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Chapter 2: Rabbit Hole
TL: Enuma ID
Something was definitely off.
I couldn't say why, but my internal clock just kept on ticking.
'What exactly is happening right now?'
The more I thought about it, the stranger it got.
Ěnum̌а
After taking this many bullets, it was about time for an angel or a devil or something to show up.
Should I open my eyes or keep them shut?
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
I dithered a while longer, then, bewildered, cracked open the eyes I'd squeezed shut.
Ratatat!
Ratatatat!
"Guh."
W̆ ẽ b̄n о v̆ ӗ l̇ Е n̂um̊а
Amid the still-blinding muzzle flashes, countless bullets were slamming into my body.
Chest, stomach, thighs, shoulder.
It felt like showering under a downpour of corn kernels.
I could feel the texture of every single round pattering against my body without pause.
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And yet, strangely, there was no pain at all.
Plink, plunk.
Е ňǔ m̊а
'Seriously, what is this?'
I glanced down at my feet and saw crushed slugs, noses flattened, scattered all over the ground.
Not one of them had lodged in my body; they looked like eggs caught in a sudden hail of stones.
"...?"
The faces of the North Korean soldiers staring at me were quite a sight, too.
Grotesquely contorted and drained bone-white.
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They looked like men staring at a ghost.
'I have no idea what's happening here.'
Maybe I'd become a ghost myself.
Or maybe I was dreaming.
I couldn't make sense of any of it, but for now I decided to deal with the reality staring me in the face.
I picked the Type 88 rifle I'd dropped back up off the ground.
Ẃе̊bn̂о̇ v̂е̃ l Е̊ n u m̃ а
Ratatat! Ratat!
"Aaaaargh!"
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"Grrgh!"
The relentless exchange of automatic fire soon turned the ground around the truck into a sea of blood.
Of the nearly twenty men, two or three stubbornly survived and crawled across the dirt, but I swapped in a fresh magazine and raked them once more.
Only then did everything stop moving.
Е n̆úm̌ a . ǐd
"...Is this a dream?"
Right. The whole situation was as bizarre as a dream.
Even so, I couldn't just stand here.
If the dream had already begun, then nightmare or not, it had to keep going.
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"Hup. Move over."
I went to the truck first, hauled the soldier sprawled across the driver's seat out of the way, and started the engine.
W̃е̂b̂n̊о̄_v̊е̊l̈ Ĕ n̈um ӓ
Fortunately, the engine was fine.
I hoisted Kite No. 3, whom I'd hidden propped against a building wall, over my shoulder and loaded him into the passenger seat.
"Let's get moving, sunbae. Time for some mala xiang guo."
I stomped on the accelerator, heading for the Yalu River Bridge shrouded in thick night fog.
It seemed my chance to become a Nameless Star in the night sky wasn't going to come just yet.
*****
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The Yalu River Bridge stood completely empty, not a single Public Security officer in sight.
The surveillance cameras were rolling, but that wasn't my problem right now.
I crossed the bridge, pushed on into a narrow alley, and dumped the truck by the roadside.
When I hoisted Kite No. 3 onto my back again, I felt his blood soaking through, dampening my back.
'Let's get him properly stitched up first.'
My cover in China was a native of Heilongjiang, currently backpacking his way across the country.
Ӗ n̈umă
A traveler like me lingering in Dandong wasn't strange in the least, but an ordinary traveler carrying a bleeding man on his back is a problem.
Fortunately, Dandong had a few temporary boltholes the NIS had set up, known as Rabbit Holes.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
They weren't up to safe house standards, but they offered a little room to catch your breath, and each was stocked with a few emergency supplies that would come in handy in a situation like this.
The plan was to finish staunching Kite No. 3's bleeding there before moving on.
'Western tip of National Route G201, Qunping County, Zhenxing District, Dandong, Wang Chunsam's Eatery.'
The Kite designation goes to intelligence officers slated to spend half a lifetime in-country.
Еn̂.ù m̆ а̇
Ever since I transferred out of the Defense Intelligence Command and became an NIS agent, word of Kite No. 3 had all but dried up; that place, it seemed, was his hideout in China.
'Non-spicy mala xiang guo? Now there's a menu item that wounds a Korean's pride.'
The NIS Rabbit Hole I'd stop at first was a warehouse tucked into the corner of a back alley.
The moment I opened the door, cockroaches came spilling out in a rush.
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Judging by the mound of cigarette butts under the broken window, the local hoodlums had claimed the place as a hangout of their own.
'Here it is.'
Е̊ n u ṁа̇ .іd
Deeper inside, a steel plate that looked like it connected to the sewers was set into the floor.
