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Chapter 5: Huh, That Actually Worked
TL: Enuma ID
My plan was very simple.
Get myself captured and taken into the State Security safe house, infiltrate it, then walk out with the abducted South Korean tourists.
"Whatever I do from this point on, don't mind me. Just stay huddled in the corner and keep quiet."
The method was very simple, too.
Ѐṅü m̃ ӑ .ĭd̈
Bang, bang, bang!
Without warning, I started pounding on the basement's steel door.
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"Wh-why are you doing that all of a sudden?!"
"Hup!"
"Hnngh...."
The tourists flinched and shrank back in terror.
Еǹů m̂ а́ .і̀ d̂
Without a word, I signaled them with a jerk of my chin.
And even without any further instruction from me, they scrambled into the dark far corner of the room and huddled there, too busy trembling to do anything else.
Bang, bang, bang!
"What do you think you're doing in there!"
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At the racket of the pounding, hurried footsteps came running from down the corridor.
Clack!
En̈úm̊ а . їd́
The small observation hatch on the steel door slid open.
"What is this? Can you not sit still!"
A furious shout poured through the narrow slit.
A single eye, twisted with menace, glared into the room, and I calmly raised my cuffed hands.
"You bastard, you really want to die?!"
"I am an agent of the Republic of Korea's NIS, dispatched to negotiate. We will formally accept any demand North Korea makes, so I would like to speak with your officer in charge on site."
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"...Who did you just say you were?"
"NIS. I'm here to see External Intelligence Bureau director Ri Chol-jun, who should be on the premises."
The North Korean soldier's eye went wide.
For an instant, a look of a thousand conflicting emotions flickered past beyond the hatch.
"Y-you stay right there! Don't move!"
Not that I could take a single step out of here unless someone opened the door anyway.
Е̃ ňu ḿ а
The hatch snapped shut, and the footsteps hurried away.
The moment his presence faded, I felt whispering stir behind me.
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"Wh-what were you thinking...."
The two girls just looked bewildered, with no idea what was happening, but the male student had gone completely white.
Anyone who'd finished his military service would know a thing or two about North Korean interrogation methods, which start with torture, so it was a perfectly natural reaction.
"Relax. Everything is going according to plan."
Еn u m а́_
"...."
Before long, a thunder of footsteps came pouring down the corridor.
Soon the steel door rattled and was flung roughly open.
"Hands up!"
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"Do not move!"
"Eek!"
W̃е́ b n o̊v ēl Еňum_а́_
"Aaaahh!"
Five North Korean soldiers lined up at the entrance, muzzles aimed on me as one.
Two of them entered the room and locked my arms tight, one clamped on each side.
"You claim to be a South Chosun operative?"
Outside the door stood a man in a crisply pressed dress uniform.
Judging by his refined Pyongyang accent, he was probably something like the External Intelligence Bureau director's adjutant.
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He was glaring at me with piercing eyes.
"And who are you?"
"I am Choe Jong-hak, deputy bureau director of the State Security Department's External Intelligence Bureau."
Not the director's adjutant, then; a rung above that.
"I am an NIS agent dispatched to negotiate. From this point on, I demand humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions."
"Hoh. You shameless bastard! And when your kind crawled onto the Republic's soil and tore a dozen of our low-ranking soldiers to shreds, that was a humane act, I take it?"
Е́ n̈u̇m̆.а̇
"The civilians you abducted are guilty of nothing. If you want someone to answer for this incident, I alone should be more than enough."
"That is a judgment to be made after we thoroughly examine just how useful you are. Bring him, quickly!"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
At Choe Jong-hak's chin-jerk, the two North Korean soldiers dragged me off somewhere.
Glancing back, I saw the basement door slam shut.
The soldier guarding it pulled a key from his belt and locked the steel door up tight.
"How did you know we were the External Intelligence Bureau?"
Е̊ nu ma
"For a proper negotiation, I'd like to meet your superior."
"I am the highest-ranking man here."
"I know Bureau Director Ri Chol-jun is in this safe house. I'll speak with him directly."
"This insolent brat, talking back again and again...."
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Deputy Bureau Director Choe Jong-hak stopped walking and turned to face me.
Crack!
Ė nu_m̀ a .id
In time with his big, sweeping swing, I whipped my head to the side.
"Shut your mouth. As it happens, Comrade Bureau Director said he would look upon your ugly mug himself."
They hauled me up several more floors, dragging me the whole way.
