Chapter 75

Chapter 75

The Secret Shadow Unit operative stared at Hasini, who lay sprawled in a pool of blood. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.

That demon of a team leader had ended up like this. He'd never imagined such a thing, not even in his dreams. And now the bastard who was even more demonic than his team leader opened his mouth.

"Are you next?"

"······."

The Secret Shadow Unit operative felt as though his mind had gone completely blank. He could only swallow nervously. Then another voice sounded.

"That one's mine. Keep your hands off him."

The operative turned toward the woman who had said something in another language. The instant he looked at her, he felt as though two icy-blue daggers had been driven into his face.

Killing intent! The murderous intent pouring from the woman's eyes was striking him like a pair of daggers.

"You, come here. It's your turn now."

Yu Min-seon approached, calling out viciously. The operative's expression changed.

There seemed to be no escaping now. He ought to draw the pistol from the holster on his chest, but one look at the two people's faces told him that was impossible.

The demon who had torn Team Leader Hasini's chest apart stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at him. The crazy woman approaching him had an expression so murderous it could hardly be described, yet her eyes never lost track of his slightest movement.

These people would never give him enough time to draw and fire his gun.

Then what options remained?

He would have to engage them in hand-to-hand combat and buy time. At least ten minutes must have passed since the first gunshots rang out here. If he could hold on a little longer, that would be enough.

But he wasn't the only one capable of thinking. Yu Min-seon and Lee Seung-uk were considering much the same thing. In fact, their minds were working even more furiously than his.

They had to silence this bastard quickly and leave.

Lee Seung-uk steadied his breathing. In truth, his legs were trembling so badly he could barely remain standing.

And why wouldn't they? Only a few days earlier, he'd encountered a superhuman named Sun Zhao and been brought to the brink of death. He'd only recently begun moving again after Yi-hyeon's mysterious techniques had saved him from that terrible condition.

Lee Seung-uk stood upright and began gathering his qi through controlled breathing. Even if it was only for the time Yu Min-seon needed to deal with the bastard, he had to recover some strength.

Misinterpreting the posture as Lee Seung-uk watching him with a fierce glare, the Secret Shadow Unit operative gritted his teeth and lowered his stance. Yu Min-seon was almost directly in front of him.

"All right, let's see what you've got."

Yu Min-seon spoke coldly, spreading her fingers like claws as she approached. Her mouth continued pouring out curses, but her eyes had grown icy and calm. She recognized that this man was no easy opponent.

The Secret Shadow Unit.

A special organization that appeared so rarely that even America's CIA hadn't yet established its true nature.

Intelligence agencies around the world were desperately investigating it because neither the location of its headquarters nor the number of its members was known. Rumors suggested that every operative was comparable to an elite Delta Force or Navy SEAL operator, making other countries especially eager to uncover its selection process and training programs.

Secret Shadow Unit operative Chen Lu-wong steadied his breathing. If he tried to deal with this woman casually while buying time, he could suffer a fatal injury in an instant. He would need to give everything he had.

Swish!

"Hup."

Before Chen Lu-wong could properly react, Yu Min-seon closed the distance in two steps, her hand descending diagonally toward his throat. The trajectory was simple enough to see clearly. The problem was its speed!

She was almost upon him in less than half a breath, leaving him badly startled.

He couldn't dodge!

Chen Lu-wong desperately twisted his upper body away from the strike and raised both arms in a cross to block Yu Min-seon's descending hand.

But perhaps that had been a feint all along. Her descending hand suddenly vanished, and a fist shot toward Chen Lu-wong's jaw.

Swish!

"Hah."

He stumbled backward frantically. When he finally recovered his stance, Yu Min-seon was smiling broadly.

"Fast as a rat, aren't you? That was a little too shallow."

Only when he saw her casually shake her hand did Chen Lu-wong notice the numbness in his jaw. Despite doing everything he could to evade the strike, her fist had still grazed him. Now he was beginning to lose all sensation in the area.

Although the punch had appeared light and quick, Yu Min-seon had infused it with qi. The damage was beginning to take effect.

"······."