I swept the trash aside with my foot and found a thick padlock.
The combination was 12653.
Clank!
The moment I lifted the lid, the stench of the sewer surged up.
'Careful, this could get infected.'
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Kite No. 3, slung across my back, was still unresponsive.
Thankfully, his faint breathing still brushed my ear.
Down the stairs was a huge passage connecting to the sewers, and a little farther along, in one corner, sat a cramped closet of a room where the pipes converged.
That was the Rabbit Hole.
I somehow squeezed through a passage barely wide enough for one person, and inside there was at least a bit of breathing room.
I sat Kite No. 3 down in the corner and dug through the box stowed beneath the spot.
Wêbnоv e l Еn u m à
"Found it."
Inside were medical supplies serviceable enough for the job.
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Scissors and forceps, an emergency suture kit and bandages.
And, most important of all, I pulled out the alcohol and the povidone solution.
First I doused all the instruments and both my hands in alcohol, then cut away Kite No. 3's shirt with the scissors.
Then I poured povidone solution over his exposed wound.
Еnu m̀ ӑ . і d̈
Barely conscious, Kite No. 3 let out a faint groan and nothing more.
Every time I scraped inside the wound with the forceps, another hemostatic sponge I'd packed deep into it came popping out.
Each one was gorged with blood, plump as a caterpillar on the verge of metamorphosis; and just then a crushed slug peeked out from deeper inside, so I plucked that out too.
'Good thing it was the shoulder. A gut shot and he'd have been done for.'
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All I could really do here was staunch the bleeding more thoroughly.
While periodically pouring on povidone to disinfect, this time I packed sterile disposable gauze into the wound, layer by careful layer.
Е̂nüm ȧ_
Then I cinched the wound tight with the suture kit, sealing off every gap where blood could seep through.
Finally, pad it with gauze, wind the bandage round and round the shoulder, and done.
"There."
"Ngh."
Kite No. 3 flinched, then his eyes snapped open.
Between fluttering eyelids, his bleary pupils darted quickly around the room.
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"Sunbae. You with me?"
"Where...."
"The Rabbit Hole. I just finished stopping the bleeding."
Judging by the way he was clinging to consciousness, it looked like Kite No. 3 would pull through.
As luck would have it, there was a morphine syringe in the box.
Nothing better for a gunshot wound.
Еǹúm а́.іd́.
"I'll give you some morphine, so relax and get some sleep."
"Ngh...."
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Once the morphine went in, Kite No. 3 closed his eyes again.
I caught my breath as well, and only then tore open an energy bar and stuffed it in my mouth.
'Not an easy day.'
There was no telling how things would unfold from here.
Е ñ um а
A shootout had just gone down inside Sinuiju, and North Korean soldiers had been massacred wholesale.
The North would be filing a cooperation request with Chinese Public Security to round up the NIS agents.
Public Security would tighten checkpoints and searches, hunting for suspicious individuals.
Better to move fast, then, before it got any later.
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"Let's head out."
Before hoisting Kite No. 3 back onto my shoulders, I ransacked the box.
Ẅe̊ b́ň о v̂е̌ l̆ Еñ u m̊ а
A couple changes of clothes, energy bars, bottled water, a wallet stuffed with a wad of yuan, and a single military bayonet.
I changed clothes first.
Looking down, I saw my outer layer shredded to rags by countless bullets.
Plink, plunk.
A couple more crushed slugs came tumbling out from among the tattered cloth.
The body laid bare underneath was perfectly untouched.
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'If the scene is this detailed, this probably isn't a dream after all.'
There was no time to get sentimental.
Slowly working out what had happened to my body could wait until I had breathing room to spare.
I changed in a hurry, then stripped off Kite No. 3's outer clothes and changed him as well.
I grabbed everything usable and hoisted him onto my back.
"Sunbae. Still alive?"
Е n̈ u mа̂ .і̀ d
"Nnh...."
Kite No. 3's short groan came as a relief.
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I retraced my steps exactly, locked the sewer lid behind me, and stepped back out onto the street.
"Taxi!"
Even within Dandong, the stretch across from Sinuiju was practically half a tourist district, so taxis still made the rounds even at this hour.
Screech!
Е̃ňum̃a
"Where to?"
"I'll point out where to drop us. For now, take National Route G201 toward Donggang. I'm a little fuzzy on my own address."
"You got it."
Donggang sits right next door to Dandong.
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With possible pursuit in mind, it was better to feed the driver a line like that.
"Good grief, Wang-sunbae. How much did you drink to end up this far gone?"