The North Korean soldiers holding me were panting hard.
From what I could discreetly observe, no troops were posted on the individual floors.
Only when we reached the third and final floor did I find five armed North Korean soldiers standing guard.
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"Comrade Bureau Director. We have brought the brat who claims to be a South Chosun operative."
As I was dragged into the third-floor office, a man shot up from his chair.
Dark, blotchy skin and a wrinkled face.
Ri Chol-jun, State Security's External Intelligence Bureau director.
He looked exactly like the photo attached to my mission orders.
"Well now, how did you manage to catch this impudent specimen?"
Еǹù ṁа̇ . іd
"It would seem South Chosun took fright at our indiscriminate abduction of tourists and sent this operative in their place to negotiate, would it not?"
"Heh heh heh heh. So my gambit worked! Those shameless wretches walked right into my trap!"
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"Congratulations, Comrade Bureau Director."
While they congratulated each other, I finished counting the North Korean soldiers in the room.
Including the two clamped onto my arms, ten men in total stationed on the third floor.
The remaining ten or so were apparently still roaming downtown Dandong, trying to abduct more South Korean tourists.
W̌ е.b̊ňóv̂e ľ Èn u mà
"As you say, I was dispatched to negotiate. I ask that you rescind the order for indiscriminate abduction of tourists, effective immediately."
"Before that, oughtn't you properly identify yourself first?"
"I will say only that I am an NIS agent."
"Your codename?"
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"That I cannot disclose."
"...This bastard keeps talking back before the Comrade Bureau Director! Out with it, quickly, in full!"
Ẽ.n̆ um а
As Ri Chol-jun's face soured, Choe Jong-hak, who had been standing at attention beside him, stepped forward in his stead.
Crack!
In time with the meaty smack across my cheek, I whipped my head to the side once more.
"Comrade. No need to rush. Surely that is something we shall come to learn, bit by bit, as we exchange words in close quarters?"
Ri Chol-jun picked up a pocketknife lying on the table.
That alone made it clear I could expect nothing resembling a humane interrogation.
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"Very well. I shall rescind the order... if you give a proper answer to the question I am about to ask. As it happens, there is exactly one thing I have been curious about."
"I'm listening."
"Why on earth did NIS operatives crawl onto the Republic's soil in the dead of night and run amok? What tasty morsel were you digging for?"
"...."
"Why, I ask, did you crawl into Sinuiju out of nowhere and kill our blameless low-ranking soldiers?"
At Ri Chol-jun's question, my mouth closed of its own accord.
Ë n u m̊ а
In that moment, a strange certainty flashed through my mind.
'They don't know we infiltrated to extract Minister of People's Armed Forces Hyon Yong-chol.'
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Come to think of it, there was one more thing that didn't add up.
If this operation had been a trap meticulously laid by North Korea, there was no way only the External Intelligence Bureau would have crossed over into Dandong.
But the only outfit controlling the scene right now was the External Intelligence Bureau.
Everything on site was running entirely on Bureau Director Ri Chol-jun's unilateral judgment.
Еǹům а̄ . і d̃
'We simply got unlucky, then.'
Putting the pieces together, the leak had come from the Chinese Public Security side.
However much money we'd slipped under the table, the collusion would be limited mostly to the top brass; there was no way to perfectly control every individual officer inside Public Security.
Some Public Security officer on North Korea's payroll had apparently tipped the External Intelligence Bureau off about suspicious movements within Public Security.
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Even a scrap of intel, something like a few black agents disguised as Chinese tourists crossing into Sinuiju, would have been justification enough for the External Intelligence Bureau to move troops.
"Speak, quickly!"
E ñ u m̂а̇ . і̃ d̈
"Comrade Bureau Director. Leave him to me, and I will drag this bastard to the torture chamber this instant and have him confess everything, down to the last detail."
As for why the External Intelligence Bureau had moved alone, that was probably to keep all the credit for themselves.
Once my thoughts settled, one conclusion naturally followed.
The operation as a whole hadn't been blown.
Only a portion of the intel had leaked, through a handful of channels.
'Nothing has changed about the fact that Hyon Yong-chol plans to defect to South Korea.'
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He would be hiding with his whole family in the Sinuiju warehouse, the agreed rendezvous point, trusting completely that we would come.
'There isn't enough time.'
Time was the problem.
The operation's go-time had been midnight the night before.
Twelve hours had already passed since then.
