TL: EKID
The role of monitoring the Black Dragon Society’s stronghold was assigned to me and F9 hyung.
Office 39 of North Korea, which lost the drugs that had been at the safehouse, would definitely come to the Black Dragon Society’s base to retrieve the drugs.
We took position on the rooftop of a logistics warehouse in the Dandong City train station area.
It was a spot where we could clearly see the makeshift warehouse that served as the Black Dragon Society’s headquarters across the street.
“Did you enjoy the pork belly?”
“It was amazing… I ate until I was stuffed.”
Damn, pork belly…
This is why I don’t keep pets. Playing the role of a caretaker always comes with sacrifice.
After feeding the Brown Bear Gang guys holed up in the Ops Room, I returned straight to <Along the Forest Path Bar>. Then I came here with F9 hyung.
“Office 39 won’t sit still after losing the drugs, right?”
“They’re definitely not the type to sit still. But what kind of situation caused a shootout between people who were supposedly doing business together?”
“Well, they’re the kind of guys who would even sell drugs, so would any of them be in their right mind?”
I had no idea that all of this had happened because of me.
That everything began when I tailed the Office 39 Volvo at the Xianwei Hotel.
It was well past midnight, so there was no one in the logistics warehouse district. Only the streetlights were lit, standing lonely in the dark.
People started coming out into the yard of the Black Dragon Society warehouse.
In their hands were packages marked international express.
“Those are clearly drugs.”
The goods the Black Dragon Society guys brought out were clearly the drugs taken from Office 39’s safehouse.
F9 hyung made a call to someone.
“A vehicle loaded with what appears to be drugs is heading out.”
The call ended quickly.
The person on the other end was undoubtedly No. 1 hyung.
“Do you know where the Black Dragon Society is sending the drugs?”
“Where?”
“Incheon.”
“What? Then shouldn’t we stop them?”
“We can’t stop them in China. Songpal will check which ship those drugs are being loaded onto. Once the ship arrives in Incheon, domestic agents will seize the drugs.”
Songpal refers to Falcon No. 8 from Dalian.
The sunglasses man’s colleague.
“So we’ve stopped drugs from being smuggled into the country?”
“The drug smuggling case will be splashed all over the domestic media. But it won’t count toward our performance.”
“Why not?”
“You really don’t know anything about headquarters. Drug enforcement stats go to the drug enforcement agency. We’re just spoon-feeding them the results.”
Every organization has politics. The NIS is no different.
But so what? Isn’t stopping drugs from entering our country the whole point? If it helps South Korea, then I’ve done my job as a public servant. That’s enough.
The vehicle carrying the drugs left the warehouse. Then quite some time passed.
Close to 2 a.m., a truck and two vans approached the warehouse.
Vroooom
A truck with the license plate <Pyeongbuk 90-330> caught my eye.
“It’s a truck from Office 39.”
“They’re here.”
F9 hyung quickly made a phone call.
The truck and vans drove straight into the Black Dragon Society’s warehouse yard, and about twenty North Korean agents armed with submachine guns got out of the vehicles.
As soon as they got out, they entered the warehouse, and gunfire erupted.
Tatata tatatat
Tatang tatatatang
I observed the people getting out of the vehicles through my binoculars.
I needed to confirm whether the middle-aged man I had seen at the safehouse was among the North Korean agents raiding the warehouse.
“That guy is there. Target No. 4.”
“Where?”
“That man in the padded jacket.”
“I can’t tell, but you have good eyes.”
He had changed into a padded jacket, but I recognized the middle-aged man instantly.
He was giving instructions via radio beside a car parked in the yard.
“You stay here and let me know once the Office 39 vehicles pull out.”
F9 hyung stood up from his spot.
“Where are you going, hyung?”
“F9 hyung?”
“No… that’s not it… where are you going, hyung-nim?”
I had been calling Falcon No. 9 “F9 hyung” in my head, and it slipped out.
“Me and Dalian No. 5 will tail the Office 39 director. You stay here and film the inside of the warehouse once the North Koreans leave.”
Leaving those words behind, F9 hyung departed.
It looks like F9 hyung and the sunglasses man will be handling Target No. 4.
Tatata tatata tatang tatang
Gunshots continued to ring out.
It was about ten minutes later when some of the North Korean agents returned to the vehicles.
The North Korean agents were still rummaging through the warehouse, probably because they hadn’t recovered the drugs.
The middle-aged man was visibly angry. He kept shouting at the agents around him.
I called F9 hyung.
“They’ve come out. They’re talking in the yard, probably because they didn’t find the drugs.”
-Got it.
I saw four North Korean agents pulling out a safe with a cart.
Looks like they’re planning to take the safe instead of the drugs.
The North Korean agents loaded the safe and the bodies of their comrades onto the truck.
Shortly after, the truck carrying the agents from Office 39 left the warehouse.
The van carrying the middle-aged man also exited the warehouse.
I called F9 hyung again.
“The target has departed.”
***
The inside of the warehouse was a mess.
Bodies of Black Dragon Society members were scattered all over.
The carnage inside the warehouse was fully captured by the badge bodycam attached to the collar of my field jacket.
There was no need to film separately since everywhere I went was automatically recorded by the bodycam.
I went up to the second-floor office.
There too, members of the Black Dragon Society lay dead.
Even the CCTV cameras and PCs in the office had been completely shot and destroyed.
Wang Yudong was dead, slumped over his desk.
“I recognized him when I saw him earlier.”
In the end, Old-man Choi’s revenge had been taken care of by Office 39.
“Old-man Choi, it seems your revenge is done, so rest in peace.”
There wasn’t a single living person inside the warehouse. Office 39 agents had cleanly dealt with the Black Dragon Society.
