Field Agent Recruitment
"A stage setup like that is simple enough. I'll put in the order with a contractor. Though back in our day, there were no contractors. We cut the plywood ourselves, sawed it, hammered the nails in…"
Yeon-woo let Jeong Cheol-min's "back in my day" monologue drift in one ear and out the other.
After a long wait, the reminiscing finally seemed to be winding down.
"…We cut every last piece by hand and finished the stage that way. I swear, I thought I was going to die under that blazing sun."
"Sounds like you went through hell. Still, it's a good thing contractors exist now. Those people have to make a living too."
"Mm, true enough. Once the portfolio comes through, I'll let you know about the stage. There might be things we need to revise."
"Yes, sir. Understood. Thank you."
Having commissioned the small theater's set construction through a contractor Jeong Cheol-min knew, Yeon-woo turned to look at his friends.
"All right. The set's taken care of, and the supporting cast we need should be here next week. You lot have been practicing properly, right?"
"Ahem. We have been, more or less."
Yeon-woo walked down into the audience seats, sat, and addressed his friends.
"Let's take a look. It's about time we assigned roles."
Until now, they had been learning the material as a whole without assigning parts — aside from Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han. The time had come to do it properly.
At Yeon-woo's words, his friends climbed onto the stage.
The play featured a total of ten characters. Excluding the two leads — Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han — that left eight supporting roles. Of course, a small theater company couldn't put all ten people on stage at once, so double-casting was inevitable. Most of the parts were bit roles with short lines, so a quick costume change would handle it without trouble.
"Anyone have a part they want first?"
Woo Seong-sik's hand shot up immediately.
"Me! The captain!"
"Ah…"
"I was going to take that one!"
Watching his friends' reactions, Yeon-woo let out a quiet snort of laughter.
The captain was the first to be murdered — and had no lines.
"Yeah? The captain's a tough one, though. Okay. You volunteered first, so Seong-sik gets it."
At Yeon-woo's response, Woo Seong-sik's eyes went round.
"I-Is it hard?"
"Of course. Playing a corpse is brutal. Lying there without moving a muscle is insanely difficult."
While Woo Seong-sik was still wondering whether he'd picked the wrong role, Kim Jun-su raised his hand.
"I'll take Fisherman One and Crewman Two."
Yeon-woo flipped through the script at Kim Jun-su's words.
"Hmm, not bad. There's no scene where both of them are on stage at the same time, and there's enough time in between for a costume change."
Kim Ju-hyeong checked the script and counted the remaining roles.
"Then I guess I'm Fisherman Two and the gangster. Not like I can play the island auntie or the female passenger."
"Good. Roles are set, then. Shall we actually get started?"
"Ugh. Futsal from yesterday morning, then theater practice until late at night… I'm a little wiped."
Midway through a light stretch and bodyweight workout after waking up, Yeon-woo's smartphone rang.
He answered, and Han Hae-un's voice came through the receiver.
"Team Leader. The final list is complete."
At Hae-un's words, Yeon-woo sat down on the living room sofa.
This was the list he had ordered compiled — candidates for field operatives, selected so the team could build real operational capacity.
While still on the call, he opened his laptop and checked the secure messenger. A message from Han Hae-un was waiting, with the list attached.
Six names were on it.
"Good work. Hmm. Fewer people cleared as suitable than I expected?"
"I screened them as tightly as possible. The probability that anyone on this list has any connection to Baeksol is effectively zero."
Yeon-woo nodded. An excellent call.
From an office operative's perspective, the most critical quality in a field agent was not raw job performance.
The single most important factor was reliability.
"Well done. When do you plan to start making contact?"
"The gear is all ready, and we have the false identities you provided. We could start right now."
Yeon-woo rubbed his chin, then checked the calendar.
"Today's the only day I have completely free. Since we're talking about it — let's start immediately."
"I should be able to reach about three of them today. I'll prepare and contact you again."
After hanging up, Yeon-woo went upstairs and unlocked the door to a sealed room.
Inside, a desk crowded with complex equipment came into view. He sat down in front of it and powered everything on.
"Never thought I'd end up as an office agent."
He had spent his entire previous life as a field operative — always out there, running the ground himself. Sitting in a quiet room, staring at a transmitted feed and issuing orders, felt deeply unnatural.
His phone buzzed.
Yeon-woo checked the screen.
After confirming Hae-un's message and completing a final equipment check, Yeon-woo sent his reply.
The moment the message went out, Hae-un began transmitting video. Yeon-woo put on his headset and spoke.
"Can you hear me?"
"Reception clear."
"Confirmed."
On the feed, Hae-un started driving through the city in a rental car leased under his cover identity.
"Which identity did you use?"
"Disguised as Yang Hyeong-gwon. The beard I glued on after so long is itchy as hell."
Yang Hyeong-gwon was the deep-sea fishing vessel engineer's identity Yeon-woo had given him.
"You said you're contacting Master Sergeant Kim Su-hyeok first?"
"Yes, sir."
"Kim Su-hyeok is extremely high-strung about security. Just as capable as he is cautious, though."
"Noted."
