Chapter 210. Suspicious Intersection
"Let's begin. I just got home."
Though Yeon-woo's voice came through the headset, Han Hae-woon was busy moving cards between his fingers while standing in front of the mirror.
When there was no response, Yeon-woo tilted his head.
"Han Hae-woon? Hae-woon?"
Then there was a sound of hurried movement through the headset before Han Hae-woon responded.
- Ah, yes, Team Leader. I was doing something.
"Right. You're always working hard, keeping busy."
Han Hae-woon, who had just been playing around in front of the mirror, broke into a cold sweat at Yeon-woo's words.
- Ahem, I've classified and transmitted the data collected by the agents into a timeline. Please refer to E-45 for the file decryption key.
"Got it."
Yeon-woo opened his diary after hearing Han Hae-woon's words.
Important data is secured using such complex encryption algorithms.
And since the decryption key code (Symmetric key) exists nowhere in this world except in the diary handwritten by Han Hae-woon in his previous life as Baek Yuhyeon, it was safe even if intercepted.
Yeon-woo also had a copy of the encryption keys written in that diary, which Han Hae-woon had retrieved from his own remains.
When Yeon-woo entered the key written under item E-45 in the diary, the received data opened.
It was data organized chronologically showing the movement routes and notable activities of suspicious individuals from the prosecution, police, and military leadership.
"That's quite a lot. Both the agents who collected it and you who organized it must have worked hard."
Then Han Hae-woon's reply came.
- Team Leader, who has to analyze all this vast information, will have the hardest job.
Han Hae-woon was right.
They needed to analyze all these people's movements and notable activities based on the organized information to find meaningful data.
That was a task only possible for someone with extensive experience and comprehensive insight.
And it was Yeon-woo in his previous life who had done that job best, serving the longest term as operations commander overseeing the overseas black agents.
"Well then, shall we start this difficult task?"
With no special schedule until the CF shooting, Yeon-woo shut himself at home for days analyzing the data, occasionally directing Han Hae-woon to investigate suspicious points.
'Looking at the route through France and Italy, this is just a leisure business trip, and that seminar they mentioned earlier was actually held...'
Among the many suspects, he began checking the routes of those who frequently traveled overseas.
Three days passed like that.
"Hae-woon. I've sent the organized data, check it. Use decryption key C-23."
- Yes, understood.
Han Hae-woon opened the data Yeon-woo sent and nodded after understanding the connections.
- This is definitely suspicious. Going abroad and suddenly having three to four days of empty schedule.
Several individuals Yeon-woo found while analyzing the data, had gone overseas on business trips around the same time, and after completing their official schedules, they were recorded as staying in hotels for days without any particular reason instead of returning home.
"We don't know if they really stayed in those hotels, or if that was just a cover while they went somewhere else."
Even Yeon-woo, during his agent days, would sometimes deliberately exit to another country and re-enter under a disguised identity to carry out operations when surveillance in the target country became too intense.
If someone were to look at Jeon Su-hwan's records from back then now, they would probably appear similar to these people they've found.
The pattern of entering a country, staying secluded in a hotel for days, then suddenly returning home.
"Something smells fishy, right? Check the flights that would match the timing if these people had left under disguised identities and returned."
- Understood.
While Yeon-woo gave instructions to Han Hae-woon, he also started looking himself.
'If we consider the routes and times that could be taken immediately from Chiang Mai, Thailand, within the timeframe to return...'
'This one disappeared in Vladivostok. If we cross-reference this with the one who vanished from Chiang Mai...'
After listing out all the possible flights the suspicious targets could have taken, they found one overlapping location.
'This is it.'
Just then, Han Hae-woon's voice came through.
- Team Leader. I think I found it.
"Okinawa."
- Okinawa...
Yeon-woo and Han Hae-woon said simultaneously.
- Ah, Team Leader found it too. This should be enough to confirm it.
"Remember when we found that oddly overlapping route while looking through Ha Juran and Kim Gyesik's past immigration records?"
They had accidentally found an intersection point of Baek Sol agents while trying to pin something on Hwanggeum's subordinate who had fled to Minsk, Belarus.
- Yes. It was Okinawa then too. There must be something there.
"We should probably filter out individuals suspected of using false identities among Korean nationals who stayed in Okinawa at that time. And let's check their movements using satellites."
- Uh, Team Leader. That might be difficult. The equipment we have now isn't quite up to the level of what we used to have...
Hearing Han Hae-woon's troubled response, Yeon-woo tilted his head.
"Is it difficult to identify the list of people who stayed in Okinawa?"
- No, we can do that. But using satellites is the difficult part. Our current equipment isn't capable of hacking satellites.
Yeon-woo scratched the back of his head with a dumbfounded expression.
"...Hae-woon. Why would you hack satellites? There's Google Earth on the internet. Maps are so good these days. And it's all free."
- Ah...
Jumping straight to thinking about hacking.
Yeon-woo suddenly recalled the orders he'd been giving Han Hae-woon lately.
