Programming
Kim Su-hyeok's boat floated silently on the dark sea, holding the same position for hours as it watched the island.
Yeon-woo and Han Hae-un, eyes fixed on the drone-linked screens, were doing the same.
The drone returned to the boat every hour to swap in a fresh battery, then hovered again over the island, feeding them a steady stream of data.
What they needed from that feed was simple: how many personnel were permanently stationed on the island, and how they were armed.
"Two new contacts approaching from the right of Camera Four."
"Confirmed. Looks like they're rotating the guard detail. The back of the island is all cliffs anyway, so they're only covering the white-sand beach where a boat could actually land."
"Makes sense. This place has never been hit once since the day it was built."
The guard post ran three shifts, two men per rotation.
"So that puts the armed contingent at a minimum of six. Factor in the size of the barracks and the workers living inside are probably around ten."
"Agreed. Total headcount on the island is unlikely to break twenty."
They relayed the assessment to Kim Su-hyeok. He nodded over the radio.
"Not many for an island that size. Dawn's almost here—want me to go in for a closer look?"
Just as he said, a pale blue wash was beginning to spread across the black sky beyond the horizon, the sun about to rise. It looked almost like Yeon-woo and his operatives themselves, stepping one foot at a time into territory Baeksol had claimed as its own.
Han Hae-un shook his head at the suggestion.
"No. Solo infiltration is too high-risk right now. No need to rush. We've found the target, and they don't even know we exist, let alone that they've been made."
Listening to the exchange, Yeon-woo nodded as well.
Neutralizing the facility mattered, and that would take more intelligence—but Hae-un was right. There was no reason to hurry.
Yeon-woo opened a secure channel to Hae-un and continued.
"We're not launching tonight, but when we do take the island, I want it dressed as a fire."
"A fire—make it look like worker negligence?"
"That way Baeksol won't get suspicious. And the moment we start using real weapons, people die. That's inevitable."
If a firefight became unavoidable in the larger war against Baeksol, he would not hesitate. But the wisest victory in any battle was still the one won without fighting.
"If they manage to put the fire out, security will tighten and the next attempt gets a lot harder."
"Then we make sure they can't put it out. A fire that doesn't go out."
Hae-un understood at once.
"Ah. You're thinking of that. With that stuff, by the time they even notice the fire it'll already be roaring—they'll be too terrified to fight it. Straight for the beach."
"And Baeksol will send forensics later to find the ignition source. It burns like hell but leaves almost nothing behind, so we'll plant a plausible cause. Someone on that island smokes. A cigarette butt should do nicely."
Hae-un nodded.
It was one of the unofficial tools they had used in the old life for black operations. White phosphorus—a yellow, waxy solid that spontaneously ignites on contact with air—could be refined with a special formula so that it both ignited and vaporized its main components, spreading flame at terrifying speed. It burned ferociously, yet left no clean signature for investigators.
Hae-un tilted his head after a moment.
"But only you know the formula, Team Leader. I can't do it. Even inside the NIS, almost no one knows it exists, let alone how to mix it."
The ratios had to be adjusted on-site according to local vegetation and humidity; you couldn't prepare it in advance and ship it. The know-how had been earned through countless failures, and in the end it was pure feel. Get the mix wrong and the burn was too weak—or the benzene and sulfur left traces. Either the facility survived and the op failed, or the op succeeded but Baeksol realized the fire had been an attack.
Even so, after weighing every option, Yeon-woo's method remained the best and cleanest. Everything else was extreme: put operators on the island, kill every living soul, wire the place with explosives, and then fight Baeksol head-on as they came after them with everything they had.
Ironically, Yeon-woo going in himself was the safest and most certain path.
"If it comes to that, we plan it down to the last detail, take support from our people, and you and I run it ourselves. Or we find another way."
Yeon-woo had personally taken the field only a handful of times—once in Berlin, once at the PlusTen headquarters, once at the awards ceremony. If he had to move again, the plan would have to be near-perfect.
In truth the operation itself was not difficult. The opposition were amateurs who had spent years—maybe decades—on an island that had never been attacked, going through the motions of security. Too few guards for the size of the place, and even those only watching the beach. The post had never been meant to stop an assault; it was just there to wave off any boat that wandered too close by accident.
