TL: EKID
There were as many as fifteen members of the Brown Bear Gang locked up in the storage room, bound with cable ties.
The boss, the deputy boss, and even the operations leader were all captured. A single storage room was packed with Brown Bear Gang members.
“This can’t be…”
Wang Chuqin, who had regained consciousness, couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He was lying down with his hands and feet tied, and all of the Brown Bear Gang subordinates were also tied up and squatting. With fifteen people crammed into one room, there wasn’t even space to stretch their legs.
Deputy boss Fan Jiandong was a complete mess. He’d been beaten so badly that his eye was swollen shut like a chestnut, and one side of his lip was split and badly swollen.
“What happened here?”
“Hyung, you’re awake.”
“Fan Jiandong, who did this to you?”
“Waaah, I was beaten, hyung.”
At the boss’s words, Fan Jiandong immediately burst into tears. He was truly mortified.
He had been beaten while tied up by some punk who wasn’t even a match for him.
“What happened?”
Wang Chuqin asked Fan Jiandong again.
“As soon as we got here, a guy with a pistol caught us.”
“Looks like you took quite a beating. Your face is a wreck.”
“Sob sob, that bastard made me like this just because I spoke informally to him.”
Overwhelmed by emotion, Fan Jiandong let tears fall at his boss’s words.
“He could’ve at least waited until I zipped up. I was hit right after I peed, before I could even pull up the zipper, hyung. Sob sob.”
Didn’t Wang Chuqin get beaten too just for glaring?
That bastard!
He completely understood how Fan Jiandong felt.
“What a disgrace this is. Haa…”
Wang Chuqin, boss of the Brown Bear Gang, let out a sigh unconsciously.
At that moment, the door burst open.
All of the Brown Bear Gang members shut their mouths.
“Hey, boss. Come out.”
“….”
Fifteen pairs of eyes stared at the rude bastard standing in front of the door. That guy acted with his fists before his words.
“Want to get beaten before coming out?”
Wang Chuqin crawled out on his knees, still bound.
***
“So, to summarize, the Black Dragon Society’s Dandong branch told you to find suspicious people dealing drugs and US dollars?”
“Yes, that’s… right.”
As I stared him down, Wang Chuqin’s ending changed to polite speech.
‘Stay calm. Didn’t Fan Jiandong say he got beaten senseless for speaking informally?’
Wang Chuqin felt fortunate that his subordinates weren’t present.
“And the Black Dragon Society told you to investigate who lives in this building?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the Dandong branch of the Black Dragon Society?”
“What?”
Thwack!
A flash of light exploded in front of Wang Chuqin’s eyes.
Hit square in the eye, the pain was so intense that Wang Chuqin rolled on the floor.
“Ow, I’m dying. Ouch, ouch!”
“Are you deaf already? Don’t make me say it twice.”
As I got up from the chair, Wang Chuqin, rolling on the floor, hurriedly replied.
“Warehouse No. 13 next to Dandong Train Station is the Black Dragon Society branch.”
I sat back down in the chair.
Then pointed at the seat in front of me. Wang Chuqin returned to his previous position.
“List all the people in the Black Dragon Society’s Dandong branch.”
Wang Chuqin looked miserable at my words.
“If you want to make it back home in one piece, you’d better talk.”
I picked up the hand axe the Brown Bear Gang had brought.
“W-wait!”
Wang Chuqin began spilling all the information he knew about the Black Dragon Society.
***
The long night passed, and morning came.
Sunghoo hyung and I took turns resting, and I slept first. F9 hyung lay down at 6 a.m. when I got up.
At 8:50 a.m., a Volvo sedan crossed the Yalu River bridge.
<Pyongyang 85-1055>
That was the license plate of the Volvo sedan captured on camera. I hadn’t seen that vehicle even once during my year and a half stationed here.
‘If that car is Target No. 4, that would be great. Let me complete the mission quickly and withdraw from here.’
