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Chapter 15: You've Been Abducted
TL: Enuma ID
With a deafening roar, the grenade detonated, and in an instant the entire corridor was drenched in shrapnel.
Without so much as a scream, chunks of flesh flew in every direction, repainting the corridor walls a vivid red.
"Yeesh."
As the haze of dust settled, I could see a few survivors beneath it, crawling across the floor and bleeding out.
W̊е̇bñ оv̇ ѐ l̇ Е n ümа
Ratatatat!
A clean finish, just as the magazine ran dry.
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"Wh-what! What is happening!"
"It appears a bomb has gone off, Comrade Bureau Director!"
In the fallen silence, panicked voices carried over from a distance.
I walked straight into the restaurant, alone, through the doorway where the blast had blown the doors clean off.
Ẅе bǹ ô v е l Е n ú m̂ а́.
While everyone was still dazed from the sudden explosion, they all turned in unison to stare blankly at me, a man in a North Korean army uniform strolling in as if nothing were amiss.
I broke their silence without a hint of concern.
"Comrade Investigation Bureau Director, I have rushed a car into position below! Come out at once!"
"Oh, ohh! Yes! I am saved!"
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At that, So Se-hyok, who until then had been flat on the floor trembling, sprang out from behind the barricade, his face lighting up.
And at the same moment, my eyes met Yang Mi-ryeong's as she slowly poked her head out from behind him.
W e b ň ō v̄ е̇l Eǹū m ā
"Wait. You...."
The look on her face when she spotted me was truly something to behold.
Dumbstruck, Yang Mi-ryeong whipped her head around as if she couldn't believe it.
She frantically scanned the table where I was supposed to be hiding, but I was nowhere to be seen.
Yang Mi-ryeong turned back to me.
With an utterly indescribable expression.
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"What in the...."
One look at her face and I could plainly see how frantically the gears in her head were jumbling and tangling.
Just minutes ago I had been sitting at her table sharing wine, and now here I was, decked out in a North Korean army uniform, making my entrance by mowing down every Chongqing Society man in my path. Even the worst fever dream couldn't compete.
Unbothered, I threw the restaurant doors open wider.
"Comrade Bureau Director, there is no time. We must run, quickly!"
"Y-yes, understood! Let us go!"
Е̃ n u̇ m̌ ā
His legs had given out, so I hoisted him onto my back without asking permission.
As I carried So Se-hyok down the stairs at a run, the remaining State Security soldiers, finally coming to their senses, scrambled after us.
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But the moment we reached the lobby floor, ding.
"Wh-whoa!"
"It's the North Korean bastards!"
With impeccable timing, armed Chongqing Society men came pouring out of the elevator.
Ẁ еb̌n̊о̀vе l E n ǔm̊ а
They had stormed all the way up to the penthouse floor looking for So Se-hyok, come up empty, and ridden back down to the lobby just in time to run straight into us.
The State Security soldiers instinctively snatched up the guns strewn around them and started pulling triggers.
"Aaaaargh!"
"Kill them! Kill them all!"
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Bang! Ba-bang!
Ratatatatat!
Е̇num а́ . і d
"Hyeek! R-run, quickly!"
Scared out of his wits, So Se-hyok clamped his arms around my shoulders.
I backed away, turning my body to keep him out of the line of fire.
A glance over my shoulder showed a black sedan waiting across the road from the hotel's main entrance, hazard lights blinking.
"Eh? Wh-what is this? The truck is over there. Where are you going!"
"We may pick up pursuit, so I will escort you separately, Comrade Bureau Director! Into that car, please!"
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"Ah, good thinking!"
I sprinted over, loaded So Se-hyok into the back seat, then crammed myself in beside him.
The instant the door shut, the black sedan tore off down the road, trailing the smell of burning rubber.
"Haah. Haaah."
So Se-hyok did nothing but pant raggedly for a while, then stared blankly out the window.
The Kowloon Hotel, nothing short of a nightmare for him, receded rapidly from view.
Ẽnu mӓ .і̂ d́
"I, I never knew we had so valiant a low-ranking soldier! What is your name? From this day on, you shall stay at my side and guard me. I will see you rise high!"
Having finally collected himself, So Se-hyok gripped my hand tight.
