At exactly ten o’clock PM, Lee Young-jin, breathing heavily, checked his smartphone one last time. Just then, a text message arrived. The sender [YOON] appeared on the screen, and he stepped out of the villa, opening the old front door. An unmarked black domestic car was parked under a streetlamp in the narrow alley. Lee Young-jin instinctively checked the license plate. It wasn’t a rental. He approached the passenger side and opened the door. Thud. The door closed. A man with a familiar face glanced at Lee Young-jin.
“You’ve heard, haven’t you?”
Lee Young-jin nodded and threw his tightly held backpack into the back seat.
“…The item?”
Instead of answering, the man squinted at Lee Young-jin, then silently shifted gears and started the car.
The car slowly moved out of the dark alley.
Lee Young-jin tried to calm his rapidly pounding heart as he stared out the car window. Streetlights, stained walls, and buildings leaning from age slowly passed by the dusty car window.
Only after the car exited the alley and merged onto the inner-city loop did the man in the driver’s seat speak.
“There’s a buyer for the item.”
His mouth went dry at that statement.
That buyer must be Seo Seung-hyun.
Lee Young-jin nodded, trying not to show how tense he was. The man glanced at Lee Young-jin again. A fleeting, dusky gaze skimmed over Lee Young-jin’s pale, tense face and clenched jaw before returning to the windshield.
“Our job is to hand over the item to the buyer tonight.”
“Where is the buyer…?”
“Incheon. The buyer plans to leave Korea by ship immediately after receiving the item.”
The man’s voice had a mocking tone.
“Shanghai, you know? Have you been there?”
A strange chuckling sound came from his throat, a dry, damp laugh. Lee Young-jin kept his mouth shut in response. The man continued to ramble on, unbothered.
“The ferry docks are quite cozy. Used to use squid boats or anchovy fishing vessels, but now, cargo ferries are in trend. Less scrutiny, spacious docks, so you can carry a lot at once. You get what I’m saying?”
Lee Young-jin turned his head, pretending to be unaffected.
The man chuckled as he maneuvered the steering wheel.
“Well, human trafficking isn’t as profitable as it used to be, but China is still a good place… both as a buyer and seller. Lately, most of the brokers do the ‘product laundering’ in China… after inspecting the goods in China, they transport them by train to Kazakhstan or India. About three years ago, I…”
The conversation took an increasingly unpleasant turn.
Lee Young-jin let the vile tale of human trafficking go in one ear and out the other. Instead, his mind was filled with another thought.
The buyer will leave Korea as soon as they take possession of the item?
Seo Seung-hyun?
His heartbeat quickened, and his breath trembled.
Lee Young-jin gripped one hand with the other. His fingertips were shaking severely. If it hadn’t been for the dim interior of the car, it would have been noticeable. He blinked several times.
Moist black eyes stared out the car window.
The streetlights and headlights from other cars drew long lines across the black road.
Kwon Shin-woo, who claimed the item was his.
And Seo Seung-hyun, who would leave Korea immediately upon receiving the item.
Lee Young-jin did not know what to do. Why had Teacher sent him to this place?
‘I…’
His eyes, misty with confusion, groped the stained car window.
‘What will become of me?’
If Seo Seung-hyun really did take the item and leave Korea, what would happen to Lee Young-jin? What were Seo Seung-hyun’s sweet whispers, claiming everything was alright, that there was nothing to do, that he would handle everything? Lee Young-jin had gone through countless fake contracts, unkept verbal agreements, hypocrisy, lies, and deceptions. These were now like blunt knives, no longer feeling so painful to Lee Young-jin. But now, at the thought that all of Seo Seung-hyun’s sweet words might have been false, he felt a sharp pain. His heart and lungs seemed to swell as if about to burst. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they had exploded right then.
Since his insides did not explode, Lee Young-jin painfully continued his thoughts.
Kwon Shin-woo had ordered the retrieval of the item.
But Seo Seung-hyun was now about to leave Korea with it.
After these conflicting propositions repeated in his mind several times, Lee Young-jin felt he understood what he had to do.
The car continued on its way.
On the Gyeongin Expressway, waves of fluorescent light made from the cars’ tail and headlights rippled.
Suddenly, the car left the expressway and sped down a national road adjacent to Incheon Port. The man hummed and slightly opened the rear seat window. A mix of the salty sea smell, cold night air, and a tang of rust entered the car.
