Chapter 6: The Emergency Line

TL: LittlePeach

I slipped out of sight behind the steel door.

Whichever way I looked at it, this was outside the plan, and it had thrown me off guard.

"...Would the three of you mind waiting inside for a moment? I should probably put some clothes on."

"Ah! O-of course!"

"P-please, take your time g-getting dressed."

"Ahem."

I hurriedly stripped the uniform off the North Korean soldier who had been guarding the basement entrance and pulled it on.

Then I went back inside to unlock the three of them from their handcuffs, and the whole time, the air stayed inexplicably awkward.

I cleared my throat, for no real reason, just to reset the mood.

"Ahem! From here on, follow directly behind me. You stay hidden at my back at all times, no exceptions."

"Y-yes!"

My job right now wasn't to mop up North Korean soldiers; it was to get these three people out to somewhere safe.

North Korean troops who'd heard the explosion would be converging fast.

I needed to clear the scene quickly.

Leading them along, I reached the first floor in no time.

"What in blazes is going on here?"

"A bomb went off upstairs!"

Right on cue, two North Korean soldiers burst through the safe house entrance.

The very same soldiers who had tricked me with an offer to take my picture and dragged me all the way here.

They spotted me and stopped dead, baffled by the appearance of a stranger's face wearing one of their own uniforms. In that moment...

Bang-bang!

"Gurk!"

"Ngh!"

Before I risked developing even a grudging soft spot for them, I planted one bullet apiece in their chests, nice and even.

Come to think of it, one of these bastards had taken my phone.

They must have been struggling between themselves to crack my unlock pattern; the screen I pulled from his pocket was smeared all over with grimy fingerprints.

'Lucky these two didn't wander far.'

After pocketing the phone, I looked back at the people waiting below on the stairs, scared stiff.

The sudden gunfire must have startled them; they had sunk down halfway up the staircase, frozen in place.

"Hurry up and come on up."

"I-is it safe?"

"Yes. No one is getting shot anymore."

I stood with my back to the two fallen soldiers, screening the bodies from their view.

"Don't look too closely at the men on the floor. Just head out."

"Eek...."

Rifle aimed ahead, I led them out of the State Security Department safe house, and mercifully we ran into no more North Korean soldiers.

Past the entrance and around the bend of a shadowy alley, a wide-open main street came into view.

It was in full commotion, crowds gathering, rattled by the explosion.

"The three of you, go straight down this road, flag a taxi, and head for the Consulate General in Shenyang. Explain what happened to you in Dandong today, and they will most likely put you on an emergency flight to South Korea."

"W-what about you, Agent? What will you do?"

"I still have work left to do."

"You're n-not coming with us?"

The dismay on their faces was unmistakable.

Apparently they had believed I would escort them safely all the way to South Korean soil.

They had only just been pulled out of the horrific certainty that they'd be abducted, dragged into North Korea, and end their lives in misery, so it was understandable.

"This is as far as I can take you."

"But...."

"I'm sorry your trip had to end this way, all three of you, but please travel carefully and get yourselves home."

"C-could you at least tell us your name?"

"No."

"Oh...."

When I drew the line with a firm expression, they clammed right back up.

Clap!

I smacked my hands together loudly to snap them out of it.

"Hurry. Stand around gawking here and you really will get shot."

"Ah!"

Only then did the three of them come to their senses and hustle out toward the main street.

They glanced back now and then, but I just waved at them, playing it breezy.

Only after watching them squeeze through the crowd and climb into a taxi did I finally look around to take stock.

"There we go."

Not far off, a North Korean army truck sat parked.

A compact little thing that would be packed full with ten adults squeezed aboard, the so-called Victory truck.

A quick check showed the key sitting in the ignition, completely unguarded.

"Perfect."

I climbed into the driver's seat like I belonged there and started the engine.

In the rearview mirror I could see a couple of North Korean soldiers, finally catching on, sprinting after me for all they were worth, but I stepped on the gas and the truck quickly pulled away.

Honk, hooonk!

I threaded past the murmuring crowds and out onto the main road.

"All according to plan. All according to plan."

The State Security Department safe house sat in a residential quarter of Dandong's Yuanbao District.

Scattered all around were factory ruins left to rot into eyesores, steel fences with the paint peeling off, a seedy karaoke joint with its shutters clamped down, a shabby massage parlor with its lights out.

Once I had left all of that behind, before long the Yalu River Bridge came into view not far ahead.

"Nihao. Wo jiao... shenme mingzi. Brrrrrr. Ahem!" [TL Note: He's botching a basic Chinese self-introduction, "Hello. My name is... 'what's-your-name'."]

From that point I patted my cheeks to fix my expression in place and limbered up my Chinese.

Unlike last night, a good number of Dandong Public Security officers were bustling on patrol near the bridge entrance.