Despite the late hour and the fact that this was a logistics complex next to a train station, not a single police siren had been heard even with all the gunfire. Since it wasn’t a residential area, no one must have reported it.
I looked around the second-floor office.
A few books were scattered on the floor, and there was an empty spot in the bookshelf behind Wang Yudong’s desk where the safe had been.
Unlike at the North Korean safehouse, there was no need to take hard drives or computers here. Information on criminal organizations is only useful to the Chinese authorities.
Then something odd caught my eye behind the bookshelf. I glimpsed something metallic between the books.
I pulled out three books and tossed them on the floor, revealing something like a junction box inside the shelf.
When I opened the lid of the junction box, there was a fingerprint scanner.
The display screen of the fingerprint scanner was lit up. It meant it was operational.
“What is this?”
It was definitely a fingerprint scanner.
To unlock the secret, a registered fingerprint was required.
It was obvious whose fingerprint was needed.
I looked at Wang Yudong, slumped over the desk.
“Ugh, this bastard is heavy as hell.”
I picked up Wang Yudong from behind and staggered over to the fingerprint scanner.
Then I placed his thumb on the scanner.
Nothing happened.
I tried his index finger next.
Beep
The fingerprint scanner responded.
Clunk
The far-right section of the bookshelf made a sound and opened slightly.
The secret room had opened.
“There we go.”
I let go of Wang Yudong, and his body collapsed onto the floor of the second-floor office.
Thud
Wang Yudong, dead with his eyes open, seemed to be staring at the secret room.
“Fuck, that nearly killed me.”
I approached the slightly open section of the bookshelf. Then I slowly pulled it open.
The secret vault was about the size of a small room, with shelves filling the walls. The shelves were stacked with bundles of US dollars and Chinese yuan. Several money sacks and Boston bags could also be seen inside the room.
“How much money is all this?”
I looked around the room with wide eyes.
The money in the secret room was the drug payment the Black Dragon Society had received from the Daerim gang in Seoul. The saying that 2 million dollars’ worth of drugs sent to Incheon would return as 20 million dollars was no exaggeration.
As I looked around the secret room, I began stuffing money into the Boston bags and sacks.
I’m not the type to just leave spilled money lying around.
‘I’m picking it all up, no matter what.’
My heart pounded as I packed the money into the bags. I kept glancing toward the entrance of the secret room. It felt like someone might burst through the door at any moment and shoot me in the back of the head.
“Fuck, why am I so on edge.”
Five Boston bags and three money sacks were quickly filled.
As I packed the sacks, I noticed that most of the money was in dollars. There wasn’t much yuan.
First, I carried out two of the Boston bags and walked toward where my compact Ato3 car was parked.
I loaded the money bags into the trunk of the Ato3 and then moved the car into the warehouse yard to shorten the route for transporting the rest.
After making four round trips between the second-floor office and the car, I finally managed to move all the money from the secret room.
With the trunk full, I had to place two sacks in the back seat.
“Damn, this is exhausting. Huff huff.”
After moving the money bags and sacks into the car, I left the warehouse without looking back.
***
“I told you, didn’t I? You’re a lucky charm. Hahahaha.”
No. 1 hyung couldn’t hide his amazement as he looked at the money bags loaded in the car.
He and I moved the money bags into the warehouse of <Along the Forest Path Bar>.
When you enter into the hallway inside the room, there was a staircase, and the space below it was the warehouse.
It was the place where the young woman called Samsun had taken the hard drive and laptop I recovered from the North Korean safehouse.
Half of the warehouse was filled with layered shelves for storing items. The rest of the space had a long desk against the wall, with three computers and monitors placed on it. There were four CCTV monitors mounted on the wall.
It seemed this was Samsun’s workspace, as hacking was her specialty. I could see the laptop and phone I had brought back from the North Korean safehouse in a corner of the desk.
Later, I found out that the US dollars and yuan I brought from the Black Dragon Society’s secret vault were worth about 24 billion won in Korean currency.
After moving the money into the warehouse, I had a beer at the bar table with No. 1 hyung.
Samsun, who was Dove No. 3, made stir-fried sausages for us to snack on.
“What happened to Target No. 4?”
“He crossed the Yalu River Bridge. We lost him.”
“So the operation failed.”
“It wasn’t an easy mission to begin with.”
The operation to kidnap the Office 39 director in the Volvo had failed. They had taken down the Black Dragon Society and then immediately crossed the Yalu River Bridge back to North Korea.
“Still, we were praised by headquarters. You filmed the man in the Volvo, right? We identified the Office 39 director in charge of drugs.”
It was my first mission since joining the NIS, and it felt good to receive praise.
“Besides, we also alerted them in advance about the drugs being smuggled into the country, so we’ve done our part.”
“What about Falcon No. 9 hyung?”
“He’s on his way here and Falcon No. 5. Falcon No. 8 has to stay at customs until morning.”
“What about the two guys from Shenyang?”
“The latecomers? Those guys just ate pork belly and went back.”
Anyway, things turned out well.
We identified a high-ranking figure from Office 39 who was in the Volvo, and we managed to prevent the drugs from being smuggled into the country. Most importantly, the drug operation between North Korea’s Office 39 and the Black Dragon Society was finally put to an end.
And on top of that, I happened to pick up a massive amount of money.
“I brewed some coffee. Would you like a cup?”
Samsun asked me.
“Sure.”
I took the coffee cup she handed me and stepped out onto the outdoor terrace.
I placed the cup on the table and sat down on a terrace chair.
Sting’s “Englishman In New York” was playing from the hall.
I lit a cigarette and placed it between my lips.
Phew~
I could see the smoke drifting into the Dandong night sky.
I took a sip of coffee while gazing at the still-dark early morning streets of Dandong. The warm sensation in my throat felt great.
“Ahh~ This place really does make good coffee.”