Special Operation +20
4:00 a.m.
In the Namseoul Parkhill residential complex in Unjung-dong, Seopangyo, the second-floor study of Chairman Cho Seunghyun’s villa was still lit.
The chairman stood there in a thick cardigan over his pajamas, staring out into the darkness beyond the window.
Ordinarily, this would have been the hour when he was sunk deep in sleep, but tonight he could not close his eyes no matter what he did.
The anxiety of waiting for word from Riyadh had driven the sleep from an old man’s bones.
Knock, knock.
A cautious knock broke the silence.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and the chief of staff stepped inside.
He carried a tablet PC in his hands.
A faint twitch moved at the corner of the chief of staff’s mouth, a rare sign of emotion from a man who usually gave nothing away.
“Chairman, the first report has come in from the Riyadh camp.”
“Oh? Don’t drag it out. Say it.”
“China’s CS/AA-7 Cheonryong has had its entire contract canceled and has been officially expelled.”
Chairman Cho’s eyebrows jumped.
“And?”
“The Saudi Ministry of Defense has officially designated our Hanseo Defense equipment as the replacement. They want to see a performance test first thing tomorrow morning and are asking whether that is possible.”
In an instant, the taut thread of tension snapped.
The chairman let out a laugh, his voice sounding as if a long-standing blockage had finally broken loose.
“See? What did I tell you? That Baek guy’s the real thing. He’s kicked the Chinese right out of the rice bowl!”
It had been the Saudi trip that Finance Executive Director Yoon Taejin had opposed, foaming at the mouth about wasted money.
And Baek Gunwoo, who had walked straight into that fire on his own, had ended up overturning the table in the middle of the desert.
“Chief of Staff! Wake up Choi Kichul right this second!”
“At this hour?”
“Yes! Tell him to get Biho out the door! I’ll call the Air Force chief of staff myself as soon as it’s light, so tell them to launch the transport plane now!”
Chairman Cho clenched his fist.
The look in his eyes had already returned to what it had been in his prime, the eyes of a field commander who had once ranged all over the front lines.
“You don’t just row when the tide comes in. You bolt on a motor. Every minute and every second is money. Move now!”
That night, in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do, the loading yard at Hanseo Defense’s Second Plant was in chaos.
“No! This is a clear violation of the Customs Act!”
The logistics team leader blocked the trailer’s path and shouted himself hoarse.
In his hand was an export application form that still lacked a seal.
“The permit to remove defense material hasn’t even been issued yet! If that leaves here now, it’s the same as smuggling! If the auditors come later, who’s going to take responsibility?”
Just then, the plant manager rushed over and shoved the logistics team leader aside roughly.
“Move aside, you stubborn fool!”
“Plant Manager!”
“I just got a call from headquarters. They’re processing it not as an export, but as a temporary release for an emergency test evaluation in support of national security!”
“What? That makes no sense—”
“The Defense Minister called the customs chief himself and told him to leave the gate open, cursing him out over the phone! He said it was a blue house free pass! We’ll file the paperwork later, so just tell them to get moving!”
With the plant manager’s shout, the heavy steel gate opened.
RUMBLE-!
With a thunderous roar that shook the ground, the sleeping beasts of steel stirred awake.
The cold armor of Biho, uncovered from its tarp, flashed beneath the sweep of searchlights.
Trailers with their hazard lights blinking burst out of the factory gates at insane speed.
Police cars that had been waiting nearby followed behind them with sirens wailing.
The destination was Gimhae Airport.
There, waiting with its mouth wide open, was the monster the chairman had rushed to secure at ten times the usual premium: the An-124 transport aircraft.
Legal and administrative flexibility, exercised in response to the urgent situation on the ground in Saudi Arabia.
A butterfly effect sparked by a single victory from Baek Gunwoo was stirring up a storm in Korea.
The next afternoon, at the air base in King Khalid Military City, northern Saudi Arabia.
It was a place where the roar of takeoffs and landings never ceased, even over the blazing heat radiating off the desert.
A colossal shadow fell across the barren runway.
ROARRRR―!
The sky fortress with a wingspan of 73 meters, the An-124 transport, settled onto the runway with a heavy, grinding bellow.
The moment the aircraft stopped, the nose lifted as one, the forward ramp opened, and a wave of hot air surged out.
“Baek Bujang!”
Before the ramp had even come down, someone came running as if they had jumped off the plane itself.
Black sunglasses, a dress shirt soaked through with sweat.
It was Choi Kichul, the head of the Land Systems Business Division.
“Chief?”
“You crazy bastard! You actually pulled it off!”
Choi didn’t even wait for my answer before lunging in and hugging me hard.
He slapped my back so fiercely I could barely breathe.
“The chairman was practically dancing! I lived long enough to see the Defense Minister call our chairman ‘hyungnim’!”
“Chief, please, calm down a little—”
“Calm down? Do you know how much this thing is worth?”