One of them motioned at my truck to pull over.

As I eased off the speed and rolled up, the Public Security officer addressed me in Chinese.

"Hey. There was a pretty loud noise over that way just now. You know anything about it?"

"Sorry? I was busy driving, I wouldn't know!"

The North Korean truck, old as it was, had a very loud personality.

With the engine roaring, I had to shout my answer, and the officer raised his own voice to a vein-popping yell to match.

"You're with the North's State Security Department, aren't you? Didn't you just come from that direction?"

"That's right, Comrade Officer! I have finished transporting troops and am on my way back to Sinuiju."

"Yeah? Because that sounded like a bomb going off to me...."

"Are you sure you heard right?"

"Tch. What's the point of asking any more? Fine, move along!"

The officer gave the truck's interior a cursory once-over, then waved me through with the casual flick of a man who did this every day.

For my part, there was no need to rush; I eased onto the gas at my leisure.

There I was, in a North Korean uniform, driving a stolen North Korean truck, heading for North Korean soil.

'Anyone watching would have called me a lunatic.'

It was nothing like last night, when I had driven like a madman to save Kite No. 3.

For some reason my heart was light, as if I were setting out on a stroll.

Cruising across the Yalu River Bridge under a blazing midday sun felt truly special.

"Halt, halt!"

At the southern end of the bridge, North Korean sentries stood guard at the checkpoint.

But I felt no tension at all as I stepped on the brakes once more.

My perfect composure seemed to leave them without the slightest suspicion about who I was.

"Is something the matter, then?"

"The Comrade Bureau Director of the External Intelligence Bureau has issued orders to transport additional personnel. I am bound for the assembly point."

"Is that so? Hard work, all this coming and going."

My shameless lie even earned me a word of encouragement, and I cleared the bridge without incident.

Then I kept the truck at an unhurried pace on the gas, giving no one any reason for suspicion.

My destination was the shabby warehouse where our NIS black agents had assembled last night.

Meeting it again in broad daylight, it felt oddly unfamiliar.

"This the place?"

I parked the truck somewhere suitable and headed for the warehouse.

The jumble of boot prints stamped into the dusty dirt floor brought back last night's desperate chase.

Creak. The moment I opened the door and stepped inside...

Bang!

"Urk?"

Someone hiding in a shadowed inner corner shot at me without a moment's hesitation.

Bang, bang!

Three whole rounds, no less.

I looked down at my own chest, dumbfounded.

At that, the man gripping the Baekdusan pistol stared back at me, eyes bulging in horror.

"Wh-what is this! Why... why are you unharmed?!"

"Uh, umm...."

I knew that face.

Behind him, his wife, his son, his daughter, the whole family, huddled together in terror.

I hurriedly stopped the Minister of People's Armed Forces, Hyon Yong-chol, as he raised the gun again to aim at my head.

Take a bullet to the head, and no excuse in the world holds up afterward.

"Calm down. I'm an agent of South Korea's NIS."

"Wh-what did you say?"

"You are Minister of People's Armed Forces Hyon Yong-chol, correct? From this point on, you'll be moving with me."

He looked utterly bewildered.

A man in a North Korean uniform, who had driven up in a North Korean army truck, was suddenly declaring himself an NIS agent; clearly, he could not bring himself to believe it.

"A South Chosun operative, you say... such a thing.... But comrade, are you... is your body quite all right?"

He was stupefied by the sight of me standing there unhurt after taking three bullets to the chest.

He must have felt as if he had just cut, with his own hands, the lifeline heaven had lowered to him.

So I made a deliberate show of indifference, brushing off the front of my jacket.

Clatter. Three crushed slugs dropped to the floor.

"I'm fine. It's bulletproof under here, you see."

It wasn't a lie.

Hearing that, Hyon Yong-chol's expression finally eased considerably.

"S-still, there must have been pain...."

"None at all. North Korean bullets are so weak that if you take them nice and gently, they barely hurt."

Whether to be pleased about that, or offended.

Hyon Yong-chol wavered a moment, then nodded.

"Er, hm. In any case, my apologies. Here I am prattling idle nonsense at the very man I shot."

"Please don't trouble yourself over it. In any case, while we move from here on, you must follow my instructions to the letter."

"U-understood!"

The gunshots would have carried; it seemed we would need to hurry a little more.

*****

The situation room set apart in the NIS underground bunker.

Six large LCD monitors filled the wall, and in the middle of the office, analysts hammered away at their keyboards without pause.

[344W481]

[Hyon Yong-chol defection handover / Target's current location unconfirmed / Operation deemed unsustainable / Provisionally suspended / ...]

[827B112]

[Sparrow No. 7 in transit / Estimated 3 abducted South Korean nationals / Emergency text alert sent to tourists in Dandong / ...]

