East

Chapter 5

The courier arrived with a box a few hours later. Rae-Won and Sora stayed out of sight until Ye-Jin was alone again. Rae-Won handed a pair of thin latex gloves to Ye-Jin and she pulled them on before placing the box on her desk. She sat and looked at it warily. It was a plain cardboard box, large enough to contain some file binders and the materials she would need. But what it contained triggered memories of a previous life. It seemed so long ago that she had left the NIS, or rather since they had left her. She wasn't traumatized by the end of her career and the embarrassment had faded over time; partly because she no longer saw any of her former colleagues and partly because she knew that she had not made an error in her work. The fact that Rae-Won had stood by her had helped more than she could say. 

Now that she thought about it, he was always there for her but never intruded. Her mind slipped away from the desk and she wondered if he was interested in her. Was she interested in him? It had been three years, wouldn't they have figured it out by now? She sat back and relaxed, ignoring the box. 

Rae-Won cleared his throat and said, "Ye-Jin ... shall we open the box?"

She snapped back to reality and reaching for a camera on the desk, she handed it him. "Ready?" she asked.

He nodded and she faced the camera.

"My name is Park Ye-Jin. Today is March 5 and it is just after 14:00. This is the box couriered over from Ryu Ji-Mun at the NIS. He said it would contain a requirements kit and materials for me to produce some international documents. I have no knowledge of the mission or the country where it will take place."

She slit the top open with a knife. Folding the top aside, she looked inside and saw the familiar tools of her former trade. One by one she removed them, laid them on the desk, and moved the box aside. She paused as she looked at the all too familiar items and the memories flooded back. Those had been good times, she thought. Her shoulders slumped imperceptibly as she recalled the last few days at the NIS, but she straightened and looked again at the items with a new focus. She continued her narration for the camera, indicating the items as she spoke. 

"This binder will contain the project requirements and digital assets. These are the blanks for a British drivers license, credit cards, and a British passport. Unless there is something strange in the requirements, this seems to be a very small cover-job, probably for a quick entry-exit project."

Ye-Jin opened the binder. Inside were the expected, and totally standard, NIS pages which specified the items to be prepared as well as the information about the recipient. One insert had pockets containing a USB drive, which she knew would contain any images needed.

Without looking up, she said, "Rae-Won, this is a very small job." She read over the requirements. "One passport, one credit card, and one drivers license. Why didn't they do this in-house, it makes no sense."

Sora leaned forward. "What does this tell us?" she asked.

"Either this is an identity to supplement an existing one, or it is for someone being moved, or the agent will be undertaking a very short-term mission." He tapped Ye-Jin on the shoulder. "Do we know this person?"

Ye-Jin moved so he could see the page. "I don't think I have seen this one before. Perhaps it isn't an agent." She turned to look at Rae-Won. "I'm just going to say this, because we've been thinking it but not saying it. This is an off-the-books operation and I'm a disposable player. Aren't I?"

Sora looked between the two of them with a puzzled look on her face and Ye-Jin hoped she wasn't too scared.

Rae-Won turned the camera off and nodded. "I think you're right about it being off-the-books. But there could be other reasons for not doing it themselves. There might be a leak in the operation and you were a safer option other than just shopping the job around town. It doesn't mean that you are disposable."