CHAPTER 1 | OFFER

The inky black night sky was covered with a thin blanket of small stars that twinkled weakly as they surrounded a voluminous, much brighter moon. A calm breeze swept across the streets of Seoul, the wind dancing around leaves which created a small rustling noise. A few cars on the road were the only sign of life at such ungodly hour of the night; a gathering of college students chatted loudly as they rushed to catch a taxi that would take them to Hongdae.

But the stillness of the spring night was destroyed when loud sounds of helicopters circulating Seoul’s skyscrapers began lowering closer towards the ground. One of the helicopters circled the 63 Building before nearing a nearby illuminated landing spot. A single man dressed in black sport attire sent signals for the three helicopters as they began making their landing.

“We’re set to land in exactly thirty seconds,” a female’s voice informed the three boys from their installed earpieces. “Prepare.”

“Roger that!” came Sungyeol’s enthusiastic reply. 

The wings of the helicopter made an ear splitting noise as it hovered over its designated landing spot. They stood together above ground before the doors opened and rope ladders were thrown to the side. To an outsider looking up, it would be hard to distinguish the four people emerging down quickly due to their black attire and the only thing that would truly make them fully visible in the dead of the night was the flashlights set up on one of their shoulders’; these, however, were not yet switched off.

The tallest in the group, Lee Sungyeol, bowed to the man that directed their helicopters’ approach as he handed him a rather heavy black leather suitcase. Behind him followed the youngest of the lot, Lee Sungjong, who bowed politely before he stood next to his hyung. Out of the third helicopter emerged Kim Myungsoo and Son Hanbyul who rushed away the moment their feet touched ground; immediately, the three helicopters zoomed away, giving the night its silence back.

“We have exactly thirty minutes,” Myungsoo announced them as he checked the watch around his thin wrist.

“Jiae and  Soojung have already unhooked the CCTVs from the top and opened the vents for us a few minutes ago,” Hanbyul said as she took out a pair of leather gloves from the back pocket of her trousers. “Not so much of a glamour job tonight, eh, Sungjong? Is that why you’re choosing to stay as backup this time?”

Embarrassed for being caught so easily, Sungjong simply shrugged his tiny shoulders before he kneeled down in front of the suitcase which Sungyeol opened. A tiny computer screen buzzed gently to life and the blueprints of the building they were currently standing on were displayed. Sungjong tugged the suitcase away from Sungyeol, earning him a scoff from his hyung.

“I’ll be keeping a look out from the top,” Sungjong informed them. “The ear pieces have all been checked but there shouldn’t be much of a problem because I ordered them just a few days ago,” he boasted proudly. “I even got them customized for you guys but of course, I don’t get any thanks or-“

“Are you kidding me?” Sungyeol yelped, staring down at Sungjong with incredulous eyes. “Mine was beeping like mad when I first put it in! My ear drum was going to explode!”

“You’re overreacting, hyung-“

“Twenty eight minutes and forty five seconds left,” Myungsoo interrupted them harshly.

Hanbyul adjusted her duty belt, clicking in her USP Match firearms securely at either side of her body. “As much as I want to bet on who’s going to win this argument, we’re on a tight schedule tonight. Job’s not big but get caught and we’re done for.” She turned to Sungyeol. “I take it you checked our weapons and you remembered the plan?”

Sungyeol nodded as he threw Sungjong a last look before the trio hurried off to an air vent. “Main objective is to retrieve the manila folder in the president’s office. If anyone sees any of us, it’s not shoot and run, it’s shoot and check. When a triple buzz rings in our ear pieces, it’s our cue to meet Jiae and Soojung on the ground floor and escape by car. Sungjong is to meet us back at the headquarters.”

Hanbyul nodded, satisfied with the response. “Good. We’ve got ten bullets each, don’t waste them by shooting aimlessly but if you can, avoid any charade. We can’t afford to lose anyone and we can’t afford to fail this particular task.”

Myungsoo looked at her curiously as he unscrewed the last metal nail that held the bars of the large air vent in place. “What’s in that folder that’s so important anyway?”