'Hae-woon, hack the immigration office.'
'Hae-woon, hack the Belarus postal service network.'
'Hae-woon, hack the integrated management system to track military leaders' movements.'
Yeon-woo wondered if he'd been asking Han Hae-woon to hack too many things lately.
"Hmm, I guess that's my fault."
- **
As the smartphone CF filming date approached, Yeon-woo and Han Hae-woon accelerated their analysis, trying to wrap up everything while there was still time.
They identified suspicious individuals who might be using false identities and tracked their movements based on transaction records within Okinawa.
While marking various colored lines of movement across Okinawa, they discovered a strange intersection point.
"This is just a coastal road, so why did all the targets pass through here? It's not even a major road."
When Yeon-woo showed a section of the map through screen sharing, Han Hae-woon nodded.
- I'll check what's around that area.
After some time, Han Hae-woon's response came back.
- Team Leader. There's a small dock near that road.
"A dock? It's not on the map."
- It seems to be a small dock used by local residents for fishing.
Hearing this, Yeon-woo stroked his chin with interest.
"A dock..."
He moved the mouse cursor to another area while zooming out from the enlarged satellite map to view the entirety of Okinawa.
It was towards the sea near the dock.
"Look at this. There are quite a few subsidiary islands. I think their destination isn't Okinawa but one of these small islands nearby."
- Subsidiary islands... I see. Where should we dig to get information about the islands?
After thinking for a moment, Yeon-woo continued.
"First, we should search through Japan's Cabinet Office Statistics Bureau. If we can just figure out the resident composition of those islands, we can roughly deduce which island it might be by comparing it with satellite images."
- Understood. I'll access it right away.
Han Hae-woon went quiet for a while, presumably working.
Then, after a short time, a troubled voice came through.
- Team Leader. Why do these guys create a computer system, but when you go through the trouble of bypassing it, all it says is to refer to the related appendices?
Yeon-woo hit his head as if suddenly remembering something.
"Ah, they're always like that. They're a country obsessed with analog methods, so they probably printed everything on paper and stored it offline in booklets."
Japan is so committed to analog that companies still maintain the culture of getting approvals by physically going to superiors to get documents stamped.
In fact, when the government issued guidelines to automate things to eliminate the inefficient stamp approval culture that only complicated procedures and reduced work efficiency, there's even a joke that instead of abolishing stamps and introducing electronic approvals, they created robot arms to automatically stamp documents.
- Hmm. What should we do then? I don't think it's feasible to send agents to infiltrate Japan's Cabinet Office Statistics Bureau.
After thinking for a moment, Yeon-woo gave instructions to Han Hae-woon.
"Then search through the Maritime Safety Agency records from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. There should be patrol logs and reports for the territorial waters where these nearby islands are located."
- Understood.
After giving the instruction, Yeon-woo conducted additional research on statistical data released by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
During his investigation, he discovered an island with suspiciously high power consumption compared to its area and registered population.
'Hmm...? It seems they're using their own generators to avoid audits, but what kind of island needs this much power consumption?'
Yeon-woo gave Han Hae-woon new instructions.
"Hae-woon. Check if there are any patrol reports for 'Maejishima' located at coordinates 26.26°N, 127.58°E."
- Confirmed coordinates: 26.26°N, 127.58°E.
After a while, Han Hae-woon's response came back.
- There are none at all. While they patrol all the surrounding areas, they strangely bypass just that island. It's small, but it's a blind spot in maritime patrols.
"That island is definitely suspicious. Its power consumption is excessive. It's increased dramatically recently, specifically after the targets headed to Okinawa."
After pondering for a moment, Yeon-woo spoke again.
"We should dispatch one of our agents for direct reconnaissance. I think Kim Su-hyeok would be the most capable for this task. What do you think?"
- I agree. Among the three, Kim Su-hyeok would be the best for a covert reconnaissance mission.
A sniper is not only a powerful combat resource worth a hundred men but also the eyes of the battlefield, observing far more meticulously than anyone else.
Kim Su-hyeok was the perfect candidate due to his patience, observational skills, and specialized training in infiltration and concealment.
"To avoid their suspicion later, tell him to enter through Kagoshima first and then take a boat to Okinawa. I'll write up detailed route instructions."
- Understood. But Team Leader, weren't you in charge of Europe and the Middle East? How do you know the East Asian routes in such detail?
"I was handling Europe around the time you joined the NIS. Before that, I worked in East Asia and South America too."
- Ah, I see.
Thus, while Yeon-woo prepared for the CF filming, they decided to secretly dispatch Kim Su-hyeok to Japan.
Whatever Baek Sol was plotting on a foreign island, it couldn't be anything good.
'If they're putting this much effort into operating something secretly, I have a pretty good idea what it might be.'
He suspected it was related to Baek Sol's main business: drugs.
'Whether it's a manufacturing facility or a storage warehouse, it would be quite a sight to see it go up in flames.'