Midnight and Dawn (11/13)
Title: Midnight and Dawn
Authors: e and hopeandmemory
Rating: NC-17 (for sex and violence)
Overall Word Count: 36283
Warnings: Whatever you'd reasonably expect to see on western television in a crime drama will be found in this fic. If you are easily triggered by material referenced (but rarely explicitly shown) in these kinds of programs, you might want to tread carefully.
Summary: In 2006, Kim Heechul put Kim Youngwoon behind bars. He became a legend almost immediately--the guy who watched Star King instead of doing work, drank more than his fair share of the shitty office coffee, and managed to drive off every partner he'd ever been assigned. And then in 2009, Kim Jungmo joins the force, a new case leaves Special Ops Department 1315 grasping helplessly at straws, and everything changes. Heechul/Jungmo
XI.
After Heechul’s calmed down and whirled into the bathroom, he tells Jungmo in no certain terms that he is to leave immediately. Jungmo nods and picks up his phone, calling a furious Kyuhyun for a brief on the extent of the damage and to pass on the message that both he and Heechul are on their way over.
Kyuhyun is nearly hysterical with rage when Jungmo enters Department 1315, typing frantically into a command screen on Sungmin’s computer. “Oh my fucking--” He slams his hand into the desk and whirls around when Jungmo approaches.
“What happened?” Jungmo wheels a chair over to take a look at what Kyuhyun’s doing.
“Someone over there realized they were being accessed by a foreign IP. I thought that might happen at some point, so I made sure to encrypt the connection and set up a proxy server.” Kyuhyun fists his hands in his hair. “I don’t even fucking know how it happened, but they blew right through it, decrypted the FTP information and implanted a virus into SMPD’s entire network.” He looks like he wants to vomit. “And Changmin quit, and I can’t fix all of this on my own. There are hundred of computers in this building, we’re at a virtual standstill without them.”
Heechul blasts through the office doors just then, dressed in the tightest jeans Jungmo has ever seen, and in a shocking shade of yellow to boot.
“I had to find a cab,” Heechul says when he walks in. His cheeks are sallow, his eyes red, and his hand is bandaged. Jungmo feels his stomach roll. “Kyuhyun,” Heechul snaps, voice overly rough, and Jungmo pushes away from the desk to let Heechul work. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“I just explained it to Jungmo. Fuck, I don’t have time for this!” Kyuhyun barks, reaching down to hard boot the computer and straightening to hammer on the F8 key. “Youngwoon’s guys traced our IP and sent a virus into our entire network. You need to call your guys at Alpha, they’re going to see the video feed and realize we’re watching them. Cover’s blown.”
Heechul curses and flicks on the radio. His fingers are red and look raw, but the pink has been scraped off. “Alpha, can you hear me?”
“Our screens are dark, Heechul. What’s happening?”
“Sungmin. Siwon. Mission abort. Get out of there, now. Don’t bother with stealth--they know you’re there. They can track you. You copy?”
“Wait, they can--”
“Do you fucking copy, Lee Sungmin?”
“Copy. We’re bailing.”
The line is cut, and Heechul sinks into a chair, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Where is everyone else? I need to know where we stand.”
“Lieutenant’s doing damage control,” Kyuhyun says, running commands in safe mode. “You thought everyone was pissed when JYJ left, the entire network is infected because of 1315.”
“Stop whining, Kyuhyun. Your fucking computers are the least of our problems. More typing, less talking.” Heechul spins around in his chair just as Jongwoon walks in, closely followed by an anxious-looking Donghae.
“Everyone sit. I need reports. Alpha’s been compromised, the computer network is fucked. I need to know if there is any fucking way we can get into that place without it being a total suicide mission.”
“What do you mean, Alpha’s been compromised?” Donghae grabs the nearest chair and steers it over to where Heechul is sitting. “They didn’t--Sungmin and Siwon got the fuck out of there, right?”
Heechul nods, groping for his phone and firing off a quick text message. “If they don’t call within three minutes, we’re going out there. I’m not--this isn’t going to happen again, Donghae.”