The operative's eyes burned. He understood that his life was hanging by a thread.

He lowered his right hand and twisted his wrist. Something cold and metallic slid into his palm. The weapon had two rounded rings into which he inserted his thumb and little finger. Curved metal hooks resembling a tiger's claws now extended between his fingers.

The device was so small and sharp that it was almost invisible when he closed his fist. It was called a bagh nakh.

This was another weapon associated with assassins in ancient India. Anyone struck by it would suffer terrible wounds resembling those inflicted by a tiger's claws.

Yu Min-seon's gaze swept quickly over the operative's hand.

"Hmm. Some kind of knuckle weapon? Interesting."

Yu Min-seon immediately recognized the lethal danger of the bagh nakh. Historically, Indian assassins were even said to have coated its blades with cobra venom.

"Haaah!"

This time, the Secret Shadow Unit operative lowered his stance and charged. He concealed his right hand, equipped with the bagh nakh, behind him while extending his left hand with its back facing downward.

Swish!

His left hand swept toward Yu Min-seon's abdomen in a clawing strike. It was fast and powerful.

Yu Min-seon leaned her upper body back slightly and kicked upward, aiming for the wrist attacking her abdomen. But the movement was remarkably small, almost as though she were curling inward. Ordinarily, Yu Min-seon fought with the wild energy of a madwoman, but not today.

She was concentrating her strength inward through small, almost cautious movements. That alone demonstrated how formidable her opponent's technique was. One mistake could cost her life.

Thus, although their attacks and defenses consisted of short, simple movements, the killing intent soaring between them seemed capable of reaching the heavens. Both were fighting desperately.

Then, perhaps spotting an opening in Yu Min-seon's defense, Chen Lu-wong swung his right hand in a short semicircle toward her face.

The bagh nakh was about to strike her.

Instead of retreating, Yu Min-seon charged into him. She accepted the attack from his right hand on her left shoulder and drove her right elbow straight into his face!

Thud!

"Khup!"

The fight was decided.

The two had been standing so close they could feel each other's breath. As Chen Lu-wong slowly collapsed, Yu Min-seon straightened her upper body and stepped away.

"Fuck! He tore my clothes!"

Hearing her complaint, Lee Seung-uk, standing nearby, chuckled.

Now that he'd recovered a little, he could see that the fabric across the left side of her back had been torn open in a long gash by the bagh nakh.

A little blood appeared to be trickling from the wound, but Yu Min-seon paid it no attention. Instead, she turned toward Lee Seung-uk.

"You okay? Can you walk? Then let's get the hell out of here before more of these bastards show up."

"Yes."

First, they needed to find somewhere safe and contact Seoul. The NIS operatives who had remained in Macau had scattered in every direction and were now fending for themselves. Yu Min-seon needed instructions from the NIS, while Lee Seung-uk needed to contact Lee Jung-ho.

* * *

"Hmm. This is troubling."

Lee Jung-ho ended the call and turned toward Yi-hyeon. They were in an officetel in Samseong-dong, one of several safe houses Lee Jung-ho had recently established. He'd secured the properties with Yi-hyeon's permission.

"I prepared the escape route myself, but the safe house where Lee Seung-uk and Team Leader Yu were staying was arranged by the NIS. Its location shouldn't have been discovered so easily."

Yi-hyeon swallowed hard before asking,

"Then are you saying someone gave the MSS its location?"

The thought alone made him feel sick, but there was no other plausible explanation.

Lee Jung-ho tapped the table lightly with a finger.

"The important question is who passed that information to the MSS. Every intelligence agency in the surrounding countries is watching what's happening in Macau. But there's only one organization with the capability to locate that safe house and deliberately feed the information to the MSS."

"The CIA?"

Lee Jung-ho nodded gravely at Yi-hyeon's question.

"No one else. We could suspect the fifth column inside the NIS, but it isn't time for those people to reveal themselves so openly. The real question is what the CIA hopes to accomplish."

Yi-hyeon had told Lee Jung-ho about the fifth column within the NIS when the man first joined him. As Lee Jung-ho continued speaking, his gaze grew deeper.