The man parked the car in a dark corner of a yard stacked with container boxes, their giant forms looming like enormous beasts, the darkness between them pierced by the long beams of the headlights.
The man yanked the gear into place and turned the key. The rumbling engine quieted. Humming a nonsensical tune, he bent down to pick up an aluminum case he had placed under his seat.
“Get out.”
He nudged Lee Young-jin with his elbow.
Lee Young-jin hesitated before fumbling with his hand to unbuckle the seatbelt.
He was nervous.
Was Seo Seung-hyun really there?
He grabbed his smartphone to put it in his back pocket. Or at least he tried to. The man saw it and growled fiercely.
“Leave the phone. Don’t stir up suspicion for no reason.”
Lee Young-jin looked at him quietly, then obediently nodded.
The man snatched the smartphone from him and tossed it to the back seat. Lee Young-jin’s gaze followed the phone as it arced through the air to land on the seat. The screen lit up momentarily, displaying an icon of a letter before disappearing.
The night in March was cold.
From the west dock, a mix of the fishy and salty sea smell with various rubbish scents wafted.
Something glinted between the 40-foot containers, towering like hills.
Multiple footsteps sounded.
The man elbowed Lee Young-jin’s side. Turning, the man handed Lee Young-jin the aluminum case. Lee Young-jin took it reflexively. Looking up, the man signaled him with a nod.
“Go over there.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.”
The man shrugged.
Something was off. After a series of negotiations stretching from Shanghai through Bogotá, involving billions, it was inconceivable to hand over such a critical item so carelessly, especially to someone inexperienced like Lee Young-jin. Lee Young-jin’s expertise wasn’t in field operations. His work with Ji Jung-hoon and Park Eun-young in Shanghai was his first field assignment, and until then, he had been focused solely on back-end tasks, never meant to be in the forefront.
Lee Young-jin thought of Seo Seung-hyun.
Perhaps it was Seo Seung-hyun’s condition that Lee Young-jin personally carry this case.
Intent on taking Lee Young-jin along with the item…
It was a naively foolish fantasy.
A harsh metallic sound from the opposite direction shattered Lee Young-jin’s frivolous musings.
“Is that it?”
The man answered for him while simultaneously pushing Lee Young-jin’s back roughly.
“Yes. That’s the item.”
Step, step, step, step. The sound of multiple footsteps echoed chaotically among the container boxes in the yard.
Lee Young-jin turned to look at the man.
The man smirked. Through his parted lips, a yellowed canine tooth was briefly visible.
“Go.”
Lee Young-jin turned his head again to look ahead. Under the darkness, a group of burly men and women stood mixed together. A woman stood in the front. She was short and stooped, leaning on a cane. She could have been around seventy years old. She shouted again in a metallic voice.
“We need to check the goods first!”
The man pushed Lee Young-jin again.
Lee Young-jin looked alternately at the man and the aluminum case in his hand. Anger and annoyance appeared on the man’s face. He put his hand inside his jacket. There was a flash of metal. He didn’t pull out a gun, likely wary of the others watching.
“Go!”
The man hissed quietly.
Lee Young-jin looked at him one last time, then turned around. With each step, he drew closer to the woman standing in front of him. The old woman, appearing anxious, tapped her cane on the ground. The sound of dirt crunching under the cane echoed. Lee Young-jin scanned them in the darkness.
Curious if among those faces he would find one familiar, with neat features and long eyes, wearing a proud smile.
But there was none.
Finally, Lee Young-jin stood directly in front of the woman.
The old woman’s wrinkled face nodded. She scanned Lee Young-jin up and down with squinted eyes. Someone from behind her swiftly snatched the case from Lee Young-jin’s hands. Click. The sound of the aluminum case opening rang out.
“It seems to be the right one, sister.”
“Good.”
A tide of confusion crashed inside Lee Young-jin’s skull.
Was Seo Seung-hyun not the buyer of the item?
Then who was this old woman?
Who exactly was Teacher selling the item to?
One question led to another until the old woman abruptly lifted her cane and sharply cut off the chain of Lee Young-jin’s thoughts. The end of the cane tapped Lee Young-jin’s chin. He flinched and pulled back, but couldn’t escape. The old woman then used the cane to turn Lee Young-jin’s face left and right.
“Hmm.”
Greed and satisfaction crossed the old woman’s face.
“Quite a catch.”
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