I hoped that the unfamiliar Volvo was the one carrying the head of Office 39.
The head of North Korea’s Office 39 had never once appeared in public. Not only the National Intelligence Service of South Korea, but also the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was said to be covertly tracking the head of Office 39.
But no intelligence agency had yet identified who was in charge of Office 39. That’s how secretive he was.
Office 39, in terms of the official organization of the North Korean government, is one of the specialized departments under the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party and is formally part of the Secretariat.
However, considering that it manages the ruling funds of Kim Jong-un, the First Secretary of the Workers’ Party, it’s absurd to say the Secretariat controls Office 39.
Office 39 is known to be a body that receives direct orders from Kim Jong-un.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) discovered that after the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, the North Korean regime began constructing a much larger underground nuclear facility in Hagap, Huichon City, Chagang Province.
They suspect that the funds for building the nuclear facility in Chagang Province are being supplied by North Korea’s Office 39.
To stop North Korea’s nuclear facility construction, the United States is fully mobilizing its DIA intelligence capabilities and strengthening sanctions against North Korea.
The DIA’s primary target is Office 39.
At 9 a.m., I began editing the footage filmed over the day. The Volvo sedan that crossed the Yalu River bridge this morning was included in the edited footage.
I usually put an LP record on the turntable when editing video, but I gave up on music listening today.
That’s because with F9 hyung and the Brown Bear Gang guys coming into my Ops Room, it wasn’t a relaxing atmosphere for enjoying music.
‘My peaceful daily life is broken.’
At 11 a.m., I logged into <Yellow Rudbeckia>. There were no new messages in the inbox.
I uploaded the edited footage to the site.
“Today’s mission is done.”
I looked for Lingling through the slightly open window. As always, Lingling looked busy.
‘Cute Lingling.’
While watching Lingling for a moment, the voices of the restaurant customers reached my ears.
“Whose van and sedan are those? They’ve been blocking the front of the real estate office since dawn.”
“This morning, when I tried to open the hardware store, those damn things were blocking the store entrance. Whoever they belong to, I’m going to teach them a lesson when they show up.”
The owners of the real estate office and hardware store were angry because of the Brown Bear Gang’s vehicles blocking the storefronts.
“This is troublesome. I can’t go out and move the cars right now.”
I closed the window and left the room with the camera and editing equipment.
My Ops Room has no division between the living room and kitchen. The kitchen is just one side of the living room where the sink and dining table are.
F9 hyung was sleeping on the living room sofa with a blanket over him.
I went to the sink and filled the kettle with water.
“My mouth feels dry from barely sleeping. I’ll just have scorched rice soup for breakfast.”
Once the water boiled, I poured it into a bowl of instant scorched rice. Then I took out some kimchi from the fridge.
When breakfast was ready, I woke up the sleeping F9 hyung.
“Wake up and eat.”
“Mmm, it’s already morning?”
“It’s past 11.”
Now I understood why F9 hyung had a belly. He was the kind of easygoing person who could fall into a deep sleep even in a situation like this.
F9 hyung ate the scorched rice well too.
“What are you going to do with the guys in that room?”
“Well, once the mission ends, I’ll have to let them go.”
“They’ve seen your face, haven’t they?”
“Still, I can’t just kill them.”
“You’ve been stationed here for a year and a half, right? Once this mission ends, request to return to the country.”
It was tempting.
‘But what do I do about the money bag?’
I couldn’t get on a plane carrying 2 million US dollars, and international wire transfers aren’t easy in China.
First, I had to check whether the dollars were counterfeit. If I got caught bringing counterfeit money into the country, that would be a bigger problem.
‘Even a money bag can be a headache.’
Drugs could just be dumped into the Yalu River after tearing open the plastic. But money was the issue.
Still, I couldn’t just give up the money bag. No way.
“The target you’re filming, not here yet?”
“A suspicious car passed by in the morning. HQ will probably confirm it.”