"First, we need to determine whether this was an operation authorized by the CIA as a whole or a decision made by an individual department. Only then can we decide how to respond."

Yi-hyeon listened with his arms crossed before speaking.

"We can't let this pass."

"Absolutely not."

Lee Jung-ho's voice was resolute. Having served in the Defense Intelligence Command, he understood the power of the CIA better than most. Nevertheless, there was an unshakable determination in his present attitude.

Yi-hyeon spoke.

"What if Bill, the leader of the Burgundy Club, carried this out on his own···?"

His newly sharpened instincts suggested precisely that. And Sion had identified the Burgundy Club as responsible.

Those people didn't harbor limitless goodwill toward Yi-hyeon. They were simply parties who met and used one another out of mutual necessity.

"They're our most likely suspects. I'll analyze their intentions. But before that, we need to issue a warning."

He was referring to the information leaked about the safe house occupied by Lee Seung-uk and Yu Min-seon in Macau.

Yi-hyeon spoke coldly.

"Give them a serious warning. I don't even need to know whether this was the Burgundy Club or another CIA department. Tell them that if they don't want to make an enemy of me, they need to stop that kind of behavior immediately. And tell them I'll personally come to collect this debt."

Yi-hyeon clenched his teeth.

Those bastards. Betraying me like this. I won't let them get away with it. I have Sion. Sion has all their information in the palm of his hand.

Since Lee Jung-ho had joined the organization, he had also replaced Yi-hyeon as the primary contact responsible for dealing with the Burgundy Club. It was a change Lee Jung-ho had insisted upon, believing that the representative's authority needed to be properly established.

* * *

Langley, Virginia.

The location of the famous Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters.

"You're saying Bill carried this out on his own initiative?"

Andrew, the chief operating officer, asked in a subdued voice.

Andrew Cohen's official title within the CIA was COO/CIA, Chief Operating Officer of the CIA.

There were several deputy directors beneath the Director, but at present he was effectively the agency's second-in-command. His activities were so deeply secretive that even his subordinates suspected that the name by which he was known within the CIA was an alias.

"Yes, sir."

Seldy stood before him, visibly tense.

"A warning from Tiger, then."

Andrew murmured quietly.

Seldy was reporting how Bill, the man effectively leading the Burgundy Club, had secretly passed the locations of Yu Min-seon and Lee Seung-uk, who were operating in Macau, to China's MSS. The reason for the report wasn't publicly known, but the previous evening, a severe formal protest had arrived at the CIA through an extremely official channel.

The sender was Tiger, from South Korea.

Anyone at the CIA who had spent even a short time conducting overseas operations, particularly in the Far East, would recognize that codename.

Tiger had brazenly used a channel that ordinary people neither knew about nor were supposed to know about to deliver his protest. His actions had thrown the CIA's Far East Division and the responsible departments at headquarters into turmoil.

The Burgundy Club was a temporary unit, but even its existence was classified. Now part of the secret operation it had conducted in Macau had been exposed.

And all because of Tiger's protest. Rumors were already circulating that someone of Tiger's caliber must have understood the implications perfectly well, meaning the protest itself had been a deliberate blow against the Burgundy Club.

"Mist is an asset we absolutely need. And this is how they're handling him···."

Seldy watched Andrew's frowning face nervously, remembering the first time she'd met Mist.

He had looked so young when she'd encountered him at a law office in New York. She'd made the mistake of underestimating him based on the few lines describing his military career.

But now he'd become incomparably more important than he'd been back then. After all, Andrew himself, effectively the CIA's second-in-command, was paying attention to him.

In truth, even Seldy didn't know the ultimate objective of the operation involving Mist. She merely suspected that it contained multiple layers of hidden plans and that only Andrew and a handful of senior government officials knew the operation in its entirety.

After thinking for a long while, Andrew raised his head.

"It looks like we'll have to replace Bill. That's the only way to appease Mist. I'll need to meet General Bolton at the NSA."

He was talking about replacing Bill, who belonged to the NSA.

Seldy's heart began to race. She had the feeling that events were suddenly accelerating, all because of that single message from Tiger.

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