Chapter 59

● SYSTEM

Jamming detected. Call terminated.

> Transmission interrupted.

Facing the darkened monitor, Gye Do-hyeop shook the crushed shards of black plastic from between his fingers onto the floorboard. A jagged edge had bitten deep into the whorls of his thumb, though not quite deep enough to draw blood.

It was still time to wait.

● SYSTEM

T+01:45

In the corner of the severed feed, an external security camera feed displayed numbers ticking up by the second—a stopwatch counting the time elapsed since the call dropped.

Static.

“Team Eos ETA: two hundred twenty seconds,” the radio crackled.

The helicopter pilot chimed in next. “Phantom ETA: thirteen seconds. Target visual within two hundred meters.”

Radio chatter crackled through the revived comms channel. The vanguard team closest to the site and an attack helicopter were both converging on Gye Do-hyeop’s residence from different vectors.

“Command to all units,” a dispatcher called out. “Vehicles emerging from the compound.”

Eyes locked onto the monitoring screen as Yu Jeong-ham let out a groan. “Ah, they really went all out for this…”

It was just as he said. A relentless stream of black sedans began pouring out of the parking structure beneath Gye Do-hyeop’s building. Five cars gave way to ten, twelve, fifteen, emerging in a seemingly endless convoy. Meant purely to sow confusion, the decoys would scatter across different directions in mere seconds.

Seated in the passenger seat, Yu Jeong-ham kept his headset microphone open so he wouldn’t have to toggle push-to-talk. He stole a glance at Gye Do-hyeop, but the man remained transfixed by the screen, his dark irises unyielding. Behind that impassive mask, countless hypotheses and counter-maneuvers were undoubtedly taking shape.

Compounding the crisis, Gye Do-hyeop and Yu Jeong-ham were miles outside the capital when the alarm tripped. Gwak Chun-young had moved far faster and far more aggressively than anticipated. Even if the man deduced that his illicit ledger had fallen into the Deputy Director’s hands, launching such an aggressive assault on a high-ranking intelligence chief was brazen to the point of suicidal arrogance.

It meant Gwak had a powerful backer to rely on, though neither Gye Do-hyeop nor Yu Jeong-ham believed for a second that Director Noh Pil-gyu had signed off on this. Despite all the state coffers he had looted, Noh Pil-gyu was a cowardly bureaucrat at heart.

The helicopter pilot reported, “Phantom on location. HX-9 live rounds loaded. Awaiting orders.”

The gunship had reached the airspace above the building. Gye Do-hyeop narrowed his eyes at the sausage-string procession of black vehicles below. Flooding the asphalt, the convoy split and peeled off in divergent directions. With almost zero traffic on the broad avenues at this hour, dozens of vehicles fanned out seamlessly as though running a rehearsed drill. Tailing every single vehicle was an impossibility.

“Tag them all on surveillance cameras,” Gye Do-hyeop barked into his headset. “Whichever stops regardless of signal lights, pin it on the tactical map.”

“Command copies,” the operator acknowledged.

Do-hyeop snapped, “Phantom, hold position.”

“Roger,” the pilot answered. “Synchronizing with command server.”

The tactical lead chimed in, “Team Eos breaching subterranean access. Tourniquets loaded up.”

Screeech.

The SUV carrying Gye Do-hyeop and Yu Jeong-ham braked at an aggressive angle in the center of an expansive vacant lot. Before the vehicle had even settled from the recoil, Do-hyeop kicked the heavy door open and surged out.

Flap-flap-flap-flap.

Requisitioned from a nearby military garrison, a standard-issue military helicopter beat the air with deafening roars as it prepared to land. The downdraft violently whipped Gye Do-hyeop’s black hair, yet he advanced toward the landing pad with steady strides, extending a hand behind him. Trotting right on his heels, Yu Jeong-ham slapped a tactical terminal into his palm, its screen bustling with radar overlays and live satellite maps.

Seoul sat entirely in the palm of Gye Do-hyeop’s hand. In times of crisis, a single emergency protocol code could sever every surface thoroughfare, airspace corridor, waterway, and underground transit artery, converting the metropolis into an isolated fortress. His promise to find Geum Seoul within thirty minutes had not been empty bravado.

The very moment the initial security breach tripped, Gye Do-hyeop had shuttered every outbound transit corridor leaving the capital. Flights departing Seoul Airport were grounded in minutes, while airborne military drones and transport aircraft diverted to exterior holding patterns without touching tarmac. Dozens of aircraft icons traced green flightpaths right off the radar border, leaving the airspace map vacant.

