Chapter 60

Meanwhile, the vehicle carrying Geum Seoul swept beneath a bridge at high speed. Everything was unfolding according to Gwak Chun-young’s plan.

“Looks like they even called in a transport craft.”

“Ah, he’s young, so he has no fear. Not a shred,” Gwak Chun-young remarked.

This was Gwak Chun-young’s first real clash with Gye Do-hyeop. Back when Gye Do-hyeop had made quite a name for himself in the counterterrorism unit, Gwak had been expanding his operations abroad, and by the time he returned to Korea, Gye Do-hyeop was already utterly stifled under Noh Pil-gyu.

The incoming intelligence unanimously described him as a psycho whose circuits were busted, prone to irregular outbursts, but if it came down to being crazy, Gwak was second to none. In a world like this, you couldn’t survive without being a little mad to begin with.

The subordinate beside him held out a terminal. “Wired call coming in from Noh Pil-gyu.”

As Gwak Chun-young, sitting in the passenger seat, gave a flick of his finger, a button clicked and the black partition dividing the front and back rows rose completely. Once Geum Seoul’s face, covered beneath the pitch-black cloth, was hidden from sight, Gwak took the receiver.

Gwak Chun-young answered smoothly, “Yes, Director.”

—“Hey! CEO Gwak! Are you out of your mind? What the hell do you mean, you raided Gye Do-hyeop’s place?”

Even though it was a standard voice call and not a video call, Gwak Chun-young grimaced, feeling as if the man’s spittle were flying directly into his face.

“Ah, yeees. It turned out this way because they stole my property first,” Gwak Chun-young drawled.

Noh Pil-gyu sputtered into the receiver, —“What?! What could he have possibly stolen for you to pull this without a word to me? Do you even know what you’ve done? Huh?!”

‘This is why you never take in a fucking lowlife thug!’ Noh Pil-gyu added, his voice dripping with venomous fury.

—“If you blow things up like this, not even I can cover for you! How dare you strike the NSSA, no matter what?!”

Gwak Chun-young flipped down the sun visor, peering into the small rectangular vanity mirror as he smoothed back his wavy curls.

“It was our transaction ledger,” he stated casually.

—“…What?”

Gwak Chun-young tapped the dashboard. “The thing Gye Do-hyeop stole.”

Click.

The sun visor snapped back into place.

He snapped into the receiver, “The ledger recording that you pocketed 4.98 billion won of my money to turn a blind eye to weapons smuggling. That’s what’s sitting in your boy Gye Do-hyeop’s hands right now.”

A brief silence followed. Noh Pil-gyu, who probably hadn’t even known the ledger existed, was likely clutching the back of his neck in shock right now. Could he drop dead of a stroke just like this? Gwak Chun-young wondered idly. Beside him, Lee Ho-hoon flashed a hand sign indicating ‘twenty seconds.’

—“…W-What? The l-ledger? You fucking—ha! That son of a bitch, behind my back, he—!”

Ah, how comfortably entrenched middle age could rot a man in high office. There had probably been a time, back in his twenties or thirties, when Noh Pil-gyu moved with sharp agility and relentless hustle. Whether it meant kissing someone’s ass or volunteering to manage every detail of a drinking party, he would have kept his antennae raised, reading each room and every shift in mood while clawing his way up the promotion ladder.

Then, once seated in the coveted key post, swallowing the tributes brought to him from every corner without having to lift a finger, his ass grew heavy. Greased fat clouded his vision, the sums he accepted grew fatter and fatter, and the sweet flatteries rubbed into him from all sides began to sound like genuine honey. ‘It’s just a token of goodwill. Goodwill. We’re simply offering it out of respect for you, Director. How could we possibly ask for anything in return?’

Gwak Chun-young’s tone chilled. “So listen up, old man. If you don’t want everything dragged into the light and end up totally fucked—”

A low breath, like a dry cough, slipped from Gwak Chun-young’s throat.

“Hush this up on your own before it gets any bigger,” he warned coldly. “Earn the damn money you gorged on.”

—“Hey! Hey—!”

The call cut off right then. Even from a conversation so brief that precise location tracking was impossible, Gwak Chun-young judged that Noh Pil-gyu had grasped what he meant.

Ever since resolving to reshape the Republic of Korea into his envisioned ideal, the top priority Gwak Chun-young had painstakingly pursued was funneling bribes into investigative and judicial agencies—including the director of the NSSA, which had been established just last year.

The NSSA had been founded with concentrated authority under the banner of rooting out the nation’s thieves and denying them sanctuary, but in the end it was still an agency run by men. Gwak could have amassed rarer gems in far greater numbers. Instead, he had surrendered enough of them to line the pockets of the established elite precisely for moments like this. The backing that allowed him to smash through the front door of the NSSA Deputy Director’s home had been purchased with cold cash traded away in exchange for personal taste.

*

● SYSTEM

T+17:49

Beep—.

Inside the Phantom transport craft atop a building rooftop. Having linked up with the Phantom the moment he reached Seoul, Gye Do-hyeop glared at the monitor before him as headquarters fed him tracking data.

● SYSTEM

Re-establishing satellite signal…

// No Response . . .

// No Response . . .

// No Response . . .

Still no signal from Geum Seoul.

“Headquarters transmitting,” the comms operator reported. “Tracking a total of thirty-two vehicles that exited three parking garage gates. NIR scans show eleven vehicles carrying only the driver. Autonomous driving is disabled across all of them, making remote hijacking impossible. Three have halted movement.”

Gye Do-hyeop snapped into his comms, “If I don’t give a signal after one hundred twenty seconds, write them off and narrow it down.”

“Confirmed. Also, regarding the call trace you ordered earlier, it’s impos—”

Kzzzt, crackle.

