Kyungsoo was right.  A brief explanation to Shin Hyesung – who had left the interrogation room shortly after Miran had entered it – later and she found herself presented with two new passes and a key.

“I feel bad lumping you with this on your second day,” Hyesung sighed, “but it’s true that there aren’t very many people who could be trusted with this job.”  He patted the key.  “Don’t lose this.  You can use it to access all the personal files of all our agents in my filing cabinet there.”

Miran allowed her eyes to flicker over to the filing cabinet in the corner that he was indicating.

“Aren’t they online sir?”

“Yes, but we’ve got to work on the assumption that the rogue is the top of all the fields or we’re going to underestimate them and let them slip through our fingers.  The last thing we want the rogue to see – or, in fact, anybody with any knowledge of computers to see – is somebody sifting through the files.”

“I’m a competent hacker, sir.”

“Knowledge that there’s an internal hunt will upset a lot of people.  For all we know, the rogue is in the computing department, so we can’t ask them.”  He picked up the two passes and fanned them out between his fingers.  “White one is for the archives.  Black and red is an all access card.  It’s my personal one, so don’t you dare lose that either.  I’m getting myself another one made.”

Nodding, Miran took the passes and the keys and pocketed them.

“Good luck, Cho.  Leave me a list of the people you can put in one camp or the other, okay?  And feel free to co-opt people if you think they can help you, but otherwise keep this all secret.”

“Yes sir.”

“Great.  Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go and see the Minster of Defence immediately to discuss a certain problem in our basement.  Good luck.  And do your best to be successful.  You’ll find the rogue when you find the rogue – hopefully – but we’re at war.  People’s lives depend on this.”

Miran nodded again and Hyesung disappeared through the door.  With a sigh, Miran sat down at his desk, taking a moment to gather herself and let everything sink in.

Aged twenty-three and already onto the most important job of her life, and one that could change the tide of the war that had been hanging over her country ever since she was a teenager.

But the pressure was extreme.  She remembered one of her friends who was studying to be a medic telling her that things like snipping an aorta and cauterising a wound weren’t actually at all hard, but the pressure to do it perfectly every time was what made it so scary.

“It’s just one gigantic game of Mafia,” she murmured to herself.  “It’s just one live gigantic game of Mafia.  You’ll find the rogue.”

There was a knock on the door, but before she could answer it, a young man had let himself in and was heading straight over to the filing cabinet Miran had the key for.  He jumped when he saw her, suddenly looking very guilty.

“Hi,” he said, standing there awkwardly as his gaze glanced between her and the filing cabinet.  “You’re Cho Miran, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Miran.  “What are you doing in here?  COO Shin’s out.”

“I need the file of one of my field agents.”  He gave her a beguiling smile and headed for the cabinet.  Momentarily dazed, Miran failed at first to challenge him again.

“All the files are strictly confidential,” she pointed out.  “And if you really need to access them, then you can do so via the computer.”

“I prefer paper,” the man objected.  “Not so much of a strain on the eyes.”  He stood in front of the cabinet, back turned to her for a second or two, before there was a tiny click and one of the drawers slid open.  Before Miran could stop him, he’d hauled out several files rather than just the one he said he needed, checked the names on the front, and then put three of the back.  Tucking the other four under his arm, he trotted back out of the room.

Miran stared after him.  How had he got in there in the first place?  Hyesung had dropped the latch before leaving to give her privacy, and she knew that the normal access cards wouldn’t let anybody through.

Narrowing her eyes, she conjured the man’s appearance to mind as best she could.  He’d been relatively short – probably about her own height – with a squarish sort of face, a bright smile with very straight teeth, and his hair had been neatly groomed with his fringe brushing the tips of his eyebrows.  Just from his hair and – okay, from his dark, well fitted suit as well – manner of holding himself, he was either rich or a total stickler for appearance.  Possibly both.

Miran moved over to the cabinet and unlocked it – had he picked the lock if he didn’t have a key? – and opened the drawer he had.  It depended how the files were organised, of course – but Hyesung didn’t strike her as the meticulously organised type from the papers scattered across his desk – but if the files were grouped according to division rather than department or alphabetically, there was a chance that man’s file would be somewhere near the ones he’d removed.

And she would need to get those four files off him at some point.  Especially before he could tamper with them, if that was something he intended on doing.

To her dismay, Hyesung did actually file things properly in his cabinet and it was all neatly done in alphabetical order.  With a sigh, Miran pulled out the first twenty files and sat back at his desk to go through them.

It was almost the end of office hours when Miran decided she couldn’t take it anymore and set the charts she’d been drawing aside, abruptly remembering the words of a teacher back in school.

If you’re pressed for time, don’t read everything for the sake of research.  Keep the question at the front of your mind – ask all the questions, and then start reading.  If it doesn’t answer the question, discard it.

She’d just been spending her time trawling through thirty or so of six hundred odd files she needed to get through and she’d been spacing out while she was doing it.  She hadn’t paid any attention to what Oh Sehun had told her at all – that was, assuming he was to be trusted with his information.

Yoo Yerim knew who the rogue was.  How do I know who Yoo Yerim knew?  How do I find out without people lying to me and getting suspicious about it?

She needed somebody to help her – somebody trustworthy.  And the stupid thing was, the only people she could definitively trust in the entire building, if she really looked at the essentials of it, were herself and Shin Hyesung, because why would the COO of the secret service be batting for the other side?

Or maybe the idea of that was just too horrific for her to want to contemplate.  Hyesung might