Chapter 73

Chapter 73

Yi-hyeon had returned to Seoul alone, while Lee Seung-uk remained in Macau with part of the NIS Sky Team. First, he needed to recover enough to endure a long journey.

"I'm telling you, just put me on a plane or a boat. I need to get back to the representative as soon as possible."

"Shut up! Didn't you hear what the doctor said? You're supposed to rest for at least three days so he can monitor your recovery. He's only letting you leave tomorrow because you're healing so quickly."

Ever since regaining consciousness, Lee Seung-uk had been pestering Yu Min-seon to let him go.

"Good grief! I keep telling you I'm fine."

Yu Min-seon folded her arms and glared at him before speaking calmly.

"Lee Seung-uk. As far as I'm concerned, you came back from the dead. Especially your chest. The ribs at the front were practically shattered, with fragments piercing your internal organs. And it wasn't that quack doctor who fixed you. He never once put a scalpel to your body. All he did was give you a blood transfusion and dress your wounds. Don't you find that strange?"

Lee Seung-uk flinched and touched his chest. It was still tightly wrapped in compression bandages.

"······."

Watching him sink into thought, Yu Min-seon lowered her voice.

"Yes. Just as you're thinking, Representative Song must have done something. He's a truly mysterious person. Our agency has some vague suspicions about him, too. That's why we deployed Sky Team to protect him. But if something like this became known··· things would get very complicated. Security is absolutely essential. We can't allow this information to leak outside, but the director and I also believe it must remain secret even within the agency."

As she said the last part, she glanced toward the room's dust-covered window.

Realizing that even the NIS was keeping Yi-hyeon's secrets hidden from its own personnel, Lee Seung-uk felt a chill. After that, he stopped demanding to be sent back to Seoul immediately.

* * *

While Lee Seung-uk and Yu Min-seon remained in Macau, another organization was keeping itself rather busy.

The Burgundy Club!

Urgent activity had begun at its operational headquarters in New York.

"Hey, are we certain Mist has left Macau?"

"Yes, sir. We confirmed that he boarded an All Nippon Airways flight from Manila to Incheon Airport this morning. Ah, he used a Japanese passport, of course."

Bill, the team leader, spoke coldly.

"How the hell did he get a Japanese passport? Until yesterday, he was walking around with an Australian one, and now he's suddenly Japanese. Does he work in some kind of passport factory···?"

His last words were so quiet they sounded like muttering. A special team composed of elite CIA and NSA personnel could hardly fail to track Yi-hyeon simply because he'd changed passports ten times. Bill was irritated by the entire affair.

But there was another problem.

"Has Mist changed his face again?"

That was it!

The Burgundy Club had recently discovered something astonishing while monitoring Yi-hyeon: his face changed constantly.

The man codenamed 'Mist' somehow altered his appearance with remarkable ease, causing their operatives to lose track of him repeatedly. Burgundy was under orders from its superiors to monitor him and submit regular reports. The situation was an enormous nuisance, but there was nothing they could do.

Whenever Yi-hyeon changed his face, they had to reconstruct his movements from the beginning and prepare a report detailed enough to satisfy their superiors. It was time-consuming, labor-intensive work, and the chronically understaffed Burgundy Team had no reason to welcome it.

"Yes, sir. Would you like to see? This photograph was taken at Manila Airport, and this one in Macau. Getting the Macau picture was difficult. The official responsible for the airport changed recently, so we had to establish new connections."

As his subordinate's explanation grew longer, Bill waved a hand. He'd heard enough.

"I suppose Tiger has come up with some method. Once we're on friendlier terms, I'll have to ask him to teach us that disguise technique."

"Yes, sir. I never imagined Tiger would join forces with Baby. In any case, Tiger's arrival has practically given Baby wings. His operational range has expanded enormously."

Bill nodded in agreement.

"All thanks to Tiger's capabilities. He was far too talented to spend his career in South Korea's Defense Intelligence Command."

The two were discussing Lee Jung-ho.

During his service in the Defense Intelligence Command, the CIA and NSA had recognized his exceptional abilities, given him the nickname 'Tiger,' and kept him under close observation. His accomplishments had made him known throughout the intelligence communities of America, China, and Russia. Although strict security prevented them from identifying his face, there were countless stories of neighboring countries' intelligence agencies suffering setbacks because of his swift, resourceful operations.

The character in Lee Jung-ho's name originally meant 'vast,' but the Americans had simply chosen to call him Tiger.

"More importantly, it looks like the fifth column within the MSS suffered quite a setback this time, doesn't it?"

An ominous term emerged from Bill's mouth.

The fifth column!

Originally, it referred to an armed group or its members secretly operating inside a hostile nation, carrying out intelligence activities. More broadly, it described spies infiltrating an organization.

Bill's words meant that the Burgundy Club had detected a fifth column within China's MSS and was monitoring it. This was no small matter.

"That's correct. We don't know how Mist became entangled with the MSS's fifth column, but there's no doubt they mobilized this time, and their advance force was destroyed. Baby really is···."

His subordinate trailed off, and Bill spoke quietly.

"An exceptionally capable fighter. Valuable, too. The kind of man an intelligence agency would pay a fortune to recruit."

"Yes, sir."

A peculiar smile appeared on Bill's face.

"Let's make a little more use of this situation. His trusted subordinate is still in Macau, isn't he? Together with that witch from Sky Team."

"Yes, sir."

Bill was referring to Lee Seung-uk and Yu Min-seon.

"Let's make the MSS's fifth column reveal a little more of itself. Leak the witch's location and movements to the MSS."