Still, everyone waits with bated breath until Heechul’s phone rings. He flips it open immediately. “Sungmin. Yeah. Fuck. Okay. We’ll see you soon. Hurry up, I need reports.”
He snaps the phone shut and tosses it on the desk. “Sungmin thought he heard shots as they drove out. Fuck. If we had called them any later--” He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I need coffee.”
Jungmo eases himself out of his chair and goes to brew a new batcht. As he watches the coffee drip slowly into the pot, he wonders how much time they have to take out Youngwoon, how long it’ll be before he tries to smuggle himself out of the country, and how much longer Heechul will be able to hold himself together. He can’t smother Heehee every time she shows up, and if she’s serious about hurting herself...
Jungmo feels nauseous, jerking the coffee pot off the hotplate and filling Heechul’s mug. When he comes out of the breakroom he sees that Siwon and Sungmin have arrived, Sungmin a little paler than usual, Siwon clutching his rosary beads tightly in his fist. Jungmo hands off the coffee to Heechul and returns to his seat.
“Kid,” Heechul says sharply, and Jungmo looks up. “What do you have? Anything on their radio codes, any luck with decrypting the e-mails?”
Jungmo swallows hard and shakes his head. “I’ve tried everything I can think of. It has to be totally randomized, there’s literally no other way it could be this complicated. I’ll get a few words figured out in one message, but the next one will have a completely different code to break.” He pulls at the sleeves of his sweater and looks down to avoid the hardness in Heechul’s eyes, to keep from looking at the bandage on his hand.
“Fabulous. Glad you spent all of the last few days doing absolutely fucking nothing. Jongwoon?”
“Nothing I’ve done is going to be any good if we can’t get in,” Jongwoon replies, paging through a sheaf of papers. “Smoke grenades don’t work long-range, and there’s no way we’re going to get permission to do a flyover bombing, not if Youngwoon isn’t behaving aggressively.”
“Great. Fucking brilliant. Donghae, please tell me you have something.”
Donghae sighs. “Flat terrain, no real vantage points to work from. And anything decent I could find on the satellite, Youngwoon’s security has beacons on. Only way we’re getting in, from what I can tell, is a raid, and that plan’s been flat-out rejected, so. I don’t know what to tell you, Heechul.”
“Jesus.”
Even Siwon stays quiet. Heechul looks up from the paperwork. “I don’t know,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t do anything without data, dammit. We need to find another way to get inside. I need you all on the floor, running through every single idea you can come up with. Plausible, implausible--you’ve got to give me something to work with. Siwon, how quickly do you think Youngwoon could possibly move out?”
“Thirty hours, I’d say, at best.”
“Watch the airports. Private and public. Make sure no one leaves this country without our double and triple checking that he isn’t Youngwoon. I actually have no idea why the rest of you are still in this room when I just told you to get to fucking work.”
Everyone scrambles away from the general vicinity of Heechul’s chair, collecting folders of notes and pens and legal pads.
“Conference room,” says Sungmin. “Gonna be a long night.”
--
By dawn, there hasn’t been much progress. The Lieutenant pokes his head in at around 6 a.m., red-eyed and hoarse (presumably from calming screaming department heads down all night), and suggests they take a break and regroup after lunch, when everyone’s a little less hungry and tired.
Heechul clearly has no plans to leave, since he’s still at his desk, scratching things down on a sheet of paper. Jungmo pauses as he approaches, steels himself, and stops beside Heechul’s chair. “Heechul.”
“Don’t bother me when I’m busy.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Not now.”
Jungmo leans forward and splays his palms out on the edge of Heechul’s desk, dropping his voice. “It’s about the cut on your hand.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Jungmo closes his eyes and breathes out slowly, his lip still stinging. Donghae charges over, positioning himself between Heechul and Jungmo.
“Seriously, we talked about this, Jungmo. Get the fuck away from him.”
“Donghae.” Heechul stands up, running a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. C’mon, kid.”
