Project 247, Part 1

Ji Hyo stared out of the passenger seat window as she watched the dark streets of Seoul pass by. It was a strange feeling knowing that the secret life she had been living for the past three years would end tonight. She breathed in deeply, happy about this, but it was a bittersweet happiness. One phase of her life would soon be over, a special phase that only a few select celebrities were privileged to experience.

Three years ago, when she was first approached by the Celebrity Information Agency to serve as an informant and help collect information that would aid the Ministry of Justice in their quest to eradicate criminal activity in the entertainment industry, she would have never thought that she would one day view her time with the agency as a privilege. She had been scared back then, afraid of the dangerous missions that lay ahead. But looking back now, she could think of no word other than privilege to describe these past three years she had been contracted to serve.

She glanced over at Jong Kook now, who was sitting in the backseat. They had both started with the agency at the same time, having been recruited after the CIA noticed their skills on Running Man. Both of their contracts were set to expire tonight after this last information retrieval mission, but Jong Kook had chosen to stay on with the agency and work as a freelance informant afterward. Ji Hyo had considered doing the same, but some part of her had felt like it was time to move on. For the past few weeks, she had been helping to train Go Ara, the new informant that the agency had recently recruited to take her place. Ji Hyo didn’t know if the agency planned for Go Ara to be Jong Kook’s new partner once she passed her trial time as a trainee, or if Jong Kook would be a solo informant now. Although she was worried about him working alone, she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy at the thought of him partnering with another woman, especially one as beautiful as Go Ara. She knew how close partners could become. She and Jong Kook were proof of this, having fallen in love throughout their time together.

As their eyes met now in that dark car, she thought about the love they shared and knew in her heart that even if Go Ara would in fact serve as his new partner, there was no reason to be jealous. Jong Kook may have felt something for Go Ara once, but he was in love with and committed to Ji Hyo now.

Kwang Soo sat unsuspectingly in the driver’s seat, having no idea that his two friends accompanying him to the S.M. Entertainment charity dinner that night were informants. Even if Jong Kook and Ji Hyo confessed right there in the car, Kwang Soo would have laughed them off and accused them of teasing him. He didn’t even believe that the agency existed. He thought that it was just a myth, something bored celebrities liked to speculate about. He reached up now to adjust the rearview mirror so that he could see Jong Kook. “Hyung, you sure you don’t want to just pull up front and have the valet park the car?”

Jong Kook shook his head and leaned forward in his seat. “There’s a parking lot just behind the building,” he said.

“Aish,” Kwang Soo muttered. “Why do we have to park out back like weirdos?”

“Weirdos?” Ji Hyo asked, smiling at Kwang Soo.

“Yah, just do what I say, Kwang Soo-yah!” Jong Kook said as he lightly slapped the back of Kwang Soo’s head.

Kwang Soo held the back of his head and looked at Jong Kook in the rearview, his open mouth soon transforming into a smile. “Was that a love slap, hyung? Do you have a secret crush on me?”

Ji Hyo started laughing.

“Yah, you want another slap?” Jong Kook asked, trying to hide his smile. But his attention shifted then when he noticed the headlights illuminating the steel fencing that enclosed the private parking lot just up ahead on the left. “Turn there,” Jong Kook said, pointing to the lot entrance.

Kwang Soo turned and slowly drove through the small lot, finding one empty spot right alongside the back of the S.M. building, its sleek blue windowed walls reflecting the moonlight.

After they got out of the car, while Kwang Soo’s attention was focused on the building, Jong Kook made eye contact with Ji Hyo and then reached up to press the tiny button on his ear piece. Ji Hyo then subtly lifted her finger to her ear to do the same. With their devices now activated, she and Jong Kook would be able to communicate even if separated.

“Ready?” Jong Kook asked her.

“Of course,” she said.

Jong Kook noticed Kwang Soo trying to fix his tie and walked over to help him with it. “Yah, don’t you look at yourself in the mirror before you leave the house?” Jong Kook asked, as he straightened the knot of Kwang Soo’s necktie.

“Hyung, at least my suit isn’t skin tight like yours,” Kwang Soo said.

Jong Kook blushed. He looked down at the sleeves of his black suit jacket, which hugged his biceps, and wished now that he’d had a suit personally tailored for him.

Ji Hyo pulled the straps of her short black dress higher on her shoulders and reached into her purse for a compact mirror to check her makeup.

“You look beautiful,” Jong Kook said, smiling sweetly at her.

Ji Hyo hooked her arm around his, feeling how tightly that suit jacket was stretched around his bicep, and then hooked her other arm around Kwang Soo’s. The three of them walked from the lot down the small alley that bordered the side of the S.M. building. After emerging from the alley on Seolleung-ro, the street that the S.M. building faced, they saw a line of cars idling all down that street, waiting for the valet.

“See?” Jong Kook asked, pointing ahead toward the line of cars. “That’s why I wanted to park out back.” Jong Kook didn’t like lying, but he didn’t want Kwang Soo to be suspicious. His real motivation for parking out back had nothing to do with the valet service. One of the first lessons he learned years ago when he was just a trainee in the CIA was to always have a plan for transport. If something went wrong and he and Ji Hyo had to flee quickly, they needed to have that car immediately available.