“Let’s hope that was the one.”
After finishing the scorched rice soup, I placed the empty bowl in the sink.
Then I filled two 1-liter water bottles with tap water. It was water for the Brown Bear Gang guys in the storage room.
I set the water bottles on the floor and unlocked the door where the Brown Bear Gang was being held.
“Hi-yah!”
“Haa-yah!”
As soon as the door opened, three of them rushed out.
“Ugh!”
-Thud
The first guy stepped on a water bottle and fell.
Thump, thud thump.
The next two Brown Bear Gang members followed and were knocked down in succession.
The guys who had bitten through the cable ties overnight waited for the locked door to open and then launched an attack.
It was a good attempt, but they picked the wrong opponent. Their opponent was the two-time consecutive champion from the Special Warfare Command.
The guy who stepped on the water bottle and fell was followed by another who got hit square in the nose and collapsed, and the one behind him took a one-two punch to the chin.
The last one, who had fallen after stepping on the water bottle, tried to get up but was knocked down again by a knee kick to the abdomen.
“Fucking bastards, I told you to stay quiet and you pull this crap?”
I stomped on the collapsed guys with steady pressure.
“Argh, argh!”
“Aaagh!”
“Ugh, ugh!”
No one else came charging out of the room.
“Why do something that’ll get you beaten, you idiots.”
While I was giving a lesson to the three who ran out, F9 hyung approached holding a pistol with a silencer and fired into the room.
-Pew pew
-Ping ping
The bullets hit the wall and ricocheted off the ceiling.
The Brown Bear Gang members in the storage room were all startled and dropped to the ground.
Somehow, F9 hyung was now wearing a mask that covered his face.
“Everyone, lie flat and put your hands on your back.”
As soon as F9 hyung spoke, the Brown Bear Gang moved in unison, placing their hands behind their backs.
‘Two gunshots were more effective than all that exhausting beating.’
I paused the discipline session and tied up the three who had bolted out.
“Half the guys in the room cut through their cable ties.”
F9 hyung looked at me and said.
They had probably bitten through each other’s ties overnight.
Realizing that their surprise attack had failed after the first three were crushed, the others hadn’t dared to come out.
As soon as I heard F9 hyung, I shouted toward the room.
“Hey! The ones who cut their ties, crawl out one by one.”
“….”
“The last one out gets double the beating.”
Scurry
They crawled out one by one and lined up in front of me.
The first one out was Wang Chuqin.
I tied Wang Chuqin’s hands and feet again with a cable tie. Then I taped his mouth shut so he could never bite through a tie again.
“Next.”
One by one, I tied their hands and feet with cable ties and sealed their mouths with tape.
After tying everyone up again, I went to the corner of the living room and picked up the baseball bat.
“Everyone, head down.”
I began another round of discipline with the baseball bat on the guys who had crawled into the living room.
-Thump thump
“Eck, eck”
“This is punishment for not staying quiet.”
-Thump thump
“Mmgh, mmgh!”
With their mouths taped, each groan sounded slightly different as they got hit.
After more than ten minutes of beating, all the guys who had come out to the living room were knocked out.
“Uuugh.”
“Grrrrgh, grrrgh.”
I tapped the heads of Wang Chuqin and Fan Jiandong with the baseball bat and said,
“Except for these two, the rest go back into the room.”
Wang Chuqin and Fan Jiandong’s faces turned pale, and the rest of the guys crawled back into the room.
“The problem are the heads, it’s not really their fault. Don’t you think?”
I got on top of the collapsed Fan Jiandong and landed a one-two punch. He passed out.
Next up was Boss Wang Chuqin.
“Mm! Mm-mm!”
Wang Chuqin tried to say something urgently.
-Thump thump
Wang Chuqin also took a solid one-two punch. He was out cold too.
“No water today as punishment for resisting.”
I threw the two unconscious guys back into the room and said,
“Pee in your pants too.”
Then I locked the room door again.