As Choi rattled on in a fit of excitement, his gaze went past my shoulder.
There stood Executive Director Cho Yerin, Khalid the inspector, and a line of Saudi officers.
“...Ahem!”
Choi came to a stop as if he had hit a wall.
He hurriedly straightened his tie and cleared his throat.
“Ah, Executive Director Cho is here as well. Mister Khalid too...”
In an instant, he was back to the solemn face of a senior executive and extended his hand with perfect courtesy.
“I’m Choi Kichul, head of Hanseo Defense’s Land Systems Business Division. It’s a pleasure.”
But the corners of his mouth kept twitching upward, no matter how hard he tried to suppress them.
Khalid chuckled and took the handshake.
“I heard the trip here was difficult, Mr. Choi.”
“Haha, don’t even mention it. I practically grabbed the Defense Minister by the trouser leg at dawn to get this loaded. I woke up the Customs Commissioner and pushed it through as a report-after-action job. It was a madhouse.”
At Choi’s war story, Khalid shook his head and added his own.
“We weren’t exactly having an easy time either. Our commander called the control tower directly. He threatened to demote everyone there to the desert if they didn’t let the Korean transport land immediately, and that threw the landing schedule into chaos. Thanks to that, ten civilian aircraft are circling overhead right now.”
“Hahaha, I had no idea they’d been that accommodating. I’ll have to send a separate note of thanks.”
On both sides, nobody was in his right mind.
But it was that frantic, borderline insane momentum that had created this situation.
The firing range on the base.
The sun was blazing directly overhead, and the surface temperature was well above 50 degrees Celsius.
The heat was so thick it felt hard to breathe just standing still.
Through the shimmer of the air, I could see the steel beast Biho venting white heat haze from its barrel.
“Target drones entering! Distance, 3 kilometers!”
At the controller’s shout, red target drones appeared in the distance.
I stood under the shade of the command platform canopy with my arms folded, watching them.
Beside me, Choi kept gulping water, his mouth dry as dust.
He looked anxious enough to soil himself at the slightest mistake.
But I could see it.
The stable blue flow wrapped around the machine.
Last night, I had taken every measure I could.
A dual filter to block the desert’s fine dust, and a special hydraulic oil setup that would hold its viscosity even in extreme heat.
Preparation had been completed perfectly.
Whir, click!
The turret spun nimbly.
The electro-optical tracking system predicted the drones’ route, and the fire-control computer calculated the trajectory.
In my eyes, countless blue lines cut through the air and stretched toward the drones.
RATATATATATATAT-!
With a tearing crack that seemed to rip the atmosphere apart, the twin 30mm cannons opened fire.
The hydraulic damper I had personally modified swallowed the recoil of the barrels with smooth precision.
Vibration was close to zero, and the shot grouping was so tight it was almost artistic.
Bang!
Bang!
Flashes burst in the sky.
The drones dropped out of the air like birds that had suddenly lost their wings.
Not a single round missed. It was mechanical perfection.
“......!”
Brigadier General Abdullah, watching through binoculars, shot to his feet.
He lowered them and turned to Khalid.
“Excellent! This is exactly what I wanted!”
“Bull’s-eye, Commander.”
As Abdullah applauded standing up, Khalid gave a thumbs-up as well.
Only then did the stiff expression on Choi Kichul’s face finally loosen.
He clenched his fist and cried out softly.
“That’s right! This is Hanseo Defense!”
The moment the test ended, Abdullah didn’t even bother sitting down before issuing an order to Khalid.
“Skip every procedure.”
“Pardon?”
“What, do you want to post a tender notice, collect proposals, and waste time on that nonsense until we get hit by a drone and die? Do you know how big the security gap is right now because of those Chinese bastards?”
The commander’s eyes burned bright.
“Activate the emergency operational requirement. By my authority, skip the bidding and proceed as a sole-source contract.”
At the command, Khalid immediately pulled out a notebook and began writing.
Then Choi Kichul, who had been waiting for just this moment, took a thick document envelope from his briefcase.
“We were prepared for this.”
He thumped the papers onto the table.
“The chairman and our legal team worked through the night on this Memorandum of Agreement, the major terms and conditions.”
“MOA?”
“The full contract is too long, so we’ll sign that later back in Korea. But the moment you sign this, the quantity and unit price are fixed. Its legal force is identical to the main contract.”
Choi grinned and added, “It seals the door shut so nobody else can squeeze in.”
Brigadier General Abdullah laughed heartily and pulled a Montblanc fountain pen from his pocket.
“I’ll give you this much, the Koreans really are impatient. I like it.”
Scratch, scratch.
The fountain pen ran across the paper.
A business worth trillions of won was decided in ten minutes, inside a bunker in the middle of the desert.
Right after the signing, Choi headed off to drink with Abdullah, and only Executive Director Cho Yerin and I remained in the bunker operations room.
