Chapter 60: Unleash Poison in the Domestic Department

TL: LittlePeach

The Regional Security Bureau building in Primorsky Krai, Russia.

Cuckoo No. 1, dispatched on emergency orders, was crossing the lobby toward the reception desk.

‘Director Mikhail. THAAD is simply out of the question. We'd rather launder it cleanly and slip you some money under the table, so please, let's find some other compromise.’

He muttered the lines he'd memorized under his breath, adjusting his tie.

Now, having flown all the way to this distant, frozen wasteland at the far ends of the earth, all to somehow smooth over the other side's absurd demands.

"Ahem! Ahem-hem. Excuse me..."

"What's your business?"

"I'm an official negotiator dispatched from the Republic of Korea's NIS. I arranged an appointment separately two days ago. Where might I find Director Mikhail Volkov?"

As he opened his mouth, forcing a solemn expression, the security agent at the desk looked at him with dumbfounded eyes.

It was the look one gives a half-witted fool.

"You said you're from the NIS? Your intelligence service is awfully slow with the news."

"Yes? What do you..."

"Director Mikhail was arrested exactly two days ago on charges of treason and corruption, and hauled off into custody. You're a step too late."

"...?"

"The post of Primorsky Regional Security Bureau director is vacant right now. No telling when the next director will arrive, so come back then, or do as you like."

"No, wait..."

He just blinked, wondering whether he'd misheard the man's Russian.

But the security agent only waved his hand, as if he found it all a nuisance.

"...What?"

For all the solemnity with which he'd marched in, Cuckoo No. 1 staggered his way back outside.

He gazed blankly up at the building again.

"...What the hell?"

*****

At the same time.

"Sob. Sniff..."

"I thought I'd never make it back..."

As the NIS agents who'd successfully completed the illegal sea passage to Busan choked up, overcome with emotion, I grinned and stretched.

"All right, everyone. That was a long, hard road. Get back up to Seoul safe."

"Huh? Aren't you coming with us, sir?"

"No. Actually, I've been on leave for a few days now."

"Oh."

"So I figured I'd hang around a bit longer before I head up."

"Ah, haha..."

After seeing off Owl No. 5 and the rest of the agents heading for NIS HQ, I didn't go up to Seoul. I stayed put in Busan.

I planned to take my time wandering around, breathing in the sea air for once and eating good food.

Because before long, once I got summoned to NIS headquarters, I wouldn't get to enjoy this leisurely routine anymore.

"Ma'am. Two hotteok, please."

"That's four thousand won."

"Eek? Why is hotteok so expensive?"

"'Cause they're packed full of seeds and nuts."

"Oof... Just the one, then."

Not that there was much to this so-called routine, honestly.

For once I bought a brand-new phone and revived my old number, then went and sat in some random café and just stared at it.

And just like that, nearly two whole days had passed.

Munch, munch.

"They're taking their sweet time."

Honestly, by this point I'd figured NIS HQ would get in touch.

Because deep down I was certain a disciplinary committee would be convened.

I'd carried out an illegal sea passage across the border with no approval from the higher-ups, and stirred up an unexpected storm inside Russia before coming home, after all.

But for some reason, not a single word came.

‘Are they feeling me out?’

Of course, discipline would amount to a pay cut and a suspension at most, nothing to be scared of.

But that's just how the human heart works, isn't it?

The way one day of tardiness costing a perfect-attendance award turns every trip to and from school into a nerve-wracking ordeal.

And I, for one, had been a diligent model student who'd never once lost a perfect-attendance award in all my life.

‘Feels like they're mulling something over about me right now, though...’

Yet still, not a word.

It was eerily quiet.

My best guess was that they'd given up on disciplining me.

Rather than discipline me, weren't they more likely in the middle of somehow dressing up the results I'd achieved as an unofficial NIS rescue operation and wrapping it all up?

It was a reasonable suspicion.

‘Whatever works, works.’

And then, on one of those days I spent drifting in circles around Haeundae.

I was sitting in a café near Haeundae, leisurely taking in the view outside the window.

"Long time no see, sir."

Someone slid abruptly into the seat beside me.

Glancing over out of the corner of my eye, I found a man decked out in a sharp suit.

A familiar face.

It was Kim Do-hyeon, team leader of the Special Intelligence Team in the Domestic Intelligence Bureau, the one who'd come to scout me for the domestic department once before.

"...."

I quickly scanned my surroundings and clicked my tongue.

Because he was the last person I should be running into by chance like this.

"So it is. Long time no see, team leader. Keeping well?"