As they approached the front of the building, they could see a few well-dressed idols at the front door. They walked up the red carpet, flashed their invitation to the doorman, and then followed the idols inside. The lobby was white and modern with minimal décor, which provided plenty of space for the large crowd gathered there. The charity dinner, sponsored by S.M. to raise money for the construction of an orphanage for disabled children, was open to all celebrities interested in the cause, no matter the company with which they were associated. While most in the crowd were affiliated with S.M., there were a few idols from YG and JYP there, as well as several high-profile actors and actresses.

Kwang Soo, because he was tall and could see over everyone else, soon spotted Ji Suk Jin in the corner, talking with S.M. founder Lee Soo Man. Kwang Soo managed to get Suk Jin’s attention and called him over. “Hyung, you should have rode in with us,” Kwang Soo said, after Suk Jin made his way through the crowd over to his fellow Running Man members.

“Yah, I see you people enough during the week,” Suk Jin joked.

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Ji Hyo said, gesturing over to where Lee Soo Man was standing, now talking with his niece, Sunny.

“I was just thanking him for holding this dinner,” Suk Jin said.

Ji Hyo eyed Soo Man suspiciously. She didn’t know if he was involved in whatever criminal activity she and Jong Kook were there to collect information about. The agency never revealed all the details to informants; they only briefed them on that which was pertinent to carrying out their mission. In this case, Jong Kook and Ji Hyo knew only that they were there to collect information on something called Project 247. Jong Kook was the lead in the mission. His task was to leave the party undetected, gain access to one of the computers on the office floors, and insert the special flash drive the agency had provided him with, which would automatically connect to the network and simultaneously decode and download any files flagged as relating to Project 247. Ji Hyo’s role was to serve as distraction and do whatever she could to enable Jong Kook to complete the information retrieval. Because the agency had no way of knowing how difficult it would be for Jong Kook to gain access to the office floors, they told Ji Hyo that she would have to survey the situation upon arrival and use her best judgment as to how to proceed.

The party was being held in the Sky Lounge on the eighth floor, which had been converted to a dinner space for the event. When Ji Hyo and her Running Man companions boarded the elevator, she immediately pressed the button for the seventh floor instead, pretending to do so accidentally, and then quickly pressed the button for the eighth floor afterwards.

When the elevator stopped on the seventh floor, she laughed and apologized to the others for the holdup and then quickly scanned what she could of the floor while the doors remained opened. Jong Kook knew what she was doing and tried to do the same without making Kwang Soo or Suk Jin suspicious. The office area was dark and empty and no people were present, but that was about all they could see from their stance inside the elevator in the brief time they had before the doors closed and the elevator resumed its ascent.

The silence and emptiness of the seventh floor was in complete contrast to the loudness and crowdedness of the eighth floor they now entered. The dinner had not yet officially begun and so most everyone was standing around and socializing. They walked through the crowd, saying hello to a few people they knew along the way while checking the place cards on the tables around them, eventually finding their reserved seats at a table near the corner.

Kwang Soo sat down and poked Jong Kook. “Hyung, I saw Yuri-ssi back there.” He turned and looked again, seeing Yuri standing alone on the other side of the room. The other SNSD members were still downstairs in the lobby. Turning back now to face Jong Kook, he asked, “Think I should go talk to her?”

“Aish, Kwang Soo-yah,” Jong Kook said. “Do you still keep that couple ring in your wallet?”

Kwang Soo smiled and reached into his back pocket for his wallet, opening up the billfold for Jong Kook to see the ring inside. He and Yuri had won the couple rings on a Running Man episode a few years back.

Jong Kook shook his head and laughed. “Well, go talk to her,” he said.

“Don’t show her the ring,” Ji Hyo quickly said. “Kwang Soo-yah, if she finds out that you kept that ring in your wallet this whole time, she’ll think you’re a creepy stalker.”

Kwang Soo’s face opened in surprise. “I’m not a stalker! I just… like her.”

“I know,” Ji Hyo said. “Just play it cool.”

“I’m always cool,” Kwang Soo said, nearly tripping out of his chair as he stood up. Blushing now, he said, “Erm, maybe not always.”

After Kwang Soo left, Jong Kook, Ji Hyo, and Suk Jin sat there quietly for a few minutes watching the crowd. Suk Jin eventually spotted S.M. CEO Kim Youngmin and excused himself from the table to go talk with him, leaving Jong Kook and Ji Hyo alone.

Jong Kook watched Suk Jin chatting with Youngmin and then smiled at Ji Hyo. “You think Suk Jin’s trying to get back into the music business?” he joked.

“He doesn’t have to network with S.M. execs to do that,” she said. Refocusing her attention on the mission, she studied the room once more and then leaned forward in her seat. “There’s a stairwell exit behind you,” she whispered. “Don’t look now, but it’s in the corner right by–”

“I know,” Jong Kook interrupted. “I saw that already. I also saw Go Ara.”

“Oh?” Ji Hyo saw her now, too, walking gracefully in a blue shimmery dress through the crowd.