The avenues available to motor vehicles were severely restricted. The kidnappers knew they could never slip past the fortified arterial checkpoints, and driving further outward was a fool’s errand. At most, they had a thirty-minute driving perimeter. Within that radius, dragging the target back was child’s play.

‘I won’t say a word.’

● SYSTEM

T+05:17

Even three hundred seventeen seconds after the line severed, the expression on Geum Seoul’s face remained seared into Gye Do-hyeop’s mind. He knew precisely what kind of boy Seoul was. When he had first sent Lee Hee-joong out to safety, Seoul had taken a brutal beating from Park Gil-pyeong, rolling across the floorboards yet stubbornly insisting until the bitter end that he didn’t know where the man had gone.

He planned to do the same thing now—without even knowing who was orchestrating the abduction. Completely oblivious to how enticing of a fruit he appeared to a monster who would gouge eyes from living sockets just to collect pretty gems. He would stand on tiptoe, pressing down on the antenna with white-knuckled fingertips until commanded to step down, just as he had on the scorching rooftop.

The boy clearly understood that this wouldn’t end with sunburnt skin peeling away under the summer heat. That was why he had dared to utter an ‘if.’ Declaring that dying was acceptable. Vowing that no matter how severely he was threatened or strangled, he would never utter a single detail of what he had seen and heard.

Though Geum Seoul’s amber eyes had glistened with tears, the core beneath had looked brittle and parched to the bone. Trembling in terror, he had still attempted that fumbling address three or four times. He had longed to say that the Deputy Director didn’t need to come rescue him, desperate to swear that even in death, his lips would remain sealed.

‘So please don’t worry.’

A grim chuckle escaped Gye Do-hyeop’s chest. His eyes crinkled, but not from amusement. The boy’s absurd self-devaluation scraped and clawed at the valves of his heart. It was a sensation he hadn’t experienced in years—a violent reflux of adrenaline that sent blood surging in reverse through every vein. A clash of awe and incomprehension.

Just what kind of bottomless abyss had Geum Seoul lived in to remain so utterly defenseless against the violence of others? Why was the market price of his own existence set so appallingly close to zero?

“Fucking hell… un-fucking-believable,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Nothing beyond raw curses spilled past his teeth.

‘Deputy Director! If there’s anything you need hidden in the house, please tell me.’

In a deranged world where men measured worth by ideology, where people betrayed, slaughtered, and executed one another without blinking, Geum Seoul’s stubborn decency completely wrecked Gye Do-hyeop’s moral navigation. The boy’s very existence seemed to declare the road ahead closed, demanding a U-turn. As though insisting that even while carrying nothing but poverty, scars, and layers of prosthetic silicone, he had still managed to walk a straight and unyielding path all this time.

Exposing his soft belly and waving the white flag until his elbows dislocated, Seoul’s utter surrender pounded ceaselessly against Gye Do-hyeop’s mind. His brain felt rattled and bewildered, as though someone had snatched away the operating manual for dealing with this boy and shoved a blank sheet of paper into his hands.

Whoosh—

The moment they boarded the helicopter interior heavy with the stench of stagnant fuel and raw iron, the aircraft lifted vertically into the night sky. Yu Jeong-ham rapidly dialed comm frequencies.

“Find me some metal skewers,” Gye Do-hyeop instructed.

Donning the aviation headset passed to him, Do-hyeop adjusted the gel ear cushions against his temples to muffle the roar of the rotors. Fastening his harness beside him, Yu Jeong-ham tilted his head in confusion.

“Skewers, sir? What length?” Yu Jeong-ham asked before speaking into his mic, “Testing comms with Team Cadmus.”

Even while synchronizing the tactical transceivers, Jeong-ham threw out a reply. In a crisis where their home had been ransacked, asking for campout utensils was a bizarre request. The cockpit noise dropped to an eerie hum as the exterior microphone went live.

“About this long.” Spreading his broad palm, Gye Do-hyeop indicated the span of a hand, looking monstrously long on his massive frame.

Yu Jeong-ham asked, “What’s the intended use? Will basic iron do?”

“To skewer every single eyeball and pop them like cherries,” Do-hyeop replied with a wicked grin.

Like sausages on a spit.

That smile was a five-alarm hazard signal.

“……”

“…Team Eos, signal clear,” the radio crackled.