Kim Su-hyeok had been the first special forces soldier Yeon-woo had ever run an operation with, back when he was deployed to Lebanon. At the time, a peacekeeping contingent member had been abducted by an illegal armed group in the Tyre region of southern Lebanon. Yeon-woo had been dispatched as the rescue mission commander, and Kim Su-hyeok was the man he had personally selected on the ground.
After a long drive, Hae-un's car pulled into a shabby, rundown apartment complex.
"A redevelopment zone? Doesn't look like many people live here."
"He would have chosen a place like this on purpose. Complicated building layout, low occupancy — easier to defend against external attacks."
Hae-un tilted his head at Yeon-woo's words.
"He's already finished his service. Why go that far?"
"Hard to say. Looking at the report you put together, after he came back to Korea he served with a counterterrorism unit. Sounds like he still thinks he has plenty of enemies."
Hae-un parked in a suitable spot.
"Once I'm out of the car, I'll keep radio silence to a minimum. Absent orders, I'll act on my own judgment. When you give an order, I'll follow it immediately."
"Understood."
Hae-un got out of the car and entered the apartment building listed as Kim Su-hyeok's address.
On the first floor, he looked around for a moment, then let out a small sigh.
"No elevator. This is going to be a pain."
Yeon-woo's voice came through his earpiece. It wasn't that high a floor — nothing worth calling a real hardship.
Hae-un climbed the stairs and stopped at the eighth floor, turning into the corridor.
The U-shaped hallway of the apartment building was mostly empty units, giving it a desolate, eerie feel. Kim Su-hyeok lived in the unit at the very end, so Hae-un rounded the corner into the corridor — then stopped short, as if he'd spotted something.
A thin, transparent thread stretched across the floor.
He whispered.
"There's a fine thread at ankle height. It'll snap if I just walk through. Should I step over it without touching it?"
"No. Raise both hands and walk forward naturally. He's been watching since the moment a car entered the complex."
Hearing Yeon-woo's voice, Hae-un nodded and continued walking with both hands raised.
He reached the end of the corridor and knocked on the steel door of the last unit.
A voice came from the window of the small room connected to the hallway.
"…Who is it."
"Answer with Alpha-Beta," Yeon-woo instructed.
Hae-un spoke in a low voice.
"Alpha-Beta."
Through the screen, he could sense Kim Su-hyeok flinch slightly at those words. Then, carefully:
"The Alpha-Beta from Lebanon?"
"That's right."
A brief silence, then the voice again.
"State the operation code."
"Sierra, Quebec, Tango…" Yeon-woo's voice fed the sequence into Hae-un's ear. Hae-un nodded and relayed it exactly.
"Sierra, Quebec, Tango, Oscar, India, Foxtrot."
"Do you remember what color pants I was wearing that day?"
Hae-un had no idea what kind of absurd question that was, but he waited in silence.
Then Yeon-woo's voice came through the earpiece.
"Tell him yellow. He was a sniper — spent two days pinned in position on a white rooftop without being able to move. Had no choice but to piss in his white pants and dry them out, over and over."
Hae-un was silent for a beat after hearing that. Then he opened his mouth.
"They were yellow. I won't bother explaining why."
The tension broken, Kim Su-hyeok approached the front door, opened it, and stepped out — a solidly built man with a well-trained body. He snapped a crisp salute toward Hae-un.
"It's good to see you, sir. Commander."
"It's been a while, Kim Su-hyeok."
Hae-un stepped inside with natural ease, playing the role of Jeon Su-hwan — Yeon-woo's past life — as if it were second nature. Of course, Kim Su-hyeok had never known Jeon Su-hwan by that name. He only knew the legendary field commander called Alpha-Beta.
Looking around the apartment, Hae-un took in the sparse furnishings. It had the unmistakable feel of a former soldier living alone.
Hae-un then briefly explained why he had come. Naturally, he couldn't lead with the full truth about Baeksol, so he framed the mission around spies operating domestically.
Which, if you thought about it carefully, wasn't even a lie. Baeksol had been embedded inside the National Intelligence Service for decades — a parasite eating the country from within. Spies, by any definition.
"For that reason, we have no way of knowing how deep the spies have penetrated internal intelligence. So we intend to operate a private firm outside the government's eyes. Primary activities: VIP protection, target surveillance, and intelligence collection."
"In other words — black ops on domestic soil."
Hae-un nodded at Kim Su-hyeok's words.
Black ops — black operations. Originally, the term referred to deploying NOCs — Non-Official Covers, like Jeon Su-hwan or Baek Yu-hyeon in their past lives — to conduct classified intelligence gathering or special warfare missions while avoiding diplomatic fallout. The difference here was that the stage was domestic, not foreign.
"There's one thing I'd like to ask."
"What is it?"
Kim Su-hyeok looked Hae-un straight in the eyes.
"Is this operation for the purpose of making this country a better place?"
Hae-un nodded with absolute conviction in his gaze.
"Of course it is."
That Baeksol was rotting the nation from the inside was something he would stake his life on — no, something he had already sacrificed a life to learn. He could say it with certainty.
Reading that look in his eyes, Kim Su-hyeok nodded.
"Even after I mustered out, I've been training for a day like this. It's an honor to operate alongside you again, Commander."
Hearing Kim Su-hyeok's words, Yeon-woo — sitting in a corner of the second-floor room at home — sent his voice across the frequency into Hae-un's ear.
"The honor is mine."