Honestly, compared to the operations of his previous life, this barely qualified as a warm-up. The real work was not the difficulty of the hit. It was Yeon-woo's entry route into Okinawa, an airtight alibi, and a disguise so complete that no one would ever think "attack." Every coincidence had to look like pure chance. Better still—no one should even notice that any coincidence had occurred.
They already interfered enough in my last life. I have no intention of letting them touch so much as a hair of this one.
Kim Su-hyeok kept going out every night for days, continuing the reconnaissance. Direct infiltration would have been faster, but long-range drone work still gathered everything they would need for the eventual operation.
In the meantime Yeon-woo focused on his life as an actor. For now, the work could safely be left to the operatives and to Hae-un.
Between the interviews and photo shoots he had been putting off, he was working through his schedule when Representative Jeong Hyeok brought up something he had not yet considered.
"Networks? But we haven't even started production."
"Exactly my point. That's how big the name value of our actors is. Someone somewhere caught the scent and now every station is screaming to air it. Calls from every direction—at first it felt good being the one with the leverage. Now it's just exhausting."
Directors and PDs from every network were calling nonstop, and somehow they even managed to "accidentally" cross paths with Jeong Hyeok according to his schedule. It was becoming a headache.
"So each network will put conditions on the table."
"Right. Since we're producing this as a self-financed project, the conditions they can actually offer are pretty much the same across the board."
Yeon-woo nodded.
Drama production fell into three broad categories, and the simplest way to sort them was by whose pocket the money came from. When a network funded the project, the production company worked as a subcontractor; in exchange for handing over the IP, the network covered roughly eighty percent of the budget. Downstream profits from rights sales then went to the network. OTT deals worked almost the same way, only with larger checks.
But we don't need any of that.
This drama would almost certainly be the cheapest Yeon-woo had ever shot—once you set aside actor fees. And since most of the leads were already under their own roof, those fees were just money moving from the left pocket to the right. There was no reason to take outside investment for a project whose remaining production costs were already low. When the production company financed everything itself and simply shopped for a platform to air it, that was self-financed production.
From a network's perspective they get free content and free advertising without spending a won. Of course they want it. But because they take so little of the pie, they also have almost nothing extra to offer Saebyeol Media.
"If the offers are all roughly the same, then the network that can stay flexible around our expected air date is the better partner. We haven't even started shooting yet. Covering the variables matters more than any small perks they can throw in."
Jeong Hyeok nodded hard. Once again he found himself quietly impressed that a man still in his early twenties could cut straight to the heart of the matter after only a few sentences.
"You're right. You can never put a hard number on how long a drama will take to make."
Trends moved like living things, always shifting in unpredictable directions. If the show was going to air at the moment of maximum cultural relevance, the single most important question was whether the network would bend its schedule to Saebyeol's. That had been the conclusion of a two-hour management meeting. Yeon-woo had reached the same place after a couple of exchanges with Jeong Hyeok.
Jeong Hyeok scratched his head and added, "Maybe from now on we should just talk to you first and hold the meeting afterward."
Yeon-woo waved it off with an awkward look.
"Ahem—no. Management decisions belong to management. I'm busy enough as it is."
For a second he felt a flash of the same weary annoyance Kim Ju-seong was probably feeling right now while making coffee on the third floor. Then a better idea surfaced.
"In that case, cable or a comprehensive channel would be better than terrestrial. TVM or JNBC look solid."
"Yes. Those two are already at the top of the shortlist."
With terrestrial, comprehensive, and cable networks all locked in a ratings war, the old assumption that a terrestrial slot automatically meant higher numbers no longer held. Hits were coming out of cable and comprehensive channels now as well.
If we go with a comprehensive or cable network that gives us freer control over the air date, the drama itself becomes another weapon.
Until now they had been on the receiving end of Baeksol's interference—never aimed directly at Yeon-woo, but still: blockbuster projects bankrolled by Baeksol scheduled in the same time slot, or a planted actor already on their payroll dropped into the cast.
No reason to keep playing defense forever. I can take the first move—slot our show against one of the projects they've poured real money into.
They had slipped every jab so far. But when the other side throws a punch, the natural response is a counter. Squeeze their cash flow from both the shadows and the light at the same time, and the synergy would be far greater.