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While I smiled kindly and said nothing, the man in the driver's seat with his foot on the accelerator glanced at us in the rearview mirror and let out a dry laugh.
"Heh. Heheh. Unbelievable. You actually brought him in alive.... And one night after insertion, no less? Honestly, I wasn't expecting a thing."
"Just got lucky."
"I'm not dreaming right now, am I? I have been overworking a bit lately."
Ẅ е̂ b̀ n о̂ ṽе l Ė nūm а
"It's not a dream, so please try to drive safely."
"Of course! Our guest here has a long trip ahead of him. We ought to deliver him safe and sound."
Hearing the low-ranking soldier who had been waiting on him hand and foot chatting away with the mystery driver in South Chosun accents, So Se-hyok's eyes went wide even as he caught his breath.
Sensing that something had gone very wrong, he cried out in a panic.
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"Wh-what is the meaning of this! Who are you, really!"
"What do you think."
Е́ nū m̈ а́ .і̌d̈
I drew the Glock 19 from my jacket.
As the still-warm muzzle touched his head, beads of sweat began pooling on So Se-hyok's forehead.
"You've been abducted."
*****
The penthouse floor was every bit as devastated as the third-floor restaurant the firefight had swept through.
Yang Mi-ryeong stood by a shattered window, heaved a long sigh, then found the least-damaged sofa and laid herself down on it.
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"Haah. My head hurts."
With the lobby shootout that had obligingly wiped out Chongqing Society and State Security soldiers alike, the situation inside the Kowloon Hotel had more or less settled into a lull.
Fully armed Kowloon Society men from the casino swept through the hotel restoring order, while the Chongqing Society members still drawing breath were being put through vigorous interrogation.
As the stench of blood and gunpowder hung thick in the air, one of her subordinates approached and bowed respectfully to Yang Mi-ryeong.
"Boss. We've searched everywhere, but there's no sign of Director So Se-hyok's body."
"...Is that so?"
Ẅеbn o v̇ӗ l Е̃n u m̆ а
"The moment the shooting started, he probably threw his men out as shields and slipped back across to North Korea alone, wouldn't you say?"
It was a plausible enough theory, but Yang Mi-ryeong simply closed her eyes without a word.
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And the image of Sparrow No. 7's back, calmly vanishing through the pandemonium with So Se-hyok slung over his shoulders, rose in her mind.
As if an NIS black agent would flee into North Korean territory with So Se-hyok in tow.
'What on earth is going on?'
She was deep in thought, trying to sort out the tangle in her head, when it happened.
Éṅ u m а .і.d
Bzzt. Bzzt.
A vibration went off inside Yang Mi-ryeong's jacket.
She pulled out her phone. An unknown number lit up the screen.
In her entire network, there were only a handful of people who would call her from an unknown number at a moment this impossibly well-timed.
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"Hello?"
- Too many eyes in the restaurant, so I couldn't say hello. Something urgent came up, and I had to step out early.
W̃ е b_nоv е̌l Е ñum̄ a.
The voice coming through the phone was not the one she had half expected, Crane No. 13's, but the far more leisurely voice of Sparrow No. 7.
- Shame about breakfast. I'll take you up on it another time.
Breakfast. At a time like this.
The absurd joke drew a helpless laugh out of Yang Mi-ryeong.
Then she slid a finger into one of the bullet holes riddling the leather sofa, slowly tracing circles around it, in and out.
"So, you managed to stay alive? The North Korean soldiers who walked out with you got massacred together down in the lobby."
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- So they did. Just got lucky.
With a light wave of her hand, she sent the staff cleaning up nearby out of earshot.
As she continued the call, a bewitching smile unlike any before spread across her face.
"What happened to So Se-hyok? We've combed every inch of this hotel and there's no body anywhere."
- Really? I wouldn't know. The first-floor lobby got so rowdy it scared me, so I dumped him halfway and ran.
"Don't lie to me. To think even I got completely taken in.... So the real objective of this operation was to abduct that man alive."
Е nŭm̀ а̀.
- Say what you like; I haven't the faintest idea. In any case, thanks to the Chongqing Society and the Kowloon Society beating each other bloody, my job wrapped up quite smoothly.
Smoothly. That was his word for an all-out war between two heavily armed syndicates.
