Chapter 136

Eight in the evening. Pale steam curled from the electric kettle in the dining area. After spending the day quietly busy following the morning call that had nearly mobilized half the Special Security Division, Seoul was finally winding down with a mug of warm tea.

“Hooo…”

He cradled the mug in both hands and blew across the surface until the steam thinned. He drank half of it slowly, listening to the tiny sounds that emerged only when the house settled into night.

‘I’ll be clocking out late tonight. Go to sleep first.’

Do-hyeop had called again only a short while ago. This time it was voice only. A dispatch to the docks would keep him late, so instead of waiting on the living-room sofa, Seoul planned to sleep first. There was only one small task he wanted to finish beforehand.

‘Think in advance about what you need to bring when checking into the hospital next week. Everything you need is already there, so you don’t have to pack much.’

The reminder from their morning call had stayed with him. Sitting in the dimmed living room, Seoul considered the coming hospital stay over the rim of his cup.

“Still, since it’s spring, I should probably pack some lighter clothes, right?”

That afternoon he had taken an overnight bag from the dressing room. Now he stared at it and searched his mind for anything else worth bringing. He put a book inside, reconsidered, and took it out again.

“I’ll just pack a few clothes…”

Would the hospital provide tea? Maybe he should bring a few tea bags. Still debating, Seoul rose and started toward the dressing room.

“…Ah.”

Cold raced suddenly up his spine.

Thud.

There was no warning. Pain struck between his spine and abdomen with the blunt force of a heavy blade. Seoul folded over instinctively, both hands flying to his belly.

He had felt brief tightening before, once or twice, and occasional dull aches in his lower back. This was nothing like those. This pain was alien and violent, as though something inside him were being twisted apart.

“Ah…!”

Thud.

The cry came out strangled. Seoul dropped to his knees, breath cut short, and fumbled desperately for the device normally strapped to his wrist. Bare skin. He had left it charging on the bedroom nightstand.

“Hngh…”

Instinct told him immediately that something was wrong. Another sharp spasm twisted through his abdomen and set his fingers shaking. His whole body wanted to seize into stillness, but he could not afford to collapse here.

“Vexa, call the director.”

That one command was enough. The house AI could contact Do-hyeop automatically.

But another blade of pain seemed to carve through his abdomen before he could finish speaking. Seoul’s lips barely moved. He blinked against the darkness closing rapidly inward from the edges of his vision, fighting to remain conscious long enough to be heard.

He lost that fight within seconds. Cold sweat drenched his skin as pain fired through every nerve. The room drew away from him, blurred and distant as a dream, and then consciousness vanished altogether.

***

Whooosh.

The northern pier on the outer rim of Seodo Port. The weather was vicious, the roar of breaking waves indistinguishable from the wind tearing through the empty wharf.

Pitch-black darkness swallowed the pier, even the streetlamps dead. Heavy with salt and damp, the wind cut across bare skin like splinters of ice. Far offshore, the only light came from the scattered glitter of night-fishing boats.

Screech.

Between towering stacks of shipping containers, a black vehicle glided to a halt with the muted purr of its engine.

Flash.

Only after the car stopped did its white headlights flare on, throwing fang-like shadows across the concrete. Click. Clack. The front and rear doors opened at once, and two figures stepped out.

Squish.

Seawater slicked with oil squelched beneath their soles. Dressed in a black jumper, his hair whipped by the wind, Do-hyeop turned his left wrist to check the time.

Nine in the evening. Every recent failure to leave work on time—a rule he had kept almost religiously since moving in with Seoul—had been for tonight. As heaviness tugged at his eyelids, Yu Jeong-ham stepped around from the passenger side and handed him his semi-rimless glasses. Do-hyeop put them on without a word.

Static.

—”Code Odyssey. Outside Container 2115-B.”

Click.

At the transmission crackling through his earpiece, Do-hyeop switched on his flashlight and checked the digits stenciled across the nearest container. 2107. The target should be two blocks ahead.