Turning to him, Hanbyul flashed him a smile. “You’ll see.” And she climbed inside the air vent. “Separate,” she called out to the two before her footsteps completely faded from ear sight as she crawled on all fours.

The small GPS device in her pocket flashed to life and she stopped briefly to check it. The same blueprints from Sungjong’s computer appeared on the tiny screen and she scoffed when she realized her position. Out of the three, Myungsoo was closest to the target location but he had thinner air vents to squeeze through; Sungyeol was safer in terms of landing spot for if he were to take the first exit, he would reach a small storage room. Hanbyul, however, had approximately six minutes worth of crawling to do before she would reach the nearest elevator.

Fiddling with one of the pouches strapped to her duty belt, Hanbyul pulled out her night vision glasses just before she nearly walked into the metal wall of the vent ahead of her. Cursing under her breath, she took the right turn towards the east wing of the building, carefully walking on all fours. The GPS device blinked again and she frowned, frustrated whilst pulling it out again; there were three guards right bellow her- one drop of anything and they’d be onto her immediately.

“Myungsoo-“

“It’s L during work!”

Hanbyul heard Sungjong scoff in her earpiece. “Okay, fine. L. You’re ten meters away from the president’s office. Sung- Owl, you’ve got two Hulks coming right round the corner. Zero, the whole floor below you is covered in Hulks. There’s a ventilation exit you can take in just two meters from your current position but I can’t guarantee you won’t be faced with problems.”

“Roger that, I’m on it,” Myungsoo and Sungyeol replied but Hanbyul kept quiet.

Hanbyul’s heart picked up a fast pace and adrenaline rushed in her veins, making her pick up her pace slightly. It was not helping how dark it was up there or how there was a layer of sweat accumulating on her forehead due to the stuffy air but the small, dim light sweeping in from the ventilation grates made her forget all the indispositions. Crawling towards it slowly, she peeked down at the floor below her: two armed men were pacing it back and forth; one laughed at a joke shared by the other and they began making small talk. Hanbyul leaned back against the wall and pulled out the GPS. She had two options: either pray there were no CCTV cameras around and make a dash for it right now or she could crawl for another two minutes. The latter choice was, of course, the safest but she came to a halt just as the squeaking of a door opening and closing caught her attention.

“Coast is clear now, Zero. I’m not sure how much time you have but if you want to go down now, I suggest you do it now. Hulk One and Hulk Two are moving away,” Sungjong instructed.

Nodding to herself, she pulled out a little manual screw driver in her duty belt and quickly set on undoing the nails that held the ventilation grates in place. Shiver slightly as sweat trickled down the sides of her face, Hanbyul gave a sigh of relief once the last nail was done and hurriedly, she took the grating away. Landing, as she calculated it, was going to make a thud and if the two security guards were not far enough from the room, they could hear her. Holding her breath, she lowered herself down, holding on to the opened ventilation as much as she could and quickly looked around.

A small table lamp was in the corner of the room but nothing seemingly important would be there except for a bookcase with neatly arranged volumes of what seemed like Latin and English dictionaries. Before she could even make up her mind, however, her gloved hands left the hold of the ventilation and she fell (rather ungraciously) on her back with a thud.

“One’s down. Owl, I suggest you go down too. L, your whole floor is covered; it’s either you turn back or you risk it.”

“Great,” Myungsoo sighed an annoyed sigh and Hanbyul could almost picture him frowning.

She was about to move out of the room she was currently in when-

“Zero, move! Quickly, they’re coming back!”

And indeed, they were coming. Hanbyul turned left and right, looking for a suitable place to hide but there was nothing unless she could squeeze her way behind the bookshelf. Frustrated and annoyed that she had made yet another rushed decision, Hanbyul’s hands automatically clenched around the USP Match handguns at either side of her belt and walked to stand behind the door; there had to be some casualties or she’d end up stuck there for god knows how long.

“That damned coffee machine,” one of the men grumbled as he pushed open the door and stepped inside, the other following suit. “Never working! Promised everything but they didn’t bloody fix a wretched coffee machine! These bastards...”

