The National Intelligence Service
Lee Kwang-chul, 52 years old.
His job was the director of the Multicultural Citizens' Exchange Center.
He had two decades of experience as an NGO activist.
In his younger days he had run the Labor Consultation Office in Annam City, and after his hair went gray he had become the executive director of the Migrant Workers' Rights Alliance.
He had founded the Multicultural Citizens' Exchange Center three years ago.
Money was never the point.
The life of an activist, especially one focused on multicultural families and migrant laborers, was something you simply endured. As long as you didn't go hungry, you were lucky.
"Inmigrans are also neighbors in Annam City. Isn't understanding different cultures the path to greater integration? Heh heh."
That was the line he threw around publicly.
His salary was less than the minimum wage, a pitiful 180,000 won a month.
Even that money was often split to buy meals for volunteers or handed over as medication money to pitiful migrant workers.
At age fifty and beyond, living in poverty with no savings… and yet Lee Kwang-chul was content.
The reason was simple: in reality he was pulling in more than 1.8 million won a month.
Basic salary 600,000, activity allowance 200,000, and 150,000 in post allowance as head of the Annam Dispatch Team of the Gyeonggi Branch.
He was a multi-hundred-million-won earner and an intelligence officer.
Lee Kwang-chul's day today was still ordinary.
"Director. The report on monitoring the seven exchange houses in Wonjuk-dong and Gojin-dong."
"I'll look at it later. Here, just keep it brief."
"Remittances from Mongolia and Uzbekistan lines have shot up sharply, up 22 percent from last month."
"Small amounts, multiple transactions?"
"Yes. It feels like the irregulars are dumping everything before their group repatriation."
"Pick up the patterns and pass them to the relevant agencies… anything else?"
Right now he was in the middle of a meeting with his subordinates.
Given his rank and age, this felt like too much responsibility for a dispatch office. Normally a fourth-grade officer would take the post.
But Annam City was home to so many foreigners.
Thirteen point nine percent of the population was foreign.
Just the money they sent home was hundreds of billions of won, and many were involved in crime. Irregulars who weren't even in the statistics were everywhere. How could you just let that slide? That was why a third-grade officer who could report directly to the director had been sent here.
"Nothing unusual on the city hall or city council side."
"Only a few months ahead?"
"Probably… Han Chae-kyung… you know her, right? After that, everyone's watching their step."
Honestly, nothing special usually.
The biggest recent case was still the whore councilor scandal from a few months back.
If we had caught it in time, the information would have been proudly displayed on the president's desk.
But the Annam Dispatch Office hadn't caught it, and we even received the reprimand of "information omission." Not exactly at fault, but still scolded.
Outside of that, it was just routine work.
"What's next?"
Lee Kwang-chul scratched his lower belly and let his subordinates' reports flow in.
He still thought it would be nothing special today.
"Director. We have a visitor."
A sudden customer had arrived, but nothing would change.
The sign still read NGO group.
Only a tiny number of people knew this place was actually the National Intelligence Service dispatch office.
The chief of the Foreign Affairs Division of the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, the Immigration Office chief, and the Investigation Division chief…
Beyond that, only a handful of veteran intelligence officers from the prosecution and defense lines, and the city hall top brass—mayor, vice mayor, and general affairs director—knew in passing. Including them, there were no more than fifteen. If you were going to reveal yourself and operate openly, why bother with camouflage?
"Is the visitor Korean?"
"Yes. In his late twenties, maybe?"
A single unexpected visitor was nothing. Just deal with him and send him on his way.
Lee Kwang-chul took on the role of an NGO activist and welcomed the guest.
But this visitor…
"Lee Sung-hyun, a section chief in the Record Management Team of the General Affairs Division of Annam City Hall."
"Ah, yes. Have you come for cooperation?"
"Currently suspended from duties and dismissed from my post. Your expression suggests I am not yet an 'influential figure.' How fortunate."
"Influential… what?"
Something felt off.
Lee Kwang-chul sensed danger and glanced at the analyst.
To the outside world she was part-time assistant professor Choi Eun-ji.
A graduate student who worked four hours a day writing multicultural statistics reports… camouflage, in truth she was an intelligence analyst.
By nodding toward the analyst, Joo Sung-hyun had signaled that the man had just revealed his own affiliation, rank, and name for us to investigate.
"Nothing will come of it. He is not a suspicious person."
Joo Sung-hyun was also staring at the analyst for some reason.
Every employee in the dispatch office was already looking this way.
"I have come here desperately needing your protection."
Joo Sung-hyun calmly stated his purpose.
****
The reason I knew the true nature of the Multicultural Citizens' Exchange Center, one of Annam City's common groups, as the National Intelligence Service dispatch office was…
I simply found out.
They could not hide it, or hid it poorly.
Twenty years in foreign and poor-person movements, no career gap—meaning the director had never had to take a real job just to eat.
A salary too low to live on, yet lavishly buying meals and alcohol for foreign laborers at multicultural festivals.
He had even received a memo from the vice mayor suggesting he use this group's representative at city council events.
On top of that, there were roughly ten other pieces of indirect evidence.
I had simply combined everything and reached my conclusion.
This place was the National Intelligence Service dispatch office.
I had been ninety percent sure before I even came, but after arriving it became one hundred percent. I had only read, remembered, and compiled; why was I shocked?
"What is your purpose in coming?" (10 / 1,243 / 3 years 4 months)
Even though I knew he was an intelligence agency man, the director still asked about the purpose first.
"I came because I need protection."
"Protection?"