The man Do-hyeop had come for was the head of an overseas syndicate that had long supplied Gwak Chun-young with manpower. His name appeared repeatedly among Gwak’s contacts, but years of bribes had tangled the case in jurisdictional resistance. Only after severing those protections one by one had Do-hyeop finally forced the arrest within reach.

Rustle.

Standing slightly askew, Do-hyeop fished two pills from his pocket, swallowed them dry, and kept walking. Bzzz. As if on cue, his watch vibrated again.

● SYSTEM

// Bradycardia Signs Detected //

● SYSTEM

// 41 bpm //

“Cadmus ETA 40 seconds. Stand by for containment.”

Half a step behind him, Jeong-ham delivered the quiet command. A reply came immediately over comms: ‘Understood. On standby at three o’clock and six o’clock.’

As Director, Do-hyeop could have remained comfortably in his office and received reports. But some objectives could only be reached by moving in person. Tonight was one of them.

Ch-chack.

Do-hyeop drew his sidearm and racked the slide. Metal scraped against metal with familiar precision; a round chambered cleanly. Clack. He released it, and the recoil spring snapped the weapon back into battery.

“2113 on the right. Just two blocks ahead.”

Do-hyeop ignored the remark and continued forward, expression blank. Ordinarily he would already have barked an order or thrown out some cutting insult. His total silence told Jeong-ham more clearly than words that his condition was poor. Jeong-ham tucked his flashlight hand beneath the one gripping his service weapon. Click. A white beam knifed into the dark.

Beep.

Do-hyeop’s brow twitched. The tinnitus drilling through his ears was becoming unbearable.

—”Selene transmission. Heavy transport spotted 700 meters north of target. Reinforcements anticipated.”

The message promised an imminent firefight. Yet Do-hyeop stopped dead and tapped his watch. Beneath the headache, beneath the sluggish pulse, something nameless crawled coldly over his skin.

Tap. Tap.

His last call with Seoul had been an hour ago. Back-to-back operations had kept him occupied, and no sensor had reported the front door opening or closing since then. Even so—

● SYSTEM

// Connecting Call //

Armed men were already raising their weapons beyond the containers, but Do-hyeop connected the call without giving them so much as a glance. A raw thread of dread kept needling at his instincts.

Bang! Clang—!

Around then, the first rounds tore in from the opposite side, and Jeong-ham’s warning thundered across the wharf.

“Special Security Division! Drop all weapons and surrender immediately!”

—”Selene transmission. All hostiles fully armed. Approximately ten targets confirmed at two o’clock alone.”

In a heartbeat, the stillness of the pier shattered. Do-hyeop pressed his earpiece, switching from tactical radio to the phone channel, and flattened his back against the corner of a container.

Clatter—! Ping!

Bullets hammered the rusted steel in a relentless storm. Operatives scattered into defensive positions, but Do-hyeop remained eerily untouched by the chaos, as though he occupied a different world altogether.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

The ring tone stretched on and on. One of his eyes narrowed.

Ping!

A round hissed past just above his head. Do-hyeop barely reacted. He glanced up once, then moved again.

“Director…? Director? Where are you going?”

Keeping his muzzle raised as he swept the perimeter, Jeong-ham whipped around toward him. Still no answer.

Screeech—!

Crash!

A stray round severed the heavy chain securing a crane above the stacked containers. Steel slammed against concrete with a deafening crash, but Do-hyeop’s attention remained fixed on the unanswered call.

“Kill them all!”

Bang! — Clang!

A dark silhouette burst through the drifting fog behind the shouted command. Do-hyeop fired without hesitation. Bang! The figure folded to the ground without so much as a final cry.

Ring. Rrr-ring.

Do-hyeop advanced through the shadows, brows drawn tight. Footsteps pounded across the top of a container overhead. With the phone’s ring tone filling his earpiece instead of tactical chatter, he had no way to know whether the runner was friend or foe. Instinct decided for him. He snapped his head back and aimed upward.

Bang—!

