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I looked at the object Leoni had handed to me.

“…I won’t ask where you got this.”

Silence settled between the seats.

I stared at Leoni, who was sitting across from me, while she nonchalantly gazed out the window.

In the awkward silence, where even breathing felt loud, I managed to ask her a question.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

I held a thin piece of paper in my hand.

—

Episode 5 – Journalist, Diplomat, Soldier, Spy

—

As I packed a few tools and hopped into the vehicle, the clock had already struck midnight.

I drove out of the hotel parking lot with my right hand.

“Where did you get this car?”

“It’s a cannon truck.”

“What?!”

On the desolate road, the cannon truck sped along the hardly traversed paths of the Magic Tower.

Turning the steering wheel with my intact right hand, I answered Pippin’s question.

“It’s a contracted vehicle under a false name. Don’t worry; they won’t trace it because I’m using a forged passport.”

“Where did you get the forged passport? We didn’t receive anything like that!”

“The support department provided a few before entry. It’s a passport issued under the name of an unidentified deceased person, so there won’t be any traces, and when I brought it, I snuck it in a diplomatic pouch, so I didn’t get caught at customs.”

To be precise, it wasn’t just any unidentified deceased, but the passport of a Kashubian man who died while traveling to Abas.

“Actually, I have more than this. Kashubia, Korba, Kien Empire, Patalia….”

When it comes to creating forged passports under foreign names, people typically obtain passports through various excuses, steal information, or replicate passports lost during their stay. Sometimes, they even make them using the identities of the deceased.

Back before the 80s, Reds from the Reconnaissance Bureau, Information Bureau, and Operations Bureau infiltrated using forged identification cards under the names of deceased citizens of the Republic of Korea who hadn’t been reported dead.

When I booked a hotel room under a false name, I used another forged passport. Of course, that’s now been burned away.

It’s quite convenient when the administrative processes haven’t been computerized in small towns. Sneaking in with a stolen passport would be such a pain!

Anyway.

“Hey, Jake! Are you getting calls from the employees?”

Jake, who was frantically operating multiple devices from the back seat, replied.

“I’ve contacted the information team. But the other employees are too far away to come. I told them to start heading over….”

“Tell the employees waiting at An-Ga not to move. How long will it take them to get here?”

The employees from the 73rd Project Group, excluding the Human Intelligence Team, pretended to be a private enterprise market research squad.

Being a market research team, they made their base in neighborhoods where lots of white-collar workers lived, which was quite far from here, so asking them to rush over was impossible.

Pippin, rifling through travel agency addresses, spoke up. Maybe due to driving roughly, her hair was all over the place.

“I texted all the addresses.”

“Tell the information team to search from the nearest office.”

“Okay.”

Pippin tapped her phone to send the text. She put her phone down and began scanning the surrounding buildings from the window.

“We need to know if there’s a front office among those travel agency offices. So, tell them to search as thoroughly as possible.”

“Got it.”

Just then, Pippin pointed at a building with her finger.

“You can turn right here. Oh, over there! That red brick building with the white sign!”

“Where?”

“Next to the blue car, in the direction I’m pointing right now!”

I turned the wheel following Pippin’s finger.

Screeeeetch!

The cannon truck left skid marks on the road as it sped toward the destination.

—

When I suggested we search the office immediately, Pippin and Jake argued it would be impossible to search all six offices overnight.

To cut to the chase,

“Are we done?”

“Yes.”

Not at all.

Watching Jake on lookout at the stairs, I chuckled.

“See? We can do it, right?”

“…No, I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“Shut up. Don’t whine about moving in the early morning….”

I leaned against the railing, shoving my right hand into my pocket.

“Spill it.”

Jake, taking off his gloves, began reporting.

He had just finished thoroughly searching the second office.

“There’s nothing inside. No safe, no suspicious items.”

“Another dead end?”

“Looks like it.”

Jake’s reports were annoyingly concise after searching two offices and finding nothing. As I silently stared at him, Pippin came out into the hallway and locked the office door.

With a sinking feeling, I asked Pippin a question.

“Is there really nothing in there? No documents or photos?”

“It’s completely clean. Just ordinary stuff.”

Pippin replied with a weary tone that drained energy from the listener. Having searched through two offices now, and found nothing both times, was either incredibly lucky or something was being overlooked. I clicked my tongue as I got into the cannon truck.

“…Has the information team found anything?”

Sitting in the driver’s seat and glancing back, Jake shook his head.

“They said they didn’t find anything either.”

“…Really?”

“They moved ahead of us and searched two places, but nothing has come up yet.”

I turned to look at Pippin sitting next to Jake.

“Show me the list.”

After receiving the list of travel agency office addresses, I rested my arm on the steering wheel and slowly examined it.

I stared at the documents for quite some time, lost in thought.

The world, shrouded in pitch-black darkness, was silent. The few cars that occasionally passed had vanished, leaving quiet streets with no footsteps. From time to time, all that echoed was the hissing of a cat that had encountered a fairy while rummaging through a trash can.

In a corner where the lamplight couldn’t reach, using the bluish glow from the terminal linked to the security line as illumination, I silently gazed at the documents.