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Feeling a tension headache coming on, Yang Mi-ryeong absently pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Who on earth are you, really?"
She couldn't hold the question in any longer.
- Sparrow No. 7.
Е̂ n̄ u m̀ ă
"How does a mere Sparrow agent even dare to think of punching through dozens of Chongqing Society men and North Korean soldiers to abduct the State Security Investigation Bureau director?"
- Well, when the order comes down, people like us just have to get it done somehow. Isn't that right?
The answer was so preposterous that Yang Mi-ryeong was left speechless.
The longer she listened, the more a corner of her common sense seemed to crumble away.
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After she had sat in dazed silence for a while, the man's gentle voice flowed softly through the phone.
- Along with my deepest condolences over this incident, allow me to pass along a piece of information I suspect you'll be needing. I figure I should at least cover the cost of the wine you poured me.
W ѐ_b ň о vе̌l̊ Ё n̊ ǔ mа́
"Information? What information?"
- I only overheard this by chance, but the Chongqing Society's real target wasn't the Kowloon Society. It was So Se-hyok. It seems someone paid them a fortune for the job.
"...They took a contract on So Se-hyok's life and dared to storm our hotel for it? On whose orders?"
- Wasn't there one outfit that conveniently cleared out right when they came storming in?
Yang Mi-ryeong's brow knotted hard.
It struck her all at once that while the Chongqing Society was turning the hotel into a slaughterhouse, not a single one of the Public Security officers who should have been covering part of the hotel's security had been anywhere in sight.
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"You can't mean.... Why would Dandong Public Security want So Se-hyok dead?"
- If you'd asked So Se-hyok, I imagine he'd have told you something like this. That he holds a leash that lets him jerk the Dandong Public Security Bureau director around at will.
Yang Mi-ryeong let out a disbelieving laugh.
Wasn't that as good as half admitting he had So Se-hyok in hand?
"And what exactly is this leash?"
- That's as much information as I can offer. The party in question is no longer in a position to talk.
Wе b̄ ńȯv̌е l̇ Е.ǹ ũ m ȧ
"Ah."
- If you want the full story, try interrogating a few of the surviving Chongqing Society men instead.
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In that moment, Yang Mi-ryeong felt the fog choking her mind lift all at once.
If Dandong Public Security was tangled up behind this attack, the flow of the whole game changed completely.
If she so much as hinted that she might leak what she had just heard to the higher-ups, Dandong Public Security Bureau director Wang Xianqing would have to brace for the firing squad that very day.
Which meant, in the end, that the leash So Se-hyok had held on the Dandong Public Security Bureau director would roll straight into Yang Mi-ryeong's own hands.
Ẃ е̊ b̈n о̌ v̂ĕl̈ Е n_u m а̀
"...Thank you for the tip. It's exactly what I needed."
- Glad to be of help.
With her mind suddenly clear, the ambition she had been forcing down flared up inside her in a hot burst of flame.
Her true desire, sweet on her tongue.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"How about it? Care to go into business with me, in a big way?"
She carried the conversation on in a voice gone soft and syrupy.
Ėnu m̈ ǎ . id
- Business?
"From here on, I'm going to sweep up every last piece of the Chongqing Society's territory. Now that I hold the card that puts the Dandong Public Security Bureau director's neck in my grip, there's no one left in Dandong I need to tiptoe around. All you'd have to do in the meantime is stay by my side and help with my work."
- Ah. You're asking me to join the Kowloon Society, is that it?
"You know it yourself, don't you? Talent like yours is far too precious to rot away as an NIS black agent. Work with me, and I can give you wealth and power beyond anything you'd dare imagine."
An extraordinary recruitment offer, extended by the branch chief of a massive criminal syndicate.
And she was just about to sweeten it with an even more dizzying condition.
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- I'm sorry, but I'll have to decline. Civil servants are prohibited by law from holding second jobs for profit.
Click.
Beep. Beep.
"Cheeky."
Staring at the phone he had hung up on her, Yang Mi-ryeong couldn't help but let out a snort of laughter.
She gazed at the darkened screen a long while, then touched her fingers to the corners of her lips, curled high.
Е ň ŭ m̄ а̀ .i d̊
"So you're going to keep me wanting more, is that it?"
*****
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