A hulking body took the round squarely between the eyes and toppled backward from the edge. Watching it fall, Jeong-ham felt gooseflesh rise along his neck as he struck his comm unit. There was only one reason Do-hyeop ever moved like this.

“Choi Da-ol, dispatch the closest team to Seoul-ssi immediately.”

—”Understood, sir.”

“And send a Phantom to our location.”

—”Yes, sir. ETA three minutes.”

Do-hyeop was still trying to reach Seoul. If Seoul answered, the emergency dispatch could simply be recalled. But to Jeong-ham, Seoul genuinely ranked above every other security concern in the country. A handful of armed thugs in front of them were trivial by comparison.

● SYSTEM

// Call Failed //

When the endless ring tone finally died into silence, Do-hyeop’s eyes narrowed to icy slits.

Spit, ping!

Rounds chewed into the ground nearby. Jeong-ham returned suppressive fire, then wheeled around and closed the distance to Do-hyeop’s side.

“Phantom inbound. Landing zone is the northern lot.”

The extraction point lay in the northern lot—exactly where the enemy’s support vehicles had gathered. The fastest route was straight through them.

“ETA.”

“Roughly 160 seconds.”

Do-hyeop did not hesitate. Jeong-ham had already anticipated the decision.

Crack!

Reaching around the corner of a container with almost no wasted motion, Do-hyeop caught a sprinting mercenary by the throat.

—”!”

The man never managed more than a strangled breath. His neck twisted beneath Do-hyeop’s grip with a wet crack, and the body collapsed. Do-hyeop’s real prize was the assault rifle still clenched in his hands.

Zzzrip—.

He ripped the spare magazine from the corpse’s belt and shook it once. Weight and metallic rattle told him enough. Without slowing, he dumped the empty magazine from the rifle, slapped the fresh one home, and locked it in with a hard mechanical click. Less than two seconds later, he was out of the narrow gap between containers, with Jeong-ham moving behind him to cover.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-bang—!

The rifle erupted in Do-hyeop’s hands. Rounds punched through enemies hidden in the shadows of opposing containers, breaking bone with merciless precision. Casings spun through the air; blood thickened the salt wind. Do-hyeop never stopped walking.

Bang— clang!

The hostiles ducked for cover, crouched low, and fought for room to breathe. Do-hyeop did none of it. Through the broad lane and back between the steel walls, his path held to one relentless line: forward.

“I’ve got your six!”

Jeong-ham covered their rear, picking off pursuers that clung to them like tails. Without turning, Do-hyeop twisted his left hand back and fired his sidearm upward. Bang! A sniper on the second tier pitched from the container and struck the asphalt below.

Fwip.

Do-hyeop holstered the pistol and brought the rifle up again. He vaulted onto an obstructing container and dropped four hostiles across the lane and flanks in rapid succession. The maze of stacked steel remained pitch-black, every corridor nearly identical, but he drove through it as though the exit had been carved into his memory.

Whirrrr—

“Cadmus is breaking off first. Clean up the site and report.”

At last they broke free of the container maze and reached the open lot. Jeong-ham relayed the order over comms while jogging toward the waiting Phantom, its doors already open. Two strides ahead, Do-hyeop discarded the rifle on the pavement and boarded.

Vwooom.

The instant the manual lever came down, the heavy cabin door sealed and the helicopter rose vertically toward its new coordinates.

Tap. Tap.

Only then, after keeping silent through the entire breach, did Do-hyeop tap his watch and call Seoul again.

Ring. Ring.

The unanswered ringing had just dragged a curse from under his breath when Jeong-ham’s terminal vibrated with an incoming alert from Choi Da-ol.

“Speak.”

—“Sunbae!”

Da-ol’s voice came through frantic. The moment Do-hyeop’s cutting stare landed on Jeong-ham, the junior officer ended the call and punched new coordinates into the cockpit display.

“Rerouting destination to the hospital.”

Nothing else needed saying. Do-hyeop ground his molars until the muscles in his jaw stood out. The man who had blown apart several skulls without changing expression only moments before now looked stricken by a cold, naked terror.