Then, a suspicious phrase caught my eye. It was around the time when the clock’s hands pointed to 1 AM.

“…Hey, why has this office changed its address so many times?”

The office at the very end of the documents had changed its address five times!

Something was definitely off.

“Ugh… this is suspicious.”

“What’s wrong?”

Jake, who was maintaining contact with the information team, asked.

I flipped through the documents and showed it to him.

“This address has changed five times on its own. The others only changed once or twice.”

“How often does a travel agency need to change its address, right?”

“…So, it’s a front office, then?”

“That seems to be the case.”

There was no need to overthink it. I drove the van towards the shady-looking office.

In the meantime, Jake had ordered the Human Intelligence Team to stake out nearby, while Pippin, holding documents and a map, acted as our human GPS.

After parking the car near the office, I jumped over the fence and entered the building where the office was located, while Pippin and Jake kept watch.

From there, well, it was pretty straightforward.

I peeked outside to see if the lights were on, checked with a handheld mirror if anyone was inside, and then opened the door to step in.

I gathered the photographs placed on the walls and desks. I snapped a few pictures for evidence because getting caught later would be a hassle.

I strutted around like a journalist waiting for a scoop. After wandering for a while, I stumbled upon something suspicious in the innermost office.

“…A safe?”

It was indeed a safe.

I paused for a moment in front of it.

Travel agencies often keep passports in a safe for security. Usually, it’s customers’ passports they secure this way.

Of course, due to some negligence, they might just stuff them in a desk drawer instead. That’s why news occasionally pops up about a travel agency in downtown Seoul getting robbed, prompting the police to issue reminders to keep things in a safe.

But,

From what I remember, agencies in this neighborhood don’t typically store passports like that.

And sure enough, when I opened the desk drawer, a bunch of colorful passports tumbled out.

So, what’s in that safe?

“……”

I switched my flashlight to UV light to collect fingerprints, then twisted the dial to open the safe.

What was inside was something very familiar.

I pulled out a pistol located between the passports and documents.

“…Hmm.”

It was the very same item I had seen before in the Cult.

The standard issue pistol of the Imperial Army.

*

A pistol had shown up in a travel agency office. It was the standard issue of the Imperial Army.

The passports inside the safe were all fake, sporting similar photographs but different nationalities and names. The documents were filled with names of people I had never seen before, utterly mundane.

I took photos of the passports and documents, then restored the site to its original state and made my exit.

“Get the photos developed and send them all to headquarters.”

“Yes.”

Handing the film over to Pippin, I sank into the back seat of the vehicle.

Working in the field at 2 AM was really exhausting.

Pippin, sitting in the passenger seat, alerted the security system that the situation was wrapped up.

“There’s a license plate in the trunk, so let’s change it on the way.”

“Where did you get another license plate?”

“Money.”

I adjusted my position comfortably and murmured.

“Bought it cheap from a fence.”

Since the vehicle was leased under a different name, the license plate in the trunk was also a stolen one.

There was absolutely no worry about being tracked.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“And spying is legal?”

On our way back to the hotel, we tossed around light banter while traversing the deserted road.

Pippin spoke up.

“That place is definitely a cover for the Imperial Information Agency. What are you going to do now?”

“What about?”

“Do you have a plan?”

A plan?

“Of course, I do.”

I held up the prepaid phone in my hand.

“Just one text message is all it takes. Whether it’s Fabio Verati or an Imperial spy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’ll find out later. For now, just take this.”

I handed Pippin a roll of tape. He held it up to the streetlight.

“…Cellophane tape? Fingerprints?”

What are we going to do with this?

With that questioning look on his face, I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket.

Fabio Verati’s business card.

“……”

I held the card in my hand, pondering its origin.

[…Is this a gift? It’s just a business card.]

[It’s not just a card. You know the person.]

[Yeah, I do. Fabio Verati. But I don’t understand why the Director would give me this as a gift. I have business cards too.]

[Turn it over.]

[What’s this phone number?]

[That’s the work contact number for your target. Internal use only.]

[…I won’t ask where you got this.]

I flipped the business card over and unfolded the prepaid phone.

“…Let’s wrap this up.”

The end was finally in sight.

*

“…Is that it?”

In response to my question, a Special Activities Department agent with binoculars answered.

“That seems to be it.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll prepare to disembark, so pull over.”

I tightened the scarf around my neck and pulled my hat low.

The van quickly switched lanes, hugging the curb, and the agent swung the door open without delay.

I stepped out of the vehicle, walking toward a man lingering among the bystanders.

I recognized him instantly; I had seen that face countless times.

“Fabio Verati?”

“…Y-yes? Who—”

*Whack!*

I smashed Fabio Verati’s head with a baseball bat.

With that hit, Fabio Verati crumpled to the ground, sending passing pedestrians shrieking away.

But I paid them no mind and gave Fabio Verati a few more whacks before tossing him into the van.

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

As I hopped into the van, the Special Activities Department agent slammed on the gas, and we took off.

I drew the curtains on the window, lowered my head, and pulled down my scarf.

“…Phew.”

I should have done this sooner.

 

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