[...]

At the top of the main screen, the codes of ongoing operations blinked in red and yellow.

Below them, the position data and status of the agents deployed to the Sinuiju operation were listed side by side.

"With Owl No. 8's situation report just now, we have final confirmation that all five agents are alive."

A heavy silence filled the room.

Even the mechanical whir of the servers and the clatter of keyboards grated on the nerves.

"Excluding Sparrow No. 7, currently executing an independent tasking, and Kite No. 3, who is under no obligation to share location data, the remaining three agents have all completed evacuation to their safe houses. All three have entered radio silence."

Through the whole of Analyst Jeong Su-a's report, the knot in Team Leader Choi Min-sik's brow never loosened.

He raked his hands through his hair irritably and let out a groan.

"Of all the luck, the only piece we can play is a Sparrow...."

Of the five agents scattered around Dandong, only Sparrow No. 7 was in a position to execute orders independently.

Having to commit a Sparrow-coded agent, and to a civilian rescue at that, sat wrong with Team Leader Choi Min-sik in every possible way.

'Cuckoo, that son of a bitch.... He gets his orders and dares to go dark?'

Then again, maybe it was actually a mercy that it was a Sparrow.

The true objective of this operation was never rescuing the abducted tourists.

It was to send the State Security Department a message, that they could keep the black agent we'd dispatched as their hostage instead, so long as they put a stop to any further abductions.

Because the moment anyone was taken to that infamous State Security Department safe house, a rescue was never anything more than a pipe dream to begin with.

Right. If the loss stopped at a Sparrow, they'd be getting off cheap.

"Haah.... Fuck, please....."

But what if things went sideways, and the worst possible report came in, that never mind operational success, every civilian had been murdered and the black agent himself shot dead on scene?

Choi Min-sik's leg jittered restlessly, his insides burning.

At that moment, a voice, sunk low, came from behind him.

"What about the Dandong Public Security channel? Still no response?"

Team Leader Choi Min-sik shot up out of his chair.

He turned to find, through the open crack of the door, the sour face of his direct superior, Special Operations Group Director Oh Dong-cheol.

Under that piercing gaze, Team 2's Assistant Manager Kim Cheol-min answered, breaking out in a cold sweat.

"Sir.... they appear to be deliberately ignoring our line."

"After all the bribe money we've slipped them over the years, that whole line goes dead overnight?"

"No, sir, that's not quite it. But the last piece of information they passed us was odd. They asked whether the explosion in downtown Dandong was our doing."

"Explosion? What explosion? Don't tell me something blew up near the Yalu River Bridge?"

"No, sir. They said it was in the city, so we told them we knew nothing about it. After that they suddenly got angry, and since then, no contact whatsoever...."

"An explosion.... What kind of nonsense out of thin air is that?"

Around Group Director Oh Dong-cheol, the analysts began trading anxious speculations of their own, cobbled together from fragments of information.

And then, brrring.

"Hm?"

An old telephone in the corner of the situation room rang quietly.

Supervisor Seong Ji-yeon of general affairs, who had been hovering nearby reading the room, blinked.

"Why is this...."

It was the situation room's direct emergency line, a phone that had never once rung since she'd joined the service, whose very existence she had forgotten.

Its ringing out of nowhere could only leave her bewildered.

"Hello?"

-....

She lifted the receiver, and a few short words came through from the other end.

Supervisor Seong Ji-yeon listened intently, and the moment she grasped the situation, she whirled around toward Team Leader Choi Min-sik, aghast.

"T-Team Leader! I think you need to take this call!"

"What is it! Can't you see my head's about to explode?"

"It's, well... it's Sparrow No. 7 in the field. On the emergency line."

"...What?"

Every eye in the room snapped to her at once.

Supervisor Seong Ji-yeon hiccupped, sucking in a breath.

All the more because Team Leader Choi Min-sik's face, glaring straight at her, had twisted into a scowl.

"Seriously... Shit. What kind of colossal disaster did he cause out there that he's dipping into the emergency line?!"

Face crumpled in a grimace, he strode over.

"What is it? Sparrow No. 7, what the hell is your situation!"

Then, so that Group Director Oh Dong-cheol could hear as well, he jabbed the speakerphone button with pointless aggression.

Sparrow No. 7's answer came back in a leisurely voice.

-Reporting. I have secured the target, Minister of People's Armed Forces Hyon Yong-chol, who was standing by at the assembly point in Sinuiju. I therefore request confirmation on whether Operation 344W481 is cleared to proceed.

"...Wh-what did you say?"

...Where did Hyon Yong-chol suddenly come from?

Team Leader Choi Min-sik's shoulders, which had been hiked up high enough to punch through the ceiling, dropped in an instant.

Even his raised voice went slack in a moment, like a balloon with the air let out.

*****

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