"Haha. Very well, of course."

"How on earth did you track me down all the way out here?"

"That, naturally, is a secret."

"Aha..."

How had he found me?

The first possibility that came to mind was that he'd traced my phone.

Given the extent of the authority the domestic department held, digging through the cell towers to trace the location of my newly bought phone seemed entirely doable for them.

Only in the realm of possibility, of course.

"Since we happen to have run into each other, would you care to have a meal together? There's a sushi place nearby I know well."

It was the exact same repertoire as the last time he'd come to me.

His business was obvious.

He'd say he wanted to bring me into the domestic department.

Around the time we were murmuring low, our voices half-swallowed by the café's music.

"I'll get straight to the point. I've come to you right now on the orders of the NIS Director himself."

I nodded, for the time being.

I'd been curious about the quality of the sushi place he'd have lined up.

*****

The sushi place we arrived at.

It sat not far from the café where we'd met.

I had no idea how he managed to know about and arrange a place like this, but just like before, it was a private, secluded table.

"The NIS Director is not a man who'll be content with his current post. He's a figure who'll soon take on a higher position, a higher title, put to great use at the heart of the administration. And I'm riding along on that ship myself."

"Mm."

While I picked sushi off the plate laid out in front of me, team leader Kim Do-hyeon leisurely laid out his business.

Of course, it was a subject I had zero interest in, so I stayed busy grabbing at the sushi right in front of me.

Nom nom.

"So I'd like you to join us. This Russia matter included, with your unrivaled abilities, you'll surely rise through the ranks quickly inside our domestic department too."

"Word of what happened in Russia has already spread that far?"

"Of course. There's no way we wouldn't know. It's a matter that was reported to the Director in full, after all."

"And how was it reported?"

"I heard you infiltrated Russia in secret under the First Deputy Director's orders and carried out an operation. The detailed contents of the operation were sealed by executive authority so they can't be verified, but in the end, I heard your role was the largest of all."

So that was the story they'd settled on to smooth it over.

I nodded, slipping a piece of glistening, oily tuna sushi into my mouth.

"Anyway, so it's the same scout offer as last time, is that it?"

"That's right."

For some reason, team leader Kim Do-hyeon straightened his tie and wore a triumphant smile.

"Since your market value has shot up considerably in the meantime, the terms are on a rather different scale from what I offered before. Care to hear them?"

"Yes, by all means."

"It was abolished a good while ago, but in the past the NIS had a separate post called the NIS Director's Special Advisor. You'd be granted privileges on the level of reviving that very post."

Meant to knock the wind out of me right from the opening, apparently.

Team leader Kim Do-hyeon shrugged his shoulders smugly.

"Do you happen to remember the special-activity funds card I mentioned last time?"

"Of course."

"This is a continuation of that. You'll specifically be issued a special-activity funds card with a monthly limit of five million won."

"Oho."

Sure enough, an offer coming straight from the NIS Director was a whole different scale.

The offer I'd gotten before had started at one million won, if I recalled.

"On top of that, you'll be provided a top-grade official residence registered under the NIS. It's positioned so that when you wake up and draw the curtains in the morning, the Han River spreads out before your eyes."

"Wow..."

Taxes, melting away nice and slow.

I nodded, working over a piece of salmon sushi that melted in my mouth.

The kind of flavor that had my head nodding all on its own.

"And crucially, right at the Director's side, you'll be able to build connections directly with the key power players of the current administration. After retirement there's a strong chance you'll follow the Director into politics, and if you really don't care for that, you could parachute into an executive seat at a major corporation or a state enterprise. Did you know? Countless major corporations in this country are quietly desperate to bring in NIS alumni."

"Is that so?"

"It is."

Anyway.

The terms themselves weren't bad.

A crass, materialistic offer, but a realistic one for that very reason.

But if there was one thing rubbing me the wrong way in all this.

"Until you're attending on the NIS Director directly, for the time being you'll learn the basics of the work step by step under me. With your abilities, you'll probably find your feet perfectly within half a year."

That attitude, right there.

That arrogance, taking for granted that I'd naturally come over to the domestic department, is what got under my skin.

Munch, munch.

"The work itself isn't all that hard. Attending on the Director up close, meeting various government officials in his stead to coordinate positions, and so on. It's basically closer to the role of a personal aide."

Well, from their standpoint it was a perfectly natural way of thinking.

In their eyes, the overseas department was a place where agents put their lives on the line and slaved away for a pittance.