Jungmo resists the urge to body-check Donghae, simply side-stepping him instead and following Heechul out to the sixth floor lobby. Heechul leans against the wall next to the elevator, folding his arms and leveling his gaze at Jungmo. His color looks like it’s improved a little from last night--thanks to the yelling, Jungmo thinks--but his cheeks look sunken and the bags are back underneath his eyes.
“You were right,” Jungmo says.
“I am always right. What was I right about this time?”
“Her. She really was dangerous.”
“You fucked her. At least once.”
“Only once.”
“I seriously don’t understand how you could do that. She wasn’t me. That was my body, Jungmo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. You brought me back, before. But that really isn’t enough right now. I’m barely holding her back--I haven’t really slept in over a week.”
“Heechul--” Jungmo moves forward, but remembers the way Heechul had flinched away. Jungmo shoves his hands in his pockets instead.
“Help me kill her. Help me solve this case and finally get everything back. I’ve lost years of my life to her, Jungmo. I want them back.”
Jungmo. Jungmo clenches his fists. I wish I’d waited. It sounds so much better in his voice.
“I’ll do anything, Heechul.”
“I know. So help me end this before I fall asleep. Before she comes back.”
--
Despite Jungmo’s conviction, the day only gets worse. Midnight rolls around again, and while Siwon assures Heechul that there is no way Youngwoon has escaped, everyone knows that they’re flying blind and waiting for the inevitable. Heechul has spent the entire day drinking coffee and twitching helplessly, holding meetings to shout at the staff for having nothing new for him.
Everyone in the office takes turns in the break room, grabbing just enough sleep to trudge back into the office with another cup of coffee, but Jungmo stays awake, forcing himself to find something, anything that will help him find the key to these codes--to crack this case for Heechul. But even as he scans the lists, searching for patterns, he knows that it won’t be enough--that even complete access to their phone calls will only prolong the inevitable. We can’t get near enough to monitor him, and we can’t overpower him. We’re totally fucked.
Heechul, of course, also doesn’t sleep. Instead he stays in the conference room, sticking maps and lists to the walls and periodically throwing pens across the room. When morning breaks, he spends hours rushing between departments, showing complicated probability charts to members of other teams--”BoA has been on her fair share of raids,” he says to himself when he walks out at noon. “She might be able to help.”
When Heechul leaves the floor, everyone sighs and leans back from their terminals. Donghae tersely informs everyone that he’ll be down at the range, blowing off steam. When no one stops him, Jungmo voices his concern.
“Shouldn’t we all be working?”
Sungmin fixes him with a pitying look. “Jungmo. We all know. This is pointless. We’re flying completely blind, here, and if Heechul stops panicking for about three seconds and thinks about what what he’s trying to do, maybe he’ll realize that our best bet is just to let Youngwoon skip town and become someone else’s problem.”
But that wouldn’t get rid of Heehee, Jungmo thinks desperately. And then: he sounds like Kyuhyun.
And then: and they’re right. We’re wasting time and resources, fighting a losing battle. And for what?
For Heechul.
Jungmo looks around the room. Siwon and Jongwoon look dead on their feet, and Sungmin is barely conscious, sipping at his eighth coffee of the morning. Geng is drooling into his phone, and from the silence in the Lieutenant’s office, it seems like he’s joined his PA in dreamland.
One more day, Jungmo thinks. I’ll give it one more day. And after that, we’ll have to tell Heechul that it’s over. There’s nothing we can do.
But the decision weighs heavily on his conscience.
--
Friday ends with everyone taking the evening off in the breakroom. Heechul is still bent over his desk, eyes red, hands shaking.
“Do you want company?”
“What? No. Go sleep. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Jungmo wants to put a hand around him but settles for refilling his coffee mug. When he gets back, Heechul is staring into space.
“Heechul, are you sure you can’t sleep?”
“She’ll come back.”
“Even if we’re all here, watching?”
Heechul slams a fist into his desk. “And give her access to all of this?”
Jungmo declines to mention that they have absolutely no helpful information whatsoever, so she couldn’t really do all that much damage. “Sorry.”
“Just go.”