The data feed updating across the monitor and the voice over the comms both cut out completely. More precisely, it was interference from another frequency. Gye Do-hyeop’s eyes narrowed.

—“Hey, Gye Do-hyeop!” Noh Pil-gyu bellowed through the radio. “Didn’t I tell your ass to report to headquarters?! Get in here right now, make your report in person, and follow my orders!”

It was Noh Pil-gyu. Since he couldn’t have reached Seoul yet, he had likely patched in remotely from outside.

Yu Jeong-ham checked his display. “The shutdown has been lifted.”

Just as Yu Jeong-ham had whispered beside him, unmanned drones were reappearing on one side of the radar one after another. This, too, was Noh Pil-gyu’s doing.

“The home of the NSSA Deputy Director was ransacked by a bastard in bed with Node, yet you’re telling me to just let it slide,” Gye Do-hyeop retorted.

—“Gye Do-hyeop! Do you have any idea what you’re saying right now? Who’s in bed with Node?! Do you have proof? And ransacked, my ass! This is all because you—!”

Gye Do-hyeop drawled smoothly, “Go on. Keep talking.”

—“You…!”

It was an open frequency monitored by every dispatched agent as well as the entire headquarters team. There was no way he could bring up ledgers or anything of the sort over such a line. Noh Pil-gyu exhaled a breath thick with fury, then cleared his throat.

—“We’ll discuss the situation once you’re here! Everyone listening in, return to base within twenty minutes! That’s an order! Any bastard who doesn’t obey will be passed over for promotion and hit with double the disciplinary penalties! Understood?!” Noh Pil-gyu bellowed across the comms.

The connection abruptly severed. Until that thick voice finished spewing its nauseating bluster, everyone had remained dead silent.

Chk.

An operator’s rushed voice broke through. “Headquarters transmitting. Our apologies, but per orders from above, connection will be severed in approximately five seconds. We’ve routed the tracking data to the Phantom’s server for now. You can track each vehicle’s route from your onboard server, but due to capacity limits, the coordinates will blur into a rough two-kilometer radius. Aside from that—”

The link went dead. The monitor that had been receiving data from headquarters now displayed only the final tracking list. ‘Fucking prick.’ Gye Do-hyeop scowled. There was no choice but to do this the hard way. With stress steadily mounting, destroying something might actually be better for keeping himself in check.

“Ah, fuck it. All of you, fall back to base,” Gye Do-hyeop muttered.

Pulling off his headset, Gye Do-hyeop fitted the pinbug earpiece he had set aside into his ear and strapped on a chest rig. While Yu Jeong-ham handed him magazines from across the cabin and attempted to re-establish the connection, Gye Do-hyeop pressed the device on his wrist.

● SYSTEM

Re-establishing satellite signal…

// No Response . . .

Of the thirty-two vehicles, eleven held only the driver. Three had already ceased moving. That left eighteen vehicles. The tracking margin of error per pin was around two kilometers. That meant they had to fly in close and tear the area apart with their own hands.

● SYSTEM

T+19:21

The mounting elapsed time grated on his nerves. Still, it was foreseeable that Gwak Chun-young wouldn’t kill Geum Seoul easily. In fact, Gye Do-hyeop was entertaining the opposite hypothesis: the possibility that that fucking bastard Gwak Chun-young would stash Geum Seoul away just to have him to himself. The possibility that he’d grope the kid’s body with his filthy hands, hoist those thighs, and shove his dick into that hole. Gye Do-hyeop’s eyes glinted darkly.

Chk.

“Team Eos transmitting,” an agent reported. “All clear from the underground parking garage to the rooftop. Only a note was left on the living room table.”

A photograph of a small memo slipped onto one corner of the monitor.

‘Bring mine, and I’ll give yours back~’

That was the entirety of Gwak Chun-young’s message. Gye Do-hyeop sneered. Geum Seoul was his. Mine, and no one else can take him. The blackness inside him deepened further.

The agent’s voice came through again. “No other targets remain on site. Provide the list and we will pursue in ascending order.”

“Think carefully,” Gye Do-hyeop replied scathingly. “Head back now, leapfrog all your peers, and you’ll make deputy director next year.”

Gye Do-hyeop spoke scathingly. If push came to shove, he was ready to hunt down all eighteen vehicles alone. Strictly speaking, just the two of them—him and Yu Jeong-ham. Gye Do-hyeop had no doubt that Yu Jeong-ham would stick by his side whether it meant being passed over for promotion or taking disciplinary hits, and Yu Jeong-ham, naturally enough, was already strapping on a chest rig outfitted with magazine holsters, transmitter slots, and utility pouches.

—“Negative, sir. All of us—hey! Choi Da-ol, where the hell are you going?! Hey! You—!”

Choi Da-ol had evidently chosen to return to headquarters and bolted, but Gye Do-hyeop didn’t even blink. He merely clicked the buckles shut across the black nylon fabric fastened tight from his shoulders to his chest, then slotted a handgun into its holster. Meanwhile, Yu Jeong-ham tapped the Phantom transport’s panel to configure autonomous navigation. Gye Do-hyeop turned around. The eight agents who had initially joined the Phantom team stood there with grim resolve.

Gye Do-hyeop scoffed, “What are you standing around for? Get lost.”

“We’re going with you, sir,” one of the men insisted.

Facing the subordinates who refused to budge despite the recall order, Gye Do-hyeop let out a humorless smirk.

“Oh, fucking noble. What are you, the damn Avengers? Get off.”

Yu Jeong-ham urgently hissed, “…Hey. Hey. Return to base immediately. At your seniority, it won’t stop at disciplinary action—you’ll just be fired on the spot. Move it.”