Execution (1)
President’s Office Inspection Team Interrogation Room.
“You said you met CIA agents at Hong Kong Disneyland. Did you verify their identities?”
The inspector from the inspection team looked at Seong Ha-yeong as he asked the question.
“The person who approached us identified himself as Daniel Parker. After checking through the National Security Office, we confirmed that he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and served in the U.S. Air Force. He was also stationed in Osan, South Korea.”
“So, in the end, you couldn’t confirm that the man actually worked for the CIA.”
“The identities of CIA overseas operations teams are top secret, even in the United States. It’s impossible unless you hack the Langley servers.”
“Langley…? What’s that?”
Langley referred to the area in Virginia where CIA headquarters was located.
It was the same as calling the National Intelligence Service “Naegok-dong” in the past.
And the fact that they had assigned an employee who didn’t even know what Langley was told her just how hastily this inspection had been put together.
“The area where CIA headquarters is located.”
“Ahem…”
The inspector coughed awkwardly, clearly embarrassed.
Then he asked again.
“Then why were you convinced that this Daniel Parker was CIA?”
“His behavior, the aura he gave off, and above all, he already knew what we had done in Hong Kong. And as I said before, there is no record of him after he left the U.S. Air Force. Taking all of that into account—”
“That’s enough.”
The inspector cut Seong Ha-yeong off.
Then he tapped away at his laptop keyboard.
Tak-tat-tat-tak—
For a while, only the sound of typing echoed through the interrogation room.
“Did you pay for Hong Kong Disneyland with business expense money?”
“Hah…”
Seong Ha-yeong let out a sigh before she realized it.
The inspector’s question was far too blatant.
He was clearly looking for any trivial hook he could use to pin something on her.
And Seong Ha-yeong immediately regretted that sigh.
So she straightened her back and silently told herself to endure it.
She had to hold on.
And so Seong Ha-yeong was subjected to a pointed, unmistakably motivated interrogation late into the night.
Kang-hae and Ko Jeong-un were no different.
The two of them were interrogated late into the night with a very clear purpose behind it.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Hwaseong Police Station.
Joo Hyeon-woo headed to the police station’s vehicle impound lot with his National Intelligence Service colleagues.
The front bumper of the car O Ji-hoon had been driving was crumpled like paper, and the windshield was shattered completely.
When he opened the door, a faint smell of stagnant water and chemicals drifted out.
On the day of the accident, the police had coated the vehicle with a special solution in order to collect fingerprints from every corner of it.
The NIS had formed a task force to investigate the director of the NIS.
And Joo Hyeon-woo, from the NIS counterterrorism unit, had been assigned to that task force as well.
The autopsy had found no alcohol or drugs in O Ji-hoon’s body, and no evidence of sudden acceleration or brake failure had been discovered in the wrecked vehicle.
“Here it is.”
As the investigation team member who had gone to the scene on the day of the accident had said, there was a knife mark on the driver’s seat.
But no one believed a single knife mark alone was enough to identify the culprit.
The other staff planned to search for evidence in nearby CCTV footage and the black boxes of other vehicles.
The reason they had come all the way to Hwaseong Police Station in person was to obtain the nearby CCTV with the police’s cooperation.
They had only inspected the accident vehicle because they were already here.
“Let’s go.”
The most senior member present spoke.
The NIS employees turned and headed toward the main building of the police station.
At that moment, Joo Hyeon-woo rummaged through his pocket and said to the senior man beside him, “Ah, senior! I think I dropped my phone in the car just now.”
“What? You idiot—how careless can an NIS agent be?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”
“Come straight to the main building.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leaving behind his seniors’ exasperated stares, Joo Hyeon-woo ran back to the impound lot.
Then he opened the driver’s side door.
The moment he saw the knife mark on the driver’s seat, a bad feeling settled in his gut.
Joo Hyeon-woo looked around.
After confirming that no one was nearby, he pulled something from his pocket.
Eickhorn KM2000
It was the German military knife Joo Hyeon-woo had favored since his days in the Defense Intelligence Command.
It was also one of the weapons Kang-hae had given him before Kang-hae killed the company commander An Young-wook of the 1st Division reconnaissance battalion.
Whoosh—
Joo Hyeon-woo drove the knife into the driver’s seat.
It fit perfectly, like a lock and key.
The width and length were neither too much nor too little.
Instead of pulling the knife out, Joo Hyeon-woo dragged it downward.
Riiip—
The seat tore even wider.
And as he withdrew the blade, Joo Hyeon-woo muttered to himself, “That bastard Na Kang-hae… carelessly leaves evidence lying around.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“We’ll stop here for today.”
Ko Jeong-un’s interrogation did not end until after one in the morning.
The investigators assigned to Ko Jeong-un were relentless.
They asked the same questions dozens of times.
The answers came back like a record skipping in place.
And whenever they found even the slightest discrepancy, they dug in with ruthless persistence.
He had been questioned a few times by military police and the Defense Security Command during his years in the service, but this was on another level entirely.
Ko Jeong-un left the President’s Office feeling drained.
Because his duties had been suspended, he could not even be provided with an official vehicle.
Just then, he spotted a taxi nearby.
Ko Jeong-un raised a hand and flagged it down.
Not long after, he climbed into the cab that stopped in front of him.
“Take me to Green Hill in Hong-eun-dong.”
Ko Jeong-un gave the driver his home address.
And the taxi pulled away.
It wasn’t long before the driver spoke.
“You must be a government official. You’ve had a hard night.”
