The Client Who Ordered the Hit

Before I made any preparations to return to Korea, I gathered information first.

The first place I went was the company's Cairo branch. The latest security equipment was installed, but that only applied to outsiders. When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd first arrived, I'd gotten friendly with the local staff and secured a security key before anything else. Fair enough — if I ever ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠needed to rush some paperwork in the office at dawn, it was easier on them to have already put a key in my hand.

I let myself into the office in the dead hours before dawn, when no one was there. Logging into the company intranet, I checked the schedules and the board.

There wasn't a word about me anywhere.

Something's off.

Anyone posted overseas is required to report their health, and whether there's been an accident, every day or two. Normally, if contact drops for even three days, the place goes up in flames. A situation like this could only mean someone in HR was filing false reports.

Manager Park Dongseon. So the bastard really was in on it.

Going through the mail, I found an approval document.

I opened it. Park Dongseon's coming to Cairo? Why?

Well. Send a man out here and then hear nothing at all — sitting still might have looked even stranger. Either way, from where I stood, it was less work. No need to go back to Korea.

I photographed the arrival time, the flight, the lodging, all of it, with my phone. Then I shut the computer down and left.

On the roof of the Cairo branch building, Manager Park Dongseon — tall, handsome — had come up hoping to work the tightness out of his chest. He took out a cigarette, set it between his lips, and lit it. A long pull, and he let the smoke out slow, looking down over the tangled sprawl of Cairo.

"Goddamn it. What the fuck is going on."

He'd checked after landing. Hassan hadn't shown up for work in four days — exactly the day after the last messages the two of them had exchanged.

The original plan had been simple. Hassan would shove Kang Chung-sik off a cliff and dress it up as an accident. Nobody here was going to run around the neighborhood announcing that a Korean had been murdered on a sightseeing trip, and the Cairo police would have had no reason to complicate the investigation. The case would be buried quietly, Kang Chung-sik would be taken care of, and everything would roll along exactly as planned.

But.

"Stupid bastard. Can't even take out one man properly."

The men who had promised to make it a quiet accident had, somehow, shot him. A corpse with a bullet hole in it couldn't be shown to anyone. It wasn't the sort of thing you could quietly bury. In the end they couldn't even process the death, and the whole job had snarled itself into this. So he'd had to fly all the way to Cairo himself, just to keep from drawing suspicion for nothing.

"Goddammit."

Having spat the curse, Park Dongseon slowly put his thoughts in order and talked himself through it.

"All right. I'll treat it as certain that Chung-sik's been handled. Let's think it through on the assumption we file a missing-person report."

It was going to be the long way around, but Chung-sik being dealt with looked certain enough. The man hadn't shown his face here in a week either. Park had checked with the staff and with the local hotel: a week ago Chung-sik had walked out of his room and never come back. When he went up and opened the room himself, the traces of a man who had simply stepped out were still sitting there, untouched.

Which meant he'd definitely been taken care of.

So the next step was—

Just then the phone in his breast pocket rang.

"Ah! You scared me."

He lifted the phone.

"Damn it. I told you not to call."

He glanced around, made sure there was no one nearby, and quietly opened the phone.

"Hey. Didn't I tell you not to call this week?"

The contact on the screen wore the name Kang Chung-sik. But the voice that spilled out of the receiver belonged to a young woman.

"How'd what go?"

A wave of nausea climbed his throat.

Crazy bitch.

The man who had been her husband was dead, and here she was, fretting over whose name went on the apartment. A chill went through him. Could he actually live with a woman like this? What if, later, she latched onto some other bastard and set her sights on him too?

Ever since their eyes had caught at the last housewarming, they had been slipping in and out of motels, tangling their bodies ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in bed. But listening to her hound him through the phone, irritation and suspicion surged up hard. On the surface, he coaxed her in a sweet voice.

"Baby. I'm handling it, so just wait a little longer. And I told you not to call me on this phone. The more we do this, the more suspicion we draw on ourselves. You know that?"

If you're that bored, go outside and hand out flyers, you crazy bitch! He wanted to scream it. She holed up at home all day bingeing dramas and fiddling with Instagram on her phone, and she had the nerve to talk about how hard she had it.

But if the woman had a change of heart now, the chance he'd clawed out of a contract killing could vanish just like that.

If it had gone the way he'd planned, the big picture was simple. Process Assistant Manager Kang's death. Let that woman inherit his brand-new apartment. Sell the place off. And with that money, the two of them start fresh.