The gunship pilot chimed in next, “…Phantom comms five by five.”

Listening to the Deputy Director’s impending torture itinerary over the tactical net, not a single operative made the mistake of asking if he was joking. Every man present knew he meant every word.

Gye Do-hyeop was a demon born with a genius for fueling his dopamine through the torment of others. Not merely by pulling fingernails or hooking electrodes to flesh; his talent was specialized in systematically breaking a human spirit through mockery and psychological torment.

When interrogating foreign espionage agents, that sadistic brilliance shone brightest. He was the kind of monster who would shatter a man’s ribcage with heavy fist strikes under the guise of snapping them into a heart shape, only to remark, ‘Oops, my bad. That’s why you shouldn’t lie down like a piece of shit when you’re told to lie straight. From now on, your name is breadcrumbs.’ Suspects had been known to collapse from hypertensive strokes before they even reached the basement.

Subordinates unaware of the full picture couldn’t fathom why Gwak Chun-young had chosen to raid Gye Do-hyeop’s home of all places. Yet despite that, not a single operative doubted who would emerge victorious from this engagement.

“Deputy Director, call from Noh Pil-gyu,” Yu Jeong-ham announced.

“Took him long enough.”

It was roughly time for the man to reach out. His next call would inevitably be placed to Gwak Chun-young.

Director Noh shrieked over the comms, —“You crazy son of a bitch! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! Who authorized you to shut down the capital?!”

Holed up in Gangwon Province, Noh Pil-gyu’s furious shrieks exploded through the headset, yet Gye Do-hyeop merely peered through the curved cabin window, watching the glittering carpet of urban lights drift beneath the banking helicopter.

“Ah. My apologies for the delayed report,” Do-hyeop drawled smoothly. “Gwak Chun-young raided my home, and I was so startled that it slipped my mind.”

He intended to feign his customary deference, but in his current foul temper, this was the absolute best courtesy he could muster.

—“What?!” the director barked.

“The residence is half-destroyed,” Do-hyeop continued calmly. “Detonated, set ablaze, looted down to the floorboards.”

The sheer magnitude of the fabrication sent Noh Pil-gyu into a sputtering frenzy.

Director Noh sputtered in fury, —“What did you say?! You little bastard… Are you fucking playing with me right now?! I’ll assess the situation myself, so get your ass back to headquarters immediately! If you don’t want to get stripped of your rank!”

“Yes, sir. Left five minutes ago,” Do-hyeop answered dismissively.

Click.

Ending the call with all the urgency of a lazy takeout diner owner, Gye Do-hyeop had zero intention of returning to headquarters. In the co-pilot seat, Yu Jeong-ham was well aware that Do-hyeop had merely uttered an empty dismissal out of sheer annoyance.

“Trace Noh Pil-gyu’s private line and pinpoint his location,” Do-hyeop commanded. “Do the same for Gwak Chun-young’s phone. They’re going to contact each other.”

“Command acknowledges.”

The atmosphere around Gye Do-hyeop had shifted the very second the first alarm sounded. Prone to curling his upper lip whenever irritated, he had let out a sinister chuckle back then—a siren signaling that his threshold had been breached. The cigarette between his fingers hadn’t lasted a split second before being crushed into jagged plastic.

To be blunt, the situation was far from unfavorable. Gwak Chun-young was a target marked for destruction anyway. For the president of a petty front company to raid the private residence of an intelligence deputy director amounted to an unmistakable terrorist assault against the state. It was precisely the pretext they needed to purge Gwak Chun-young and drag Noh Pil-gyu down with him. There was no chance Gye Do-hyeop had missed that arithmetic; the strategic circuitry in his head had likely lit up the instant the breach began. Yet Do-hyeop had not spoken a word of it, offering Director Noh nothing beyond that faintly mocking tone.

“Should we make contact with Gwak Chun-young?” Yu Jeong-ham asked.

“No. Stand by until we get Geum Seoul’s signal.”

Yu Jeong-ham kept his mouth shut. Hearing neither a ‘The fuck kind of question is that?’ nor anything starting with ‘Shut your damn mouth’ from Gye Do-hyeop only made him more uneasy.

In truth, he hadn’t made eye contact with Gye Do-hyeop once since turning the car back toward Seoul. Slip up on a single word, and he might find himself dipping both feet into molten lava. For someone who hadn’t even had a proper romance yet, his four limbs were precious. Down below, the roadway woven with countless red taillights looked like fissure-cracked magma on the verge of erupting.