He does. The break room is dark when he tiptoes in, trying to find an empty cot or pullout couch. In the dim light cast from the office, he can see the sleeping forms of 1315’s other agents: Siwon, on his back with his arms folded over his chest like a giant God-fearing vampire; Sungmin, clutching a pillow in his arms for want of another body; Jongwoon, curled halfway into the fetal position with his head resting on his arms. The only person he can’t see is Donghae.
“Maybe he went home,” Jungmo mumbles into a pillow, closing his eyes.
--
But Donghae still isn’t around the next morning when everyone reconvenes in the conference room looking dishevelled and exhausted. Heechul curses and storms out, asking someone to please fucking call him already and stop wasting all of their time. Jungmo blinks at that--he’s never heard Heechul angry at Donghae.
He’s losing it.
Amber rushes in a few minutes after Heechul has left, clutching a sheet of paper.
“Guys. Lee Donghae--is he here?”
Siwon frowns. “No. We haven’t seen him all morning, actually.”
“Or last night,” Jungmo adds.
Amber crumples to the floor. “He left a note by his locker--it’s my fault. He’s always down there, so I gave him a special key to get at his rifle and sniping equipment whenever he wants it. I never thought--”
“Amber, what’s wrong?”
She takes a deep breath and hands the letter over to Sungmin who reads it aloud.
“There’s a way in through the back, small enough for one person. Kim Kibum might still be working for Youngwoon. I’m going to call in my favor.”
“Fuck,” Jongwoon says. Siwon crosses himself, praying under his breath.
“Wait, what does he mean?” Jungmo asks. “He’s not--is he going to Youngwoon?”
“Fuck, that idiot. Kim Kibum was the inside man who gave us the bad information that got Donghae’s father killed. He owes Donghae.”
“But why now? Why didn’t he do this days ago?”
“Because it’s a suicide mission,” Siwon explains calmly. “He’ll never get out alive. He’s doing this for Heechul.”
Still on the floor, Amber buries her face in her hands. “I never should have given him that code. I just thought it’d be easier for him not to have to worry--” Siwon crouches to put an arm around her, whispering comfortingly.
“Hyukjae!” Sungmin shouts, walking toward the Lieutenant’s office with the letter clutched in his fist. “There’s something you need to see.”
--
When Heechul gets back to the floor after one, they tell him. Jungmo is at his desk when it happens--Hyukjae calls Heechul in, and Sungmin clears all breakable objects from around Heechul’s desk.
“How could you keep this from me,” Heechul screams. “I’m your tactician. I need to know!”
Hyukjae’s voice is too low to catch, but the resulting smash is audible despite the heavy door separating Hyukjae’s office from the remainder of the bullpen. “You fucker. You said this would never happen again. We were never going to let Donghae do that again. That was the deal when he came back despite failing his fucking psych tests!”
A pause. “You’re a real son-of-a-bitch, Hyukjae. I’m fucking through with this. How could none of you manage to keep an eye on him? If you wanted someone to risk his neck, you should have just fucking told me at the start and I’d just go back in, do what I did last time, consequences be damned.”
Heechul storms through the door, jacket over his shoulder. “Kid, we’re going.”
Jungmo blinks. “Me? Going? Where?”
“Take a set of company keys--one of the unmarked, unregistered cars--and dump all of your identification. We’re going to get Donghae back.”
“Heechul, you can’t be--”
“I’m dead serious, Sungmin. We all knew this might happen. I’m the only one who can get in there. I might even be able to stop what they’re about to do to Donghae.”
“At least wear a wire, Heechul, so we can keep an eye on you. You were gone for two and a half years last time and--”
“No dice. They might find it. Kid, are you ready?”
Jungmo throws his wallet to Siwon. “Keep it for me?”
“‘Do not fear for I am with you; be not discouraged for I am your God; I encouraged you, I also helped you, I also supported you with my righteous hand.’ Isaiah chapter forty-one, verse ten.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Of course. Go.” Jungmo turns around--Heechul is already out of door, keying open the stairwell and leaping down flights.
“What will they do to Donghae?” Jungmo asks as they dash out of the building.