It was a unit Assistant Manager Kang had won in a presale lottery at odds of tens of thousands to one — the largest new city in Gyeonggi, steps from the station. An apartment like that would clear at least a billion won, and if it traded at the current market, 1.2 billion won in pure gain. Sell that alone, and the money he'd sunk in a crypto craze, loan-shark debt and all, could be wiped out in a single stroke. Once the debt was gone, it would be goodbye to this crazy bitch as well. An accomplice wasn't about to blow herself up.

Comforting himself with that, he soothed her once more.

"Baby. I want to see you too. But we're almost there, aren't we? Like I told you — first I report it to the company, then you go ahead and sell off the property in the family's name, and after that we file the missing-person report. If you're really that anxious, at least give his family a call."

"Baby. Think it through. I told you — if they start looking for Chung-sik over there, or file a missing-person report themselves, we're in trouble. Then we can't get a death declaration for five years at least. Disposing of the assets, even less so. So make sure nothing like that happens. Ahead of time."

"Anyway, I'll clean it all up and come back, so just wait a little. We have to hold off on the calls. You and me. All right? I'll pick my baby up a present at the duty-free on the way in."

All at once, her voice changed completely.

Fuck. So that's why she called to whine.

In the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠end, she'd called to make him buy her something at the duty-free. He swallowed the nausea, coaxed her along in a soft voice, and hung up.

A sigh broke out of him on its own.

"Haaah. She's completely out of her mind. And I have to split the money with this."

Park Dongseon let the sigh go, and for an instant a killing light flickered in his eyes.

"Fuck it. I did it once. No reason I can't do it twice. Last time that senior put me onto some Joseonjok — Korean-Chinese. Fuck. A crazy bitch isn't worth a fifty-fifty split."

He took a hard drag, then flicked the half-burned butt so it skipped across the rooftop. He turned to go, and his eyes, without his meaning them to, went to the water tank standing off to one side of the roof. More precisely, to the deep shade pooled beneath it.

What is that?

Is my eyesight off? There's nothing there. But it feels like something is. My vision's gone a little hazy.

Thinking it might be the sunlight, he raised a hand and rubbed his eyes. He looked again. Under the shade, it was no different from a moment ago. Nothing there. Then what had that been? It had looked like something bent out of shape — refracted.

The jet lag probably hadn't worn off. Or he'd simply taken too much sun. Park Dongseon hurried out of the light and down into the building.

The roof was empty once more.

Behind the water tank, the empty air warped, ever so slightly, and moved.

And then—

"Figures. Ninety-nine percent. Can't fool a man completely."

With the voice, a moment later, Kang Chung-sik showed himself.

"Fucking bastard. So it was him. And the one on the phone."

I was at a loss for words. I hadn't caught her voice, but from Park Dongseon's side of the conversation alone, I could piece it together well enough.

"Those sons of bitches. Then the bastard sitting in that driver's seat — he was this bastard's man. Fuck. I treated him like a senior, and a matching pair of trash went and fed off each other."

Either way, I'd found the culprit more easily than I'd expected. From the talk of the apartment, I could guess why they'd wanted me dead, too. Money. The motive was certain now.

Cairo International Airport. Coming through into the arrivals hall, Go Yumi looked around. There was no tension in her at all. If anything, she was a little excited, the way you get when an overseas trip finally comes after too long without one.

"Ahh. Get me on a plane and I can finally breathe."

A few days earlier, she had received a text from Manager Park Dongseon.

The moment she read it, Go Yumi got on a plane.

This was the moment the 1.7 billion won apartment became hers. She would part from her plain, forgettable husband, and a rose-colored future with the tall, handsome Manager Park was waiting on the other side. She pictured setting up a new honeymoon household in the finest new apartment in Gyeonggi — inviting her friends, taking the photos, posting them.

All this time she had only been able to stare with envy at the pictures other people uploaded to Instagram. Now she wouldn't come up short. It wasn't Gangnam in Seoul, no. But a new apartment like the one she was about to move into would still be impressive enough, and there would be plenty of people ready to tap a heart and a like.

Riding that rose-colored future, she passed through arrivals and headed for the taxi stand. She climbed into a waiting cab and spoke to the driver.

"Marriott Cairo Hotel, please~"

Before she left the country, she had settled on a hotel famous for photographing well. The driver understood her, and the taxi pulled slowly away.