“I’d prefer to ride in silence.”
“Oh, sorry.”
The driver apologized and fixed his eyes on the road ahead.
Then Ko Jeong-un noticed beads of sweat gathering on the taxi driver’s forehead.
Something was wrong.
“Pull over.”
“W-What? Now?”
The panic in the driver’s voice was obvious.
But he didn’t stop the car.
“Listen to me.”
“There’s a tunnel coming up. I’ll let you out after we pass through it.”
The driver stomped on the accelerator, and the taxi shot into Jeongneung Tunnel like a bullet.
Before they had gone even a hundred meters, the driver hit the brakes.
SKRRR—
BAM—
Ko Jeong-un’s body slammed into the back of the passenger seat.
Before he could even collect himself, the door flew open, and at the same moment, he felt cold steel press against his temple.
A masked man was sitting beside him before he even realized it.
He held a gun to Ko Jeong-un’s temple.
Ko Jeong-un knew at once that the man was a professional.
The hand gripping the weapon did not tremble, and neither did his eyes.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
The voice was low.
And the accent marked him as someone from Heilongjiang, shaped by the influence of the Pyongan dialect.
“Old man, you’re quick on the uptake for a soldier.”
The taxi driver spoke again as he slammed the gas pedal.
This time, his tone was cheerful, almost playful.
The tension from a moment ago had vanished without a trace.
With the three of them inside, the taxi passed through Jeongneung Tunnel and entered Gangbuk District.
After driving much farther, it finally came to a stop in a sparsely populated area.
The man with the gun flicked his fingers.
It was a command to get out.
Ko Jeong-un stepped out of the taxi.
Once outside, he could see the trail leading up Bukhansan.
“Come along.”
The taxi driver put on a headlamp and led the way.
Ko Jeong-un followed behind him.
And the man with the gun trailed after Ko Jeong-un, keeping the weapon trained on his back.
It was a deserted hiking trail.
There were no hikers climbing the mountain in the dead of night.
“You won’t use the gun.”
Ko Jeong-un spoke the words as though to himself.
They would push him off a cliff or strangle him to death and then hang him from a tree to make it look like suicide.
When he was a lieutenant, working in the Defense Intelligence Command, he had crossed into North Korea many times.
Each time, Ko Jeong-un had imagined the death that might await him.
This was better than the deaths he had envisioned back then.
Even after taking office as Director of the National Security Office, he had been prepared to die.
He just hadn’t expected it to be today.
“Hey. Old man. We don’t have any personal grudge against you. We’re all just trying to make a living. You, me—everybody.”
The taxi driver glanced back and said it.
Ko Jeong-un did not answer.
He simply followed the driver in silence.
Death itself did not particularly frighten him.
What bothered him was dying before he had finished tying everything off.
After about an hour of climbing, a peak and a sheer cliff came into view.
“We’re here.”
The taxi driver came to a stop.
And the man with the gun forced Ko Jeong-un toward the edge.
“We’ll give you a chance to jump on your own.”
The gunman said it.
Ko Jeong-un looked down.
Two more steps and he would plunge fifty meters below.
Ko Jeong-un slowly took one step forward.
And then, in that instant—
Bang—
The sound echoed across the mountain, and blood and brain matter from the gunman splattered across the back of Ko Jeong-un’s neck and head.
The taxi driver froze the moment he saw his companion’s skull burst open in front of him.
Then he spotted a man walking toward him with a gun in hand like a ghost and found that he couldn’t move a muscle.
It was Kang-hae.
A few hours earlier.
Kang-hae’s interrogation had ended after eleven at night.
Through a small window in the adjoining room, he saw Ko Jeong-un still being interrogated.
From the mouths of the inspection team employees passing in the hallway, he learned that Ko Jeong-un’s interrogation would continue until dawn.
And the moment he left the President’s Office—
He spotted a suspicious taxi parked near the building.
There was only one taxi nearby.
Plenty of people were raising their hands to hail it.
But the cab did not take any passengers.
A taxi with no reservation sign is refusing passengers during the highest-surge hour of the night…?
Kang-hae sensed something was off.
He hurried back to the goshiwon he had been staying in near the President’s Office.
Then he grabbed the bag in the dresser drawer that contained his weapons and gear and returned to the front of the President’s Office.
The taxi was still parked nearby.
And Kang-hae got in the back seat naturally, as if he were just another passenger.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The driver said it.
“I need to get to the Sejong Government Complex right now. I’ll pay double the fare.”
“I said I’m not going. Get out. Now.”
“Do you already have another passenger reserved?”
“Damn it, I said get out! I don’t care about reservations or whatever—get out!”
The driver shouted.
But his eyes were fixed not on Kang-hae, but on the entrance to the President’s Office.
Kang-hae was certain now that something was wrong with him.
He let a tiny, pea-sized tracking device slip from his hand onto the floor.
Whoosh—
Then he nudged it into the corner.
After getting out of the taxi, Kang-hae rented a nearby car through a car-sharing app.
Then he watched the taxi from near it.
He never once took his eyes off it.
Just after one in the morning, he saw Ko Jeong-un come out of the President’s Office.
And the taxi naturally took him aboard.
Watching the tracker, Kang-hae tailed the cab from the shadows.
“P-Please…! S-Save me…! I-I’ll do whatever you say… anything… anything at all…”
The driver screamed the moment Kang-hae aimed a gun at his forehead.
“Really?”
“Huh…?”
“You can do whatever I say?”
The taxi driver’s eyes were already filling with tears, and he nodded frantically.
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