All It Takes (CHAESOO)

17.

NO ONE's POV.

Tel Aviv. 1985.

The woman clenched her fist so tight to crumple the coded message that just came out of the fax machine.

"The program is terminated. All of you have to get out of there."

"It's happening. The program is being terminated and we all need to get out of here as soon as possible or we'll never make it out alive," the woman said to her companions, taking a deep breath.

"What are we actually going to do, say we got out alive?" another woman in the group asked.

"We have to go under. Until when? I don't have any idea. But for now our priority is to get the hell out of Israel because shit is about to go down," a man answered.

All the field agents for an international program of Mossad are being terminated in the recent threat of a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet. Israel is playing safe at the moment. International programs across the world are being put on hold and the Ghost Protocol is in effect.

"Chit, head to Thailand. There is an old colleague of mine waiting there to aid you. Claire, head to Australia. I will contact you as soon as I arrive in Wellington. Ha-joon, Ju-won, head back to Seoul."

"Are you sure you'll head to New Zealand, Margaux?" Ju-won asked, looking intently.

"Pretty sure. Now listen here everybody, the moment we part our ways, under no circumstances that we are going to contact each other again. It will be dangerous. I will make an exception for Claire because I made a promise to her father. You all know what to do. God be with us all," Margaux replied and nodded at her team one by one. It might be the signal they're all just waiting for. They all left the room.

The moment she was alone, tears fell. She doesn't know what's going to happen to all 5 of them, she has just disobeyed a direct order. She was supposed to kill all of them but her conscience is not taking it. They all still have enough time to flee to safety. She just sincerely hopes that everyone will make it out of Tel Aviv alive.

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1995. Seoul, South Korea.

01001101 01101111 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110101 01110011 00101110

(Mossad is looking for all of us.)

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1997. Bangkok, Thailand.

01000111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01101011 01101111 01101011 00101100 00100000 01000011 01101000 01101001 01110100 00101110

(Get the hell out of Bangkok, Chit.)

Melbourne, Australia.

01001001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01100111 01100001 01110101 01111000 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110101 01100111 01101000 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110

(I just had a baby, Margaux. I cannot risk my daughter over anything. I cannot go under anymore.)

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2001.

"Hun, come and take a look at this!" Margaux was tending to her 5 year old toddler who was having a tantrum when she heard her husband's shout from downstairs. She hurriedly went down to see what the fuss was all about.

"What's happened?" she asked but her husband simply pointed at the television on world news.

"A man who is believed to be in the Metsada Unit of Mossad has been captured attempting to get past the National Intelligence Service's security system to obtain classified and sensitive intelligence data. Jung Ju-won who is known to serve in an international program in Tel Aviv was caught red handed by the authorities in the agency's central server system."

Margaux's heart dropped the moment she heard Ju-won's name.

"Min Joon, get Jennie upstairs and prepare to leave," she said, a little frantic. It's only a matter of time before the agency will catch up where they all are. The man nodded in understanding and immediately went upstairs to get their daughter. Then the phone rang. Margaux looked at it in apprehension before picking it up.

"Your team is supposed to be all dead, Margaux. Did you honestly think that you could all run away from the agency? You disobeyed a direct order." Margaux bit her lip upon hearing Nahum's voice, their direct handler inside Mossad.

"You know that I could never do that, Nahum. Whatever Ju-won did, the rest of the team had nothing to do with it. We did all we could to stay under the radar and are starting over with our lives."

"That's not the point, Margaux. It's a direct order and you know all the consequences. Listen, you know that I'm with you through and through but you know they will catch up. They already knew that Chittip is in Bangkok, Claire in Melbourne, you in Wellington and Ha-joon and Ju-won's in Seoul."

"Oh my God."

"You have to get the hell out of Wellington, Margaux. They're----" The man was not able to finish what he was about to say because there was a gunshot crack and echoed in the silence of the early evening. The bullet went straight into the woman's temple and she crumpled to the floor, dead, eyes wide in surprise.