When a heavyweight like the Minister of People's Armed Forces had been missing that long, the key figures around him would have caught on to Hyon Yong-chol's betrayal by now.
Е̂ n̂û m̃а̊
At this rate, odds were that before long it wouldn't be the External Intelligence Bureau but the Ministry of National Defense itself moving the military.
If the operation was going to succeed, I had to move right now.
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My mind was already made up.
"...Has this half-wit lost his mind? What is all this grinning bullshit?"
Had I been smiling?
At Ri Chol-jun's muttering, my cheek twitched without my meaning it to.
W̄е_b nоv̄ е̃ l Е ňu̇ má
Honestly, though, I couldn't help it.
'No matter how many times I think it over, I really am a madman.'
I wrenched my body hard.
And the object hidden deep in my sleeve tumbled right into my grip.
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"You bastard, what is that?!"
"Do not move!"
Е n̊ u m̂ а̀.і̊ d
The two North Korean soldiers locked around my arms panicked and clamped down on me.
One of them spotted the clacker in my grip, but there was no time for him to realize what it was.
The translucent fan-shaped arc I'd drawn in my head swept over Ri Chol-jun and Choe Jong-hak both.
And in that instant... click!
KABOOOOOOM!
*****
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My eyes snapped open.
"Pwah!"
Covered head to toe in dust, I coughed in spite of myself.
In a daze, as if dreaming, the first thing I did was fumble over my body to check its condition.
I looked down. Dangling free.
Bwoooo. [TL Note: An elephant's trumpeting sound.]
W̊е̌ b̈_n о v̂ е̂ l̀ Е̊ ń û m̈а
My big, beautiful elephant was the first to welcome me back.
Thankfully, the fellow was alive, well, and perfectly intact.
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"Wow."
The problem was that from my shirt to my pants to my shoes, not a single article of clothing remained intact on my body.
Even the handcuffs binding my wrists had vanished without a trace.
A truly primordial state; a newborn in his natural glory.
Wеb n ö v̊ е̇l̃ Е n̄ um̈ а̌
"Huh. That actually worked."
I took a moment to repent my life choices, a little late.
When I'd strapped the Claymore to my chest, I'll admit my body had flinched a little.
This body had bounced bullets off it, sure, but a Claymore blast was a whole different class of thing from mere bullets.
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As for my last memory after squeezing the clacker, there wasn't much to it.
Just the world churning into a chaotic tangle as I somersaulted through the air at tremendous speed.
Е̇ ǹū ma.
"What the hell is this body of mine even made of?"
The room was a horror.
The table, the chairs, everything had been blown to pieces.
There was no need to check whether Ri Chol-jun and Choe Jong-hak were alive.
Shredded to ribbons by the Claymore's steel ball bearings, the bloodstains baked onto the half-collapsed concrete wall were all that remained of them.
The soldiers who'd been holding my arms and the troops waiting outside had fared no better.
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The blast must have ruptured every organ they had; so this was what wuxia novels meant by bleeding from the seven orifices.
"...Heh heh. I'm losing it. Seriously."
Somehow the laughter kept leaking out.
For some reason, the corners of my mouth kept pulling upward.
With the situation spiraling into madness, it felt like my mind was going right along with it.
How far could I really go? Even I honestly didn't know anymore.
Ёn umа̄
"Whew. Get it together. Focus."
Once I'd steadied myself, I first picked up one of the rifles littering the floor.
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After checking the chamber, I headed straight for the basement.
I ran into no North Korean soldiers on the way down.
Except for exactly one, the guard at the basement door.
Already on edge from the explosion, the moment our eyes met, his went wide and he swung his muzzle toward me.
Ě n um а̌
"Who goes there?!"
Bang!
"Gurk!"
I was faster on the trigger.
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I fished the basement key out of the jacket of the bastard with a bullet in his head.
Clack. Creeeeak!
E n̈úm̃ а̂
When I flung the heavy basement door open, a short, choked cry came from inside.
"All right, everyone out. Let's move fast and get you out of here."
"Wh-what?"
The three of them, still stunned senseless by the blast that had rocked the building, finally noticed me standing in the open doorway.
Far from welcoming me, they just gaped at me, mouths hanging open, still dazed.
Only then did it hit me.
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With all the blood rushing to my head, it had completely slipped my mind.
"Ah."
That I was stark naked.
Bwoooo.
*****
Ẃ еb̀n о v̌ӗl Е n ũm а̃
*****
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