Shin split the station in under three minutes.
"Team A stays. Team B ghosts," she said, marker already moving across the whiteboard map. "Yoon and Hana move to fallback site Echo with Eun-ji and Dae-ho. Vera runs moving perimeter. Caden stays with me for Kane prep."
Hana opened her mouth to object. Shin cut her off with a look.
"Witnesses don't get veto power on route security," Shin said. "You stay alive. That's the job."
Dae-ho had two packed duffels in hand before she finished the sentence.
"Vehicle rotation in ninety seconds," he said. "Rear exit only."
Eun-ji checked Hana's pulse, then Yoon's with equal speed. "Both stable enough for movement."
"Good. Go."
The team peeled apart and moved.
Caden watched Hana at the door. She looked back once, jaw tight, then followed Dae-ho into the service corridor. Vera was last through, touching the frame twice in a silent signal Caden had learned meant *I see your position. I know your exit.*
Door shut. Lock engaged.
The station felt bigger and thinner with half the people gone.
Shin pointed at Caden. "Desk. We build your approach package now."
---
Na-young projected three files on the wall.
File one: Dr. Yoon's statement, time-stamped and signed.
File two: patient intake originals versus altered digital records.
File three: financial trail map from Department discretionary budget to shell company to Chae to Gyeonggi biotech facility.
"I can make this prosecution-grade," Na-young said, fingers flying over keyboard shortcuts. "I cannot make it idiot-proof. If Kane hands this to the wrong deputy, Section 9 buries us in ten minutes."
"Then we don't hand it to a deputy," Shin said. "We hand it to Kane directly."
"Which requires access," Caden said. "And trust threshold above zero."
Ji-soo raised a hand from comms. "I can open a one-way voice channel into Hunt emergency intake. No callback trace if we keep it under seventy seconds."
"Do it," Shin said. "Script?"
Caden stared at the map of Seoul on the wall and ran the odds.
"No script. Just bait." He tapped one location. "Namyeong Memorial Chapel. Public, controlled, many exits. We request face-to-face with Kane plus one aide, no tactical team visible. In exchange we provide verifiable lead on internal Section 9 payroll laundering."
"You think he comes himself?" Na-young asked.
"If we mention Section 9 and internal payroll in the same breath, yes. That's his current audit lane."
Shin folded her arms. "And if he sends a capture squad?"
"Then we walk anyway. But with terms." Caden looked at her. "If Kane wants me, he gets me after he verifies the first document and moves Yoon and Hana into protective custody under his personal authority."
"You're setting conditions with a man who can kill you on principle."
"I'm setting price with a man who hates corruption more than he hates me."
Shin watched him for two beats. Then nodded.
"Make the call."
---
Ji-soo routed through three satellite jumps and gave Caden the mic.
A male voice answered in crisp government Korean. "Hunt Command intake. Identify."
"Anonymous source," Caden said. "Priority for Director Solomon Kane only. Internal theft in Research Section 9. We have documents and live victim evidence."
Silence.
Then: "Stay on line."
Fifteen seconds later a second voice came on. Female, older, controlled.
"Deputy Director Min Hae-jin. You have thirty seconds to prove this is not a trap."
Caden didn't waste one.
"Budget code DAA-R9-Blackline-17 is laundering through Parnell Bio Holdings in Singapore and clearing into Gyeonggi Neural Interface Labs by way of operative Chae Yun-seo. Verify that with your own books." He inhaled once. "If verified, tell Kane to come to Namyeong Memorial Chapel at 1800. No tactical stack in sight. He brings one aide. We bring one package."
Min said nothing for a full breath.
"How do we know you are not Section 9 conducting counterintelligence theater?"
"Because Section 9 doesn't leak its own shell path." Caden let his voice flatten. "And because if I'm lying, Kane can still arrest me at the door."
He cut the line.
Ji-soo exhaled. "Seventy-one seconds. We just made it."
"Now we wait," Shin said.
---
Waiting lasted twenty-eight minutes.
Then Ji-soo's console pinged with an encrypted text packet signed with Hunt command keys.
`1800 confirmed. Director Kane attending with one aide.`
No other text. No conditions.
Na-young looked up from her screen. "Either that's real or somebody in Section 9 just got access to command signatures."
"Both can be true," Shin said.
She turned to Caden.
"From now until 1800, you don't leave this floor without me authorizing it."
"Copy."
"One more layer," Na-young said. She turned her monitor so Caden could see a second script running beneath the main packet formatter. "I embedded two harmless accounting errors in the appendix. If Kane's chain preserves them, good. If Section 9 intercepts and cleans the numbers, those errors disappear and we know we were touched."
"Can they detect that?" Caden asked.
"Only if they expect me specifically. I doubt they do." She hit save and mirrored the file to a fresh drive. "Paranoia is a profession."
Ji-soo tapped her headset. "Echo check from Dae-ho. Yoon asked if she should still release testimony if Kane fails to show."
Shin answered immediately. "Yes. If Kane folds, we burn secrecy and go public."
Ji-soo relayed, listened, then looked at Caden. "Hana says tell him not to freelance heroics."
Caden gave a thin breath. "Noted."
"And you eat." She tossed him a convenience-store triangle kimbap without looking. "If you're going to gamble with your neck, do it with blood sugar above collapse."
Caden caught it and tore the wrapper with his teeth while Na-young walked him through packet structure.
"First page for Kane only," she said. "No names from House operations, no station identifiers. Just the money, the altered records, and Yoon's signature block. Second page is dead-man trigger language."
"Trigger?"
"If he arrests you before verifying, I release full dump to eight media endpoints and two oversight inboxes." Na-young's expression stayed neutral. "It's not a bluff."
"You have those endpoints ready?"
"Had them ready last night."
