Pyongyang. The underground office of the Reconnaissance General Bureau.

"Word has come from the embassy in Switzerland."

The senior colonel's voice echoed through the windowless room. Choe Myeongguk was reading a report on his desk.

The head of the Bureau didn't look up, and the senior colonel couldn't find the moment for his next words.

Wheen. Wheeeeen.

The old ventilation fan gave off a metallic whine. The senior colonel's throat had gone bone dry.

"Go on."

"The bodies of the two Room 214 fighters were confirmed by the embassy and cremated on site."

The hand turning the pages stopped.

"Cause of death."

"It has been recorded as a fall at the ski resort in the middle of the night. Two citizens of the Republic who did not know the local terrain entered a restricted area and met with an accident……."

"They went sightseeing at a ski resort?"

"That is how the local authorities have handled the circumstances."

Choe Myeongguk raised his head. The senior colonel tucked his chin.

It was hard to meet those eyes head-on.

"Who made it so?"

"We are confirming that."

"We confirmed the dead ourselves, and the cremation is done. And you don't know who turned their deaths into an accident?"

"I am sorry."

Cold sweat ran down the senior colonel's spine. The men they'd sent to Switzerland weren't ordinary agents.

They were Room 214 fighters, men who'd survived years of training.

Two of them were dead. The surviving team leader, his body wrecked, kept repeating the same statement.

The report on the operation and the local accident record were nothing alike.

Even when they tried to trace what had happened around the hotel, the records they needed to check were blank.

Someone had stepped in. The problem was that there was no knowing how far that hand reached.

"Do you remember saying three would be enough?"

At Choe Myeongguk's question, the senior colonel's shoulders went stiff.

"I remember."

"Why do you think I told you to send three? Because I didn't know what kind of man that bastard Kim Cheolsu is?"

"No, Comrade Director General."