"Yes. I fell into a trap set by a Chinese-Korean prostitution broker and am now in danger. I have been falsely accused of sexually exploiting irregular migrants. The claim that I enjoyed 'thighs squeezing' by exploiting their weakness is a fabrication."
"…."
Even after I stated my purpose, the reaction felt strangely lukewarm.
For an intelligence agency this was correct.
Any information required serious attention, or it became poison. Or… perhaps they thought I had really screwed over some Chinese-Korean escort and made up some ridiculous sob story to come here.
'From their side, this visitor has no real information value.'
Whether one city hall bureaucrat's career was ruined or not, why would they care?
Still, I pressed the attack.
I deliberately wanted to be rejected.
"I am innocent."
"Well now. Such things are usually settled in the police, don't you think? As you can see, we here help migrants settle and teach Korean…" (10 / 1,243 / 3 years 4 months)
"The National Intelligence Service dispatch office."
"Heh."
"Not a branch, but one of the dispatch teams under the Gyeonggi Branch… Director seems to have quite some seniority. No one would send a demoted staff member to a city as important as Annam, so they sent a higher-up."
I kept the tension high so he could not dismiss the words as nonsense.
But what came out of my mouth was nothing more than a sob story.
I had never called a Chinese-Korean escort girl, only that the broker who had imported sex workers from overseas and introduced them to the brothel had attacked me, and even that the broker's sister was a naturalization police officer… so that was why I had come to you.
The National Intelligence Service guys at least listened.
"I feel threatened to my very being. I need help."
"I understand your sense of injustice… but citizen groups like ours have no power to change the decisions of the Ministry of Justice or the Immigration Office. The other woman has already been deported. Aigo… then we truly have no area in which we can intervene."
But there was no soul in that "aigo." The NGO costume was being forced, and the pretense was still going.
This far was nothing but my empty talk.
But I had not spoken in vain.
While I talked my heart out, I was watching the behaviors, appearances, and numbers of the people who were actually the Gyeonggi Branch National Intelligence Service investigators, analysts, and field operatives disguised as the Multicultural Citizens' Exchange Center activists.
Every calendar in the center, every event poster, and every other item.
'One material I can use.'
Even just revealing the clean truth of the 999 number would be enough to draw attention.
But there was a faster way.
To actively stimulate the National Intelligence Service to dig into Ri Su-jin's trail from this side.
The number that had appeared because of the one suspicious figure hovering above the head of the activity manager who had glanced at me.
Even intelligence officers were human and could have sex. The numbers of the staff here were no different from any other field.
But one number stood out as useful.
(5 / 590 / 3 days 1 hour 22 minutes ago)
The person I "screwed" three days ago. Late thirties, official position (camouflage identity) was operating the Youth Mentoring Program.
The position required a lot of outside activity. Naturally a field operative. Role: digging deep into foreign communities while pretending to be an activity manager.
And the "screw" three days ago…
My judgment was that it was definitely not with a girlfriend or wife.
"Manager Joo Sung-hyun? Perhaps you should look into a lawyer instead."
"I will do that."
"Um?" (10 / 1,243 / 3 years 4 months)
The director frowned when the man who had been begging for protection suddenly gave up and pointed at the person I had "screwed" three days ago.
"Three days ago there was the 'Chinese-Korean Youth Exchange Night' event."
"…!"
"The event hosted by the Gyeonggi Chinese-Korean Youth Association and the Annam Multicultural Youth Network… of course they also sent activity managers from here. The Chinese consulate sent staff, so it would be unthinkable for the National Intelligence Service to turn a blind eye. Probably participated in the after-party as well."
And then sex with a foreign intelligence officer.
Seeing the man's face, I knew I had hit the mark.
That bastard was not desperate for sex; it was just normal. From what I knew, the National Intelligence Service field operatives did not actively pursue handsome men. But when a situation was "if you don't eat you get fat," it was only natural. Suspicion could ruin careers.
The man I pointed to was probably in that situation.
"Last night at seven after the Chinese-Korean Youth Event, you spent a good time?"
"…!" (5 / 590 / 3 days 1 hour 23 minutes ago)
Revealing your track record of having sex with a female intelligence asset (who doesn't even know she's an asset) was an entirely different matter.
The director's eyes bulged, the "screwed" man shot up from his seat, the analyst coughed up his coffee.
The atmosphere inside the dispatch office froze for a while.
After ten seconds, then fifteen, of silence, the man I had pointed to finally forced out one word.
"How?" (5 / 590 / 3 days 1 hour 23 minutes ago)
The question finally came out.
"The broker who hired the Chinese-Korean whore to frame me said he already knows the National Intelligence Service dispatch office inside out and that soon he will blackmail one of your staff and use them usefully. So you should cooperate too."
"So in the end…" (5 / 590 / 3 days 1 hour 24 minutes ago)
"I became like this after rejecting that proposal. Think about it from the start. How could I possibly know the location of the National Intelligence Service dispatch office?"
I timed it perfectly to flip the 999 number's "surveillance of National Intelligence Service staff" charge back on them.
The surveillance charge was mine, but other charges would exist. Make it colorful with anything the National Intelligence Service would like.
Countering false accusation with false accusation was correct.
"I came here knowing you would already know and seeking help. It is truly ironic. The people monitoring the foreign community are being surveilled in reverse… Did you really not know, Director?"
"…." (10 / 1,243 / 3 years 4 months)
"You should go to the prosecution instead. Or the National Intelligence Service headquarters."
"Wait!"
I had only used a fellow Chinese-Korean whore and the National Intelligence Service.