The Sun to my Moon

Chapter 26: Clueless

The powers that be at the NIS were understandably upset to learn that one of their agents had taken his own life on NIS premises after turning himself in as a mole for Edward Park. They immediately launched a full scale inquiry into the sequence of events that had led to Yoon Han-ki's death.

Cha Dal-geon answered all their questions and made his escape. Go Hae-ri, however, they held onto a little longer. One of the drawbacks of being in a position of authority, he supposed. Fortunately, Gi Tae-ung had turned the camera in the interrogation room on from where he had been watching with Kim Se-hun in the observation room, and it had recorded the entirety of their exchange with Han-ki, so no one could credibly accuse them of making the whole thing up. The footage backed up Dal-geon, Hae-ri, and Hwa-sook's version of events.

Eventually, they released Hae-ri from their clutches, and she found Dal-geon on his couch, staring ahead into nothingness.

She sat down next to him. "Ya," she said softly, bumping her knee against his. "Gwaenchana?"

He shrugged. "Well, all my major arteries are still intact, which is more than Yoon Han-ki can say, so I guess I can't complain. How about you?"

"Better, now that my meeting with Gang Boojangnim is over," she sighed.

"I thought you weren't giving him status updates."

"Ne… turns out I had to make an exception to that rule once a suicidal Edward Park agent killed himself in a NIS interrogation room in front of my entire team. Besides, if Gang Boojangnim is involved, it's not like he wouldn't have known about it anyway. I didn't tell him anything that Edward Park wouldn't have already known, if he told Yoon Han-ki to turn himself in."

"I see," he said distantly.

"So what do you make of it?" she asked in a low voice.

"Which part? The fact that the NIS has had a mole right under our noses all these years, that he turned himself in despite the fact that we didn't have a clue he was involved, or that he killed himself right in front of us, presumably on Edward Park's orders?"

"All of it, I guess."

"Well," he said slowly. "You know I pride myself on my ability to predict human behavior, but I have to admit I didn't see this one coming."

Hae-ri let out a snort of mirthless laughter. "That makes two of us. I still can't believe it. I can't believe Yoon Han-ki was Edward Park's man."

"I can't believe I never noticed Yoon Han-ki was a sociopath," Dal-geon said bitterly.

"I just wish we could have gotten something useful out of him before he—"

"—ruined the carpet in the interrogation room?"

"Before he took his own life less than ten feet away from us," Hae-ri finished.

"Don't despair, Hae-rissi. I believe we learned several useful things from Yoon Han-ki."

"Like what?"

He shrugged. "We learned how Edward Park is always one step ahead of us. We know now that he was the one who told Edward Park about the plan in the warehouse that got Hook shot."

"How did he figure that out?" Hae-ri asked with a shudder. "I know no one on the team told him about it."

"My guess? Good, old-fashioned eavesdropping."

"That was one of his services to Edward Park," she said. "Getting close enough to listen in on the team's plans and passing that information along."

"More importantly, he said that was his most recent service," he said. "Assuming that a geek like Yoon Han-ki failed to crack down computer protocols Hwa-sook set up are working as they're supposed to and there isn't another mole in the NIS, that means your security measures are working. Edward Park has no idea how much we've learned about him since you came up with your little plan to track down his minions."