Inside, away from the desert heat, the air-conditioning was cool and crisp.
Maybe because the tension had finally broken, Yerin collapsed into her chair as if her strength had gone with it.
“Haa... I’m alive.”
She wiped at her face and muttered, “If it hadn’t been for you, Senior, I really would have died.”
“Died, my ass. At worst, you’d have had to write a disciplinary report. You’re a conglomerate third-generation heiress, and that much is enough to make you cry?”
At my dry reply, Yerin smiled bitterly and shook her head.
“No. It really was the end. Honestly... I was exiled here.”
“Exiled?”
“My older brothers sent me here on purpose to keep me in check. The MRO business is the kind of job where if you do well, you barely break even, and if you fail, you take the blame for everything. If I had failed this time, I would’ve been completely out of the succession race for the whole group.”
It was the first time I had heard that.
I’d thought she had just come to the front lines because she was ambitious, but apparently she had been standing on a cliff edge in her own way, too.
Yerin toyed with her phone.
“But I got a call from Dad earlier. He told me to come back with you when you return to Korea.”
“......”
“He said he’s making a place for me in the planning office at headquarters. So... I’m supposed to come back.”
Her eyes were damp.
Was that the face of a soldier who had survived the battlefield and then received orders to come home?
I gave a faint laugh and handed her a canned coffee.
“Good. You’re going back where you belong.”
“All thanks to you, Senior.”
Yerin looked up at me.
Deep, solid trust filled her eyes.
“I’ll never forget this favor. When we get back to Korea... I’ll be your strongest support.”
“You’ve got a good backer, then. That’s reassuring.”
We looked at each other and laughed lightly.
The night before our return.
A royal villa on the outskirts of Riyadh, surrounded by palm trees.
A lavish banquet was being held to celebrate the successful contract.
I had stepped out onto the terrace to escape the noise of the hall and let the desert night air wash over me.
Then someone came up behind me.
“Thanks to you, we were able to clean out those troublesome pro-China types.”
It was Khalid, the inspector.
A meaningful smile played on his lips.
“The royal family has enormous trust in Korean weapons as well. There’ll probably be more orders coming in after this.”
“Thank you for seeing us in such a good light.”
“But... we don’t trust the financial types at your company.”
Khalid’s voice lowered.
“Argon Capital, was it?”
I started at the name that came out of his mouth.
Reading the change in my expression, Khalid smiled wryly.
“So you did know. Those people seem to think they can chop Hanseo Defense into pieces and sell it off. From our point of view, that’s deeply unpleasant. If they succeed, the company that services the weapons disappears.”
GAMI’s intelligence network, backed by Saudi intelligence, was nothing to dismiss lightly.
If they bought trillions of won worth of weapons and then the company dissolved into thin air, it would be disastrous for them too.
“So I put a little safety lock in place.”
Khalid reached into his jacket and produced a folded sheet of paper, handing it to me.
“What is this?”
“Read it. It’s both my goodwill toward you and an insurance policy to protect our weapons.”
I slowly unfolded the document and read through it.
Then I reached the very last line, the special clause, and had no choice but to stare in disbelief.
PAYMENT CONDITION:All progress payments and maintenance (MRO) payments under this contract shall be executed only upon the final approval signature of Baek Gunwoo, head of technology coordination at Hanseo Defense.
“...Inspector?”
“If they try to tear the company apart, choke off their money with this clause. Without your seal, they can’t take a single dollar.”
A chill ran down my spine.
This was not something that could be dismissed as a simple bonus.
He had effectively placed the company’s cash flow, its lifeline, in my hands.
President, executive director, it didn’t matter. I now held the kind of power that would force them all to watch my face.
It was practically an absolute ring.
Khalid patted my shoulder as I stood there speechless.
“Use it well, my friend.”
The next day, at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.
First class on the flight back to Korea.
The cabin, ready for takeoff, was filled with the low, steady hum of the engines.
Choi Kichul was looking out the window with a pleased smile.
“Hah, we’re going home! Korea is going to be in an uproar. That fox Yoon Taejin will probably be grabbing the back of her neck.”
At his words, Yerin chuckled and lifted a champagne glass.
“If that’s all she does, we should count ourselves lucky. With this performance, even my brothers won’t be able to come after us so carelessly. Right, Senior?”
I toyed with the contract copy tucked into the inner pocket of my suit.
The feel of the paper beneath my fingertips was sharper and heavier than any jewel.
Finance Executive Director Yoon Taejin, and the private equity bastards hiding behind her.
I had a weapon in my hands that would make their lives very difficult indeed.
“Hard to say.”
I grinned.
“It’s not enough to just make them grab the back of their necks. Let’s really put some discipline into them.”
At that, Choi Kichul and Yerin burst out laughing.
And then, at that very moment, the plane broke free of the runway and began to climb into the sky.