty commander is supposed to cover all of it, so...."

At that, Choi Min-sik swallowed dryly and whispered in a low voice.

"Then this.... let's say our Sparrow No. 7 killed them all."

"...Sorry?"

Analyst Seong Ji-yeon wore a blank expression for a moment.

Regardless, the look on team leader Choi Min-sik's tense face was deadly serious.

"Go draw up one handwritten operation order for me. For when the report came in that Sparrow No. 7 had gone off to avenge Crane No. 13, just slip in a line saying I approved it under my own responsibility. We treat Sparrow No. 7's report as if it had been received as a formal operation proposal."

"Whaaat?"

Analyst Seong Ji-yeon caught on to his scheme instantly.

To inflate his own performance record along with the whole team's, he was openly ordering her to forge an official document!

Granted, it was an open secret that duty commanders quietly padded their numbers like this on every shift.

"T-team leader. This is...."

"Ji-yeon, please. I'm begging you, truly, sincerely. I've got two kids. You know that if I don't make promotion this time, I'll get shunted into the direct-report unit and have to start getting ready to hang up my badge, right?"

"S-still...."

"I've done nothing but this job my whole life. What else could I possibly do? You know full well you can't mention an NIS career anywhere after you leave, right?"

"E-even so...."

The logic was very simple.

When Sparrow No. 7 set out to avenge Crane No. 13, if it wasn't approved at the team-leader level, then later on a red line reading 'unauthorized departure from area of operations' would be drawn through his performance review.

That would leave Sparrow No. 7 unable to escape being held accountable for insubordination.

But what if it had been approved under team leader Choi Min-sik's name?

Then it would amount to filing the whole thing as a formal operation.

Along with official responsibility for the operation, the formula for performance credit based on its results would fall into place.

"Look, I'm telling you, this isn't just good for me."

When Analyst Seong Ji-yeon showed no sign whatsoever of budging, Choi Min-sik first wet his lips, the way a man does before a sales pitch.

"You know that once a team agent's activity is recognized as official performance, it gets added to the whole team's numbers, right? If we file that as a formal operation and process it as post-hoc approval, we could claim nearly double the year-end performance credit this year. And these weren't just any North Korean special forces, either. They were the Reconnaissance General Bureau's Praetorian Guard operatives, no less."

"Gulp."

"You think numbers like these will ever come out of the overseas departments again? No."

Team leader Choi Min-sik was utterly desperate.

If he failed to make promotion this time, his fate was to be demoted, this team leader post his last.

"So, hm? Please.... If anyone comes asking questions later, I'll take responsibility and say I received the report directly, okay? Please, I'm begging you!"

Analyst Seong Ji-yeon hesitated for a long while, torn.

But unable to withstand those desperate eyes fixed squarely on her, in the end she gave in and nodded.

"...Understood."

And so, in that day's duty report, it was officially recorded that Sparrow No. 7 had single-handedly wiped out all fourteen members of the North Korean assassination squad.

[Sparrow No. 7, shooting of 14 combat operatives of North Korea's 24th Reconnaissance Battalion complete]

Whether that was the truth or not hardly mattered to team leader Choi Min-sik, whose eyes had glazed over at the prospect of promotion.

*****

The problem was what came next.

From the NIS Director down to the lowest rungs of the agency.

A very peculiar rumor began to spread among the people.

Whisper, whisper.

"Wait, is this real?"

"Holy shit.... In one night? He's actually insane."

"The 24th Reconnaissance Battalion, aren't those Pyongyang's Praetorian Guard?"

"This is possible on a Sparrow code? Is this bullshit or what?"

"Man.... Team leader Choi Min-sik hit the jackpot, he really did."

"Can't we bring this kid over to our department somehow?"

"If he's a Sparrow, he's still green. Should be easy to poach."

"Letting Dandong of all places monopolize him just isn't fair. Good things should be shared. Am I wrong?"

"...Director Oh. Look into this agent for me, quietly, behind the First Deputy Director's back."

Murmur, murmur.

Little by little, Sparrow No. 7's name began landing on everyone's lips.

They say that's the thing about rumors, spreading uncontrollably fast right when least expected.

*****

Hwanggumpyong was originally an island floating in the Yalu River, but repeated sedimentation had gradually fixed its shape until it sat fused flush against Chinese territory.

Because of this geographic quirk, China and North Korea had once farmed it jointly in the past, and the two countries had even joined hands to designate it a special economic zone and push for large-scale development.