“Kill him.”
→ XII
Authors: e and hopeandmemory
Rating: NC-17 (for sex and violence)
Overall Word Count: 36283
Warnings: Whatever you'd reasonably expect to see on western television in a crime drama will be found in this fic. If you are easily triggered by material referenced (but rarely explicitly shown) in these kinds of programs, you might want to tread carefully.
Summary: In 2006, Kim Heechul put Kim Youngwoon behind bars. He became a legend almost immediately--the guy who watched Star King instead of doing work, drank more than his fair share of the shitty office coffee, and managed to drive off every partner he'd ever been assigned. And then in 2009, Kim Jungmo joins the force, a new case leaves Special Ops Department 1315 grasping helplessly at straws, and everything changes. Heechul/Jungmo
XI.
After Heechul’s calmed down and whirled into the bathroom, he tells Jungmo in no certain terms that he is to leave immediately. Jungmo nods and picks up his phone, calling a furious Kyuhyun for a brief on the extent of the damage and to pass on the message that both he and Heechul are on their way over.
Kyuhyun is nearly hysterical with rage when Jungmo enters Department 1315, typing frantically into a command screen on Sungmin’s computer. “Oh my fucking--” He slams his hand into the desk and whirls around when Jungmo approaches.
“What happened?” Jungmo wheels a chair over to take a look at what Kyuhyun’s doing.
“Someone over there realized they were being accessed by a foreign IP. I thought that might happen at some point, so I made sure to encrypt the connection and set up a proxy server.” Kyuhyun fists his hands in his hair. “I don’t even fucking know how it happened, but they blew right through it, decrypted the FTP information and implanted a virus into SMPD’s entire network.” He looks like he wants to vomit. “And Changmin quit, and I can’t fix all of this on my own. There are hundred of computers in this building, we’re at a virtual standstill without them.”
Heechul blasts through the office doors just then, dressed in the tightest jeans Jungmo has ever seen, and in a shocking shade of yellow to boot.
“I had to find a cab,” Heechul says when he walks in. His cheeks are sallow, his eyes red, and his hand is bandaged. Jungmo feels his stomach roll. “Kyuhyun,” Heechul snaps, voice overly rough, and Jungmo pushes away from the desk to let Heechul work. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“I just explained it to Jungmo. Fuck, I don’t have time for this!” Kyuhyun barks, reaching down to hard boot the computer and straightening to hammer on the F8 key. “Youngwoon’s guys traced our IP and sent a virus into our entire network. You need to call your guys at Alpha, they’re going to see the video feed and realize we’re watching them. Cover’s blown.”
Heechul curses and flicks on the radio. His fingers are red and look raw, but the pink has been scraped off. “Alpha, can you hear me?”
“Our screens are dark, Heechul. What’s happening?”
“Sungmin. Siwon. Mission abort. Get out of there, now. Don’t bother with stealth--they know you’re there. They can track you. You copy?”
“Wait, they can--”
“Do you fucking copy, Lee Sungmin?”
“Copy. We’re bailing.”
The line is cut, and Heechul sinks into a chair, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Where is everyone else? I need to know where we stand.”
“Lieutenant’s doing damage control,” Kyuhyun says, running commands in safe mode. “You thought everyone was pissed when JYJ left, the entire network is infected because of 1315.”
“Stop whining, Kyuhyun. Your fucking computers are the least of our problems. More typing, less talking.” Heechul spins around in his chair just as Jongwoon walks in, closely followed by an anxious-looking Donghae.
“Everyone sit. I need reports. Alpha’s been compromised, the computer network is fucked. I need to know if there is any fucking way we can get into that place without it being a total suicide mission.”
“What do you mean, Alpha’s been compromised?” Donghae grabs the nearest chair and steers it over to where Heechul is sitting. “They didn’t--Sungmin and Siwon got the fuck out of there, right?”
Heechul nods, groping for his phone and firing off a quick text message. “If they don’t call within three minutes, we’re going out there. I’m not--this isn’t going to happen again, Donghae.”