“Anyone near the exit?” Jong Kook asked.

Ji Hyo glanced at the stairwell again and noticed her friend Lee Dong Wook standing nearby, talking with his Roommate co-star, Park Bom. “I can take care of it,” she said.

“Okay, let’s do this at the same time,” Jong Kook said. “You turn their attention away from the door while I slip out.”

“Got it.”

Jong Kook breathed in deeply, as did Ji Hyo. They reached for each other’s hands across the table, clasping them tightly together for a moment, and then nonchalantly stood from the table and walked through the noisy crowd to the far corner of the room.

Ji Hyo walked straight toward Dong Wook. “Oppa!” she said, smiling widely as she wrapped her arm around him to turn him somewhat away from the door. She greeted Bom, too, whose back was already to the stairwell, and quickly engaged them in conversation. “How’s the show going?” she asked.

Jong Kook used that opportunity to quickly sneak behind their backs. Once that stairwell door closed behind him, he gripped his chest, trying to calm his breathing. Doors were always tricky. Sometimes, the agency was aware of alarms and provided them with means to bypass the system. But other times, like in this particular mission, that information wasn’t available. He had no idea if an alarm would sound once that door opened. He hurried down the stairs now to the seventh floor, knowing that even though he hadn’t heard anything, he could have triggered a silent alarm.

He shut off his earpiece for a moment so that he would no longer hear Ji Hyo’s conversation upstairs and then pressed his ear against the seventh floor stairwell door, trying to detect any conversation or movement on the other side. Not hearing anything, he turned back on his earpiece and slowly reached for the doorknob, pulling it open just enough for his body to fit through. Even though it was dark on that floor, he dropped to his knees and crawled into the office space.

All he had to do was access one computer. The agency said that it didn’t matter which computer he accessed; they were all connected to a network. The software on the flash drive he would insert would do all the work. He snuck underneath one of the desks now, trying to fit the entirety of his bulky body under there so that if the lights were to turn on suddenly, he wouldn’t be seen, at least, not from a distance. Ji Hyo should’ve taken the lead on this mission, he thought, as he pulled his legs inside that small space. She was smaller and could hide more easily.

He reached around on the floor, trying to find the computer unit. He had assumed that the computers were desktops, but when he was unable to find the tower, he shimmied himself out of that small space and looked atop the desk surface, seeing a laptop instead. “Aish,” he mumbled. Realizing that Ji Hyo must have heard him through the earpiece, he whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m okay.”

Oh, that’s great, he heard her say, knowing that although she had spoken those words to Dong Wook and Bom, that it was really meant for him.

They had learned how to do this in training, this managing of two conversations at once. It was much harder than it seemed. Ji Hyo had to engage with Dong Wook and Bom in what the agency called cover conversation, while also paying attention to the agent-to-agent conversation, or A2A for short, through the earpiece. The agency had trained them to use as little dialogue as possible in their A2A talk. The lead, in this case Jong Kook, was only supposed to speak if he had encountered trouble, had to stray from the plan, or had completed his mission. The backup, in this case Ji Hyo, had the much more difficult task of speaking in layers, sending messages to the agent through her dialogue in the cover conversation, as she had done just a moment ago. Because of her acting experience, Ji Hyo was much better at this than Jong Kook.

Jong Kook stood hunched over the desk now, trying to keep his body low as he the computer. He cringed somewhat when he heard it loudly power on and quickly looked around the dark space, checking to make sure that he was still alone. After feeling around the base of the laptop in search of the USB port, he inserted the flash drive and watched as the software on the drive accessed the network and began pulling up file after file pertaining to Project 247. Each file popped up with a progress bar that showed the download finish mere seconds after the file had opened.

The glare from the screen was bright in that dark room. Worried about this, Jong Kook ed his suit jacket and held the sides of the jacket out to shield the glare, focusing the light on his white dress shirt. The files continued to open on the screen one after another, too fast for Jong Kook to read, but he was able to catch key words and phrases here and there. Most of the files seemed to be stored emails. Others, he noticed, were documents to and from a pharmaceutical company. Curious, he looked more closely, scanning the lines quickly before they were covered up by yet another file flagged and downloaded by the software on the drive. The more he read, the more he was able to piece together what Project 247 was, but he didn’t want to believe what he was reading. He had experienced the dark side of the music business in his youth and knew how unethical and cruel executives could be, but Project 247 was…

…gone. Just like that, the downloads were complete and the files were all closed out and stored on the drive. He breathed in deeply. “Mission complete,” he whispered, as he yanked the flash drive from the USB port. But before he could hear Ji Hyo answer through the earpiece, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He quickly turned around and saw three large men standing before him, covered in darkness.

Upstairs, Ji Hyo had been listening to Bom talk sweetly about her experiences with Dong Wook behind the scenes on the show. When she heard Jong Kook’s whisper about the mission being complete, she smiled deeply, happy that everything had gone smoothly. But then she heard what sounded like Jong Kook struggling, and then unfamiliar male voices yelling, and then a loud beep as their line of communication was suddenly terminated, leaving Ji Hyo with nothing but the hollow whisper of dead air in her ear.

To be continued…