If it was that dangerous and paid squat, then anyone who didn't jump ship to the domestic department the moment the chance came along would just be an idiot, wouldn't they?

That was exactly their logic.

‘Pisses me off.’

For a while I chewed at the chewy flatfish-fin sushi in silence.

"Mm?"

Then, out of nowhere, a thought struck me.

"Is something the matter?"

"No. The sushi's just really good."

"Ha, haha... I've been terribly tactless. Finish eating first, and we'll talk more after."

"Yes, thank you."

Let me try out a fun little hypothetical.

What would happen if I twisted just one premise here?

That the overseas department is dangerous is an undeniable fact.

But what if it also paid?

‘Roughly, what, six billion in three months?’

What if it was pulling in an absolutely staggering pile of money?

In the end, that one premise alone was enough to make their whole logic collapse like a sandcastle.

Just picturing it, a snort of laughter slipped out of me before I knew it.

‘Hell of an idea.’

Now that I'd made up my mind, the first thing I did was dig through my pocket and pull out my phone.

There really wasn't anything to agonize over.

"Team leader. Would you take a look at this for a second?"

"Sure. What is it?"

I fiddled with the phone a few times, then thrust it right up in front of team leader Kim Do-hyeon's eyes.

On the screen was the official mobile banking app of a Hong Kong bank.

[Balance: 29,676,200 CNY]

It was linked to the Hong Kong nominee account Yang Mi-ryeong had handed me, so my balance sat there on the screen plain as day.

Team leader Kim Do-hyeon glanced at it without a thought, and his shoulders went rigid.

"Uh, huh?"

Then his eyes went wide as saucers.

Then, as if that figure had just been converted into won in his head, the corners of his eyes began to twitch and tremble.

"Uh, uhh... huh?"

"Well? What goes through your head, looking at that?"

"Wh-what... what kind of money is th-this?"

"I earned that much working in the overseas department."

"...What?"

Six billion won.

I had no idea how much money he'd earned in his whole life up to now, but the average person's eyes roll back in their head and they tremble just at the sight of a number around a billion.

"You do know it hasn't even been half a year since I finished probation and got issued the Sparrow code, right?"

Bluntly, that special-activity funds card team leader Kim Do-hyeon was so proud of?

It couldn't be used to freely withdraw cash.

It would mean finding some separate place to launder it, through card cashing or whatever, and since that was illegal work either way, the fees would run pretty steep.

‘Even assuming there were no fees.’

Suppose, just hypothetically, that he'd somehow ground that money through the wash and pocketed it as cash.

To scrape together this kind of sum by grinding it out that way, how long on earth would it take?

Five million a month.

Sixty million a year.

Six hundred million in ten years.

And yet, right now, the money showing in my account was six billion.

A sum that could only be built by socking away those vaunted special-activity funds for a full hundred years without spending a single won.

"H-how on earth did you earn, earn this m-money?"

"That, naturally, is a trade secret. If I give you just a tiny hint, well, the CIA and this and that..."

"Th-the CIA?"

"Yes. The side jobs that come in from places like that now and then turn out to be quite lucrative."

"No, that..."

"Look. Just like you said, team leader, the overseas department is dangerous, it's true. But look. It pays this well, see?"

"...."

Half of it was true, half of it a lie.

Because this wasn't money earned from some side job in the first place. It was money earned as the price of abducting Jin Hao.

Bluntly, even if they ran an internal inspection on me, they'd shake out absolutely nothing.

It wasn't even a bankbook in my own name, after all.

"You covered up that Garibong-dong sudden-acceleration mess for me last time, so out of gratitude, I'm telling you this specially. A Han-River-view apartment? A special-activity funds card? Come on... With this money, how many apartments in Gangnam is that?"

"...."

Once they lose their heads over this ridiculous sum and can't come back to their senses, everything after that gets simple.

Because big money carries a devil's charm all its own, one that paralyzes a person's reason and shackles their soul.

"Done looking?"

The overseas department is dangerous and doesn't pay?

Such flimsy conventional wisdom was bound to crumble in no time.

The proof was right there in front of them, wasn't it?

From now on, every time the domestic department people came around, I intended to unleash this six-billion-won poison on them.

"Now give it back, please."

"...."

Squeeze.

Team leader Kim Do-hyeon's grip on my phone had clenched down hard.

"Interested, by any chance?"

"Uh, huh?"

"If you're interested, get in touch next time."

"Ah, uh..."

And he seemed to have no idea of any of it himself.

Grin.

‘If it's making you sick with envy, then come on over to the overseas department.’

*****

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