Chapter 108
She's a Complete Seal
In-hyuk fell beneath the Amurman Bridge together with the car.
Freezing cold seawater surged into the car through every opening at an incredible speed. Simultaneously, the car was sinking even faster.
As this happened, In-hyuk unbuckled his seatbelt and looked at Tae Ju-ha in the passenger seat.
She seemed to be struggling with her seatbelt, holding her breath as if there was a problem.
So, In-hyuk brushed her hand aside and yanked the belt clip out, breaking it with sheer strength.
Kwah-jik―
"......"
The car was already filled with seawater, so he couldn't speak. Soon, In-hyuk grabbed her hand, pulled her out of the car, and began to swim.
Tae Ju-ha pointed upwards with her other hand—it seemed like she was asking a question.
In response, In-hyuk shook his head and pointed in another direction.
If they tried going up right away, the enemies waiting on the bridge would surely be lying in wait for them.
'Should I help her?'
He wondered if she might be struggling.
But then, Tae Ju-ha let go of In-hyuk's hand, and, barefoot before he realized, she started swimming.
'... She's a complete seal.'
She was so fast that she instantly shot past In-hyuk, who had slowed down out of concern for her.
Her survival instincts seemed much stronger than he'd expected.
Of course, that couldn't last long in seawater of 0–2°C. Running out of breath, she seemed desperate to surface.
So, In-hyuk grabbed her again and led her along. Going up now would get them riddled with bullets by the enemies waiting above.
'Was she barely hanging in there thanks to adrenaline from stress?'
The direction they needed to swim in was opposite to where they'd fallen in.
In-hyuk carried Tae Ju-ha in a princess carry and kicked his feet even harder.
Since they were moving rapidly, the brow on Tae Ju-ha's face seemed to twitch in surprise.
After swimming for more than a minute underwater, they reached their intended destination.
"Hoo...!"
His breath came out like smoke.
He lowered the now-blue-lipped Tae Ju-ha from his arms. She must have exceeded her limits, as she wasn't breathing.
So, In-hyuk had no choice but to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"Kuh-up—!"
As Tae Ju-ha regained her breath and tried to cough hard, In-hyuk hastily covered her mouth with his hand.
Once he confirmed she was okay, In-hyuk took out the pistol he'd concealed in his jacket from his shirt front and peeked over the knoll, showing only his eyes.
Three armed agents, dressed in coyote brown combat uniforms like the ones he'd seen before, were prowling near where the car had sunk.
Perhaps because things had been too quiet for too long, one of them set aside his gear and dived into the water.
'Why's he going in? Is he making sure we're dead?'
First, In-hyuk quietly checked the condition of his pistol and picked up a nearby rock.
The men above shifted their gazes around instead of focusing on one place; a reflexive habit drilled into them to avoid blind spots in their perimeter.
Meanwhile, In-hyuk went back down behind the knoll, calculated the timing when their lines of sight overlapped at a blind spot, and immediately popped up to throw the rock.
Shook—Puk!
The rock flew at high speed, striking the man at the back right in the neck.
Startled, another man swung his rifle, but In-hyuk was faster, his pistol already in his right hand.
Tatang—Thud!
This shot targeted the other man's head—striking his brow right as his head turned.
'Now there's only one left.'
In-hyuk threw the pistol toward the beach, ran over to the spots where the men had fallen, and snatched up one of the rifles.
Soon after, the man who'd checked below surfaced, sticking only his head above the water.
Tuthung—
.
.
.
On the roof of an abandoned building, Li Weicheng was waiting for a radio call from Shikai.
Ever since Kang In-hyuk's car had plunged into the sea and failed to resurface for a long time, the last report had been that one man was going in.
Nearly five minutes had passed since then.
He grabbed the radio again.
"This is KIRIN. A2, transmit."
It was Shikai's radio code.
But only static replied—no response at all.
"A2. A2, transmit."
It was about 4 km across the bridge; he couldn't see the situation even with binoculars.
With radio silence ongoing, unease began to creep in.
"All personnel, withdraw from your positions. C Team to the airport, all others gather at A2 point."
With these orders, Li Weicheng packed up together with Ruben and headed downstairs to the car.
He couldn't drive across the bridge, as it was jammed with other vehicles, so he had to make a big detour toward the airport, eventually taking about 40 minutes to reach the area.
"Team leader! You need to come see this!"
Other team members had arrived earlier and were searching the area.
At one agent's shout, Li Weicheng hurried over. There, bloodstains were visible wetting the ground.
"Blood? But no bodies?"
"Bloodstains were also found near the knoll by the sea."
Li Weicheng glanced around and muttered, "Did all of them get taken out?"
Otherwise, three members of the A2 team couldn't have suddenly vanished off the radio like this.
But he was still puzzled.
Kang In-hyuk had fallen into the sea with Tae Ju-ha inside the car.
They might manage to survive, but the problem was the three armed men standing guard on shore.
Furthermore, Kang In-hyuk had had to protect Tae Ju-ha, making escape even harder.
"Could someone else have ambushed them? If you look at the traces, the bodies could have been thrown in the sea."
Ruben, who had quietly approached, voiced his doubts.
