New Yet Familiar
Inside the pension, discussion was in full swing about how to handle the return trip once tomorrow’s shoot wrapped.
“Still, once daytime hits, some of it should melt, right?”
“No. If we have to leave, morning would be better. Better to get out while the snow’s still piled up, before it turns to ice.”
“No way. There’s a pretty steep hill right out front. If the rear wheels even start to slide sideways on the way down, it’s an instant major accident.”
Listening to the staff, PD Joo Hyun-seok spoke up.
“Staff schedules are one thing, but have you checked the actors’ schedules?”
“Seo Ji-eun has a variety show recording in the afternoon, Son Jin-uk has a magazine interview, and Ryu Yeon-woo has a small theater performance in the evening.”
At the staff member’s words, PD Joo nodded heavily.
“We’re going to have to get out somehow…”
Just then, a loud noise came from outside.
Thud—.
Clank—.
At the sound of something heavy being set down and metal chains clashing, the staff went outside to look.
“Yeon-woo?”
At the pension entrance stood Yeon-woo, having set a white sack on the ground and brushing snow from his shoulders.
When the staff showed interest in the bag he had brought, Yeon-woo acted with perfect nonchalance.
“Looks like we won’t have any problems heading back tomorrow?”
“…What?”
To PD Joo, who asked back, Yeon-woo opened the sack and pulled out the snow chains inside to show them.
“Wait, where did you get these?”
“I went to the farm out back and they said they had some they weren’t using, so I bought them.”
“Huh? When you say farm, which direction is it…?”
Yeon-woo shrugged as if he wasn’t sure and shook his head with an innocent expression.
“Well, it was dark so I don’t really know which way. I went out for some exercise and ran into a local resident. He said he’d bought them for his tractor but wasn’t using them, so I paid full price and bought them.”
In truth, it wasn’t a local resident but Seoul citizen Han Hae-un—but that was neither here nor there.
Faced with the perfectly logical explanation, the staff had no choice but to nod.
What else could they do? That was what he said.
They simply looked pleased that their headache had suddenly been solved.
“Wow, you really saved us. A tractor, huh… Why didn’t we think of looking around the area? I was going crazy thinking the actors’ schedules would fall through tomorrow and wondering what to do.”
Yeon-woo was just as troubled.
After all, the practical owner of the agency handling those schedules was Yeon-woo himself.
Even delivering a single set of snow chains, I have to spin excuses like this.
He couldn’t exactly say he’d received an emergency supply drop via military drone.
So he had no choice but to make up this crude cover story.
That said, it was true that he’d used his break before dark to look around the nearby farms.
I was hoping to borrow some calcium chloride and a fertilizer spreader to do some snow clearing tomorrow…
Perhaps because of the cold, there was no one to be found at the nearby farms.
Leaving the delighted staff behind, Yeon-woo went up to the second floor.
Entering the empty room, Yeon-woo pulled an envelope from his coat.
The snow chains had been a convenient bonus; the real reason Han Hae-un had braved the snowy roads to come all this way was to deliver the report.
Even if they used a secure messenger with servers overseas, one of the sure lessons Yeon-woo had learned in his previous life was that the moment information was digitized, complete security ceased to exist.
The most complete security is inside your head.
Yeon-woo rapidly absorbed the contents of the report into his mind.
Then he immediately went back outside and tossed it into the drum barrel where they burned firewood next to the pension.
The report was engulfed in flames and burned away in an instant.
While he was out, he sat on a nearby log bench and gazed into the fire, lost in thought.
So Baeksol maintained security in the most complete way as well.
Murder to silence.
The surest way to keep information from getting out.
It still wasn’t confirmed whether agent Hwang-geum had been disposed of, but after reviewing the report’s contents, Yeon-woo had a fairly solid hunch.
The relationship between the Black Society and Baeksol was like their names—black and white—entities that could never mix.
From Baeksol’s perspective, they’d want to erase the very fact that they’d clashed with the Black Society.
It wasn’t because they were afraid of the Black Society.
Even looking just at Taiwan’s Black Society, it was divided into three factions.
China’s Black Society was split into even more numerous gangs, so comparing against just one of them, Baeksol’s power wouldn’t fall short.
But the problem is that the moment one of them starts making enemies with an outside force, even if they were baring their teeth at each other, they suddenly all unite and turn that force into a common enemy.
That was how those fragmented groups managed to survive individually.
Therefore, it could be interpreted that Baeksol wanted to erase the very situation of having clashed with the Black Society, their largest supply source for their main business of “drugs.”
They probably judged that Hwang-geum, with his shattered knee, might harbor other grudges against Baeksol’s measures. So the likelihood that they disposed of him is high.
If Baeksol had decided to discard Hwang-geum, they would start erasing every trace and connection to themselves under him.
In other words, those Hwang-geum had managed were now kites with cut strings.
James Choi, Byeon Hak-gyu of Plus10, and mid-tier actor Jeong Tae-seon.
All of them had their links to Baeksol severed.
It wasn’t that Yeon-woo had left them alone because he didn’t know about their corruption and dirty sides.
He’d simply been waiting for the right timing, because if they judged that some mysterious force was attacking them, Baeksol would hide their heads and burrow even deeper.
Once I’m back in Seoul, after investigating a bit more thoroughly, I’ll start by taking out Jeong Tae-seon.
The time had come to restore An Jun-ho’s honor.
The next morning, they finished all the filming, and thanks to the snow chains, the bus carrying the production crew safely made it down the hill.
Then Yeon-woo stopped by home before his small theater performance.