W е́ b́n̊ о̆v е l Е nùm̀а
I passed Kite No. 3 off as a man blackout drunk and loaded him into the back seat.
Climbing into the passenger seat, I looked out at the streets of Dandong, quiet as if nothing had happened at all.
Barely thirty minutes had passed since we'd pulled the job and crossed the Yalu River Bridge.
The driver pulled out at once, suspecting nothing.
'The others made it out all right, didn't they?'
Five of us in total had infiltrated the North, and now that we'd scattered, there was no way whatsoever to confirm anyone's fate at this point.
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Even if someone had died, the NIS would probably never give a straight answer.
'When I get leave, I should go see whether another star's been engraved.'
Visiting the NIS Security Exhibition Hall to look at the Nameless Star plaque was one of my oldest habits.
I only hoped no new stars would be carved into it after tonight.
*****
Zhenxing District of Dandong stretched out long and narrow, and crossing it from end to end took a fair amount of time.
Ënū m̈a
The driver claimed he knew a shortcut and then blatantly wound us around in circles, so the taxi ride from the Yalu River Bridge took a good hour.
Considering possible pursuit, a tangled route was actually the better option.
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The driver had gone and done, all on his own, exactly what I would have had to ask for.
"Come on, how is the cab fare more expensive than a plane ticket?"
After sending off the driver, who had shrewdly pocketed the late-night surcharge on top of everything else, I walked a long way further with Kite No. 3 on my back.
I'd deliberately ridden the taxi well past our destination.
Ẁ е̃ḃ n̈ о v̈ ĕl̊ E ñů.m̂а̇
"This is it."
Along the national road, a handful of shops stood packed shoulder to shoulder, serving in place of a rest stop.
In one corner of it sat my destination, Wang Chunsam's Eatery.
I'd spotted the sign through the taxi window on the way in.
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"Excuse me."
I knocked on the door, trying Chinese first.
W ѐ bň ōv́ е l̄ Е̊nu̇ mӓ
No response from inside.
"Excuse me?"
When I asked again in Korean, just in case, I finally sensed a presence beyond the door.
Cautious footsteps approaching behind the steel door.
The door, still on its lock, opened just a sliver.
Through the gap peeked a single eye, brimming with wariness.
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"Who is it?"
Korean; or rather, an accent closer to the North's Munhwaeo.
Having just come back from North Korea myself, I couldn't help but laugh.
"My apologies for the late hour. I heard I could get non-spicy mala xiang guo here."
"...."
At my whisper, the eye beyond the crack went round.
Е̂ ǹ_u̇ m̊а̌
After a brief silence the door swung shut again, and from inside came a clack, the bolt sliding free.
The figure revealed in the wide-open doorway was a woman of small build.
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She glared at me with a guarded expression, then noticed the man slung across my back.
"...Ah!"
Recognizing the unconscious Kite No. 3 at a glance, she gaped, her mouth falling open without her realizing it.
"Y-you wouldn't happen to be.... a work comrade of my husband's?"
En ŭ m̂а̀. і̃ d̆
"That's right. Is there somewhere I can lay him down?"
"C-come inside, quickly, please!"
Stepping inside, the layout of the house came together at a glance.
A hallway connected to the first-floor restaurant; stairs leading up to the second.
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We went straight up the stairs.
Past a narrow hallway, the room at the far end held a single bed.
Ẽ ñ u m̄a
I laid Kite No. 3 carefully on the bed and pulled back his shirt; thankfully, the bleeding had stopped.
"Wh-what on earth has happened?"
"He took a bullet to the shoulder. I've stopped the bleeding, but he needs proper treatment."
"That wretched man! He swore there would never be any danger."
The woman's eyes welled up, her face stricken with grief.
Turning my head absently, I noticed a single object on the bedside table.
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A photo of her and Kite No. 3 side by side, smiling warmly at each other.
A field black agent falling for someone near his hideout and setting up house together was fairly common in this line of work.
'Kite, you thieving old dog.'
The only problem was that hyeongsu-nim looked far too young. [TL Note: hyeongsu-nim is a respectful term for the wife of one's elder brother or senior colleague, roughly "sister-in-law".]
That fresh face put her in her early twenties at a single glance.
"He's just sleeping from the medication I injected, so don't worry too much, hyeongsu-nim."
Ẁ е̃_b̌ n̆ о v̈ё l̀ Е̇ ňũ m̊.а̃
"H-hyeongsu-nim?"
"Am I wrong?"
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"Ah! Y-yes, that's right. He and I are indeed husband and wife."
Still, watching hyeongsu-nim's face flush bright red, I figured all the trouble of dragging him back alive had been worth it.
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