Still, everyone waits with bated breath until Heechul’s phone rings. He flips it open immediately. “Sungmin. Yeah. Fuck. Okay. We’ll see you soon. Hurry up, I need reports.”
He snaps the phone shut and tosses it on the desk. “Sungmin thought he heard shots as they drove out. Fuck. If we had called them any later--” He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I need coffee.”
Jungmo eases himself out of his chair and goes to brew a new batcht. As he watches the coffee drip slowly into the pot, he wonders how much time they have to take out Youngwoon, how long it’ll be before he tries to smuggle himself out of the country, and how much longer Heechul will be able to hold himself together. He can’t smother Heehee every time she shows up, and if she’s serious about hurting herself...
Jungmo feels nauseous, jerking the coffee pot off the hotplate and filling Heechul’s mug. When he comes out of the breakroom he sees that Siwon and Sungmin have arrived, Sungmin a little paler than usual, Siwon clutching his rosary beads tightly in his fist. Jungmo hands off the coffee to Heechul and returns to his seat.
“Kid,” Heechul says sharply, and Jungmo looks up. “What do you have? Anything on their radio codes, any luck with decrypting the e-mails?”
Jungmo swallows hard and shakes his head. “I’ve tried everything I can think of. It has to be totally randomized, there’s literally no other way it could be this complicated. I’ll get a few words figured out in one message, but the next one will have a completely different code to break.” He pulls at the sleeves of his sweater and looks down to avoid the hardness in Heechul’s eyes, to keep from looking at the bandage on his hand.
“Fabulous. Glad you spent all of the last few days doing absolutely fucking nothing. Jongwoon?”
“Nothing I’ve done is going to be any good if we can’t get in,” Jongwoon replies, paging through a sheaf of papers. “Smoke grenades don’t work long-range, and there’s no way we’re going to get permission to do a flyover bombing, not if Youngwoon isn’t behaving aggressively.”
“Great. Fucking brilliant. Donghae, please tell me you have something.”
Donghae sighs. “Flat terrain, no real vantage points to work from. And anything decent I could find on the satellite, Youngwoon’s security has beacons on. Only way we’re getting in, from what I can tell, is a raid, and that plan’s been flat-out rejected, so. I don’t know what to tell you, Heechul.”
“Jesus.”
Even Siwon stays quiet. Heechul looks up from the paperwork. “I don’t know,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t do anything without data, dammit. We need to find another way to get inside. I need you all on the floor, running through every single idea you can come up with. Plausible, implausible--you’ve got to give me something to work with. Siwon, how quickly do you think Youngwoon could possibly move out?”
“Thirty hours, I’d say, at best.”
“Watch the airports. Private and public. Make sure no one leaves this country without our double and triple checking that he isn’t Youngwoon. I actually have no idea why the rest of you are still in this room when I just told you to get to fucking work.”
Everyone scrambles away from the general vicinity of Heechul’s chair, collecting folders of notes and pens and legal pads.
“Conference room,” says Sungmin. “Gonna be a long night.”
--
By dawn, there hasn’t been much progress. The Lieutenant pokes his head in at around 6 a.m., red-eyed and hoarse (presumably from calming screaming department heads down all night), and suggests they take a break and regroup after lunch, when everyone’s a little less hungry and tired.
Heechul clearly has no plans to leave, since he’s still at his desk, scratching things down on a sheet of paper. Jungmo pauses as he approaches, steels himself, and stops beside Heechul’s chair. “Heechul.”
“Don’t bother me when I’m busy.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Not now.”
Jungmo leans forward and splays his palms out on the edge of Heechul’s desk, dropping his voice. “It’s about the cut on your hand.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Jungmo closes his eyes and breathes out slowly, his lip still stinging. Donghae charges over, positioning himself between Heechul and Jungmo.
“Seriously, we talked about this, Jungmo. Get the fuck away from him.”
“Donghae.” Heechul stands up, running a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. C’mon, kid.”