Li Weicheng let out a deep sigh at that question.
"Intervention in a sudden situation? While we lay the trap and waited, they were actually targeting us?"
"It's unlikely, but based on the circumstances, that seems most probable."
"With no bodies, it's hard to draw any conclusions."
Bzzz—bzzz—
At that moment, a call came in from C Team, who had gone to the airport.
"What's the situation?"
[We don't see anyone else for now.]
"So they went into the departures terminal... Stay there just in case."
The call ended quickly.
There were still questions left unanswered.
But there was another problem.
Given the shootout that had occurred earlier at the overpass junction, russian intelligence could be on the move as well.
Some agents, checking the area, approached.
"There are no traces of an escape west on foot on the outskirts."
"Same for the east."
They had checked the mountainside, not just the roadways.
But finding nothing there only made things look even more bleak.
"We're pulling out of here for now."
They had already wasted an hour reaching this spot.
No matter what method Kang In-hyuk and Tae Ju-ha had used, it was almost impossible to track them down right now.
* * *
Tadak—tadak—
A crackling sound tickled her ears, and as the sensation of feverish heat and the acrid smell of smoke wrapped around her skin and nose, Tae Ju-ha slowly began to open her eyes.
"Are you awake?"
At that moment, In-hyuk looked over at her and asked.
Feeling fully alert, Tae Ju-ha tried to sit up from where she was lying but clutched her head.
"Ah..."
"You only just recovered—you should stay lying down."
A headache came crashing in, twisting her brow, so Tae Ju-ha gave up on rising.
"What... happened? Where are we?"
"As you can see, it's a nearby abandoned house. We hid here after escaping those guys, mostly because of the CEO's condition."
The scene of falling into the ocean flashed through Tae Ju-ha's mind.
"How did we get away?"
"With a lot of effort. That's how we're alive, as you see."
In-hyuk replied nonchalantly, poking at the fire in the knee-high drum in front of him to stir it.
Once again, Tae Ju-ha wrinkled her brow.
"Could you be a little more specific?"
"I got lucky, knocked those guys out and stole a car nearby to get here."
"Knocked... out?"
Recalling his words, Tae Ju-ha realized there was more than just the car involved.
Her face paled.
Noticing this, In-hyuk picked up the pistol sitting next to him and showed it to her.
"By any chance... did you see?"
"Uh? What? See what?"
"When we came up after falling into the sea with the car."
In truth, Tae Ju-ha had briefly regained consciousness then.
Desperate to survive, she'd climbed up the knoll on pure stamina and witnessed In-hyuk doing something with the gun.
But there was no way she could mention it in this atmosphere.
"Did something... happen there?"
"Are you sure?"
With that, In-hyuk pulled back the slide on his pistol.
Cheolkeok—
"W-What are you doing?"
"Now that I think about it, the spot where you were lying had moved a bit when I came back."
"That... can't be."
Tae Ju-ha's gaze was fixed anxiously on the pistol in his hand.
"Is that true?"
"Well..."
In-hyuk stared straight at her, then slowly released the tension on the slide.
Cheolkeok—
"I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit. Also, I already knew you woke up back then."
"A joke? How can you joke about something like this—?"
Right then, Tae Ju-ha tried to jump up in anger, but was startled when she saw she was wearing unfamiliar clothes under the blanket.
"In this cold, I couldn't leave you in wet clothes, so I changed you—had no choice."
"All of them?"
"There's no point in only changing the outer layer, is there?"
"......"
Tae Ju-ha was struck silent, maybe because of his matter-of-fact tone.
In-hyuk switched back to the important topic.
"The others should be on a flight to Korea by now."
Having missed her chance to be angry, Tae Ju-ha answered quietly.
"... That's a relief."
"We'll make a move once the CEO feels a bit better."
"Are you planning to go to the airport? What if they're waiting there too?"
The people who had openly blocked the highway junction and engaged in a gunfight could do even worse if they wanted to kill Tae Ju-ha.
"That's why we have to be extra careful going back."
"How?"
"I'll figure that out, so the CEO should focus on recovering for now."
In-hyuk briefly checked outside through the window, then came back.
He swiftly disassembled the pistol and spread the parts out on the battered box to inspect them.
Watching this, Tae Ju-ha asked cautiously, with a shocked expression.
"When... did you learn to do that?"
"As a hobby."
"Killing people too?"
It was a sensitive question.
But Tae Ju-ha felt she had to confirm what she had seen.
While inspecting the barrel, In-hyuk replied slowly.
"I had no choice."
"It was too natural to sound like you didn't. Are you... a psychopath or something?"
With the question, Tae Ju-ha remembered the always-calm image of In-hyuk.
In-hyuk let out another sigh.
Just as she said, it really had become second nature. He'd shed so much blood in his previous life.
But it wasn't something he could explain to her.
"I can't really say I'm not. Ah, by the way, even though your phone got destroyed, don't try to contact anyone else. You could give away our location."
In-hyuk grabbed a can of sweet corn from somewhere, opened it, and handed it to her.
Click—
Tae Ju-ha held back further questions, even though she wanted to ask more.
No matter what, the fact that she was alive was all thanks to In-hyuk.