“Whew, coming back after just one day, but it feels like I’ve been gone for several.”
For Yeon-woo, who had lived a dull life of stakeouts and gunfights in jungles and deserts, the games on the variety show had been far too brutal.
“Tough as hell. Maybe I should rest a bit.”
Yeon-woo entered his workroom and began combining and breaking down various pieces of information based on the report in his head.
After staring at it for a long while and checking this and that, Yeon-woo tilted his head.
Hmm? Why is this like this. On the other hand, there’s nothing much on Hwang-geum.
Beep—.
Speaking into the mic attached to his headset, Yeon-woo opened his mouth.
“I’ve checked all the entry and exit records up through today, and there’s no one who could be suspected as ‘Hwang-geum.’”
— Yes… I cross-checked with the agents as well, but there was nothing.
“What about the intel obtained through Baek No-ya? Any possibility he left the country via smuggling?”
— None there either.
“There’s no smuggling route in the country that can evade Baek No-ya’s eyes.”
— Which means, as expected…
“He’s no longer in this world. In the end, a bad guy took out a bad guy, but still.”
— When they discard people like this, what are the Baeksol members inside the organization even being loyal for?
“Hmm?”
— I’ve always wondered. As a former agent I shouldn’t say this, but in spy movies the villains stay loyal even as they get gunned down. Back then I’d snort and think the NIS isn’t a place that does that kind of thing, but looking at these guys now, they’re exactly that.
“Hmm.”
At Han Hae-un’s words, Yeon-woo also stroked his chin and thought for a moment.
Then two stories suddenly came to mind.
One was the content of a script that Ju-hyeong, who dreamed of being a playwright, had written back then in an empty lecture hall at Hankuk University.
“Two things come to mind. First, someone once said that when black things start gathering, at some point they insist they’re gray, and in the end they start brainwashing themselves into thinking they’re white.”
— Mmm… And the second?
“As someone who worked as an operative, you’ll know this well. The words of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister.”
— ‘Propaganda is possible with a single sentence, but to refute it requires dozens of pages of documents and evidence. And by the time you refute it, the propaganda is already over.’ I see. So among those working under Baeksol, there are probably some who believe they’re justice.
“That works too. But I was thinking of a different quote.”
— What’s that?
“A lie is first denied, then doubted, but if it continues, eventually it is believed.”
It was also their method of controlling organization members, and the method they’d used through mid-tier actor Jeong Tae-seon to send An Jun-ho into the abyss.
“It’s about time we send Jeong Tae-seon off.”
— The materials are ready. The Speaker has been pestering for work, too.
“Speaker” referred to the reporter O Seung-hwan, whom Yeon-woo and Han Hae-un had collared like a dog.
“Going forward, one Speaker won’t be enough. Baeksol’s grip domestically will be across every sector. We need to start throwing them scraps and expand the reporters we can mobilize.”
— Understood. I’ll scout suitable reporters and draw up a list.
“But while cross-referencing entry-exit records to find whether Hwang-geum left the country, I discovered something unusual…”
— Something unusual?
The figure uncovered while reverse-tracing the An Jun-ho case.
Agent Ha Ju-ran, disguised as Assistant Deputy Minister of Culture Jeong Chan-suk.
The name that had been in the secret intel purchased using the Lichtenberg Library in Berlin.
Kim Gye-sik, who handled overseas supply lines for Baeksol.
And agent Hwang-geum, whom they’d recently learned about while chasing James Choi and who was currently presumed dead.
So far, the major Baeksol figures whose identities they’d grasped totaled three.
Of those, Hwang-geum was presumed dead.
“While looking through Ha Ju-ran and Kim Gye-sik’s past entry-exit records, there were strangely overlapping routes. In Okinawa, their paths keep overlapping. The stays are only a day or two, though.”
— Okinawa. Understood. I’ll look into that as well.
There’s definitely something in Okinawa.
Yeon-woo’s instincts were pointing fiercely at Okinawa.
“We should wrap up today’s work around here. I have to head over to Daehangno soon for the performance.”
— There aren’t many performances left now, right?
“Yeah. Three left. Among the three who came to the theater last time with you, which one is my sister-in-law?”
— When did you even see them?
“From the moment they came in. So who is it?”
— Haha… Who else. The prettiest one among them.
“Signing off.”
— Yes. Team Leader.
Removing the headset, Yeon-woo left home to perform.
And a few hours later.
After finishing the play Mirror and coming up to the office, Yeon-woo found a missed call waiting.
Hmm? It’s Representative Jeong Hyeok.
Ring—.
— Oh, Yeon-woo.
“Yes, Representative. There was a missed call. I was in the middle of a performance.”
— Ah, right, I forgot. Today was a performance day. I thought you’d be resting since the variety show wrapped. The reason I called is that a director has come forward wanting to take on directing for our sports drama.
“There’s no script yet and it’s just in the planning stage—how is there already a director who wants to take it on?”
— Executive Yoon casually mentioned it, and that person said they absolutely wanted to do it. It’s a director Yeon-woo knows very well.
A director I know well?
Several directors floated through Yeon-woo’s mind.
His filmography had become quite impressive by now, so he’d met quite a few directors.
“Who is it? That director.”
— Director Kim Han-su.
Director Kim Han-su, who had directed Yeon-woo’s debut drama Summer’s Closet, and who had also directed Yeon-woo’s first cameo film Spring’s Lover.
At the long-unheard name, Yeon-woo’s face brightened.
Come to think of it, he was a director famous for warmly directing young sensibilities, so he fit the genre perfectly.
“Sounds good to me.”