DAY ONE — 11:15 KST
BLUE HOUSE, SEOUL
The conference room was cold. Too cold.
Han Tae Kyung sat alone, staring at the matte-black monitor embedded into the wall. It reflected nothing—not the glare of the ceiling lights, not the suspicion growing in his chest.
His phone had been confiscated at the gate. His earpiece—disabled. Security Chief Im Jae Seok, his longtime mentor, hadn't even looked him in the eye during their ten-second meeting.
"Stand down, Tae Kyung. You're not on this case."
That was it. No explanation. No protocol.
He hadn't stood down.
Now, he was here. Waiting.
The door clicked open. Yoon Sae Jin, Deputy Director of National Security, entered with a folder and the kind of calm that only came from knowing too much. Her black suit was crisp, her heels silent on the tiled floor.
She dropped the file in front of him.
"Unofficial briefing," she said, voice like a scalpel. "You didn't get this from me."
Tae Kyung flipped the folder open.
Satellite photos. Scrambled GPS data. A still image of the villa's courtyard at 06:01—snow falling, chair overturned, blood on the stones. A single thermal signature had vanished into the woods minutes after.
"Why hasn't this been declared a state emergency?" Tae Kyung asked.
"Because no one's supposed to know," she replied. "There are whispers... that this isn't a kidnapping."
He looked up. "You think he ran?"
"I think someone wants us to believe that."
She hesitated.
"There's more."
She slid a second document forward—classified clearance: Omega Red Level. It bore the name of a defunct operation from ten years ago.
PROJECT PHOENIX.
Tae Kyung's eyes narrowed. "That's buried. Shut down under the previous administration."
"Or so we thought. It was reactivated last week—by the President himself."
Before Tae Kyung could ask why, Sae Jin stood.
"You've got 48 hours before this entire case is handed over to the Joint Security Command. If you're going to find him, you start now. Quietly. Alone."
She paused at the door.
"One more thing—whoever did this has people inside the Blue House. Maybe even inside the NIS."
The door shut behind her.
And suddenly, the silence wasn't quiet anymore—it was suffocating.
---
Outside, the snow had begun to melt, but inside Tae Kyung's mind, a storm was just beginning. He looked down at the thermal still, memorizing the exit point from the villa. Then he opened his watch face and pulled out a thin memory chip—one only he and the President knew existed.
A backup.
Encrypted. Untouched.
And waiting to be opened.
Whatever happened at that villa wasn't random.
Someone fired three shots.
But Tae Kyung was about to fire the fourth—the one that starts a war.