His subordinate swallowed hard.

"Then the fifth column will mobilize on an even greater scale."

"Exactly. Their vanguard has been destroyed, so those bastards will throw caution to the wind. Let's take this opportunity to find out what they're really capable of."

"I'll carry it out immediately. If the witch leaves Macau, our operation will become pointless."

In other words, they intended to use Yu Min-seon and Lee Seung-uk as bait to draw out the secret organization they were monitoring inside the MSS. It was a chilling proposal, yet neither Bill nor his subordinate showed the slightest remorse. Their faces bore only the eager expressions of predators eyeing their prey.

* * *

"Pant, pant. Damn it! How many of these bastards are there?"

Yu Min-seon spoke between ragged breaths. They were in a back alley near the Gongbei border checkpoint, northeast of the Macau Peninsula.

Beside her, Lee Seung-uk stood with difficulty, leaning against a brick wall, his face pale.

"Hey, Lee Seung-uk. You all right? Just hang on a little longer. I'll tear these bastards apart."

"······."

Apparently lacking even the strength to answer, Lee Seung-uk merely nodded.

He was nowhere near fully recovered. Miraculously, the worst of his injuries, those to his chest, had almost healed, allowing him to remove the compression bandages. But the wound on his right thigh still hadn't closed properly and severely restricted his movements.

Worse, the wound had reopened and was oozing fluid. Macau's hot, humid climate had only aggravated it.

Yu Min-seon and Lee Seung-uk had been pursued for more than two hours. Somehow, the location of their safe house had been discovered, forcing Sky Team and the local NIS operatives to scatter and flee independently.

While escaping, Yu Min-seon had instructed Sky Team to surrender without resistance if they became surrounded with no route out.

The government could arrange their release afterward. There was no reason to sacrifice valuable elite operatives, and Director Lee Gyu-seong in Seoul agreed.

The sun had set, and the moon now illuminated the dark alley.

"Looking at the moon makes me want a drink. Tsk."

Yu Min-seon's sudden remark made even Lee Seung-uk chuckle.

Thinking about alcohol at a time like this? The woman certainly had nerve.

The two were waiting for a guide. With the situation growing desperate, they'd decided to use an NIS escape route that had originally been ruled out. They were now waiting at the designated rendezvous point.

Then Lee Seung-uk slowly raised his head. Meeting Yu Min-seon's eyes, he turned and pointed toward the alley entrance.

"Someone's coming, but I don't think it's our guide."

"All right."

Seeing the murderous gleam already burning in Lee Seung-uk's eyes, Yu Min-seon raised her own gaze sharply. Both had extensive field experience and could sense the killing intent closing in around them.

Thud, thud, thud!

Several figures came charging into the alley.

Bang, bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

The moment the men entered, Lee Seung-uk and Yu Min-seon opened fire mercilessly with their pistols. Ordinarily, they would have needed to identify people moving through a dark alley before shooting, but they were deep in hostile territory. No ordinary civilian would charge toward them like that in the middle of the night.

"Whoosh."

The three attackers collapsed where they stood, and a momentary silence followed. Pressing herself against the alley wall, Yu Min-seon thought quickly. Even in an industrial district, gunfire at night would carry a considerable distance.

There was no point in continuing to wait for the guide here. Their location had already been exposed.

"Lee Seung-uk, we're getting out of here. If we stay trapped in this alley, they'll finish us."

"Agreed. Let's go. If we get separated, we'll meet at the next point. I think there are about four more outside the alley···."

Lee Seung-uk stopped speaking mid-sentence.

How do I know that? No, more importantly, what's this sensation? I can somehow picture what's happening around us.

"Good. Four bastards. Two each, then. Once we're out, take care of whichever ones are closest to you."

"Yes."

It was a familiar procedure. In a chaotic firefight, each fighter needed an assigned set of targets. That was how they could engage the enemy effectively without overlooking anyone.

"By the way, you···."

Yu Min-seon, looking ready to charge out at any moment, turned toward Lee Seung-uk. She was about to ask how he'd known there were four men outside··· but the injured Lee Seung-uk had already rushed forward.

He's impatient, too!

Clicking her tongue inwardly, Yu Min-seon lowered her stance and rolled toward the alley entrance like a ball. Despite staying close to the ground, the muzzle of her pistol never wavered.

Bang, bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

"Aaagh."

"Urgh."

Each fired at the first target in sight before diving behind cover. Lee Seung-uk concealed himself behind a metal trash bin beside the road, while Yu Min-seon crouched behind the hood of a small car.

Bang, bang, bang.

Bang, bang.

"Damn it! We got two of them, but the others··· they're fast."

Yu Min-seon, who had spotted the small car and taken cover behind it the instant she emerged from the alley, ground her teeth as she shouted.

"These aren't ordinary bastards."

"You're right. They look like special forces."

Despite being former special forces herself, Yu Min-seon casually referred to them as 'bastards.' She checked the ammunition remaining in her pistol.

"Damn. Two rounds left."

"Same here."

They were running out of ammunition. Both gritted their teeth, sensing that the end might be near, when—

"Hey, you two over there. Let's have a little chat. Face to face."

A voice spoke in English with a rolling accent. One of their enemies had stepped forward.

Lee Seung-uk and Yu Min-seon, separated by a short distance, looked at each other.

They were out of time. They had to decide.

© Saedungi#1tjzr

Author's Note

The Burgundy Club's nickname for Yi-hyeon has been changed from 'Baby' to 'Mist.' The Burgundy Club had assigned him the codename Mist from the beginning and had been monitoring him under that name.