But between Chinese companies' lukewarm attitude toward developing North Korea and, decisively, the execution of the North Korean Workers' Party Administrative Department director in 2013, the development plan itself ran completely aground.

So it was now a half-abandoned place, though lately there'd been no end of chatter about developing it into a tourist course or some such.

Honestly, if it were up to me, rather than bother touring Hwanggumpyong, doing one more lap of the Sinuiju bus tour with the air conditioning blasting would be a hundred times better.

'Time to get over the fence here.'

Beyond the barbed wire lay a tightly guarded military protection zone, dotted here and there with North Korean army guard posts, and patrols passed through now and then.

Maybe because the small hours were deepening, never mind the eerie atmosphere, the plaintive bleating of a goat drifted in from somewhere.

"Hup."

I couldn't ride the motorcycle Yang Mi-ryeong had lent me all the way in, so I laid it down in a secluded patch of brush to hide it, then climbed over the barbed wire.

Sharp barbs snagged me all over, but only tore my clothes a little.

'Better hurry.'

Past the fence, as I crossed the desolately empty dirt road, a single hulking building stood tall in the distance.

That was the Hwanggumpyong Administration Building.

China had gone all in and built it themselves when development began, but ever since the project ran aground, it had stood as a gaunt skeleton without a single pane of glass.

There was no sign of life inside the building.

Only thick combat-boot prints left in the sand-caked dust.

Quietly drawing my pistol, I followed the footprints up the stairs. And it was just as I reached the rooftop.

"Do not move."

A menacing voice came out of the thick darkness.

Just then the clouds slid aside, and in the pouring moonlight, a lone man stood in the middle of the rooftop.

The assassination squad leader grinned as he faced me.

A smile bristling with murder.

"So we meet face to face at last. You are the one who abducted Director So Se-hyok, are you not?"

"...."

"I knew in advance that you would come here."

By all appearances, he had been waiting for me.

From the moment he heard over the radio that I was the one who had abducted So Se-hyok, he seemed to have firmly believed I would track him down and come find him one way or another.

And even if I hadn't come, it likely wouldn't have mattered to him.

"Heh heh. You bastard. After all your infuriating little tricks, it was your fate to die here together with me after all."

Inside and outside the military vest wrapped around his body, lumps of what looked like white modeling clay were bound haphazardly, round and round with tape.

Rows of blasting caps studded those crude lumps in a tangle, strung in bunches to the detonator clutched in the man's hand.

A suicide bomb vest packed full of C4 explosive.

"Come one step closer and I will press this detonator."

"...."

"You bastard. You are dying here together with me. Understood?"

That thing could mean only one thing.

He had never had the slightest intention of walking out of here alive.

"...."

"...."

A suffocating standoff stretched on in the silence.

The man kept kneading the detonator glowing red in his hand, and I, too, silently regarded the pistol in mine for a moment.

"...Fine."

After a few thoughts flashed through my head, I holstered the pistol I'd been holding.

Then I plopped straight down onto the rooftop floor.

Badly startled, the man took a step back.

"Wh-what do you think you are doing!"

"Oh, nothing much. Just figured we could talk a bit before you set off the bomb."

"...What?"

"Let's start with introductions. What's your name?"

"What manner of trickery is this!"

The man bared his teeth and growled like a frightened animal.

Regardless, I shrugged.

"I told you. Let's just talk. You're not going to press that button this very second, are you?"

"You bastard.... What in the world are you scheming?"

"How many times are you going to make me say it? Let's have ourselves a little conversation. Call it your last words if you like."

"Stand up! Enough of your nonsense, stand up this instant!"

He could hardly be blamed for reacting that way.

When faced with a scene the mind simply cannot process, an ordinary person is bound to falter.

The man started, and began whipping his head around at his surroundings.

"You have snipers lying in ambush nearby, is that it? You mean to hold my attention and buy time?"

"Snipers? Take a look around. This is the only tall building anywhere in the area."

"...Then why, in heaven's name? Have you come all this way just to mock me?"

North Korea's most elite special forces are, by any account, human weapons who have lived through countless real engagements.

But I doubt their manuals contain anything on how to handle a madman who sits down, calm as can be, in front of a man wearing a C4 suicide vest and asks for his name.

If such a thing existed, I'd have liked to see it myself.

"Just assume I've lost my mind. One click of that button and I'm dead where I sit, so my wits have gone clean out the window."

"You, you.... You truly are not right in the head, are you?"

I grinned.

"Can't do this job for a living if you're right in the head. Am I wrong?"

*****

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