Chapter 211.2

Chapter 211.2

Then, from one earpiece, Na Wonchang suddenly shouted, “Team Leader!” His voice was breathless, as if he had finally found something. But what followed made Wooshin’s brow lift sharply.

“His record’s clean! Exemplary, even!”

— During Agent Yoo Dawit’s seminary years, there’s a record of him studying abroad in the U.S. It looks like a school-sponsored program. Around that time, Islamic extremists attacked a Catholic church building. It seems Yoo Dawit got caught up in it somehow, there’s an American medical report showing he underwent emergency surgery. Some kind of cranial operation…

A chill swept down the back of Wooshin’s neck.

— Since he was a foreign student, the doctors in the U.S. apparently performed the operation without guardian consent. After that, he returned to Korea, dropped out of seminary, and enlisted in the military. Served diligently, then joined Blast Agency. Nothing particularly suspicious.

Wonchang called it clean, but Wooshin’s calm had already cracked. The details didn’t sit right; surgery, then returning to Korea, then military enlistment. That so-called unusual career might not have been a coincidence after all.

Damn it. America, of all places. His blood felt like it drained straight out of him.

— …Wait, Team Leader. Agent Yoo Dawit he seems to have worn hearing aids for quite some time. His mother bought child-size hearing aids every year. There’s a long record of it.

“….”

— He wasn’t officially registered as disabled, so it’s not in the national database, but the Military Manpower Administration exempted him during his first physical exam. Then, after coming back from the U.S., he passed the test as fully fit for service.

The suspicion thickened. That quiet demeanor; had it come from years of partial deafness?

His thoughts took an even darker turn. What if someone had opened up the skull of a dying Yoo Dawit and performed an unapproved procedure to restore his hearing?

Wooshin’s face stayed rigid, the tension unrelenting.

“In Sakhalin,” Yoo Dawit said, his voice flat and even.

“Your foot was crushed under a truck wheel, and yet you still kept moving, Team Leader. You ran through the Sakhalin sugarcane fields without rest, climbed the spire just to find Agent Han Seoryeong. I know what kind of man you are. That’s why I never believed you could have held another woman for so long.”

“What?”

“If you were with someone, it must have been Agent Han Seoryeong.”

“….”

Wooshin’s face went white. He snatched the gun hidden beneath the sofa.

During Operation Bird Box, Deputy Director Joo Seolheon had given him a strict order: eliminate anyone who tried to approach Owl.

Her paranoia, what had once seemed like nerves, was now taking shape before his eyes, frighteningly real.

His pulse pounded cold and fast. A raw instinct told him he couldn’t let the man leave alive.

Like an animal, Wooshin lunged. The moment he reached for the back of Yoo Dawit’s neck to slam him down, the wide glass window behind them shattered without warning- crash!

The shockwave from the blast hurled his body backward into the sofa. Pain thudded through his ribs, but he swallowed the groan, bit his tongue, and spat the blood that pooled in his mouth. He pushed himself up without hesitation as shards of glass rained down around him.

Something was wrong. Something was breaking apart, piece by piece. A scream of instinct cut through his mind, and He Channa’s voice erupted through the earpiece.

— Armed hostiles have entered the bedroom hallway!

The color drained from Wooshin’s face.

“Shit!” He slammed his fist into the floor. So that was it- the unease that had been gnawing at him all along. Their target wasn’t him. It was Han Seoryeong- no, Sonya.

— Team Leader, Agent Yoo Dawit is escaping through the window!

He didn’t have time to think about backup. He moved instantly, grabbing Yoo Dawit by the rope as the man tried to descend and yanking him back inside. Yoo Dawit crashed into the parlor floor, and Wooshin kicked him hard in the stomach, over and over, until he wheezed for air. Grabbing him by the throat, he slammed his head against the table. Each punch to the jaw made Judah’s limbs go limp and flap loosely.

— Watch your eyes!

Channa’s warning came a second too late. Wooshin jerked his head back, but a splintered fragment still cut the weak corner of his eye. Even so, he didn’t flinch. Like a man incapable of pain, he went at him again, pressing the gun under Yoo Dawit’s jaw.

“Tell me your exact affiliation. Who’s this ‘father’ you serve?”

“He’s already passed away.”

“The voice you heard after your hearing came back, was it his?”

Wooshin racked the slide and jammed the gun brutally into Yoo Dawit’s ear.

“Say nothing, and you’ll never use this again.”

The hard muzzle ground against the thin layer of skin, close to piercing through. Wooshin could feel the man’s shoulder tense and lock up. Slowly, steadily, he forced the barrel in deeper, pressing down harder.

At the same time, he barked orders into the comms. “Seal the front gate. Get Rali on the line. Wake up the Gurkhas, now!”

Then, bang!

Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. A horrific scream split the air. Yoo Dawit clutched the half-blown edge of his ear, shrieking in agony.

“Damon Kingsley!” he cried out.