Jungmo resists the urge to body-check Donghae, simply side-stepping him instead and following Heechul out to the sixth floor lobby. Heechul leans against the wall next to the elevator, folding his arms and leveling his gaze at Jungmo. His color looks like it’s improved a little from last night--thanks to the yelling, Jungmo thinks--but his cheeks look sunken and the bags are back underneath his eyes.
“You were right,” Jungmo says.
“I am always right. What was I right about this time?”
“Her. She really was dangerous.”
“You fucked her. At least once.”
“Only once.”
“I seriously don’t understand how you could do that. She wasn’t me. That was my body, Jungmo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. You brought me back, before. But that really isn’t enough right now. I’m barely holding her back--I haven’t really slept in over a week.”
“Heechul--” Jungmo moves forward, but remembers the way Heechul had flinched away. Jungmo shoves his hands in his pockets instead.
“Help me kill her. Help me solve this case and finally get everything back. I’ve lost years of my life to her, Jungmo. I want them back.”
Jungmo. Jungmo clenches his fists. I wish I’d waited. It sounds so much better in his voice.
“I’ll do anything, Heechul.”
“I know. So help me end this before I fall asleep. Before she comes back.”
--
Despite Jungmo’s conviction, the day only gets worse. Midnight rolls around again, and while Siwon assures Heechul that there is no way Youngwoon has escaped, everyone knows that they’re flying blind and waiting for the inevitable. Heechul has spent the entire day drinking coffee and twitching helplessly, holding meetings to shout at the staff for having nothing new for him.
Everyone in the office takes turns in the break room, grabbing just enough sleep to trudge back into the office with another cup of coffee, but Jungmo stays awake, forcing himself to find something, anything that will help him find the key to these codes--to crack this case for Heechul. But even as he scans the lists, searching for patterns, he knows that it won’t be enough--that even complete access to their phone calls will only prolong the inevitable. We can’t get near enough to monitor him, and we can’t overpower him. We’re totally fucked.
Heechul, of course, also doesn’t sleep. Instead he stays in the conference room, sticking maps and lists to the walls and periodically throwing pens across the room. When morning breaks, he spends hours rushing between departments, showing complicated probability charts to members of other teams--”BoA has been on her fair share of raids,” he says to himself when he walks out at noon. “She might be able to help.”
When Heechul leaves the floor, everyone sighs and leans back from their terminals. Donghae tersely informs everyone that he’ll be down at the range, blowing off steam. When no one stops him, Jungmo voices his concern.
“Shouldn’t we all be working?”
Sungmin fixes him with a pitying look. “Jungmo. We all know. This is pointless. We’re flying completely blind, here, and if Heechul stops panicking for about three seconds and thinks about what what he’s trying to do, maybe he’ll realize that our best bet is just to let Youngwoon skip town and become someone else’s problem.”
But that wouldn’t get rid of Heehee, Jungmo thinks desperately. And then: he sounds like Kyuhyun.
And then: and they’re right. We’re wasting time and resources, fighting a losing battle. And for what?
For Heechul.
Jungmo looks around the room. Siwon and Jongwoon look dead on their feet, and Sungmin is barely conscious, sipping at his eighth coffee of the morning. Geng is drooling into his phone, and from the silence in the Lieutenant’s office, it seems like he’s joined his PA in dreamland.
One more day, Jungmo thinks. I’ll give it one more day. And after that, we’ll have to tell Heechul that it’s over. There’s nothing we can do.
But the decision weighs heavily on his conscience.
--
Friday ends with everyone taking the evening off in the breakroom. Heechul is still bent over his desk, eyes red, hands shaking.
“Do you want company?”
“What? No. Go sleep. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Jungmo wants to put a hand around him but settles for refilling his coffee mug. When he gets back, Heechul is staring into space.
“Heechul, are you sure you can’t sleep?”
“She’ll come back.”
“Even if we’re all here, watching?”
Heechul slams a fist into his desk. “And give her access to all of this?”
Jungmo declines to mention that they have absolutely no helpful information whatsoever, so she couldn’t really do all that much damage. “Sorry.”
“Just go.”