“But sir-“ the shorter began but stopped abruptly when the other suddenly fell forward and droplets of blood shot on the mahogany floor. “What the-?! BASE!” he began yelling in his station clipped to the black jacket he had. “BASE-“

“You’re too noisy,” Hanbyul hissed and her fist flew across his jaw, sending the boy buckling backwards.

Before he could even as much as point his gun at her, however, he, too, was shot to the ground near his companion. Rushing towards the two men, Hanbyul checked for their pulse and had to shake her head several times as her own heartbeat was ringing too loudly in her ears to catch anything. They weren’t dead, she came to the conclusion when she caught a weak pulse for the two, but she wrapped the two in as much Sellotape as she could before bells were ringing in her ear, signalling that they were already half way and running out of time. Leaving the two leaning against the wall opposite the bookshelf, Hanbyul made a dash out of the room.

“Security’s sensed something odd. Hurry, guys.”

Hanbyul set off in a run as fast as her feet could take her. She held tightly to each one of her guns but tried to keep her cool in order to order her thoughts out. The GPS blinked again; she made a mental note to remind Sungjong he needed to work on improving their current gadgets so that she did not have to keep taking out the little navigation device. One of the spots, just a few meters ahead of her as how it seemed, was Sungyeol for sure. And just feet away from him were-

“Owl, they’re on to you! L, get down now. Coast is clear. You guys are just meters away from each other! Hurry to the nearest elevators up to the top floor. We have ten minutes left.”

A loud commotion unravelled on the corridor and before Hanbyul knew it, a shower of bullets rushing in every direct broke off. She did not know whether Sungyeol was anywhere near her or who was shooting from what direction or whether she was seen but she buckled backwards the moment she collided with someone.

“Zero!” Myungsoo exclaimed. “Owl’s sorting out everything. He’s going to come up to meet us soon. Quick!”

Just as Hanbyul began protesting that Sungyeol would be unable to handle however many guards were on alert, Myungsoo made a grab for her hand and tugged her towards a set of doors of an elevator that were just about to close. It was only then that she managed to catch proper sight of Myungsoo.

“What happened to you?!” she hissed and walked over to him, brushing away some of his hair from his forehead. “Myungsoo-“

“It’s L,” he shot back breathlessly.

“You’re bleeding! Did anyone shoot at you? What happened?”

“Relax...” Myungsoo breathed and leaned against the elevator wall as it pulled upwards to the thirtieth floor. “Sungjong said I should go down as quick as possible but the whole floor was covered. One of them shot at me but I managed to dodge it; shot his own partner instead, that brainless idiot.” He touched the side of his head, wiping away some of the crimson red blood. “I’ll be okay. It was just a bad hit, that’s all. And you?”

“I’m fine,” Hanbyul assured him and threw a glance towards the buttons of the elevator. “One more floor. Get ready.”

They fell silent and broke apart from examining one another as the elevator slowed down and a small beep sound indicated its arrival on the final floor. The doors slid open soundlessly and to their utter luck, the whole corridor was completely silent but drowned in darkness apart from the small illumination brought from the elevator’s own light bulb. Myungsoo and Hanbyul stared ahead before they both reached to the buttons on their night vision glasses and enabled the feature.

Deciding it was best to stay as close as possible together, especially after stepping out of the elevator and the doors of it closing cast the two in darkness, Hanbyul reached to hold on to Myungsoo’s arm, tugging the boy closer.

They walked forward carefully and as soundlessly as possible.

“I’ll turn on the flashlight,” Myungsoo whispered close to her ear. “We’re safe.”

“There’s a code on the president’s door which requires both letters and a finger print scan,” Sungjong began, “I can break into the codes but it will take me one or two minutes. The security programs here are like that in the government!”

“One or two minutes?” Hanbyul checked back and her and Myungsoo exchanged blank glances. “We barely have five minutes left and heaven knows where that folder is. Where’s Sungyeol?”

“Safe,” Sungjong confirmed. “He’s coming up but the building’s on alert now. There’s a few making their way up both by elevators and emergency exists. I’m trying to block the lifts from working by electronically unwiring some commands but doing two things at the same time is quite a hassle. Oh! Sungyeol’s there!”