Caden nodded once. Na-young didn't do optimism. She did contingencies.
By 1300, Dae-ho checked in from Site Echo.
"Yoon secure. Hana resting. No tails on first two route changes. Third route had probable surveillance scooter for four blocks. Vera pushed him off line." He paused. "Hana had one involuntary activation. Controlled with half-dose."
"Keep me updated every thirty," Shin said.
"Copy."
At 1415, Marcus sent a data burst from his own network.
"Pulled staffing shadows for Gyeonggi facility," he said over relay. "Night shift tonight includes two former military bio-engineers, one Section 9 logistician, and a man using alias Jang Min-su. Facial match returns 82 percent to Chief Yoo from Station 7 with altered hairline and jaw filler."
Na-young swore softly.
"Yoo moved physically to Gyeonggi," she said.
"Which means Station 7's leak is now actively in the lab chain," Shin said. "Good. Better one snake where we can see him than in our walls."
Caden stood from his desk and stretched his neck. "Can Marcus confirm if Chae is onsite?"
"No positive visual yet," Marcus said. "But traffic logs show her credential ping two nights ago."
Shin pointed to the map again.
"If Kane validates, Gyeonggi becomes phase four: seizure operation. If he doesn't validate, we run it ourselves." She looked at Caden. "And if he tries to hold you?"
"Then you trigger Na-young's release package and burn every route tied to Station 4."
"Correct." Shin gave a short nod. "You're learning."
---
At 1630 they moved.
Shin, Caden, and Ji-soo took one car. Na-young left separately to a shadow position with remote release access. The packet sat in a sealed envelope inside Caden's jacket and mirrored digitally on three drives with three different carriers.
Namyeong Memorial Chapel stood on a slope above an old cemetery road, modest stone building, war memorial plaques on the outer wall, open courtyard with low hedges and too many blind corners.
Caden didn't like blind corners. They multiplied unknowns.
"I have four rooftop signatures in radius," Ji-soo said quietly from back seat, watching thermal feed on a tablet linked to a portable drone two blocks out. "Could be civilians. Could be spotters."
"Assume spotters," Shin said.
They parked one block away and walked the rest.
Rain had stopped but the stone steps were still wet. Caden felt vibrations through the soles of borrowed dress shoes that didn't fit his usual stride. Two people inside main hall. One pacing. One still. Additional movement outside fence line, dispersed.
"They're here," he murmured.
At the chapel doors a woman in dark suit waited with no visible weapon and the posture of someone who had one anyway.
"Deputy Director Min," she said. Eyes on Caden, not Shin. "Director Kane is inside. You enter alone."
"No," Shin said.
Min turned to her. "Director's condition."
Shin's jaw shifted once. "Then my condition: you search him in front of me, no restraints, and I remain within visual line through that glass panel."
Min considered, then nodded.
Search took twelve seconds. Caden had no gun, no blade, one envelope, one burner phone.
Min held the chapel door.
"You're either very brave," she said quietly, "or very desperate."
"Usually both," Caden said and walked in.
---
Solomon Kane stood in front of a memorial wall lined with engraved names.
He wore a dark suit cut like a uniform, shoulders square, hair military short with gray at the temples. He was taller than Caden expected and looked exactly like the reports: a man assembled from discipline and held together by something colder than anger.
He did not offer a hand.
"Mr. Mercer," he said. No contraction. "You requested this meeting. Speak."
Caden stopped three steps away and pulled the envelope from his jacket.
"Section 9 is running illegal extraction research under your department's budget mask," he said. "They induced skill degradation in healthy awakeners, froze subjects under serial numbers, and transferred data to a private lab in Gyeonggi."
Kane's expression did not move.
"You make severe accusations while standing as an admitted skill thief. Why should I hear beyond your first sentence?"
"Because I brought you verification keys you can check in two minutes." Caden held out the envelope. "Budget path. Operative identity. Medical testimony signed by licensed physician Dr. Yoon Seo-yeon."
Kane did not take it yet.
"If I take this and it is fabricated, you understand the consequence."
"Yes."
"State it."
"Immediate detention. Possible execution under theft statutes."
Kane's eyes stayed on him for another long beat, then he took the envelope and opened it with precise fingers.
He read page one.
Then page two.
No visible reaction, but Caden saw the tiny pause at one line in the middle: *DAA-R9-Blackline-17*.
Kane folded the papers once.
"Who else has this?"
"Enough people that killing me doesn't solve your problem," Caden said. "Not enough people to leak if you act clean."
Kane turned slightly toward the side aisle.
"Min. Verify budget code against sealed ledger. Now."
Min stepped inside, took a photo of the code block, and moved out again at near-run pace.
Kane faced Caden again.
"You understand I can hold you while verification proceeds."
"You can. But my condition stands. Dr. Yoon and witness Baek Hana move under your personal protective authority before you process me."
"You negotiate from weakness."
"I negotiate from leverage."
The corner of Kane's mouth twitched by a millimeter, not a smile, not approval, something like acknowledgment that the sentence at least respected the game.
Before he could answer, Caden's burner phone buzzed once.
Ji-soo's emergency channel.
Caden looked at Kane. "I need to take this."
"Speaker," Kane said.
Caden accepted and held the phone between them.
Na-young's voice came through sharp and breathless.
"We have a problem. Section 9 just triggered a false terror alert two blocks from the chapel. Tactical teams are moving in from three sides under Hunt command flags."
Kane's head snapped toward the doors.
Na-young kept talking.
"And someone pushed a live warrant to district net thirty seconds ago naming Caden Mercer and Dr. Yoon as biological threat carriers."
Shin's voice cut in over the same line, colder than steel.
"Caden, they're not just coming for you anymore."
The line crackled.
"They're coming for everyone standing next to you."