He does. The break room is dark when he tiptoes in, trying to find an empty cot or pullout couch. In the dim light cast from the office, he can see the sleeping forms of 1315’s other agents: Siwon, on his back with his arms folded over his chest like a giant God-fearing vampire; Sungmin, clutching a pillow in his arms for want of another body; Jongwoon, curled halfway into the fetal position with his head resting on his arms. The only person he can’t see is Donghae.
“Maybe he went home,” Jungmo mumbles into a pillow, closing his eyes.
--
But Donghae still isn’t around the next morning when everyone reconvenes in the conference room looking dishevelled and exhausted. Heechul curses and storms out, asking someone to please fucking call him already and stop wasting all of their time. Jungmo blinks at that--he’s never heard Heechul angry at Donghae.
He’s losing it.
Amber rushes in a few minutes after Heechul has left, clutching a sheet of paper.
“Guys. Lee Donghae--is he here?”
Siwon frowns. “No. We haven’t seen him all morning, actually.”
“Or last night,” Jungmo adds.
Amber crumples to the floor. “He left a note by his locker--it’s my fault. He’s always down there, so I gave him a special key to get at his rifle and sniping equipment whenever he wants it. I never thought--”
“Amber, what’s wrong?”
She takes a deep breath and hands the letter over to Sungmin who reads it aloud.
“There’s a way in through the back, small enough for one person. Kim Kibum might still be working for Youngwoon. I’m going to call in my favor.”
“Fuck,” Jongwoon says. Siwon crosses himself, praying under his breath.
“Wait, what does he mean?” Jungmo asks. “He’s not--is he going to Youngwoon?”
“Fuck, that idiot. Kim Kibum was the inside man who gave us the bad information that got Donghae’s father killed. He owes Donghae.”
“But why now? Why didn’t he do this days ago?”
“Because it’s a suicide mission,” Siwon explains calmly. “He’ll never get out alive. He’s doing this for Heechul.”
Still on the floor, Amber buries her face in her hands. “I never should have given him that code. I just thought it’d be easier for him not to have to worry--” Siwon crouches to put an arm around her, whispering comfortingly.
“Hyukjae!” Sungmin shouts, walking toward the Lieutenant’s office with the letter clutched in his fist. “There’s something you need to see.”
--
When Heechul gets back to the floor after one, they tell him. Jungmo is at his desk when it happens--Hyukjae calls Heechul in, and Sungmin clears all breakable objects from around Heechul’s desk.
“How could you keep this from me,” Heechul screams. “I’m your tactician. I need to know!”
Hyukjae’s voice is too low to catch, but the resulting smash is audible despite the heavy door separating Hyukjae’s office from the remainder of the bullpen. “You fucker. You said this would never happen again. We were never going to let Donghae do that again. That was the deal when he came back despite failing his fucking psych tests!”
A pause. “You’re a real son-of-a-bitch, Hyukjae. I’m fucking through with this. How could none of you manage to keep an eye on him? If you wanted someone to risk his neck, you should have just fucking told me at the start and I’d just go back in, do what I did last time, consequences be damned.”
Heechul storms through the door, jacket over his shoulder. “Kid, we’re going.”
Jungmo blinks. “Me? Going? Where?”
“Take a set of company keys--one of the unmarked, unregistered cars--and dump all of your identification. We’re going to get Donghae back.”
“Heechul, you can’t be--”
“I’m dead serious, Sungmin. We all knew this might happen. I’m the only one who can get in there. I might even be able to stop what they’re about to do to Donghae.”
“At least wear a wire, Heechul, so we can keep an eye on you. You were gone for two and a half years last time and--”
“No dice. They might find it. Kid, are you ready?”
Jungmo throws his wallet to Siwon. “Keep it for me?”
“‘Do not fear for I am with you; be not discouraged for I am your God; I encouraged you, I also helped you, I also supported you with my righteous hand.’ Isaiah chapter forty-one, verse ten.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Of course. Go.” Jungmo turns around--Heechul is already out of door, keying open the stairwell and leaping down flights.
“What will they do to Donghae?” Jungmo asks as they dash out of the building.
“Kill him.”
→ XII