And indeed he was. The emergency exit sprung open and Sungyeol emerged, huffing and clenching on to his right side, droplets of blood visibly staining the floor as he rushed to them.

“Those bastards are coming up!” Sungyeol announced in a louder than necessary tone.

“What in the world happen to you...?” Hanbyul hissed as she forced his arm around her shoulders whilst holding him around the waist.

“Took me by surprise. I’ve got the finger print papers, though.”

“Your whole corridor is free. The CCTV cameras have been disconnected. The pass key has already been introduced. We have a few of our people catching up from downstairs to your aid. Jiae let them in but hurry.” Sungjong sighed. “Good luck, guys. I’ll see you at the headquarters.”

And with that, three beeps rung in each of their ear pieces, signalling their time was up. Myungsoo snatched the finger print papers from Sungyeol and pressed them with his gloved hand against the digital reader. A green light buzzed as it travelled up and down the print and the three were drowned in complete, tensed silence.

FINGER PRINT SCANNING COMPLETE

ACCESS ACCEPTED

Pushing open the door, Myungsoo held it for the two. Tugging a complaining and fussy Sungyeol in, Hanbyul pushed him on a nearby chair.

“You stay there and don’t move an inch,” she threatened him before rushing to help Myungsoo in the search for the manila folder. “It’s quite a thin folder. It’s not going to be placed anywhere-

“Here?”

Hanbyul turned to where Myungsoo was and saw him tugging at locked drawers.

“Most probably there,” she confirmed. “Do we have anything to break this?”

“In my pocket,” Sungyeol’s rather weak reply came and he his own flashlight. “There’s a few clips in my pocket. I can do-“

“No you can’t,” Myungsoo nagged. “You sit where you are and we’ll do it. Keep an eye on the GPS. We don’t have much time left.”

Jogging back to the drawers, Myungsoo began fiddling with the clips taken from Sungyeol’s pocket. His eyes narrowed in concentration and he had to stop several times to dab at his forehead which glistened with sweat. Like instructed by Myungsoo, Hanbyul tended to Sungyeol’s wound which turned out to be a scratch from a bullet but he was losing considerable amounts of blood; his face had turned paler than usual and sweat glistened on his skin.

Eyeing the GPS with the corner of her eyes, Hanbyul pushed Sungyeol’s shoulder down so he could sit still as she opened a small first aid kit. “They’re three floors below us. Sungjong completely unhooked the elevators so our only chance is going back down from the emergency exists.”

“No way are we going to get out of here alive by using the emergency exists. Move on to plan B,” Sungyeol mumbled as he bit on his hand to keep himself from yelling out loud as Hanbyul pushed his shirt up to clean the wound with antiseptic. “Call Jiae and Soojung. They should head back now and we can get out with the helicopters.”

Tossing him her phone, Hanbyul let Sungyeol take care of their escape as they dumped their original plans. Covering his wound in cotton and medical tape, she tugged his shirt down and helped him sit up again whilst he quickly talked on the phone. The GPS buzzed again and to her complete horror, Hanbyul realized they were no longer the only ones on the floor. Myungsoo, however, was too focused on unlocking the drawers whilst Sungyeol confirmed the helicopters were on their way. But the heavy boots of security guards were approaching and Hanbyul dashed at the door, pressing her body against it as she reloaded her gun.

“,” Myungsoo cursed under his breath but pulled the unlocked drawers together.

“No point keeping it neat anymore,” Hanbyul remarked, “I’m pretty sure the president himself is on his way here. We weren’t coordinated properly this time.”

“We were,” Sungyeol replied and shakily pulled himself up, ignoring Hanbyul’s glare. He shuffled to where Myungsoo was and began looking for the manila folder. “There were more people than we expected, that’s all.”

It all happened all too quickly then. The window was crushed open to bits as the roaring of a helicopter hovered nearby; the door was kicked open, sending Hanbyul flying forward and nearly colliding with the heavy glass table; Myungsoo pulled out a load of folders, the manila one peeking from between them and Sungyeol tugged Myungsoo towards the window as Jiae and Soojung helped the two board the flying apparatus.

Hanbyul reached for the guns and shot rather mindlessly towards the newcomers, sending a few to the ground as she quickly shuffled underneath the desk and managed just perfectly to avoid a bullet just inches away from her head. She was nearly lost in the commotion and could just barely make out any voices.

“Catch them! There’s one of her and ten of us! Don’t lose her!”

But arms wrapped around her and before she could look back, Hanbyul was holding on tightly to a rope ladder emerging from the helicopter. Cold wind whipped at her face nearly knocking out all air from her lungs and when she opened her eyes, she saw they were flying away from the building. With a final sigh of relief, she pointed the gun towards one of the shooters and hit him square in the face. He fell forward out of the window and the bone crushing thud he landed with thirty floors below him would always be imprinted in her memory.

*

“I’ll take Sungyeol hyung to the medical room. Hyung, you should come too,” Sungjong told Myungsoo as he helped heave a nearly unconscious Sungyeol out of the helicopter, the moment they landed back at their headquarters.

“Go,” Hanbyul nodded at Myungsoo who looked over at her. “Your head’s still bleeding. You don’t look pretty like that,” she joked, earning her an eye roll from Myungsoo.

They had landed just minutes ago back at their base in Incheon. Sungyeol’s wound was covered but some way or another, he seemed to have more than one which required tending to; Myungsoo was considerably paler, the dried blood on the side of his head contrasted his skin visibly. Soojung and Sungjong helped take the two injured ones to the medical room whilst Jiae and Hanbyul walked towards the reception area.

“How come it happened like this?” Jiae asked, biting down on her bottom lip.

Hanbyul heaved a sigh and shrugged as she grasped on to the folders tightly. “I don’t know. Sungjong guided us well but I think we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have. I think we were all thinking of time before safety too much... So we ended up taking quick decisions without weighing the consequences properly.”

Jiae gave her a small nod then asked, “and how are you? Are you hurt?”

“Hurt no,” Hanbyul shook her head, “just a little shook. Worried at most but that’s it.”

“But you told us nothing would happen no matter what, right?”

Tapping the manila folder that rested on top of the others, Hanbyul offered a small smile. “Nothing will happen. In fact, I have a feeling they were expecting us to take this... Besides, president can’t even file a report on this. He’d sign his own way into jail if it came to it.”

“What is in that anyway?”

“Let’s just say,” Hanbyul began as they came to a stop in front of her office, “that we’re going to get quite a large amount of money for this.” Upon seeing Jiae’s confused expression, Hanbyul chuckled. “The safety of the Korean Government rests within our hands. I think it’s fair to say,” a smile tugged at Hanbyul’s lips, “that we’re no longer up for petty little missions. We’ve upgraded. Now go get some sleep. I’ll have a look through the contents of this and call everyone for a meeting after you rested a little to tell you more about this.”

“I did not understand a word you just said, unnie,” Jiae sighed with a low chuckled, “but you should rest too.”

Hanbyul nodded and pushed open the door. “I will. Good night.”

But the surprises for the night did not end there. For the moment Hanbyul set foot in her office, someone had already taken over her seat behind the desk. And her expression turned bitter the moment her eyes made contact with the older man’s face.

“Lee Jungyeop-sshi,” Hanbyul murmured bitterly.

“Good evening, Hanbyul-ah,” the older man smiled as he held up a glass of whiskey. “I have a proposal to make for you on behalf of the whole of Woollim Agency.”

Hanbyul narrowed her eyes in a cold glare and she dropped the folders on top of a nearby drawer. “Don’t make yourself too comfortable. I probably won’t accept it at all, you know the flow.”

“Yes, yes,” the man replied and he smiled at her. “Which is why I have reconsidered my offer. 113 billion won and the missing pieces of your puzzle if you choose to work with us.” His eyes travelled down to the manila folder and Hanbyul’s eyes widened. “What do you say, Miss Son? Do you take it or leave it?”